In article ,
"Ted Mittelstaedt" wrote:

"Isabella Woodhouse" wrote in message
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In article ,
"Ted Mittelstaedt" wrote:
"Billy" wrote in message

...
In article ,
"Ted Mittelstaedt" wrote:
[...]
They do not want to go out and separately negotiate
orders of corn of this magnitude from 100 separate small
farmers who can each only supply a ton of corn.

You didn't read the chapter. Chem ferts kill top soil. The less top
soil, the more chem ferts, and more pollution of ground water and
fishing areas. Who pays to remediate the land and the water? The tax
payer does. It is called "privatize the profits and socialize
the costs". The price of the box is only part of the price.

You don't actually have to remediate the land and water, you
know. At one time we didn't. People would just use the
resources until they were all gone, then move to a new place.

What? When the Earth's population was only a few million? Surely you
are not defending this practice in the current timeframe?

I never was.

Then what exactly did you mean when you said, "You don't actually have
to remediate the land and water, you know."

However, nowadays people are valuing clean water and
clean land more than they used to. So now there is a cost
for those things that we didn't have before, which is now being
factored in. That is why you have to file environmental
impact statements nowadays when you want to build a factory.
They didn't require environmental impact statements when
those large farms were created years ago. So the real question
is, are we going to apply current laws retroactively?

No, I don't think that is the real question at all. Environmental laws
have been on the books for decades. Nowadays? The Clean Water Act goes
back to at least the 1960s, no? That's nearly 50 years FCOL. Since
when has it been legal to pollute and contaminate your neighbor's
property with a stinking mountain of pig or cow shit (pardon my French)
like those created by factory "farms"?

You should ask Billy.

No, I am responding to what *you* said, not Billy.

He is the one that is asserting that such behavior is legal.

You appear to be making a ridiculous inference but it's up to Billy to
counter that, not me.

From his list post:
"...the more chem ferts, and more pollution of ground water and
fishing areas. Who pays to remediate the land and the water? The tax
payer does..."

YOU just said here that pollution of ground water from chem ferts is
against the Clean Water Act. If so, then Billy is full of baloney.

Point to where I said that, Ted. Quote me exactly. You won't because I
said no such thing. Pardon me but if there is baloney here, it seems to
have your name on it. First you concocted a false dilemma with the
ridiculous inference (above) and then used that to draw other erroneous
conclusions. Your reasoning is circular.

What are you talking about and how is that possibly a meaningful
defense for destruction of other people's property?

You can't have it both ways.

Have what both ways? You haven't even explained yet what you were
talking about in your previous post when you said:
_______________________________________________
"However, nowadays people are valuing clean water and clean land more
than they used to. So now there is a cost for those things that we
didn't have before, which is now being factored in. That is why you
have to file environmental impact statements nowadays when you want to
build a factory. They didn't require environmental impact statements
when those large farms were created years ago. So the real question
is, are we going to apply current laws retroactively?"
________________________________________________

Let me see if I can simplify this by asking how applying laws
retroactively is relevant. There isn't anything about that in Billy's
article which, essentially, contests the idea that bigger farms are
better. I cited the Clean Water Act, in response to your assertion
about retroactivity, because it's been around for nearly 50 years. Many
communities have statutes on the books going back a lot farther than
that. It's why most cities don't have outbreaks of cholera and typhoid
fever anymore--- not for at least 100 years anyway. I'd call that a
pretty long time of caring about clean water. Wouldn't you? So I
don't understand either what kind of timeline you're talking about when
you say "retroactive" or how that is even relevant to the quoted article
or anything I said.

...Either what the factory farms are doing is legal or it isn't. If it
is then what I said stands and your out of order - as I said, when
the farms got going, people didn't value the environment the way they
do today. If what they are doing is -illegal- then Billy is out of
order when he rants against them, implying there's nothing we can do.
So, make up your mind.

Sorry Ted, but I think you are maybe attributing to me things I've never
said. I'm having a hard time figuring out what you are talking about
(which is why I keep asking you to clarify!). Are you talking about my
remark about the mountains of pig and cow shit? I cited that example in
response to your assertion that the real question is "are we going to
apply current laws retroactively?"

I think you are wrong about that. I do not think that applying current
laws retroactively is the real issue here. Factory farms are relatively
new. They came way after most of the environmental laws. So I don't
understand how retroactivity came into the picture or even how that
relates to the main thrust of the quoted article which is that bigger is
not necessarily best in terms of farm size.

If not, then how are you going to justify taking current
environmental requirements for creating a large farm and
apply it to large farms that were created years ago?

What "environmental requirements for creating a large farm" are you
talking about? How is this even relevant? What are you talking about
when you refer to "large farms" created years ago? How many years ago?
I'm just trying to understand what you mean here. Keep in mind that the
average size farm in the 1950s was around 200 acres.

It has only been in the last 10 years that ranting against agribusinesses
has become fashionable due to environmental concerns. Now, farm
subsidies, that's a different matter - people have been complaining about
farmers being propped up by the government since the 70's. But before
the advent of the large agribusinesses, nobody was ranting against large
farms because, as you pointed out, they didn't exist.

Wait just a minute; you are sidestepping again with more balderdash.
Once more, you failed to explain yourself. Can you not answer a direct
question? To reiterate, What "environmental requirements for creating
a large farm" are you talking about? I don't recall ever having heard
of such a thing! That sounds pretty strange to me. To reiterate, what
are you talking about when you refer to "large farms" created years ago?
How many years ago and, for that matter, how large?

Billy's problem is that he sees that large agribusinesses are bad, which
so far is true. However he is unwilling to grasp the simple fact that it
is not the agribusinesses fault that they are bad. It is the CONSUMER'S
fault.

I am not here to discuss Billy. Defend your other assertions.

Every time someone walks into the supermarket and picks up a box
of Frosted Flakes for their kids, instead of getting the bulk sugar corn
flakes from the bulk food bin which cost half of Frosted Flakes, they
are contributing to the problem.

Yes, I can agree with you here that overly processed foods are huge part
of the more general American food industry problem. When they have to
add something to a food-like product to make it "more nutritious", that
is the first really bad sign. I can honestly say that I never, ever fed
my children any cereal coated with sugar. My opinion is that most
so-called convenience foods are a contrivance of marketers to make more
money by marketing to children or by refining valuable nutrients out of
real food. Why sell a quart of real apple juice when you can sell a
quart of only 10% apple juice and 90% water + HFCS for an even higher
price and still call it "apple juice"?

If people didn't buy all of the processed food they do, then the large
food manufacturers like General Mills wouldn't be setting up large
production runs of Frosted Flakes and demanding 100 tons of
corn at a time. (or whatever it is) There would be no need for the
agribusineses and they wouldn't exist. Billy needs to be ranting and
railing against the dumb consumers not the agribusinesses.

Let me defend the consumer. How "dumb" are consumers who buy boxes of
incredibly sugared cereals that have the American Heart Association logo
on them, Ted? How dumb are consumers who, for decades, have based their
meals on the "USDA" dictated food pyramid, therefore consuming a diet
vastly overloaded with carbohydrates and starches? How dumb are
consumers who buy a box of anything that our government allows to say "0
transfats" when it actually has significant amounts of the same? I
could go on and on.

My point is that you can't put this all on the consumer's back. Our own
government and agencies that are supposed to be working for us have
allowed industry to defraud the public at an ever-increasing rate.

Isabella
--
"I will show you fear in a handful of dust"
-T.S. Eliot