You might want to ridicule it, but it's not ridiculous, It's not mine, either, its Lester Brown's, a champion of environmentalism.
>
>I am not sure what the facts are that improve productivity -- because
>productivity is
>devilishly hard to measure. If I run a well capitalized 500 acre spread
>[meaning
>that I have the use of a slew of resources from elsewhere], I am more
>comfortable
>than someone who broke the sod in the prarie. I am not sure what you would say
>about
>the farm workers' comfort.
Productivity is hard to measure? I don't think so. We have a number of measures, which approximate it, such as increased yields. The most obvious is that since the high point of 732 million hectares farmed for grain globally in 1981, there has been a systematic retiring of land from production to avoid surplus capacity. Today grain farming covers just 690 million hectares.
>
>> Yes, and this primitive division of labour squandered resources.
>
>Whoa. squandered resources. The key to modern farming is the squandering of
>resources -- pesticides that destroy resources, wasteful fuel consumption,
>destruction of the soil, pollution of all sorts.
The key resource squandered, of course, was human labour - but hey, life is cheap, why not just return to the truck system!
>
>Have you read about the phisteria resulting from the efficient, modern hog
>farms?
No but something tells me that it is hysteria.
>
>Oh, yes, the rate of farm bankruptcy is raging in the U.S. today, destroying
>the
>small farmers who are much better at conserving resources.
Yes, indeed there is a high rate of farm bankruptcy. That's pretty much what one would expect when small farmers cannot make the investments to keep up with the productivity of agri-business. I would argue for a scheme of re-training and relocation. Small farmers are very good at wasting that most important of resources, human beings.
>
>But then we can look forward to a future of delicious genetically modified
>food.
Mmmmmm...
In message <040101bee029$9b7e9e00$64f48482 at nsn2>, Nathan Newman
<nathan.newman at yale.edu> writes
>
>I am generally not a luddite on farming issues, but Michael is just
>emphasizing that it is not greater "productivity" by the individual farmer
>but many other inputs (with their own labor and economic costs that should
>be measured in lost GNP- ie. lost producity) which account for more food per
>farm.
Since increased farm productivity cuts the value of consumption goods and therefore pressure on wages, industry is getting the better part of the deal.
>
>As for the tradeoff between labor and fuel consumption, I would look at the
>issue globally versus the depopulation of our farm states. Wouldn't it be
>better to allow many third world subsistence farmers to immigrate to the US
>to perform labor-intensive work here, if they can indeed be more productive
>with improved technology that is less fuel-intensive?
Someone has already said it, this is barbaric. 'Ho you slaves down their, tote that barge, lift that bale'. How is it that everyone is in favour of labour intensive work for everybody but themselves?
In message <37AB0B5A.6C04EF81 at ecst.csuchico.edu>, Michael Perelman <michael at ecst.csuchico.edu> writes
>
>Demechanization is not terribly difficult. The question is one of scale. I do
>not think that farming should be entirely demechanized, but we can move in that
>direction.
Yes, demechanisation is easy. First we sterilise all the racial minorities and introduce a one-child policy - that should reduce the demand. Then we get all the intellectuals and break their glasses before making them work in the fields. Year Zero, here we come...
>
>Of course, you cannot change farming totally until you integrate town and
>country more fully.
By which I guess you mean dismantle the cities.
>
>As for feeding people, U.S. yields per acre in agriculture are relatively low.
>Our system substitutes capital and other inputs for labor. We use little
>direct labor so yields per direct agricultural worker are high.
Yes, its true that yields in the US are low relative to England and France (7.7 and 7.2 tons wheat per hectare), but these are hardly countries that have been even more labour intensive. The major difference is that US agriculture had less limitation upon land and more upon labour.
In general I would say that it was progress that people are freed from the land. The less labour a country dedicates to necessities, the more it has to dedicate to human development.
>The other problem is that the system that we have today is unsustainable in the
>long run.
Meaningless. Nothing is 'sustainable', because everything changes. Who would want to sustain a system at a given level of productivity, when you could increase so much more? That would release land for recreational use and conservation.
>
>Here is a short section from a new book that I just completed on Passionate
>Labor:
>
> Farm Work vs. Gardening
>In order to understand the potential for transforming the economy, let me use a
>simple example that does not require much of a stretch of the imagination.
>Just think of the enormous contrast between farm work for wages and gardening
>as a hobby.
Look, if you want the government to subsidise your hobby, why don't you just say so, and let the real farmers get on with making a living. -- Jim heartfield