Michael Perelman wrote:
> Much of modern agricultural technology is designed to serve the
> interests of those who
> control the agricultural system -- a few large farmers, providers of
> credit or agricultural
> inputs, the marketing organizations -- rather than the needs of
> farmers, especially small
> farmers. When I was a graduate student at Berkeley, I tried to
> organize some of the most
> progressive agricultural scientists to work with small farmers. I
> took them to visit one
> small farmer who worked near a freeway and a drive-in theater. He'd
> never been to a movie.
>
> When the scientists asked him questions, they had no idea what he was
> doing, because his
> techniques, as well as it is technological needs, were so different
> from the corporate
> farmers. For example, he was growing some radishes. They looked
> terrible. Yet he was
> very proud of them. He pulled one from the ground and it was filled
> with bugs. No
> problem. The idea was that the radishes were to lure the bugs from
> the broccoli. The
> scientists saw that he seemed to be spreading pesticides. No. He
> wasn't. It was a chalky
> calcium mix. What was it for? He didn't know. His father used to
> do it and it seemed to
> work.
>
> This man was in desperate need of science to help him compete, but
> the science that the
> university was providing was geared to the farmers with thousands and
> thousands of acres.
> Has anyone read The King of California. A wonderful book that gives
> you an idea of how the
> agricultural system works. Good professors in my department got in
> trouble merely for
> suggesting inequities in the way the California was distributing its
> irrigation water.
> There was more than 30 years ago, and I assume that nothing was said
> there in the
> intervening years.
Isn't California's water subsidized .10 on the dollar, and those subsidies are due to expire over the next few years?
If so, then so much for (inexpensive) Strawberries and Lettuce, arguably the most water intensive agricultural crops in the world (along with Africa's mono-crop cotton), and two of the more profitable offerings from agbiz in CA.
On our farming friend, I disagree, he's not in desperate need of science. He's desperate because of the demand for "perfect" produce, as in: perfectly transportable, and appearing, while the techniques used are quite often damaging to the earth due to the artificial methods needed to produce that kind of "perfect".
On soil, a few years ago, the Pajaro Levee near Watsonville California gave way and flooded the Pajaro valley with about 4 feet of water, wiping out the (mostly) strawberry crop.
The farmers complained that the flooding had "...ruined their land".
They were either being disingenuous (ruined crops and profit), or they don't understand how soil come to be, and is replenished in the long run, partially due to flooding.
Unlike our friend on the primitive farm, they probably understand why the calcium is used, from a scientific/intellectual POV ... And flooding as a natural process that made some of the most fertile soil in the world...
But ask them if they care.
Call me a "hippie", but I'd rather eat food grown with care, than "understanding", because that "understanding" is dangerously incomplete, and biosphere damaging. For instance, insects ARE part of the farming process, and they are only pests because corporate profits (not the ability to feed billions of people) ABSOLUTELY DEPEND on monocropping.
The insects,they pollinate plants, and aerate soil. (and eat some too, as wages)
So we create GMO crops which are deadly to butterflies. (The plant itself, not the pesticide the plant is resistant to...)
That's how we thank and understand the Earth... As a conquered crust, not as our *very important* lifelong companion.
Getting rid of insects would be wasting the time of our primitive farmer... it wouldn't matter, wouldn't affect his yield positively (except short term) or nutritional quality to the plus, either.
The art of "Science" COULD straighten agricultural "technology" out about this, but alas, there's no grant money available, and agronomists need to eat too.
Leigh www.leighm.net