most people dont care or want to look for the real truth. a real good start would be to watch the movie king corn or the future of our food. hope this helps.

As long as Jack Daniels isn't pulling the trigger.............or Gentleman Jim..........

Suzi

Eithieus, I think the movie you are referring to is "King Corn".  I grew up on a typical corn and soybean farm in the midwest and highly recommend it.

alcohol and gun don't mix. that's why i do my drinking well before shooting. x)

Pete..You just made my day!!  LOL!!  x  Funny!  Got a lot of PM's on this topic.  I never was interested in politics, just planting stuff and wooooohhhh now!  I'm in trouble deep!  I just only think I should support my commercial growing buddies, and it was pointed out to me on PM's, why bother?...These organic people's kids will die of rickets and whatever... yeah.. why think? 

OK, I'm over it.  No more thinking!  Gonna have a talk with Gentleman Jim!!  Or JD, whichever comes first!

Suzi

That was nasty .
Are you sure you're not into the Jack already ?

John

Not yet John, but thinking about it.  I only posted about the pm's I get from members who fear for the children of the organic only people.  Obviously I am cautious about the commercial neighbor growers.  This is their life.  Not a hobby.  Hobby for me, yes, but for them, life!

Quote from my pm's "Suzi, Why bother?" 

I guess that I should listen.  I started this war for a reason.

Meeting JD for dinner soon.  He's been poisoning gophers (shhhh) at the new property.

Suzi

It seems that those members fears are abated by the fact that organic eating children will die from rickets .
How nice .

Suzi let's just agree to disagree .
Enjoy your evening out .

John

I live in an agriculture community. They still burn the fields here. All the pesticides and herbicides get vaporized and thrown into the air. The run off goes into the Salton sea, to feed the botulism plague we get in the summer. Smog from Mexico from the South. Crystalline particles from the desert. Being below sea level means non of this poison leaves our area. We have young people dying of rare cancers and its a mystery. The Imperial onion, broccoli, potatoes, watermelons, cantaloupes, tomatoes, sweet corn, asparagus, lettuce,wheat, cotton,flowers,hay,soy ect...None of it stays here. It all goes to other parts of the U.S. If we are dying of what they spray on the food, what do you think is happening to the people eating it?

Just a couple documentaries of the problems my community faces, trying to feed the rest of the world. :). No disrespect to anyone. I just want people to know.

The real problem is NOT from the production of vegetables and fruits.
They represent 2% of the usage on farmland and similar percentage of
the total pesticide, herbicide and fungicide usage.

The real villain is grains, corn and legumes.
Which exists because of meat/poultry consumption,
and breads, cereals and driving your car(ethanol).
This represents 97% of the farmland usage in the US.

Besides the fact we export a majority percentage
of these grains/legumes.

Don't worry, most of this will be coming to an end
in a couple of decades, the main aquifer is drying up
in the Midwest, so the party will be over for the producers and us as well.
Called the "Browning of America", we are exporting our water supply
through the production of grains and legumes.

So toss another steak on the bbq,
wash the chicken wings down with some beer,
and make the ice run to the store in your monster sized SUV.
All is well  :-)

so busy driving, i forgot to put gas in my car.. :) the issue is not so simple as over working the land.. it's simple human greed tied tight to over population. when there are less people on this planet, there will be less demand for everything, and therefore, less supply will be necessary. modern medicine while i greatly appreciate them, has lengthen the life span of human beings. at the same time, it has completely stopped human evolution. we arel literally killing ourselves and we don't even know it.

so meanwhile, pass the beer and hand me another porterhouse :) if i'm going to die, i'm dying on a full stomach.

Hank , Thanks for the videos . I feel for you . It is a moral crime what is being done in the name of profit . Unfortunately due to deep corporate pockets and lobbyists it is not a legal crime .

Eithius . I watched a bit of THE FUTURE OF FOOD . Seems like a very well done documentary , thanks for your input . I will finish watching it later today .

Hungry jack , Pete , great input .

I think we all need to take the time to properly educate ourselves about the reality of agriculture today . There are huge corporate interests involved that want to control our food supply . They do not have our or the planets best interests in mind . Their goal is profit , at any cost !
This need not be a battle of ideologies , just take a few minutes and watch " THE FUTURE OF FOOD " on YouTube . It can't hurt .
The best citizen is an informed citizen , that way nobody can pull the wool over your eyes .

John

I have read with great interest all of the posts in this thread and I finally have to say something.....I have seen the enemy, and it is us.....  There is no one holding a gun to anyone's head to eat the food grown by these evil, greedy, corporate, agro-industrialists  you can get on your soapbox and preach anything you want but only you are accountable for what you eat.  I eat what I eat because I like it, because it is cheap, because I am lazy, because I choose to!  I don't care what you choose to eat, or why, or who is making profit from us stuffing our faces.

THIS IS NOT DIRECTED TO ANYONE HERE! I USE THE "YOU" AS AN UNIDENTIFIED PERSON OR GROUP.

Now that I have said it, I am thru with this thread and will not engage in any further discourse.

Danny ,

I agree with you that we are the ones letting it happen . You seem well versed on the facts and are honest about not caring .
I can respect that .
However many of us do care .

John

100 calories =  $30-40 BILLION DOLLARS

If Americans reduced their caloric intake  100 calories a day,
it would cost the food industry $30-40 Billion dollars.
Lots of lost jobs, communities, etc.

Do you expect an industry to promote reduction or  growth ?

Supersize that meal next time you go
through the drive through with the SUV :-)

I forget the exact number,
but in a MickeyD Chicken McNugget,
34 out of 35 ingredients were
produced from, feed or prepared with,
CORN.

Yes, we are the problem as others pointed out.

I don't think using organic practices would harm your commercial neighbors at all.   Maybe if you are importing new invasive plants or insects, it would harm them, but not simply growing organically.   

The margins are so small in commercial farming that farmers don't get to make choices based on what they'd LIKE to do  -- or even what they think is BEST to do. Their choices are based on what they can AFFORD to do and very often they're forced to do things very differently then they would given the freedom of choice independent of finances or contracts they've entered into usually based on trying to do what they think best allows them to keep their farm.

Organic or non-organic is not the line between good and evil. 

No one uses poison because they want to pollute the ground water, air or their children's bodies. They do it because they believe it is the best way to keep their land. 

Our farming practices are not the best system possible and we've made many mistakes. Sustainability should be our goal. Any system that is sustainable is by very definition a system that works. Taking sides - or even believing there are sides to take - in the organic/"conventional" - debate is to miss the point.

We need to decide for ourselves what we want to support and then support that system and help it evolve into a sustainable one. Just look, for example, how pesticide use declined when IPM (Integrated Pest Management) was accepted. Just look at the huge and successful organic farms that now thrive but were once considered an impossible "pipe dream".

Moving forward is the key and part of that means recognizing and helping the farmer throw off the yolk of some of the huge companies that treat them like indentured servants. Getting involved and realizing our laws and policies are in terrible need of change and then helping change them is what's needed.

oopps - it's getting dizzy up here on this soap box . . .

Other  3 %

2 % Vegetables & Fruit
1 % Ornamental

Damn, this thread is depressing. Might as well slip on my Nikes and await the next comet (Heaven's Gate reference for those who missed it).

I do my best to grow my stuff in as organic fashion as I can, not because I am concerned or not concerned for the American farmer (who, by the way, are now mostly subsidized and employed by giant corporations). I avoid chemicals in my garden to personally cut down on the vast amount of garbage that we all ingest daily. The toxins are pretty much unavoidable in our current system, but I feel we can each do our part. Token effort? I don't think so. I feel better when I avoid the processed foods and heavily-treated produce. And it is the least I can do for my family.

If you want to hear about something scary, read "Wheat Belly," a book that outlines the correlation between the genetic modification of wheat to the upsurge in heart disease, diabetes, Celiac disease and other afflictions. We went gluten-free after reading it. The book says that our bodies process modified wheat like hard drugs. I thought that to be pure speculation until I detoxed. I went cold turkey, nothing containing wheat (the list includes surprises like soy sauce and Corn Flakes). It was a week of pure hell. I was dying for a biscuit and some freaking Methadone before I got it all out of me. Now, I feel much better inside and out ... and I dropped 20 pounds since switching to grains like millet, rice and buckwheat.

We all have to make our own choices, but for me, there will be no more gluten and no more chemical fertilizers or man-made pesticides. I'll use beneficial bugs, compost tea and permaculture practices to get a better balance.

And John the good news is you can get one. The other good news is there are more folks joining the family farm movement and some huge figures in the field to follow. Take a look at what they do at Polyface farms here in VA. It's really exciting and they've cleared the way for a lot of folks. You can grow organic and produce wonderful food.
mgg

Hey Michael ,

I've seen a few documentaries with Joel Salatin from Polyface Farms , 550 acres in Virginia I believe .
He is very passionate and quite the character . You know instantly that he is sincere and also ,
that he knows what he's talking about because nature based sensible farming is in his soul .
Infact if you go back about 70 years , every farmer on the planet was an organic farmer and every
farmer from the beginning of time was also .
Today many people see organic practices as fringe . How funny .

John

The last doc I saw with him was Farmageddon . It's on YouTube .

John,
Yeah, Joel is a good fellow to have around. He's already fought a lot of the fights that the family farmer needs to fight just to get the state to let him farm. Big government seems to side with big farming corp.s and the absurd rules and laws they pass are very much hampering folks from getting back to supplying good food to their neighbors. I hope to buy another farm in about 5 years and I really miss living on a farm. The energy put off by the carrots or kale, for example, when you enter the hoop house in march is just so different then store bought food. It feels like the difference between alive and dead food.
The chemicals are a trap and in a lot of places in the 3rd world the farmers have been terribly trapped by having trusted others to tell them what's best to grow. I try and grow organic whenever and where ever possible. I just love the way nature helps if you plant the right plants for beneficials and mix stuff up. My last SO was a master gardener and she taught me a lot about what it means to have live soil. I have an organic farm near me where I can get veggies and meats and the difference really is amazing.
I built my first chicken tractor in the '80's and remember the ag guys at VA Tech (we called it vipisu back then -- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) making fun of me for asking how to grow millet organically. Now they need more extension folks in organic to keep up -- good sign.
It's great that people are finally realizing eggs are incredibly good for you. In my first poultry science class the recommendation was no more then 1 1/2 to 2 eggs per week.All of us are having to relearn what few have been practicing (Amish, Mennonites, etc.).
There's an exciting future ahead for small farms I think. We just have a lot of battles to fight still and Joel's been right out there for a long time. I respect him.