From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Sun Jun 16 2002 - 23:21:05 MDT
Samantha Atkins wrote:
> I don't think the state should be in the business of susidizing
> agriculter of any kind so there we agree. However, I do have a lot of
> respect for organic farming where you can just possibly know what went
> into the food you eat and what didn't. - samantha
Heres the spin my friend put on it. By the way, he is an
engineer by day. He and two siblings inherited their father's rice
farm. His first order of business was to arrange the ownerships
so that the three farms work as a team, able to share common
equipment, etc, while still retaining the legal status of a family owned
farm as opposed to a corporation with three owners. For some
odd reason, that matters.
When a farmer takes a crop, she must do a careful chemical
analysis, a measurement of what was removed, in order to
replace those elements. Otherwise the soil is soon depleted.
With organic farming, she is not allowed to use most of the
spraying techniques to replace minerals removed. For instance,
if she knows she took off a ton of calcium per hectare, she
may not spray an aqueous solution of calcium carbonate. But
she can feed bone meal to her cows and use their manure
as fertilizer. So the game is transformed from spraying
chemicals in such a way that they can actually be controlled,
to one of putting the same chemicals thru a cow and spreading
the manure.
I figure it is only a matter of time before the animal rights
people start protesting organic farming. spike
>
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