When we nibbled an article from The Land Institute’s Stan Cox a couple of days ago it prompted a heartfelt outburst against the “holier than thou organic only everyting else be dammed mindset”. So I’m wondering what Anastasia and others will make of a Q&A in today’s Washington Post. Three of the wisest men in “alternative” agriculture in the US — Wes Jackson, Wendell Berry and Fred Kirschenmann — were in Washington to promote an alternative Farm Bill, one that takes a long-term view and that “values not only yields but also local ecosystems, healthy food and rural communities”. The Post took the opportunity to get some answers to pressing questions, such as “Washington doesn’t think in 50-year increments. How do you sell this?”.
Jackson: You sell it the same way as global warming or population growth. Washington thinks it’s going to deal with the global warming problem in 50 years? We will have this if we get cracking.
Kirschenmann: Because of our election cycles, you’re right. People tend to think in terms of two-year, four-year or six-year cycles. But I think the effort to deal with climate change is starting to change with that, because they know they can’t deal with climate change on that timeline. They have to extend the horizon. So we think the time is right to add agriculture to that.
I’d like to think they can do it, but I’m not optimistic.
Kirschenmann is talking politics, not agronomics. Besides, we’ve seen the result of Maoist and Soviet 5 year plans stacked 10 deep. The notion that we can usefully project that far ahead, make good decisions on a grand scale in any time frame, or somehow develop governance systems that would not degenerate, alternate or lose interest is rank nonsense targeted to the short term thinking and airy fairy fantasies of urban dreamers. If you believe any of that then you probably believe that the current climate change pork fest is doing something useful about climate. Not.
Actually, I think a 5-year Farm Bill is all you say, and more. So no, I don’t think a 50-year bill would be ten times better, or anything as foolish. But — and it is a big but — somehow one has to escape the narrow-minded short-termism that currently buttresses the many ways in which governments, not just in the US, interfere in the farm and food markets.
There are many things wrong with farm and food policies throughout the developed northern hemisphere. Talking about a 50-year Farm Bill is a kind of reductio ad absurdam that might just get people thinking about how to fix things.
Do you understand what is happening to the dairy industry in the US? I certainly do not.
If you get a clue please tip me off and I’ll make a fortune with the asymmetrical information.
Ah, yes. These guys are great, and have a lot of great ideas, but suffer from closemindedness and willful ignorance just as much as most people on one side or the other.
Case in point:
“Genetically modified plants have plenty of traction in the Obama administration as a solution to feed the world. Do you agree?
Kirschenmann: If you think about it, that approach really isn’t working here. If it weren’t for subsidies, farmers wouldn’t be able to buy the technologies that are supposed to save us. How are African farmers going to afford the technologies?”
Way to completely ignore the efforts towards Water Efficient Maize. This is a partnership between African governments, international NGOs, and even Monsanto to get a desperately needed trait to African farmers royalty free. And WEM is far from the only one being developed.
Farmers of any size can easily fit WEM into any farming system from traditional to organic to intensive. But no, the big 3 say, all biotech must be bad because it’s all made by Monsanto and only works with massive monoculture. You’d think these highly intelligent, highly educated fellows would be able to open their eyes a little. They expect everyone else to accept the pipe dream that is perennials but they won’t consider anything else?
Sigh. If only that wasn’t typical.
As for the 50 year Farm Bill…. maybe. I don’t really understand all of the policy at this time (add that to the list of classes I need to take). I think things change faster than 50 years, so if we got locked into a 50 year plan then we wouldn’t be able to adapt to changes in climate, changes in technology, growing population, etc. No matter how well a bill is written, it can’t take everything into consideration. I’d rather see more future planning written into the Farm Bill as it is now.
I’m not saying water-efficient maize isn’t a good idea, but … why all maize, all the time? What’s wrong with sorghum, or millet, if there isn’t enough water for maize, which is a very thirsty crop? Also, how did the people of the southwest US grow corn under drought conditions, before GM? (That’s a rhetorical question, of course; we know how they did it, and I wonder why it is important to engineer drought resistance.)
Developing drought tolerance in maize will transfer easily enough to other grass crops including sorghum. Why not develop traits right in sorghum? Because there’s a market for maize seed in rich nations. I’d love to see more NGOs and governments all over the world invest in crop improvement, but until then… any company working on crop improvement (GM or not) would be doing a disservice to their shareholders if they worked on sorghum, which has no market. I don’t like it, and I know you don’t like it – what to do?