Don't Bite the Hand

[timothyu]

Notice how AP refuses to say the real beef in Germany, the Netherlands, India and now France is the matter of being dictated to by Monsanto, Gates and globalization. It's time for North American farmers to wake up before they too are pushed completely off their farms or absorbed by Corporatism. This corporate push has been going on since the 70's and is coming to it's pinnacle. The globalist plan as we are told every year at Davos is to control the world population by way of digital currency which can be manipulated or frozen, and food control, the two main weapons in their arsenal to keep the people subdued.

Ironically the elitists and media are saying it is the farmers who are a threat to the poor city folks with food blackmail when it is they themselves who boast the plan for everyone and of course present themselves as the victims instead of the farmers. The farmers want to feed all to make an independent living while the elites want to weaponize food. Watch how a few offended at the sound of tractors will try and control the narrative. A repeat of Canada a couple years ago . This is important and too few give it a thought, especially those in North America suckered into being too wrapped up in their petty local political fights with each other to see what is really going on. Actually it is actually these asleep who deserve what the globalists have planned. Without this background info, the article itself is useless propaganda.
France's protesting farmers encircle Paris with tractor barricades, vowing a 'siege' over grievances

 

[Ana the Ist]

Notice how AP refuses to say the real beef in Germany, the Netherlands, India and now France is the matter of being dictated to by Monsanto, Gates and globalization. It's time for North American farmers to wake up before they too are pushed completely off their farms or absorbed by Corporatism. This corporate push has been going on since the 70's and is coming to it's pinnacle. The globalist plan as we are told every year at Davos is to control the world population by way of digital currency which can be manipulated or frozen, and food control, the two main weapons in their arsenal to keep the people subdued.

Ironically the elitists and media are saying it is the farmers who are a threat to the poor city folks with food blackmail when it is they themselves who boast the plan for everyone and of course present themselves as the victims instead of the farmers. The farmers want to feed all to make an independent living while the elites want to weaponize food. Watch how a few offended at the sound of tractors will try and control the narrative. A repeat of Canada a couple years ago . This is important and too few give it a thought, especially those in North America suckered into being too wrapped up in their petty local political fights with each other to see what is really going on. Actually it is actually these asleep who deserve what the globalists have planned. Without this background info, the article itself is useless propaganda.
France's protesting farmers encircle Paris with tractor barricades, vowing a 'siege' over grievances

Emminent domain essentially protects all US lands from corrupted foreign interests. Want to buy the land? Go right ahead. If you use it in a manner we disapprove....we can simply take it back at the market price we set.

 

[timothyu]

from corrupted foreign interests.

Who said foreign?

 

[Brihaha]

I got to the fourth line and felt sick when I saw the word Monsanto. I cannot contribute anything unbiased here now. I am prejudiced against this conglomerate. You are correct that too few give thought to these goings-on. I saw my uncle and others forced out in Indiana before moving to Virginia. I am sympathetic but feel powerless to help.

 

[timothyu]

I am sympathetic but feel powerless to help.

Not much to do except support private farmers and convince them not to get involved with contracts they'll never keep up with.

 

[Tuur]

This is quite a mix. Sticking to the US for a moment, It's worth noting the following:

My grandfathers made a living farming with a single horse or mule and taking side jobs between harvest and planting..

My father made a living farming with a single horse, then a two row tractor and taking side jobs between harvest and planting, but that began to prove tight and he had to both farm and work at another job full time.

Now it's impossible in the US to make a living with a single two row tractor. But you also can't use a larger tractor on the fields we had. You have to have larger fields. Why is a larger tractor necessary? Time, because you have to farm more acres to turn a profit now, despite increased yields.

Part of that increased yield comes from different planting techniques, particularly with corn. Corn is planted so close together now, it's painful to look at. Corn that close together practically requires irrigation, which is more expense. That's reflected in the varieties of corn. Like everyone else, we used hybrids, save for an open strain we kept going for sentimental reasons. Something my father let me do was have a small section of land for crops, and one year grew a white dent that I thought was an older variety. It was then we discovered something interesting. The variety I planted did better dryland farming (without irrigation) than the hybrid my father planted, to the point we used the corn for feed. We suspected the hybrid we planted was bred for farming under irrigation. That lead to us wondering whether the lower yield from dryland farming with with older varieties at traditional spacing offset the cost of irrigation required for higher yield hybrids.

This was before gene splicing. Gene splicing brings us to the next thing in the mix, Monsanto. The thing about genetically engineered varieties is that, unlike hybrids, they breed true, which means a farmer could save the seed to use next year. That's also illegal under the licensing agreements. Yes, you can have licensing agreements with crops, just like with computer software. It's also nothing new - look into the efforts used to prevent theft of Red Delicious apple cuttings in the early days of the variety, and it's also a thing with propagating other plants through cuttings. Monsanto went heavy handed in enforcement, which made it the company people love to hate.

So now we have larger fields necessary to turn a profit and licensed seeds. If you need more land to farm on and can't buy it or rent it or afford the necessary equipment, you have to pivot. We already had cattle, so we pivoted to pasture, buying hog feed cheaper than we could grow it. Then the day came we sold the hogs, then the cows, and the farm is now in timber. Others sold out to larger farmers. In one instance a big name company was involved, but they ran into mismanagement issues and ended up selling out. The land was bought by a local large farmer.

This brings us to Bill Gates, another name people seem to love to hate, but he's not the only investor in farmland. And if you can't afford to farm, what do you do? Let the land lay fallow while you pay taxes on it? Large investors buy land because there's a market. There's a market because farming has changed. It's a matter of scale, and in our area it got to where you couldn't compete with the big hog operations, so that went away. Cattle is better, and there's still a market for those who have the pasture, and there's a market in hay as well, again for those who have the pasture to grow it.

What's happening in France and Germany, and in the Netherlands, is something else entirely. What's happening there is why central planning never worked in the Soviet Union: non-farmers doing the planning and thinking they know more about it that those who farm as their profession. We have outright efforts to end farming overseas on the misguided assumption they can import the food they need. Whether this is globalization or garden variety stupidity (or if there's even a difference) I don't know.

 

[Laodicean60]

Th

This brings us to Bill Gates, another name people seem to love to hate, but he's not the only investor in farmland

I know China is too. What does Bill know that we don't?

Now it's impossible in the US to make a living with a single two row tractor. But you also can't use a larger tractor on the fields we had. You have to have larger fields. Why is a larger tractor necessary? Time, because you have to farm more acres to turn a profit now, despite increased yields.

You can't make a living selling locally or is that a thing of the past?

 

[timothyu]

You can't make a living selling locally or is that a thing of the past?

Becoming a thing of the past. Even the Amish are under fire for selling direct.

 

[timothyu]

"global hunger is a product of “intensive chemical farming” which turns biodiverse land into monocultures that are too costly for farmers to sustain and produces too little nutritional crops for local consumption."

 

[Tuur]

You can't make a living selling locally or is that a thing of the past?

It was a thing of the past even in the past.

Here's an interesting tidbit: It turns out the State of Georgia had a huge land scandal that was overshadowed by the Yazoo Land Fraud. Know as the Pine Barrens Speculation, it involved the time honored scam of selling non-existent land. To combat such shenanigans, Georgia took to surveying land prior to settling and holding a lottery to determine who got what. The interesting thing for this topic is the size of the lots in each lottery varied depending on the land. Each lot was thought to be sufficient for a family to provide for its own needs and to have enough to sell. This is way back in the early 1800s, and implies the intent was more than selling locally, especially since everyone's neighbor had a lot of the same size.

 

[Laodicean60]

Becoming a thing of the past. Even the Amish are under fire for selling direct.

From who? The crony capitalist?

 

[Tuur]

"global hunger is a product of “intensive chemical farming” which turns biodiverse land into monocultures that are too costly for farmers to sustain and produces too little nutritional crops for local consumption."

Ah...I seriously doubt that. For one thing, fertilizer is expensive. You don't want to use too much. Too much will also burn plants. For another, farming may have vast swathes of land devoted to the same crop, but it's not necessarily followed by the same crop each year. That's why, in corn country, you often find it rotated with soybeans. Soybeans can help to "fix" nitrogen, while corn is nitrogen hungry.

 

[timothyu]

83% of population in North America is urban and is incapable of growing or raising anything. Not much wonder the elites want to control the remain 17% for total domination. We saw what the test run of 'shortages' after the pandemic did to people and who profited more than ever. And people pretend elections are over democracy?

 

[Laodicean60]

global hunger is a product

A friend of mine in Ohio said that on some occasions farmers would have to plow food under to maintain price controls. When he said that I thought about all the people around the world starving.

 

[timothyu]

That's why, in corn country, you often find it rotated with soybeans.

And both are primarily used as animal feed, with a surplus of corn syrup in every product right down to milk to use up the subsidized crops. People wonder where obesity came from as the new normal? We grow oils and commodities while what should be food is now synthetic.

 

[timothyu]

When he said that I thought about all the people around the world starving.

Yes but the problem has never been food production but transportation with what used to be in times of need rather than constantly now because localized food growth is increasingly not allowed. Must allow the parasites top profit.

 

[Tuur]

And both are primarily used as animal feed, with a surplus of corn syrup in every product right down to milk to use up the subsidized crops. People wonder where obesity came from as the new normal? We grow oils and commodities while what should be food is now synthetic.

Well, my avatar is a bear. Have eaten an awful lot of corn in my life. An awful lot. Not as corn syrup, either. Soybean isn't my favorite, but they have uses.

Of course, anyone who knows of a better way is welcome to try it. That's why I used to read The Mother Earth News. Didn't care for the politics, but in the old days contributors put their theories to practice, and their experiences made informative reading.

I'm serious here. I can't remember who said "Every farm an agricultural experiment station," but there's some truth to that. Doesn't take a lot of ground to try various things. More for the kitchen than the market, but that used to be the way of things, too.

 

[Tuur]

A friend of mine in Ohio said that on some occasions farmers would have to plow food under to maintain price controls. When he said that I thought about all the people around the world starving.

The problem is getting it to them, though.

There's literally tons of agricultural waste. Nothing quite like the "aroma" of fermenting watermelons. Nothing was wrong with them except they'd be considered culls and unsellable. Once canned flat beans that a farmer gave away for free instead of letting go to waste.

The problem is there can be a point where you can't turn a profit, and it's better to take the lost than throw good money after bad. Once I was checking on the work at an irrigation site, and the owner came out there thinking we thought there was a problem because the meter wasn't showing usage. That was because he wasn't using his irrigation. The price of corn had fallen to the point that he wouldn't be able to recoup his investment, so it was cheaper to let it wither in the field.

 

[Laodicean60]

The problem is there can be a point where you can't turn a profit, and it's better to take the lost than throw good money after bad. Once I was checking on the work at an irrigation site, and the owner came out there thinking we thought there was a problem because the meter wasn't showing usage. That was because he wasn't using his irrigation. The price of corn had fallen to the point that he wouldn't be able to recoup his investment, so it was cheaper to let it wither in the field.

City boys don't think of this kind of stuff.

 

[Belk]

This is quite a mix. Sticking to the US for a moment, It's worth noting the following:

My grandfathers made a living farming with a single horse or mule and taking side jobs between harvest and planting..

My father made a living farming with a single horse, then a two row tractor and taking side jobs between harvest and planting, but that began to prove tight and he had to both farm and work at another job full time.

Now it's impossible in the US to make a living with a single two row tractor. But you also can't use a larger tractor on the fields we had. You have to have larger fields. Why is a larger tractor necessary? Time, because you have to farm more acres to turn a profit now, despite increased yields.

Part of that increased yield comes from different planting techniques, particularly with corn. Corn is planted so close together now, it's painful to look at. Corn that close together practically requires irrigation, which is more expense. That's reflected in the varieties of corn. Like everyone else, we used hybrids, save for an open strain we kept going for sentimental reasons. Something my father let me do was have a small section of land for crops, and one year grew a white dent that I thought was an older variety. It was then we discovered something interesting. The variety I planted did better dryland farming (without irrigation) than the hybrid my father planted, to the point we used the corn for feed. We suspected the hybrid we planted was bred for farming under irrigation. That lead to us wondering whether the lower yield from dryland farming with with older varieties at traditional spacing offset the cost of irrigation required for higher yield hybrids.

This was before gene splicing. Gene splicing brings us to the next thing in the mix, Monsanto. The thing about genetically engineered varieties is that, unlike hybrids, they breed true, which means a farmer could save the seed to use next year. That's also illegal under the licensing agreements. Yes, you can have licensing agreements with crops, just like with computer software. It's also nothing new - look into the efforts used to prevent theft of Red Delicious apple cuttings in the early days of the variety, and it's also a thing with propagating other plants through cuttings. Monsanto went heavy handed in enforcement, which made it the company people love to hate.

So now we have larger fields necessary to turn a profit and licensed seeds. If you need more land to farm on and can't buy it or rent it or afford the necessary equipment, you have to pivot. We already had cattle, so we pivoted to pasture, buying hog feed cheaper than we could grow it. Then the day came we sold the hogs, then the cows, and the farm is now in timber. Others sold out to larger farmers. In one instance a big name company was involved, but they ran into mismanagement issues and ended up selling out. The land was bought by a local large farmer.

This brings us to Bill Gates, another name people seem to love to hate, but he's not the only investor in farmland. And if you can't afford to farm, what do you do? Let the land lay fallow while you pay taxes on it? Large investors buy land because there's a market. There's a market because farming has changed. It's a matter of scale, and in our area it got to where you couldn't compete with the big hog operations, so that went away. Cattle is better, and there's still a market for those who have the pasture, and there's a market in hay as well, again for those who have the pasture to grow it.

What's happening in France and Germany, and in the Netherlands, is something else entirely. What's happening there is why central planning never worked in the Soviet Union: non-farmers doing the planning and thinking they know more about it that those who farm as their profession. We have outright efforts to end farming overseas on the misguided assumption they can import the food they need. Whether this is globalization or garden variety stupidity (or if there's even a difference) I don't know.

My father in law makes 60K + a year with a 60 acre field and using a tractor (Admittedly he owns two but that is because he is a mechanic.). That is not the totally of his income but it certainly is a major portion. It is possible to still make a living as a small farmer but I agree that is harder then it used to be.