(July 20, 2016 at 6:54 pm)Rhythm Wrote: That's actually a pretty damned good rule Nap. OFC a monocropper won't like it (not exactly talking small farmers here), but monocropping isn't a very good idea. That's a rule they had to follow...to get some government cheese, right? I'm not sure I understand the problem. Don't want to follow the rule, don't get subsidies. Follow the rule, get subsidies.
-edit: No..no, wait, I just looked it up, they don't even lose their subsidies...just a portion of them......
To put it into context:
Peak soil
Quote:Those of us living in modern cities can easily forget that without fertile soil we could not survive. Yet modern agricultural techniques are eroding the very soil on which food production depends. This ongoing soil loss means we face the problem of feeding a growing population from a shrinking land base. This should be troubling because even a casual reading of history shows that, under the right circumstances, climatic extremes, political turmoil or resource abuse can bring down a society. And in the century ahead we face all three, as shifting climate patterns and depleted oil supplies coincide with progressive loss of farmland.
Quote:Many currently profitable industrial farming methods would become uneconomic if their true costs were incorporated into market pricing. Direct financial subsidies and failure to include the costs of depleting soil fertility encourage practices that degrade the land. In the US, for example, the top 10 per cent of agricultural producers now receive 66 per cent of the more than $10 billion handed out in annual subsidies, and they use it to support large farms growing single crops, particularly wheat, corn and cotton.
I also posted earlier about how the UK only has 100 harvests left.