Quick Reality Check Articles

Quick Reality Check – Struggling farmers and our future

October 1, 2009 on 1:07 am | In Food, Quick Reality Check | No Comments

* Each day, the sun provides a finite amount of energy to the earth which creates our weather, causes the winds to blow, rains to fall, the plants to grow and shapes the face of our planet.

* Humans engage in many different industries each day yet more than two thirds of humanity’s primary productivity results from agriculture, yet our farmers have been marginalized and their important position in society usurped by companies providing farmers with energy, fertilizers, and seeds which enable “modern farming methods” which really turn oil into food in a very inefficient manner and by companies which “distribute food” to the masses.

* The 500% improved crop yields of 2009 versus 1950 using “modern farming methods” are created by using 30-50 times more energy to produce these crops. We are actually “less efficient” than we were 60 years ago and we use many “calories” of oil to create one “calories” in our crops which are now more contaminated with herbicides and pesticides than before.

* Our farmers are critical to our health and survival yet we create a commercial environment where farmers cannot make a living which is obviously a road to disaster.

* The situation between farmer and their suppliers and customers reminds me of a great quote from Balzac who said, “The secret of great wealth with no obvious source is some forgotten crime, forgotten because it was done neatly”.

* We must develop improved methods of growing and distributing food if our prosperity as a society and as a species is to continue for future generations once the oil runs out.