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Re: British Beef Situation
Bryan wrote:
> Um, pardon me but which planet do you live on?
>
> Have you thought about the comparative ploughing capabilities of a
> tractor and an oxen? Have you considered how many teams of MEN (I
> speak generically) and oxen it would take to replace only the
> tractors on say one 500 acre farm? Have you thought how much
> these men would have to be paid? Have you considered what the
> price of food might be?
>
> Would you be prepared to educate the urban public as to the costs
> of such an exercise?
>
> Cloud cookoo land. Regenerate the economy - you cannot be serious.
In fact it is not cookoo. Maybe to get from here to there would be
impossible, but the ideal is based on sound reasoning. The UnaBomber may
be a crackpot, but the idea of every one living in small low-tech
hamlets is a darn good one.
If it was 120 years ago, you would be a wacko for suggesting that that
the all but 1 or 2 of the 5 brothers and and the 4 cousins move off the
big family farm to the city. Life on a well managed farm at that time
was good and prosperous. It was hard work and certainly there were ups
and downs. But that's also true of the auto industry, the financial
industry and many other "modern" enterprises. No doubt that modern
technology has made numerous improvements to agriculture, but on the
other hand many of the modern advancements of crop rotation, soil
enrichment etc. were already there in ancient cultures (like India).
Just because North Americans didn't know these things is no big suprise.
And all these fancy chemicals used today in agribiz are questionable at
least.
So you have all those brothers and cousins move off the farm and into
tenements in the city. They go to work making nuts and bolts to make
tractors. The brother or two left has to buy a tractor to do all the
work. He needs all kinds of attachments and buildings and fuel, etc.
Of course to pay for that, he has to dramaticaly increase yields he has
to give up the old heirlooms and buy pricey hybrids (and every year too!
can't save those seeds!) Then he's got to buy high tech fertilizers and
herbicides, insecticides etc. etc. (all of which stop working after a
while and you need newer, more powerful, more expensive ones) Then
there's the payments on all the loans needed to foot the bill on this
mammoth. He still is having trouble being profitable, so he has to buy
his neighbors land (who went bankrupt under a huge debt load!). What to
speak of all his relatives now living hundreds of miles away and his
extended family being splintered. It the quality of his live really
better?
Oh, I forgot. He's got MTV now. That makes it all worthwhile.
The brothers and cousins in the city can't eat nuts and bolts, so they
have to buy plastic wrapped, frozen food in the grocery store. After a
few generations, some of them have been upwardly mobile; they're a
university professer or a prosperous merchant. Is the live of a
university professer today that much different than in 1870 (in relative
terms)? Is a prosperous merchant today that much different? And the
ones still making nuts and bolts, is the quality of their lives better?
I live in Amish country. Their farms are (typically anyway) well kept
and organized. Their clothes are well made with quality materials. The
ladies' dresses have a simple elegance which no doubt will be high
fashion within 5 or 10 years (then again 30 years after that, on and
on). Their barns are full of hay and various feeds. The root cellars
are full as well as their canning shelves. Their horses are strong and
spirited; the buggies are sleek, shiny and have their own kind of snaz.
In fact, one of there worst problems for them are the taxes which are
based on a nuts and bolts economy, and not on simple living.
An Amishman usually also has a personal integrety and fortitude that is
often difficult to find in modern society's representitives.
Anyway, pardon my lack of succinctness, hopefully somebody gets my
point. Modern society ain't what its cracked up to be. There are
groups of people all around the world who live a simple, animal powered
agrarian life and they're doing darn well!
>From here to there might be a problem, but it isn't "cookoo".
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