Subject: Re: Filbert tree ban

From: Bill Jones <[email-masked]>
Date: 25 Jul 1995 01:59:50 GMT

I grow gooseberries and your ribes example does make the point 
for me. However, if your neighbor drops an infected filbert in a 
hole and all yours die as a result, wouldn't that put a whole new 
spin on things?  Maybe the time is coming when you should fold up 
your tent and go where your filberts are still welcome.

---

From: [email-masked] (Joel Clark)
Date: 29 Jul 1995 00:22:14 GMT

In article <sharvy.806718792@ccserver> [email-masked] (Peter Benjamin Sharvy) writes:
>[email-masked] (Joel Clark) writes:
>
>>In article <sharvy.806692900@ccserver> [email-masked] (Peter Benjamin Sharvy) writes:
>
>>  But your argument against 
>>mono-culture techniques ignores the cost of capital, economies of scale,
>>and the reality of the world market for filberts.
>
>I think the problem is as follows: some governments "promote" economic 
>development, say, in the case of the filbert industry. Others do not. How 
>can those who wish to farm commerically do so successfully in those 
>countries which do not receive government subsidies or legal protection 
>when they must compete against the others? 

I don't know of any government subsidies for filbert farmers.  Do you?

>
>They probably can't, in the absence of protective tariffs. 

Protective tariffs are subject to political whims.  The US lowered tariffs
on Turkish filberts to help negotiate access to Turkish airfields (built 
with US dollars) during the Gulf War.
>>The cost of 
>>capital for commercial agriculture is tremendous and it is not reasonable
>>to expect a farmer to multiply his capital cost by several factors (in
>>equipment, land and plantings) to achieve the same poly cultural environment
>>of the backyard or hobby grower. 
>
>It is not reasonable to put all your eggs in one basket and then demand 
>other people's eggs when your basket tumbles.

I have not seen anything in this thread to indicate filbert farmers are
are demanding other peoples eggs.  I certainly have not made such demands.
Few farmers survive long in Oregon without cultivating various income
streams. My point in my previous post is that while poly-culture is a
better balanced method of growing, mono-culture is often more commercially
viable. 

>
>> A filbert farm will not reach full 
>>production in less than 20 years. Once in full production, nothing else
>>(other than grass) can be grown in the orchard. 
>
>Why not? There are food crops that fix their own nitrogen, and that grow 
>in partial shade. What about legumes?

Mature Filbert orchards have dense shade and are harvested by mowing and
leveling in August to create a smooth clean orchard floor and then sweeping 
up the nuts in October.  Cultivating other crops would make achieving this
smooth clean floor very difficult.

joel

---

From: [email-masked] (Peter Benjamin Sharvy)
Date: 28 Jul 1995 18:54:13 -0700

>I don't know of any government subsidies for filbert farmers.  Do you?

I said "subsisidies or legal protection," and the topic under discussion 
is whether it is proper to ban retail sales of filberts to protect 
commercial growing, which would count as the special legal protection, at 
the expense of others, to which I meant to refer.

>are demanding other peoples eggs.

They are demanding that only they be allowed, by law, to grow filberts. 
They are demanding that certain liberties be taken from everyone else to 
protect themselves.

>better balanced method of growing, mono-culture is often more commercially

If a monoculture is unstable to the point that it will require government 
subsidies or other forms of legal intervention, at the expense of other
people, to be sustainable, then it is not, in itself, viable. 
Additionally, when it puts other people's property at risk, as it does by 
increasing risk of disease by an order of magnitude, it may be fair game 
for legal action. Why exempt it from the general principle that  
activities which seriously threaten people's property are crimes?

-- 
DEFINITIONS
Dumb Bird.  An entity incapable of surviving without old growth.
Logger.  A kind of dumb bird.

---

From: [email-masked] (Larry Caldwell)
Date: 28 Jul 1995 22:32:25 -0700

In article <[email-masked]>,

>better balanced method of growing, mono-culture is often more commercially

You might also point out that Oregons annual production of 30,000 tons 
constitutes 99% of the US domestic production.  That brings millions of 
dollars into Oregon's economy, which is a resource worth protecting.  A 
few diseased trees could jeopardize dozens of family farms and the 
livlihood of hundreds of people.

City dwellers don't seem to realize that agriculture and ranching annually 
produce three billion dollars in Oregon.  That's pure production, not 
product passing through like Port of Portland.  Thats the wealth of the 
land, and it supports us all.  

-- 
Larry Caldwell  [email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (Peter Benjamin Sharvy)
Date: 25 Jul 1995 10:47:57 -0700

>your tent and go where your filberts are still welcome. 

My objection is simply to the privileging of commerial venture in law; I
haven't objected to torts or other legal means of containing the blight. 
(Which doesn't mean I wouldn't object to them if the subject came up, but
that is not this subject.) I don't like the government telling citizens:
you can't grow this tree in your backyard because it puts filbert
businesses at risk. Why not say to business: you can't grow filbert
mono-cultures en masse because it is a threat to the samll-scale grower?
>From  what I know about horticulture, I would guess that it is the
large-scale monoculture cultivation that brought about the blight in the
region. 

So maybe it threatens the financial stability of some farmers. Tough
cookies. I am completely unsympathetic to people who put all their eggs in 
one basket and then run to the government for help when that basket is 
threatened. If you want stability, don't construct your life so that your
liveliehood depends on a single activity, or skill of narrow utility, 
whether it is farming filberts or peaches, or logging old growth or whatever.

The situation is very analogous to investing in financial instruments. 
Suppopse somebody invests all their money in foreign bonds. He could 
diversify, invest in US stocks, international stocks, US bonds, etc., but 
then he would have to learn about all those fields; if he concentrates 
solely on, say, bonds issued by the government of Tahiti, he can master 
the field and operate more efficiently. But of course there is more risk. 
But of course, the risk is due solely to his choices, and he has no 
business limiting the freedoms of others to manage his risk. The 
situation with commercial agriculture in general and filberts in 
particular is the same: some farmers have made their entire livliehood 
depend on filbert growing. Now the risk of that specialization is being 
realized, and they want to limit a small freedom of everyone to manage 
their risk--a risk due solely to their choices. Phooey on them.

The situation is doubly irksome because it is large-scale 
monocropping that causes major disease problems anyway, not backyard or 
small-scale growing.
-- 
DEFINITIONS
Dumb Bird.  An entity incapable of surviving without old growth.
Logger.  A kind of dumb bird.

---

From: [email-masked] (Joel Clark)
Date: 29 Jul 1995 00:51:10 GMT

In article <sharvy.806617261@gladstone> [email-masked] (Peter Benjamin Sharvy) writes:
>[email-masked] (Pollinator) writes:
>>In article <sharvy.806039950@ccserver>, [email-masked] (Peter
>>Benjamin Sharvy) writes:
 
>>>The proposed ban in Oregon of retail sales of filbert trees is an
>>>outrage, and I intend to ignore it any way possible
 
>>    On the other end of the country, and I'm sure most of those in other
>>countries, don't know what you are talking about.
>>    But you've caught my curiosity.  Please explain.
>
>Oregon is the largest domestic grower of filberts. There is a filbert 
>blight of some sort going around. The proposed remedy is to ban retail
>sales of filbert trees, apparently to make management of the blight easier.
>
>I object to this sort of thing in general, because it assumes that there 
>is something morally or politically special about commercial ventures vs. 
>hobbyist or recreational ventures, so that laws privileging 
>large-scale commercial growers are justified.

I am a small commercial grower of filbert nuts in Oregon.  I had not
heard of the "ban on retail filbert sales" until mentioned here by 
Peter Benjamin Sharvy.  I tend to agree with his objections to this 
ban. I certainly doubt is will control the spread of the Eastern Filbert
Blight.  The Extension agents I have talked to have made several suggestions
of how to control this blight but none of them has mentioned a ban. I have 
not seen the ban mentioned in the Hazelnut (filbert) Grower's Association 
Newletter, or heard discussed by any other commercial filbert growers.
The largest commercial grower I have talked to (member of the Oregon
Hazelnut Marketing Board of Directors) believes all his filbert trees
will be dead within 5-10 years regardless of what he does.
 
joel clark

---

From: [email-masked] (Peter Benjamin Sharvy)
Date: 25 Jul 1995 17:49:22 -0700

[email-masked] (Joel Clark) writes:

>>I don't like the government telling citizens:

They probably can't, in the absence of protective tariffs. I can't think 
of any way, assuming that the consumer cannot be relied upon to practice 
activism in grocery store and prefer the more expensive domestic product. 
This assumption may be debatable, however, given that many people spend 
triple the money for organically grown produce.

>  The price a filbert
>farmer gets is directly related to the world crop and the world grower
>techniques including mono-culture and low-cost labor.  The cost of