The Future of Agriculture and the Importance of Developing Our Skills and Knowledge Base

[Billy]

Hell, David, our opinion of us is lower because of Dubya too.

[doofy]

Yup. The Dixie Chicks had the right idea.

[Billy]

Which is all that International corporations could hope for. Watch Ruppert Murdoch news and a sit com and don't worry your pretty little head about freedom and Blackwater. Show your hands and salute the rank.

Fuck Bush

[Omelet]

From what I've heard and read, he'd like that.

;-)

[Billy]

I think you are referring to what Osama is doing to him;-) I doubt he is capable of real human relations, considering what he has done to so many people, for just money.

[Glenna Rose]

Thank you very much. No, the pain will never leave; the void left by a child's death is always there and quite different than any other. We adjust and learn to live around it so it becomes a part of our lives rather than it controlling our lives. On our on-line support group, I said it does not become easier, it becomes less difficult. Easier implies it will become easy which is not true and also implies we have more control than we do.

You have been through your own trials, quite definitely. You absolutely have my sympathy for what you have been through. I'm very happy for you that you are here to look at that wonderful flower bed.

My sister died in 1972 of cancer the day before her 21st birthday leaving behind two babies in diapers so I have a small amount of understanding what you are saying. I wish so much she could also be speaking your words. Because of what my garden has done for me, I so understand at least part of your fondness for this special part of your yard and of your world.

That rather re-enforces what I told my two oldest sons and some dear friends about this house. I moved here two-plus years after my youngest son's death. His brothers were very worried about Mom in addition to their own grief from losing their baby brother (who was taller than either of them!). When I planted grapes, kiwi and paw-paw trees, I told them I must be planning to be around a long time since they all take at least 2-5 years to bear! One wouldn't think of planting a grape vine as being a plan for a future, but it really is, like the shade tree.

Blessings to you.

Glenna

So very, very true.

[FarmI]

I know exactly what you are saying.

My sister lost a son almost 13 years ago and I just feel so disturbed that there is simply nothing I can do to help this much loved sister in any way. I know that she still suffers deeply, desperately and despairingly but not a word of her grief ever crosses her lips or is ever shown except in the desperate way she hugs me when she sees me.

As my only sibling and being 5 and a half years younger than her, she still maintains the strong older sister role and won't open up and talk about it to me or to anyone. We have never been an emotional or particularly demonsrative family but she just about breaks my ribs with her hugs. This tells me that she is still as raw as the day that it happened and only once have I ever been able to even mention her grieving to her. I have not been game enough to do so since but she needs some help that I cannot give until she is ready and I don't think that she ever will be ready. It is also typical of our family that she won't seek any help.

Time doesn't heal at all unfortunately, it just makes the absence of the lost one even more evident as one things that they aren't here for this or that fmaily happening.

Thank you but I don't think the big 'C' is nearly as bad as losing a child. It is a process that has to be got through one way or the other. I've always viewed my own death as inevitable and I will die when my time is due. I just hope it's when I'm 80 + as I have too much to do before I die.

I think it's the constant rebirth we see in the garden. Each year there is a sense of renewal. Even if we aren't going to be here to see it, it will go on.

Indeed it is.

And to you and yours.

Fran

[Vandy Terre]

_We_ might work like that because _we_ (folks over thirty that have come to appreciate the benefits of fresh air/ sun light/ exercise without gym fees) have experience in life. Meanwhile, that 17yr old has air conditioned classrooms, multiple channels of choice on multiple home televisions and the job choice of making a slightly better wage working the local fast food restaurant where the buddies and fellow classmates visit.

A living wage would be a major cost, but the current wage would not be so bad if the workers could take home part of the harvest for the family to eat. Not a new idea, just an old one that has dropped from use. In my youth, back in the sixties, I remember farm laborers getting more than just a paycheck. The produce carried home was not first quality in appearance, the nutriment was still there. Small farmers knew they could not pay the same wage as the local factories and found other ways to make it worthwhile for school students and homemakers to work for them.

Raised beds for crop production are a whole different story. Most of the raised bed farming I see offered is just a few inches higher than surrounding land. Four inches does not help hand picking the crop much. I have been attempting to design raised beds that an adult on a movable bench could easily reach for early tending of the crop and an adult standing could easily reach the crop to harvest without much stooping.

I am blessed with hilly terrain. So I only need a solid terrace wall, about two feet high, on the downhill side. This would allow me to reach the planting area from the upper walk-way with a roto-tiller without any lifting. Walk-ways will be left in grass and clover. Planting space three foot wide, walk-ways three foot wide. Plan is to mow walk-ways with mulching self bagging mower, then dry clippings for livestock winter feed.

Back to that terrace wall. Any suggestions of material to use for this wall? I would like to use concrete block, but the expense is too high for current budget. Another thought is to use logs left over from a recent logging operation as a temporary wall and add the concrete block, or possibly native rock with cement to hold shape, as money is available. I am currently in one of the severe drought areas, the logs would help hold water until they rot away.

I am over ambitious and old enough to have problems walking. Any thing I plan now includes the concept of handicap access. The over ambitious part is I would love to put three to six acres into this form of terrace gardens. But this also means that these fields can not longer be used to graze horses or cattle, maybe the goats and sheep. The sheep may be too stupid to not fall off the terraces, which leaves only goats to be used to clean out crop residue and add a bit of organic fertilizer. Earthworms, red wigglers to start, are also a major part of this concept and the walk-ways are safe locations to help keep the earthworms healthy.

Great idea, but the big corporation farms like the money from corn and soybeans. The corporate farms have the equipment to raise and harvest these crops. The corporate farms also have something that we, small un-united farms, don't. They have the money to pay campaign contributions and people to harass elected officials into creating laws that favor corporate farms.

[Billy]

(That was JoeSB's comment)

Social Security is often taken out of farm workers' paychecks just to be pocketed by the labor contractor. Later when farm workers apply to Social Security, there is no record of their contributions. Most farm workers receive no fringe benefits with their jobs. For the vast majority of farmworkers, this means:.

No health benefits

No paid vacations

No sick leave

No pension plans

While all other workplaces require that toilet facilities are provided when as few as one worker is at the workplace, farms are only required to have toilets if 6 or more workers are on the fields. Many farms do not provide toilets even when large numbers of workers are in the fields. Drinking water and water for washing hands is often unavailable to workers.

Due to stoop labor, pesticide dangers, transportation and farm equipment injuries, among other hazards, farm work is considered to be one of the five most dangerous occupations in the nation.

Farm workers stoop down for many hours a day to pick tomatoes, strawberries, and other fruits and vegetables. Stoop labor causes many back injuries due to the constant strain.

Fruit pickers often climb high ladders while carrying bags that weigh up to 95 pounds when full. A typical citrus worker harvests fruit from a ladder of 18 to 20 feet in length, picking three to five tons of fruit per day. Many injuries occur when workers fall from trees, or strain backs due to heavy loads they must carry.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that as many as 300,000 farm workers are poisoned each year by pesticides. Farm workers suffer the highest rate of chemical-related illness of any occupational group; growers regularly use deadly chemicals such as methyl bromide, which is banned in other industries.

Studying in over crowded classroms (25+) with / or without text books that they can take home. According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the "AVERAGE" American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day. Fast food establishment typically have 300% to 400% turn over in employees per year because after 90 days they are entitled to benefits.

And so migrant labor, legal and illegal, subsidise the richest country in the world? With respect to the illegals from Mexico, this would be because the US ships its' cheap subsidized corn to Mexico, putting Mexican farmers and workers out of work.

Not a bad idea on a small farm, where there may be a mix of produce, but how do you feed your family with an extra ten pounds of broccoli?

You may want to investigate no-till lasagna gardening. Reasoning being that turning the soil kills worms and drives away any survivors. Worms nourish the plants and ventilate the soil. Check out "Teaming with Microbes" from your local library for a fuller explanation of soil communities (flora and fauna).

Six acres of gardens, livestock, and handicap access?(Yes JoeSB, it's not a sentence. OK?) Sounds like reality check time. Don't want to rain on your parade but you should plan on doing less in the future. (It's just the way that it is.) At least focus on what you want to do most, that you will be able to do when you're too old and silly to do anything else;-)

Yeah, we live in a fascist state, but don't get me started. Mi amigo Charlie and I wailed and complained about our fascist kleptocracy in Washington D.C. for the better part of a year. Now Naomi Kline has come out with a book, "The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot" and will get paid for printing what Charlie and I were muttering about in newsgroups.

Enjoy freedom while you can, before it gets privatized.