Thread: News Stories
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Old 2013-01-11, 00:24   Link #25706
DonQuigleone
Knight Errant
 
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
Quote:
Originally Posted by GundamFan0083 View Post
You are correct Sugetsu that we could feed our populations just fine, if we could get the government to better support small farmers and get the monopolies out of the business of food entirely.

Also, I can vouch for the megacorp food industries (Specifically ConAgra) trying to corner water rights out here in Colorado. They have lobbied the state government to shut off water to private farmers.

Although, Monsanto is the biggest threat right now.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/news.cfm
I'm not going to comment one way or the other regarding specific megacorps, but I will say that people perhaps romanticize small farmers a bit too much. There is nothing inherently "better" about small scale farmers as compared to large scale ones. And if large scale farmers can produce more food, at good quality and more efficiently. Just as cars, pots and every other good in our lives can be produced at higher quality and more efficiently in an mass production industrial environment, the same goes for food.

The industrialization of food production brings efficiencies to food production just as Enclosure did centuries ago. A small scale farmer can't afford to make only a profit of 20,000k off his farm, but if that same plot was part of a larger industrialized farm, much lower margins can be sustained, due to lower labor requirements and economies of scale.

If you want to pay for this antiquated form of agriculture, pay for it with your wallet. Me, I'll take whatever is cheapest and of sufficient quality, regardless of who produces it.

Likewise, GMOs could also revolutionize agriculture, as we would be able to more precisely engineer better crops, rather then rely on the hit and miss method of plant breeding (Genetic modification and breeding are basically doing the same thing, the former simply has greater possibilities).
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