Against the Grain

I am stuck in the airport today. Luckily I have a copy of "Against the Grain" to read. This book was written by Richard Manning. He has been laying a case as to how the activity of agriculture has hijacked civilization. It is a good read.

One of the points he covers is that of subsidized agriculture in the United States. We all know that agriculture is heavily subsidized, and I for one used to think that this was an unfortunate necessity to preserve the way of life of American farmers. However, it is clear that the life of the american farmer is already unrecognizable from how it was 30, 40, 50 years ago. Modern corporate agriculture, the chief beneficiary of the subsidies, has displaced the self-sufficient, independant, clear thinking farmer.

Agriculture is not a closed system. It requires many inputs from the outside, mostly in the form of fertilizer. The fertilizer contains nitrogen, which helps to channel the crop's energy to producing big, ripe fruit. There used to be a problem when fruit got too big. In the case of wheat, it would get so big that the stem could not support it, so farmers had to moderate their application of manure and other nitrogen fertilizers. This problem has been mitigated by hybridization of wheat to product plants with smaller, stockier stems, that won't fall over.

The runoff from all this fertilizer is causing huge problems in our waterways. There is a part of the Gulf of Mexico called the "Dead Zone" - a place where nothing lives - that is caused by excess nitrogen in the water.

Farms used to include livestock, the manure of which would be used to fertilize the crops. In addition, some of the crop was saved each year for seed. Also, farms used to grow several crops, which would be rotated to preserve the nutrients in the soil. According to Manning, this has all changed. Seed is purchased each year from the big Ag companies - (e.g. Archer Daniels Midland, Monsanto). Fertilizer, produced from petroleum, is likewise purchased from outside. Crop rotations are not necessary as chemical applications can replenish the soil nutrients. Furthermore, government paychecks are super important to the farmer. He knows he can count on them when a crop fails, so he has an incentive to plant on poor land - he'll get payed anyway.