Some Observations in a Story About Farm Runoff

Health Ills Abound as Farm Runoff Fouls Wells - Series - NYTimes.com

In Morrison, more than 100 wells were polluted by agricultural runoff within a few months, according to local officials.

Sounds pretty bad! This is a real problem with real consequences!

Yet runoff from all but the largest farms is essentially unregulated by many of the federal laws intended to prevent pollution and protect drinking water sources.

Hmm, why is "regulation" the first thing that comes to mind when rectifying a problem like this? Don't we all have an incentive to have clean drinking water?

...many of the agricultural pollutants that contaminate drinking water sources are often subject only to state or county regulations.And those laws have failed to protect some residents living nearby.

The tone here is surprising - the poor people are only protected by local regulations, not federal regulations. But, why indeed are local regulations not protecting the local residents?

To address this problem, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has created special rules for the biggest farms, like those with at least 700 cows.

Yay, feds to the rescue!

But thousands of large animal feedlots that should be regulated by those rules are effectively ignored because farmers never file paperwork

Boo! Paperwork!

And regulations passed during the administration of President George W. Bush allow many of those farms to self-certify that they will not pollute, and thereby largely escape regulation.

The tone here is interesting. "Self certify", "George Bush", "escape regulation". I think Bush was the worst president we ever had, but I do not feel that self-certification is a ticket to escaping regulation. I applaud anything that encourages self determination.

In Arkansas and Maryland, residents have accused chicken farm owners of polluting drinking water. In 2005, Oklahoma’s attorney general sued 13 poultry companies, claiming they had damaged one of the state’s most important watersheds.

Yay, the people are calling out these polluters!

It is often difficult to definitively link a specific instance of disease to one particular cause, like water pollution. Even when tests show that drinking water is polluted, it can be hard to pinpoint the source of the contamination.

The tests won't prove what is obvious to the people - like the brain not understanding what the heart knows. In a functional society, we listen to all intelligence. In this case the people know. It is obvious to everyone, including the polluters, the attorneys, the judges, and the local folks.

How Easy Credit Fuels Housing Bubble

I like this short article on the financial crisis - it leaves out the CDWs and other exotic financial instruments, and instead focuses on something closer to home for most of us - household debt.

First, the availability of cheap mortgages increases the demand for housing, which can push up house prices. In turn, as demand increases and house prices go higher, lenders become overconfident. They then begin offering mortgage credit on even cheaper terms, fueling a violent cycle where household valuations become increasingly unrealistic. In such a credit cycle, the growth in house prices reflects cheap debt, not the underlying earnings power of households.

The rest of the article is here: Lessons From The Fall: Household Debt Got Us Into This Mess - Planet Money Blog : NPR

Buying Land

Just had to reprint this message from Toby Hemmenway, my permaculture teacher, so I don't lose it!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Toby Hemenway
To: permaculture
Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:04:03 -0700
Subject: Re: [permaculture] how to acquire land
Notes from my own experience and observations: In acquiring land, think carefully and honestly about what your goals are. In general, I urge buying the best soil and water you can afford (having once had steep land with heavy, exhausted soil and not much water). Yes, soil can be rehabilitated, in 5-10 years. And water can be harvested and stored, after swaling and pond building. But you will get a big head start by beginning with good soil and access to water, and can invest your energy in producing and enhancing habitat, rather than rehabilitation.

How much land do you really need? If your goal is self-reliant food production, an acre or three is more than enough; really, a half acre will produce vast amounts. Or do you want more land to have privacy and control? Those are two very different goals. I once thought I wanted lots of land to manage, but I really wanted solitude. You don't need to own the land for that, and it just makes more work and higher taxes.

I'm familiar with Ran Prieur's project, and he spends most of his time working very hard on rehabilitation and dealing with the problems of acreage, and not so much, it seems, on actually improving (in the sense of building and planting) and producing on his place. He's been working there 5 years, lost and is still losing a huge proportion of his plantings, and doesn't have buildings up yet AFAIK. If just working hard on land is what you enjoy, that's fine. Or if rehabilitation is your goal, rather than production, get an exhausted or cut-over piece. But rehab is a lot more work, takes a longer timeframe before yields become apparent, and will take up a larger proportion of your time than growing food if you try to do both.

Community is very important. Eventually you will start being affected by your neighbors, and many parts of the country where land is cheap have inhabitants who may not share your values. At some point that will probably get to you.

I get a lot of consulting calls to look at steep, cut-over land in remote locations, and when I see how hard the people there have worked to get so little, my heart aches. Any savvy farmer wouldn't go near those places. City folk with dreams buy them. And my recommendation, if I'm blunt, is to move to better land.

You get what you pay for. From my own hard-earned experience, I'd rather have a small piece of good, level land with ample water near a supportive community than a big piece of burnt-out land in an unsupportive area.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com