It is an interesting read. I've read most of Pollan's books and enjoyed them. It's interesting to hear the other viewpoint. I think the bottom line is that farming is a cut throat business. That's the reason we, gardeners, can't really grow our own vegetables cheaper than we can buy them at the supermarket or farmer's market. But there's other reasons for growing our own.

While I understand that many of us in the western world, and increasingly globally, eat fossil fuel foods there has to be some point where fossil fuels can no longer provide enough nitrogen to the soils. Certainly our supply of gas and oil will not last a thousand years or 500 years and maybe except for coal could be depleted within a century.

While it hasn't seemed to be much of a public topic since the 1970s, except in China, human overpopulation is a bigger problem for human societies. Trying to feed so many we are pushing Mother Nature pretty hard. She very well may push back and very hard.

Fascinating.

It nicely illustrates the difference between a farmer and a gardener, between what can be done -- with enough input of sweat -- on a small scale and what must be done to make a large scale work.

My husband and I both want to be more self-sufficient. But we want a homestead with high-speed internet, not a 3rd-world, subsistence farm in the midst of plenty. We want to be able to do things with our own hands, but not be obligated to do physical labor from dawn to dusk.

I believe that I do save money with my garden -- once you amortize large purchases such as fencing and tools over their likely lifespan. But I do it by growing almost exclusively crops that are either unsuited to mechanization (tomatoes), that the commercial varieties are decidedly inferior in flavor (tomatoes, green beans), that are too low-demand to benefit from the price reductions of competition (celariac, Armenian cukes), or that are so easily grown and so high-yielding in a small garden that they produce all out of proportion to the investment (summer squash, bush beans, collards, herbs).

If I were a farmer I couldn't shrug off pickleworm in the squash by just cutting out the bad spot -- I'd have to take some kind of anti-pest measure. I couldn't decide to just compost the hot-weather cukes -- I'd have to use shadecloth and plant varieties bred to be bitterfree instead of the picklers I think taste better than modern slicers.

I couldn't operate on my squash vines to get rid of the borers if I had acres and acres of the stuff.

And while I would like to have chickens because I like chickens I wouldn't expect a household-sized flock to produce eggs any cheaper than I can buy in the store.

"Farming has always been messy and painful, and bloody and dirty. It still is."

I completely agree!

Thanks for the link Lloyd. There are many pros and cons on the subject of conventional vs. organic food production. Mr. Hurst is obviously biased toward his business but there are other opinions. I'm sure there will always be both types and likely room for improvement for both as well. I wonder if big business is becoming concerned with the increase in consumer demand for organic foods.

IMO many food prices are too low. I know that's not something that's popular with most consumers but if you ask any rancher or farmer you'll hear reasons why. Prices of all inputs have increased gradually over many years but the price of the finished product has not increased as much. Difficult to have a good profit margin in that situation. The only ones who CAN compete in that system are the huge agri-businesses. Unfortunately their product is not always the best quality. Anyone who knows the difference between a home grown vine-ripened tomato and a pink, hard store-bought one will agree.

Eggs from chickens raised in your back yard and allowed to eat fresh foods such as bugs and greens produce much better tasting eggs. They may not be as cheap as store bought but there's no comparison in quality. I loved having chickens but they no longer fit our lifestyle.

It will be interesting to see how food production changes in the future. We are treading on very dangerous ground with some of the current practices.

This guy is part of the problem that we have. Food that is less nutritious than 50 years ago, cost of producing food (based on a non remewable system of petroleum), that must be greatly subsidised so we do not pay too much for our foods, and a major contributor to the pollution of our world.

Very good article. It illlustrates the tendency for authors to write about something they don't really know first hand. Who succeed by a better writing style or pick a topic that appeals to the popular culture. Like the curent fetish about "organic" food.

The article fails to really hash out and explain the monetary economics of family large scale farming, ignores the role that the Federal Government plays in subsidies - which is huge, and kind of muddles through a bit when talking about the 'biological economy' - the nitrogen, recycling manure, etc.

There is a considerable difference between the 'old' style family farm where they raise corn, soy, hay, and other crops in rotation, feed live stock with their home-produced grains and sell a bit of this and a bit of that, collect the manure under the barn and spread it themselves, and some 15,000 head hog farm owned by Smithfield where the feed arrives by the train load and there is a 150 acre manure lagoon out the back.

Or how chicken farms operate, where some sub-contracted farmer owns the chicken houses, does the feeding and watering and husbandry of tens of thousands of birds for 6-7 weeks, and then some company such as Tyson sends in their crew of 'catchers' who grab and bag the birds, haul them off to the factory, and then the 'farmer' uses a front loader to shovel out the litter and try to find some place to put it or something to do with it. There are, as the article mentions, some pretty cool ways of dealing with some of this waste - chicken manure/litter, if properly handled, can be fed to cattle and hogs. But not everyone does it.

Blake Hurst overstates his case. As a rhetorical technique, that might be understandable if the audience is willing to overlook the exaggerations, but he loses me with the hyperbole.

The American.com that this piece is published in is the web site for a neo-conservative think-tank called American Enterprise Institute. Many members (at least 20) of this think-tank served in Bush's administration.

I'm not convinced that farmers cannot produce food with organic techniques and be competitive. Blake Hurst himself is using no-till techniques, not because he wants to go organic, but because it's more profitable. And I know of a whole class of organic farmers who produce their product completely organically and are able to compete with the industrial farmers.

I don't understand why there is a rising attack on the organic movement. Why does he care? What purpose is served by the attack?

Some interesting comments.

I suspect some have their minds already made up waaaay before they read the article.

Lloyd

Thanks for the link, Lloyd.

Somebody said "this guy is part of the problem"...I think we are all part of the problem.
A local farmer wanted to go organic- I'm talking about a Mennonite who uses mules to pull equipment, sometimes gas powered- so he advertised for grass clippings and leaves. He shortly had fifty foot tall piles in his yard. The nearby development didn't like the sight or smell, so he got hit with legal restraints & cease and desist. If only he had put in more 28 hour days...