| scottie said: Hmm, re-read your posts. It seems you weren't being rude after all. I'm not sure whether I earlier misinterpreted something or not, either way, ignore that. Droughts I think are one of the biggest examples of how farmers need to prepare for the future and not overwork the soil. All the farms I've seen are Australian, and they manage to do well even in drought. The Australian rice farmers, however, do not. I have no idea how much water wheat/corn use, so that may or may not be a case of people planting the wrong crop (and yes, I know the subsidies are there to encourage people to plant them, which I agree is stupid). Going even more off topic, ethanol from biomass isn't necessarily bad. Growing crops specifically for the point of producing ethanol is, but growing crops for some other purpose, and then using the material that would otherwise be wasted for ethanol can be very good. A woodmill I went to used to waste ludicrous amounts of sawdust each year - the transport costs were higher than the value of the sawdust. So they installed an ethanol generator and used it to power part of the plant. But I still stand by my claim that if you don't have the capital to plan your farm for the future, you probably shouldn't be farming. |
Hey, no worries about the misinterpretation, tone of voice is difficult to convey on the internet. Anyway, I think we have discussed this to death, but I do agree that smart planning is vital. However, it is never fun watching your rainy day fund being wiped out by natural causes.
FYI, wheat is a staple crop of the midwestern USA, with hard red winter wheat being grown in TX, OK, KS, NE etc. and spring wheat sometimes being grown farther east. Actualy, until hard red winter wheat, there was little that could consistantly be grown in some of those places. Over the years, the "bread basket of America" was responcible for most of the wheat production... and feeding millions and millions of people.
I agree about biofuels... but I do feel sorry for the people who can no longer afford to make tortillas because of the price of corn (again I wish I was making this up).
Also, I had no idea that rice could even be grown in Australia... I never thought the climate would be wet enough. That's a new fact for the day.
