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And yet, according to you, each and everyone of them grow superb gardens. I guess I should stop trusting my eyes, because lawn grass is the most popular kind of garden one can find in rural areas.
Take another drive around rural NW Ohio during the summer... go down some two-lane highways.. where do you think all those wagons on the side of the road with tin cans for money get their squash, sweetcorn, muskmelon, radishes, etc? Shipped from California? Give me a break. Apparently you can't trust your eyes.
That's quite imagination you have running over there. I should disregard what my eyes see and imagine all those crops you mentioned. Ahem, you should update your Encyclopedia stash or travel for somebody's sake. I used to have 1950s short Encyclopedia that describes colorful veggie agriculture going on in my area. And yet, as of 2012 everything is gone, just corn, just soybeans, occasional wheat field. Dust your encyclopedias off and recycle, save the Earth, OK?
Haha this is starting to get comical. Ok fine... your right.. the local schools don't host migrant school in the summer, there aren't fields full of 14,000 migrants picking tomatos & peppers, cucumbers, etc (http://www.toledoblade.com/Medical/2...le-clinic.html), Cambell's soup, Conagra, and Heinz have their main plants in the area and ship everything in from Chile (despite claiming 60% is grown in NW Ohio http://ourohio.org/index.php?page=ca...y-s-ohio-roots), and the orchards are a figment of imagination, because your eyes don't see these things from whatever Ohio city you must live in. I don't have to travel... I have lived there... for 22 years.. but, fine... you win.
If your job involves 30 miles radius travel and you post what you post than you must have very selective vision. If you have superb knowledge of agriculture SHOW IT for a change, at least once, please. So far you showed that you don't know what allegory is (not a big deal) and that you know little about your area prior to arrival of agriculture to grasp how deprived of life your cornfield paradise is. It's not a discussion of MN agricultural specialization, I know quite a bit about absurd specialization of American agriculture, and that's why I advise city folks against raiding your typical rural areas, in all probability, there is little or no edible food there. You have a gift to read what is not written. I was saying nothing about who runs food stamp programs, I was saying in no uncertain terms that significant portion of farmers receive food stamps. And yet, according to you, each and everyone of them grow superb gardens. I guess I should stop trusting my eyes, because lawn grass is the most popular kind of garden one can find in rural areas.
Look... you need to come up with something that isn't ridiculous BS, or just give it a rest.
Ya I don't understand the desert thing at all. Stop growing corn/beans/etc there, and it will grow up in trees or grassland... I've seen it happen, what do you think alot of CRP land used to be? Is it a "desert" only when its home to large acreage of beans and corn? What about the thousands of acres of orchards in upstate New York harvesting for mass production at Motts? Is that an Apple Desert?
I would assume so, yes.
Perhaps the vast fields of sunflowers in Kansas are a Sunflower Desert? Or the Idaho potato fields are a Potato Desert? I'm sure there are several Cotton Deserts in the South. And let's not forget those Wine Deserts out north of San Francisco. I suppose I should also assume that all those alfalfa hay bales I see out on my dad's farm are figments of my imagination. After all, he lives in the "Corn & Soybean Desert."
Basically, most farmers grow what their "area" of the country can grow, and what there is a market for. It's not too hard to figure out.
Ehemmm... I'm not talking about ANY generalities. I'm giving you specific examples, and details. I'm asking you specific questions, NONE of which you can answer.
So I'll ask you one of the questions you refused to answer, one last time: WHY DON'T FARMERS GRAZE CATTLE ON PRIME TILLABLE FARM GROUND?
I'll be patiently awaiting your forthcoming non-answer.
You are talking generalities, you are right, I'm wrong, and this sort of things without offering any arguments whatsoever. I don't know what grazing cattle has to do with this topic. Answer is obvious, specialized farmers maximize $ by growing specialized crops on the same field year after year after year, all crop rotations, nutrients, soil health and dying Mexican Gulf be damned, commodity speculators define crop rotations these days, chemical industry supply bonanza of fertilizers and poisons to keep insanity going.
Yet, more meaningful question to ask would be: WHY DID FARMERS OF THE PAST GRAZE CATTLE ON PRIME TILLABLE FARM GROUND? WHO BENEFITS OF SEPARATION OF CATTLE and FARM LAND? ARE CAFOs and super specialized agriculture crimes AGAINST sanity, Land and FUTURE GENERATIONs, and so on.
You are talking generalities, you are right, I'm wrong, and this sort of things without offering any arguments whatsoever. I don't know what grazing cattle has to do with this topic. Answer is obvious, specialized farmers maximize $ by growing specialized crops on the same field year after year after year, all crop rotations, nutrients, soil health and dying Mexican Gulf be damned, commodity speculators define crop rotations these days, chemical industry supply bonanza of fertilizers and poisons to keep insanity going.
Yet, more meaningful question to ask would be: WHY DID FARMERS OF THE PAST GRAZE CATTLE ON PRIME TILLABLE FARM GROUND? WHO BENEFITS OF SEPARATION OF CATTLE and FARM LAND? ARE CAFOs and super specialized agriculture crimes AGAINST sanity, Land and FUTURE GENERATIONs, and so on.
First of all, farmers of the past did NOT graze cattle on prime tillable farm ground. They grazed their cattle on hilly ground and/or rocky ground that is less suitable for tillage. And that is exactly the same as today. It's making the most of their available resources.
Here was one of your previous, incredulous claims: "There are no cattle being grazed, because nothing can grow out in 'the desert' but corn and soybeans."
In response to that asinine claim, I asked you why farmers don't graze cattle on prime farm ground. Your answer (finally) to that question was a complete contradiction of what you first claimed.
Farmers do not graze cattle on prime tillable farm ground for economic reasons. It has NOTHING to do with that ground not being able to grow anything but corn and soybeans.
Perhaps the vast fields of sunflowers in Kansas are a Sunflower Desert? Or the Idaho potato fields are a Potato Desert? I'm sure there are several Cotton Deserts in the South. And let's not forget those Wine Deserts out north of San Francisco. I suppose I should also assume that all those alfalfa hay bales I see out on my dad's farm are figments of my imagination. After all, he lives in the "Corn & Soybean Desert."
Basically, most farmers grow what their "area" of the country can grow, and what there is a market for. It's not too hard to figure out.
Yes, 100% monoculture fields are way more deserty than deserts proper. A desert is a feast of life compared to your typical monoculture field of today. NY apple orchard allows for grass and weeds, as far as I remember. CA orchards, as a rule are deserts, pure and simple deserts devoid of non crop life. Compare the number of animals/plants per acre before and after onset of agriculture. It's merciless Holocaust of life.
Yet, in the past, when agriculture was not so ruthlessly commercialized, mechanized, chemistry dependent and scientific many life forms managed to coexists with crop fields somehow, this created unforgettable rural charm not speaking of ecological aspects of it. Typical modern prime farm landscape creates impression of sterility and doom. Forget about distant past, compare a modern field to 1940th field, modern rural area to 1940th rural area. Multifaceted impoverishment of modern rural areas is obvious, even for those who grew up in corn caves. So let's apply even more potent poisons so nothing but monoculture crops and a few superweeds could survive, right? Live and let live, we forgot about this, and payback will be a biatch.
Yes, 100% monoculture fields are way more deserty than deserts proper. A desert is a feast of life compared to your typical monoculture field of today. NY apple orchard allows for grass and weeds, as far as I remember. CA orchards, as a rule are deserts, pure and simple deserts devoid of non crop life. Compare the number of animals/plants per acre before and after onset of agriculture. It's merciless Holocaust of life.
Yet, in the past, when agriculture was not so ruthlessly commercialized, mechanized, chemistry dependent and scientific many life forms managed to coexists with crop fields somehow, this created unforgettable rural charm not speaking of ecological aspects of it. Typical modern prime farm landscape creates impression of sterility and doom. Forget about distant past, compare a modern field to 1940th field, modern rural area to 1940th rural area. Multifaceted impoverishment of modern rural areas is obvious, even for those who grew up in corn caves. So let's apply even more potent poisons so nothing but monoculture crops and a few superweeds could survive, right? Live and let live, we forgot about this, and payback will be a biatch.
You've got quite an imagination. Too bad your imagination is so off-based.
But I'll play along for a moment... Let's take the Good Old Days - you know, back to the Golden Age of American Agriculture. Let's go back to the 1930s. Tell me about all the wonderful, beautiful things you see.
First of all, farmers of the past did NOT graze cattle on prime tillable farm ground. They grazed their cattle on hilly ground and/or rocky ground that is less suitable for tillage. And that is exactly the same as today. It's making the most of their available resources.
Don't be ridiculous. American land ownership didn't and doesn't allow for communal property, you graze on the land you owned/rented. You own prime land, you graze prime land, and in many areas there is nothing but prime land around.
Quote:
Here was one of your previous, incredulous claims: "There are no cattle being grazed, because nothing can grow out in 'the desert' but corn and soybeans."
You capacity for abstract thinking is somewhat diminished, I should not have used allegorical language. These inconsistency "accusations" are ridiculous to the bone, you can't be serious, can you? It's understood by default that lots of things can grow in theory IF humans didn't create a man made corn and soybean deserts.
Haha this is starting to get comical. Ok fine... your right.. the local schools don't host migrant school in the summer, there aren't fields full of 14,000 migrants picking tomatos & peppers, cucumbers, etc (Migrant workers line up for care at mobile clinic - Toledo Blade), Cambell's soup, Conagra, and Heinz have their main plants in the area and ship everything in from Chile (despite claiming 60% is grown in NW Ohio Our Ohio - campbell soup company), and the orchards are a figment of imagination, because your eyes don't see these things from whatever Ohio city you must live in. I don't have to travel... I have lived there... for 22 years.. but, fine... you win.
Does probability and statistics ring a bell to you? If so, take a pen and a map of NW Ohio, close your eyes and hit a map of NW Ohio with a pen. 95% chance (warning, it's a figure of speech indicating large number) you'll hit corn or soybean area. But as long as 5% remain corn free, you've made your point right? Yes, I'm aware that NW used to have black muck soils left after swamps were dried up (those soils are almost gone as of 2012) this is why NW was on the vegetable growing map. NO MORE. There are a few remaining fields and orchards as well as processing infrastructure here and there, but for all practical statistical purposes when you hear NW Ohio think corn and Soybeans, clay, sewage like rivers and floods, everything else is secondary thin icing.
I'm indeed aware of 50 acre "family" orchard (that uses 2 units of Mexican labor) and maybe 10-20 acre tomato field 5 miles north of the town I used to live. Also, there is big patch of muck soil SW of Willard that has primitive migrant housing and less than impressive yields and variety (especially this dry year). Honesty, I wonder how they stay in business with crops and yields like that. Those are exceptions I'm aware of. Therefore, as long as there are a few exceptions here and there, I'm technically wrong, right? Keep in mind that I traveled the most obscure NW Ohio roads, and I can vouch that no lush vegetable fields and orchards are hidden in the depth of the country.
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