10 Organic Farming Trends That Can Make Your Life Better.....

[dragonlaurel]

You won't glow in the dark. You will quietly have a quadruple bypass or one of many types of cancer or diabetes or any of the other common lifestyle diseases. If you glowed, it would certainly get more attention. The damage comes later, and then it is blamed on saturated fat....which is hogwash. Pun intended.

Thank you - good point. When body systems start failing, people are more likely to believe that it was bad diet choices than to realize that their food may have been toxic. Lots of people don't even know what was done to their food.

 

[wifezilla]

Most countries pay 30-60% of their income on food.

Most countries have higher unemployment, higher entitlement rates, higher taxes... Just because some other country sucks doesn't me we have to suck too.

 

[Collector]

Most countries pay 30-60% of their income on food.

Most countries have higher unemployment, higher entitlement rates, higher taxes... Just because some other country sucks doesn't me we have to suck too.

X2


There is research out there suggesting that emmisions from corn based ethanol is worse than fossil feuls. Also at just 10% added to fuel will reduce fuel milage, which means you have to burn more. there are other things like celluoid ethanol that burn cleaner and are produced from by products, not creating them.
This is only an opinion for discussion.

 

[seedcorn]

ethanol is ethanol no matter what source it comes from. Gathering fiber to make ethanol produces a huge pile of material that has to be spread in fields. By product from ethanol made from corn is feed for animals.

Does ethanol cause pollution--CO2 but compared to fossil fuels (which I was taught 40 years ago would be gone by now) are much more pollutant in sulfurs, CO2 and other chemicals. Ethanol does not have the energy of fossil fuels. E85 gives me about 2 less miles per gallon than 87 fossil fuel. Costs about 20% less--until Gov. quits paying gas companies $.45/gallon to blend ethanol in.

I'm confused, you want cheaper food but yet don't want us to use the technology that makes for cheap food....can't have it both ways.

 

[Collector]

Corn prices are up 120% since 2005 when we started producing ethanol. Most celluoid ethanols can be produced post consumer, like wood chips and garbage things like that. Corn ethanol is also subsidized by the govt.

 

[seedcorn]

Corn prices are up 120% since 2005 when we started producing ethanol. Most celluoid ethanols can be produced post consumer, like wood chips and garbage things like that. Corn ethanol is also subsidized by the govt.

So what are you going to do with the by-products? Who is going to collect/process the wood chips, garbage, grasses? All ethanol is government subsidized as the oil companies are paid to blend it.

Corn prices go up, go down depending upon usage, supply, strength of dollar (that is current reason food prices are up for us, down for rest of world) & world wide government decisions. Depending on the dates you want to pick, I can also say corn prices are stable compared to 1984 prices.

American Ag has averaged over 150 bu/acre over last 2 years. Corn is over $5/bushel. Just imagine if we used open pollinated, no fertilizer, no pesticides (1930 technology when average yields were less than 50 bu/acre). Think food is high now?

Hogs use to convert at a 1 lb. of gain while eating 5# of grain, now whole herd averages are a little over 3:1. Poultry, use to be 4:1, now less than 2:1. All through selective breeding by dedicated animal breeders and use of simple genetic principles & better husbandry.

 

[Collector]

Dont get me wrong< I did state that I can see both sides Of issues . I can tell you though that Corn ethanol is unsustainable at levels any higher than they are now. Corn ethanol is not the end all answer to getting away from middle east oil, by any stretch of the imagination. And it is cutting into food grade crops How much I have no idea.

 

[lesa]

Collector- every time I see you sig line, I giggle! So true!

 

[seedcorn]

collector, I agree, ethanol will not come close to replacing fossil fuels. The industry came about because of 3 factors.

Oil companies were gouging the American public to the point ethanol became economically possible.

Corn prices were below cost of production, so Ag was looking for a way to increase usage.

Ethanol gave us less pollution so some urban areas mandated it be added to fossil fuels.

Cellulose ethanol is another option, the major problems are:

too much expense in getting the fiber.
too much expense to get rid of by products that are worthless currently.

 

[Collector]

I agree we have no way of processing these materials on the kind of scale that would be required. Corn ethanal is probably the easiest to extract and convert so that's what they are using. I definatly don't have any answers for the trouble we face these days. I do think that ethanol is going to be part of the plan going foreword though. It also helped the wheat farmers around here, they started getting much more per bushel than they had ever gotten before. So it did help their bottom line and unfortunately not mine.