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agriculture

Right now the agricultural output from this country yields billions of dollars in trade,and keeping cost of food down. To do this there are large 'farms growing just one crop. as in 2 thousand acres of corn or make it soy beans etcetera. This depletes the soil which then calls for increased use of fertilizer. Might there be a way to farm (does not have to organic) but in a more traditional manner rotating crops & pasteur, keeping an area fallow for a season.? Will his be able to allow us to use food and still export and supply the asme level of food for the country?
yichel's profile
posted by yichel
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Many farmers use crop rotation to replenish the soil of nutrients that certain crops rob from the soil. Farmers out here use an every 3rd year planting of alfalfa to put nitrogen back into the soil.

But the lazy and more profitable way is to use artificial, chemical fertilizers.
pancho3's profile
posted by pancho3
4 months ago
Massive mono-culture also creates pests specific to that crop in huge numbers so that more pesticides need to be used . When smaller lots of different crops are interspersed there is much less of a pest problem .
posted by Dirck
4 months ago
Agri-business goes hand in hand with the chemical companies. The seed is genetically engineered to grow if and only if specific chemicals are used in the field. Here's a link to the trailer for a movie about the issue. view link If you have concerns over the direction this country and the world are headed, the movie is worth taking time to watch.
Lollykoko's profile
posted by Lollykoko
4 months ago
WSJ is talking about food. view link

paragraph 3 ** We're amidst a food crisis around the world. We cannot afford to squander supplies never mind the pursuant health costs to remedy those affected by tainted food. Moreover, in this tenuous economy, losing $200 million due to salmonella outbreak, as the farming industry has over the last few years, or $70 million as Kellogg Co. /quotes/comstock/13*!k/quotes/nls/k (K 51.71, -0.52, -0.10%) did due to a recall of peanut products this year, simply isn't in the best interest of economic recovery; it's more loss. ** more at link.
Lollykoko's profile
posted by Lollykoko
4 months ago
Losing millions of acres of prime farmland to useless subdivisions of now-empty McMansions doesn't help the food supply either .
posted by Dirck
4 months ago
Being rather urban oriented (as long as I can make a quick exit I have been against urban sprawl out into rural areas. A lot of this is the playing with zoning laws, as well as the city not being seen as livable. Although I har that has changed in N.Y.
yichel's profile
posted by yichel
4 months ago
There are some crops that are rotated -- peanuts and tobacco for one because tobacco depletes the soil so much of nitrogen that growing peanuts to fix nitrogen back in the soil is a necessity.

Agribusiness and the chemical companies married a long time back. Rotating crops would not only make sense to reduce the need for fertilizers and pesticides, but that would cut into the profits of the chemical companies like Monsanto and Dow. There is also the issue of subsidies for certain crops and I am unsure what the procedure, how complicated it would be to switch from one to the other.

In the area I am living now, we are over run with black widow spiders. Locals say that is because cotton was grown here decades ago. The cotton is gone, but the black widow spiders remain, year after year.
GothamGal's profile
posted by GothamGal
4 months ago
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