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The Future of Farming
THE FUTURE OF FARMING
Timothy Gertson comes from a lineage of farmers. His grandfather, father, and three uncles currently own Gertson Farms Partnership in Lissie. Gertson and his cousin co-own their own business, G5 Farms, and have land in Fort Bend, Colorado, and Wharton counties. Agriculture is in his blood. Yet even for a man with years of experience under his belt, the shift from conventional to organic agriculture was a veritable obstacle course. And he’s only growing one crop. When Timothy Gertson finally finished downloading nearly eighty pages of forms from the Texas Department of Agriculture, filling them out the old-fashioned way—by hand—and submitting them, he was one step closer to obtaining a shiny badge of agricultural prestige: a certification for producing organic field corn. “I’m not going to lie,” Gertson says. “It’s pretty intense.”
Organic farming in the United States is an entirely different aspect, one that comes with natural barriers and processes in order to achieve certification. Along with the paperwork, there are fees, which can range from a few hundreds of dollars to a few thousand. The submission seeks detailed catalog of all substances used on the land during a three-year period. Further a written Organic System Plan describing the practices and substances to be used is also required in the application process. These measures must be fulfilled before the first seed hits the soil. And from there the real work begins. The National Organic Program, the regulatory entity within the U.S. Department of Agriculture states that the transition period for farmers switching to certified organic produce takes 36 months, and it’s only after that period that they can market their produce as organic so long as the crop can survive through the complicated process of replenishing nutrients in the soil.
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Study Indicate That Organic and Sustainable Agriculture Can Feed the Planet
STUDY INDICATE THAT ORGANIC AND SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE CAN FEED THE PLANET
The report, Organic Agriculture for the 21st Century, authored by Washington State University Regents Professor of Soil Science and Agroecology John Reganold and doctoral student Jonathan Wachter, looks at the efficacy of organic and non-organic farming according to the four pillars of sustainability: economics, environment, productivity and community well-being. Organic production currently accounts for only one percent of global agricultural land, despite rapid growth in the last two decades.
Organic agriculture, sometimes called biological or ecological agriculture, combines traditional conservation farming methods with modern farming technologies. It emphasizes rotating crops, managing pests naturally, diversifying crops and livestock, and improving the soil with compost additions and animal and green manures. Organic farmers use modern equipment, improved crop varieties, soil and water conservation practices, and the latest innovations in feeding and handling livestock. Organic farming systems range from strict closed-cycle systems that go beyond organic certification guidelines by limiting external inputs as much as possible to more standard systems that simply follow organic certification guidelines.
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How Corporations are Being Removed From the Food Supply
HOW THE CORPORATIONS ARE BEING REMOVED FROM THE FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN
The Poverty of Capitalism
The above quote is made by John Hilary, director of the NGO War on Want sums it all in his recent book The Poverty of Capitalism. The industrial food system is characterized by economic focus through an outgrowth of a long and on-going process that has allowed major agribusinesses—companies that supply the chemicals, seeds, equipment and services that are critical to industrial farms—to greatly determine and influence the modern food system. It’s estimated that in 2004 only 8% of farms in the US accounted for 72% of sales.
Further, the top ten seed firms were estimated to control the entire world seed market and the top ten agrochemical corporations controlled 84% of the $30 billion agrochemical market. Further, only six corporations – Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, Syngenta, Bayer and BASF – control 75% of the world pesticides market, Factory farms now account for 72 percent of poultry production, 43 percent of egg production, and 55 percent of pork production worldwide and only four corporations – ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Dreyfus – control more than 75% of the global grain trade who overwhelmingly push commodity crops like corn and soy on local farmers at the expense of native crops.
The major aim of most of these agri-corporations the world over is to earn profit through their operations. They are more concerned with their own interests and not those of the public. The policies of these organizations are usually profit oriented. The underlying policy is profit making leaving other superficial benefits constant. With the hegemony of transnational food corporations, food production has been reduced to becoming a model of profit generation instead of producing quality food production. Food is considered to be one of the basic requirements for humans to survive, and agriculture is one of the largest employers/ occupations in the world.
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