Comment 42611

By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted June 29, 2010 at 20:57:08

If we want jobs in agricultural areas, why did we let the area's last soft fruit canning plant close?

And in general, why has the main priority of the last hundred years in agricultural making it require LESS labour (which tends to exact enormous costs in terms of oil)? Small-farms in Canada have had a negative average income for several years now (though things may now be changing). Why not FARM this land? Labour-intensive growing methods are far more sustainable, use far less energy (organic or otherwise), and produce much higher yields per acre. Oh, and more jobs.

Plan B, one of the closest Organics operations, ran the nation's biggest CSA (in number of shares) on something like 48 acres. And while many conventional industrial farms in the area have to mistreat Mexican guest workers, farms like Plan B have university students lining up to intern or work there, and many have since gone on to run their own farms.

And yet nearly every aspect of our nation's policies still favours large industrial farms, from the government to the banks to the buying practices of big supermarket chains. If not, a key aspect of suburban development (small farms going broke and having to sell to developers) would be in danger. All of this is related, from the crappy labour jobs the farmers kids have to get in the cities (look at China right now) to the incredible (near 50% in some cases) drop in nutrients in vegetable crops.

"Today, the notion of progress in a single line without goal or limit seems perhaps the most parochial notion of a very parochial century." — Lewis Mumford

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