Science Forums 2

[lemit]

I hadn't noticed this thread before now.

I don't know if it helps, but I've asked my member of Congress--a member of the Agriculture Committee--to help stop the payments I get for doing nothing. Those payments are based on soil conservation, but soil conservation should be part of farming anyway. (Modern corporate farming depends on pumping chemicals onto the surface of the land in hopes of getting a single, high-yield crop out of them.)

The current system makes no sense. I get about $5000 a year from it. I would be very happy to forfeit that income to make the land productive in the way it was when I was growing up: using animal waste for fertilizer and using grasses and legumes to feed the animals and build up the soil so it could support row crops and be ready to begin the cycle again.

Of course, as long as people who make more money than I do--pretty much everybody in the system--aren't interested in changing things, nothing will happen.

--lemit