Posted on 12/08/2012 8:33:04 AM PST by KeyLargo
USDA chief: Rural America becoming less relevant
By MARY CLARE JALONICK Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has some harsh words for rural America: It's "becoming less and less relevant," he says.
A month after an election that Democrats won even as rural parts of the country voted overwhelmingly Republican, the former Democratic governor of Iowa told farm belt leaders this past week that he's frustrated with their internecine squabbles and says they need to be more strategic in picking their political fights.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Even if the population of the cities managed to get enough veggies, grain and meat for sustenance from captive blue states like California, living in the Tokyo-like crowded conditions, where no one has much contact with soil or live plants, breeds germs they will have no resistance or immunity to-it has already happened several times in recorded history, but apparently we are slow learners.
It is both mentally and physically unhealthy for humans to live in hives-we are not bees-but many people choose to ignore that because everything is so close and convenient.
The Industrial Revolution started with people abandoning rural pursuits and moving to cities where the factory jobs were. The reasons haven't changed much since then.
Today if you want to leave the city where'd you go? You need to own a property - a farm, a ranch - to live there. And if you live there you probably have to work the land too, or else what are you going to live on? Farms are not cheap; a usable farm may cost more than a restaurant in a city. Even ignoring the fact that city dwellers have no agricultural skills, they simply don't have the money - and if they suddenly get rich en masse then there aren't enough farms on the market for them all. Farms must have plenty of land, and all that land had been divided up a long time ago. They don't make new land these days.
Cities avoid this problem. They can generate more jobs (if they want to.) All kinds of jobs are available, not just pulling up on the stalks to help them grow faster. Housing is available to anyone who can pay (and some to those who can't.) As you say, it's a hive - but a hive is a pretty safe place to be at, for bees and for humans alike.
The population of rural areas cannot grow because it is limited by the size of available land. Mechanization of labor generates free hands (children of farmers) who must go to cities in search of work. Otherwise the family grows but the income from the fixed land does not. This means that the rural population is linked to the land size, and tends to shrink a bit over time because of mechanization, and because of loss of use of some old farms, and because of lack of water... all the growth is in the cities because hives are good at growth. Since that's where all the voters are, politicians cater to them and buy their votes left and right. Farmers' opinion does not matter in a democracy; and democracy is what we are supposed to have here. Democracies depend on honesty of the majority to not oppress the minority. But, as Zimbabwe demonstrates, the majority is not always honest and fair.
“synthesize all our food out of soy beans”
RACIST! Doesn’t he know that a slang word for Mexican is “bean” or “beaner”?
Much of my family has been very small ranchers in south Texas for well over 200 years, or are otherwise self employed-mostly smalltime sub contractors, like me-nothing big or fancy, just enough to get by, but we like it.
The large-scale farming and ranching operations that feed the masses are south of the here, where the land is flatter and more fertile-but here, on less than an acre, you can grow enough to eat and barter, and there are grocery and general stores in rural communities-we may be rural, but we’re not dumb-we know how to grab that weekend tourist fisherman looking for tackle and bait as well as stocking stoneground wholewheat flour and free-range meats for natural living nuts like me...
I live in a remote area, in spite of it being within 30 miles of SA. Enough usable property for food or livestock on a small scale here isn’t nearly as expensive as a city restaurant-neither is a rural restaurant-city property is way more expensive, but here you do have to put up with a well for water, a septic system, unpaved roads, etc. But there is no giant city service bureaucracy, either-everything in life is a trade-out, after all.
There are plenty of places for sale cheap that belonged to city people who had no agricultural skills, but wanted to rough it-they usually last until the first big thunderstorm that floods the (steep) road so they can’t get out, or the first cold winter where snow/ice makes the same road impassable for a few hours. Unfortunately, they have left quite a few empty summer cabins and homes, but at least they are gone.
I grew up on, and spent part of my adult life on a ranch-as you said, it isn’t the place for anyone who has only lived in an urban/suburban environment.
Black men cannot run Africa..... and that is without dissent, and all black.... and they havenet had one success yet. Historically speaking, they have NEVER enjoyed civilization.
One might say the :great zimbabwe”, but, I would speculate the apparent wealth, ideas and successes were probably founded on selling the neighboring tribe into slavery.
Today? They are still grounded in tribalism thus “still too close to the earth.” Actually thats still being too polite. On their own, they are not farmers. Never have been.... Never really had to. Thus warring and raiding/ when it isnt raining, is what they are all about. The way tribes get ahead is just like the tibal mentality of Islam, you get ahead by raiding.
Like Obama is doing to America today.
Sarah Palin referred to the people who grow our food and fight our wars, but as we saw a month ago there just aren’t enough of them (and the soldier thing applies to cities & suburbs as well).
General Franco won the war in Spain because the communist agitators in the cities weren’t “hands-on” working people; the countryside (which supported Franco and the generals) starved them out in the end...
So who was going to "synthesize" the soy beans?
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