Food and the American Farmer

[foodnfoto]

Here are a couple interesting articles I ran across this past week about the difficulties faced by farmers who try to produce for the local market. It seems that the Farm Bill is hindering their efforts in some pretty outlandish ways.

If you care about this issue, please write to your congressman and state your views. Try to have some influence where you can.

My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables) - New York Times

This comes from Willie Nelson:

Take Action: Support a Better Farm Bill

One thing that I've been wondering about--
If Brazil is almost completely energy independent based on ethanol produced from sugar cane, why are our farmers jumping on the bandwagon to grow corn for ethanol? All the studies show that it takes as much or more oil to grow and produce ethanol from corn as it might save in CO2 emissions. Why are they growing corn, thus driving up the cost of wheat, when sorghum would be a better choice? Sorghum is very similar to sugar cane in the amount of sugar (for ethanol) it produces per acre-far more than corn. It's also a native grass that does not need pesticides and excessive fertilization for it to grow abundantly. It also grows just about anywhere in the US. Could it be that it's not a "commodity" crop without the subsidies afforded to corn farmers?

This is just bone headed in my view.

[phatch]

Corn for fuel is subsidized....