The New Agricultural Revolution
The USDA Seal states: Agriculture is the Foundation of Manufacture and Commerce! This is clearly true and is a Foundational Truth for any System of Economic Thought. Food Acquisition is the most basic Central Process of Economic Functions and Commodities. Without food there is no Manufacturing or other Commerce possible. Without food, cars, health care, phones, housing and all manner of goods and services become irrelevant as starvation sets in. The USDA Seal is indeed Correct: Agriculture is the Foundation of Manufacture and Commerce!
Without Sound Agricultural Policy, our other Economic Problems cannot be solve: Manufacturing, Infrastructure, Health Care, Education Et Al. Sound Agriculture is the Basis of a Wealth Producing Economy. A Service Economy is not Wealth Producing. A Service Economy depends on Wealth Transfers and these Transfers are not Wealth Production.
Will the present Corporately Controlled American Agricultural System be able to "Feed the World" as they claim every time they try to explain away the Criticism of the Problems they are causing? The answer is obviously no.
Our present agricultural system is dying. Even if the present problems of both plant and animal industrial agriculture could be solved, which is highly improbable given the corporate-educational-governmental complex that controls it, the economic system surrounding and controlling the financial decisions of farmers and ranchers will bring agriculture down. The present agricultural system came into being under the leadership of Richard Nixon and Earl Butz in the late 1960's and early 1970's. It was chiefly characterized by an increase of petrodollars going towards foreign oil producers and away from the small towns and rural America where these dollars had previously supported vibrant local economies. Rural America was wealthy before the Nixon-Butz Policies. Rural America has become poorer and poorer since the Nixon-Butz Era.There is absolutely nothing on the horizon to indicate any change to this decline as long as the Nixon-Butz System continues its domination to the
benefit of Wall Street and their "Crony Capitalists" as opposed to Main Street and True Petty Bourgeois Capitalists and Entrepreneurs under Traditional American Political Values as opposed to either Modern Statist Socialism or Modern Corporate Fascism.
Plant Industrial Agriculture is fraught with problems. These include but are not limited to: soil erosion, monocultures with their attendant disease and pest problems, genetically modified foods, ground and surface water issues, usage of food products that may be harmful to the health of both humans and animals such as the over use of fructose in human diets, the problems of processed foods in general, destruction of biodiversity in the numbers of species and the number of varieties within a species leading to fewer consumer choices and a smaller genetic pool for scientific investigation leading towards benefits for humankind, issues concerning the carbon and nitrogen cycles along with other environmental and ecological issues, and the questionable efficiency of the amounts of food actually produced per unit of land or water resources. Unfortunately, plant farmers are locked into an economic system
from which they cannot escape due to the size of investment and the marketing and
processing systems with which they must integrate.
Animal Industrial Agriculture is also fraught with problems. These include but are not limited to: manure management of large confinement units of animal production, air quality and animal health problems of confinement units, the problems of the animal rights-animal welfare paradigm and it's attendant debate, poor usage of grasslands, forests, jungles, mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans and other natural environments wherein animals could grow more efficiently as pertaining to the natural resources of our mother earth, the lack of usage of lower animals such as insects and worms, et al which would be necessary for an Integrated Natural System of Animal Agriculture. Unfortunately, Corporate Animal Industrial Agriculture is locked into the same Economic System as Corporate Plant Industrial Agriculture.
What we need is a New Scientific Agriculture - a New Scientific System that is: Natural, Integrated, Regenerative, Restorative, Environmental, Ecological, Sustainable, Economical Agriculture (NIRREESE Agriculture). The Nixon-Butz Model of Agriculture is supported and
sustained only by Corporate Fascist and Statist Socialist Governance. The New Scientific Agriculture must be based on Petty Bourgeois Capitalism where large corporations cannot interfere with Individual Entrepreneurship. The New Agriculture must be based on the Traditional American Values of the Jeffersonian Ideal with the States and Localities as the "Laboratories of Democracy" as described by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. We must return to small family farms as suggested by Agricultural Secretary Ezra Taft Benson under President Eisenhower. However, the mistakes in agriculture that led to the"Dust Bowl" of the 1930's were corrected, at least to some degree, by Agricultural Secretary Henry Wallace. The mistakes that are leading to a worsening of the present problems and issues in agriculture must be reversed as rapidly as possible if we are to avoid catastrophe in our food supply.
New laws and regulations must replace those of the Nixon-Butz Model. New techniques based on sound science must replace those of both the Present Plant and Animal Industrial Agriculture.
Modern American Agriculture needs to be changed. The largest Hog Producer is a Chinese Owned Corporation rather than a Traditional American Family Farm. Family Farmers are rapidly becoming Tenets to Rich Absent Landlords. Work on Large Corporate Farms is largely done by Immigrant Wage Slaves in what amounts to Hugh Governmental Subsidies supported by Tax Payer Dollars.
This all is coming to a Head with President Trump and our Disastrous Trade Imbalances. With an annual Trade Deficit of $800 Billion, America has LOST the TRADE WAR! Trump is NOT CREATING A TRADE WAR. The Trade War started in the days of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. The USA has been losing this War since then and now to the Tune of $800
Billion Annually.
It is true there will be some Agricultural Disruptions as America returns to a more Sane and Traditional Economic Policy to foster Prosperity for all. Just as Cincinnati lost their status as “Porkopolis" before the Civil War due to the Union Forces blocking the Mississippi River then allowing Chicago to emerge as "Hog Butcher to the World" due to the building of railroads.
Trump is NOT THE CAUSE of Family Farming being transformed into Corporate Farming as this began in the late 1960's with the emergence of the Agricultural Policy of "Get Big or Get Out" under Nixon and his Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz of Purdue.
The shift from Family Farming to Corporate Farming with its concomitant problems of Foreign Ownership, Wage Slavery of Workers and Absent Landlords presents Agriculture with many of
the Same Problems that existed in the post Civil War Southern Agricultural Sharecropping. Poverty Increases and Progress Stagnates.
Trump did not start our present Trade War which began with the Liberal Progressive
Economic Theories of 50 years ago. Trump did not create the Agricultural Policies of "Get Big or Get Out" that accompanied these Theories. These Policies clearly destroyed Family Farming in favor of Corporate Farming. It is Simply Time to restore Family Farming with Sound Economic Policies.
