Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: Notesfiles; site ea.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!ea!kel
From: kel@ea.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Down on the farm - (nf)
Message-ID: <10100078@ea.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Aug-84 17:46:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ea.10100078
Posted: Wed Aug  8 17:46:00 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Aug-84 06:53:22 EDT
References: <238@siemens.UUCP>
Lines: 51
Nf-ID: #R:siemens:-23800:ea:10100078:000:2305
Nf-From: ea!kel    Aug  8 16:46:00 1984

#R:siemens:-23800:ea:10100078:000:2305
ea!kel    Aug  8 16:46:00 1984

[hiccup]

Since we have gotten onto the topic of farm management,
it may be of interest to note that much of the massive
agri-business phenomenon may be directly attributed to
the attitudes and practices of the federal government,
specifically the Department of Agriculture.  DOA (sic)
consistently and methodically has provided the results
of their tax funded research to only the biggest farms
for field testing.  This is (according to Ken Meier, a
South Dakota agri-businessman's son become political
scientist at the University of Oklahoma) a result of a
myth held within the bureaucracy that bigger farms are
more efficient farms.

Furthermore, DOA has focused its activities at the behest
of the free market, produciing certain deleterious effects.
Government research has focused on the quantity of food
produced per unit of land to the exclusion of quality
considerations.  Case in point: The mechanical tomato
harvesting system.  Tomatoes, as evolved and existing
in nature, are not suitable fruit for mechanical (thus
high volume) harvest.  They are entirely too delicate
to withstand the physical abuse involved in mas harvest,
i.e., handling by unfeeling (tactilely nonsensitive)
mechanical fingers and the forces that result from
all phases of traditional mechanical mass harvest.
DOA set out, nonetheless, to create a tomato harvesting
machine.  (Aside: the very notion of mass harvesting
of tomatoes implies a presupposition that mass harvest
by machine is more efficient than hand harvest: a
definitely assailable presumption.)  After years and
millions of dollars of research, (I can get specifics
for those of you who feel they must flame) the machine
was invented, and it was discovered that the thing
smashed most of the tomatoes it handled (>80%).  The
answer: build a better tomato.  As you may have guessed,
if you do your own shopping, DOA did indeed make a "better"
tomato: one that can stand up to the rigors of mechanical
fingers, being dropped 36" into a metal bin, and having
more tomatoes dropped a similar distance on top of it.
This product was, however, a compromise: the tomatoes
that can be picked by machine, and thus show up in your
local supermarket, have approximately 50% of the nutri-
tional value of the older, hand picked variety.

Your tax dollars at work,
Ken