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