Article

2009-10-26 Science & Technology

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by tipper 2009-10-26 08:17|| || Front Page|| [11130 views ] Top

#1 The US is the agricultural superpower. Foes will discover why that matters.

One bad harvest due to a long winter driven late planting and very early frost will hammer the world worse than the oil embargo of the mid-70s for a fundamental commodity shortage.

Posted by Procopius2k 2009-10-26 09:51|| 2009-10-26 09:51|| Front Page Top

#2 Which is precisely why the left wants to remove agriculture from America - so we can be dependent on outside suppliers who can dictate terms to us. Because being dependent on foreign oil worked out so well.

Posted by gromky 2009-10-26 09:57|| ]">[ ] 2009-10-26 09:57|| Front Page Top

#3 I know. Double cheeseburger at the local McDonals went from $1.00 to $1.19 here in tucson. (We DO eat more that tacos and tortillas down here...)

Posted by borgboy 2009-10-26 11:55|| 2009-10-26 11:55|| Front Page Top

#4 Let's never ignore the near universal Big Mac Index of economic indicators.

Posted by Procopius2k 2009-10-26 12:33|| 2009-10-26 12:33|| Front Page Top

#5 So how do you use Big Mac Index for India?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2009-10-26 12:38|| 2009-10-26 12:38|| Front Page Top

#6 Which is precisely why the left wants to remove agriculture from America

The left wants to remove agriculture from America because independent farmers are the most Conservative (capital C intended) and patriotic among small business owners---who're more Conservative & patriotic than the rest of society.
Has something to do with living close to basics, IMO.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2009-10-26 12:43|| 2009-10-26 12:43|| Front Page Top

#7 During the Great Depression, even with the Dust Bowl, one of the biggest problems was too much food. Wheat was 25 cents a bushel and farmers burned corn for fuel. At the same time, because of deflation, nobody had any money to buy the overabundant food.

Importantly, this was before the green revolution, so farmers had little or no fertilizer, pesticide, or even irrigation other than by windmill.

Today the biggest barrier to going back to that form of agriculture is a lack of fresh water. But if we could get the water there, by whatever means, we could lose a third of all food to insects and still have an overabundance.

Much of our farmland is idle.

Posted by Anonymoose 2009-10-26 16:45|| 2009-10-26 16:45|| Front Page Top

#8 McDonald's has been out of their apple pies for two weeks, and counting.

Posted by Andy Whavilet2737 2009-10-26 18:55|| 2009-10-26 18:55|| Front Page Top

#9 Ya gotta destroy the Kulaks before ya can create utopia. Frankie Davis taught his boy well.

Posted by ed 2009-10-26 19:17|| 2009-10-26 19:17|| Front Page Top

#10 Wheat was 25 cents a bushel and farmers burned corn for fuel.

Just a few years ago when corn was $2-3/bushel, it was cheaper to burn corn in the furnace than wood pellets.

Posted by ed 2009-10-26 19:20|| 2009-10-26 19:20|| Front Page Top

#11 ION HOW-DUBYA-KILLED-THE-US-FARMBELT, WAFF > ICELAND SAYS GOODBYE TO THE BIG MAC [all three local MCDONALD'S restaurants close].

Methinks the future NOT-THE-UNO-IN-NEW YORK CITY-AMERIKA OWG-NWO HEADQUARTERS in the Norde' Atlantique wants to make it clear it is indeed the OWG UNO in that it HATES AMERICA = AMERIKA???

But I digress ....

Posted by JosephMendiola">JosephMendiola 2009-10-26 19:40|| na]">[na] 2009-10-26 19:40|| Front Page Top

#12 Somewhat on topic. Watts Up With That has a post on a Viking farm in Greenland that looks to me like it experienced very abrupt cooling.

Farm to permafrost in a few years or less. A cautionary tale.

Posted by Phil_B 2009-10-26 19:54|| 2009-10-26 19:54|| Front Page Top

#13 Phil_B, that was Bush's ancestors' fault. He refused to sign the climate change treaty, and guess what - the climate changed.
Now, Bush refused to sign Kyoto, so climate change is back again, and now Greenland will again support agriculture - at least until all the ice caps melt in a few years, and the sea level rises 500 feet or more.
/sarcasm

Posted by Rambler in Virginia">Rambler in Virginia 2009-10-26 20:08|| 2009-10-26 20:08|| Front Page Top

#14 and the sea level rises 500 feet or more.
Does that mean that Gore's pied-à-terre in the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco, just a few feet from the waterfront, is going to be inundated?
Is there no depth so low that Bush won't go to taunt his opponents?

Posted by tipper 2009-10-26 22:49|| 2009-10-26 22:49|| Front Page Top

23:48 USN, Ret.
22:49 tipper
22:16 twobyfour
22:01 JosephMendiola
22:01 rwv
21:53 rwv
21:50 JosephMendiola
21:44 JosephMendiola
21:32 Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo)
21:29 Andy Flinter3719
21:20 JosephMendiola
21:05 JosephMendiola
20:53 Skunky Glins****
20:51 Uncle Phester
20:38 JosephMendiola
20:36 JosephMendiola
20:24 JosephMendiola
20:21 JosephMendiola
20:17 lord garth
20:16 JosephMendiola
20:08 Rambler in Virginia
20:03 JosephMendiola
20:01 Chuck Simmins
19:59 eltoroverde