Holy See: Biofuels Shouldn't Block Right to Food

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Thanks, Ridgerunner for helping describe some of the details of the industry. I know there are some places to buy some, just not close to me. I thought I’d just drop by for dinner to try it out, but don’t know that I’ll be in your neck of the woods anytime soon.

Thanks again!
 
To each his own. I grew up on local grass fed beef and all too often it had an off taste from weeds the cow got into and ate. I prefer meat from a critter that was fed grain for at least two or three weeks before slaughter.

Back to the grain shortage, a lot of wheat isn’t planted because it is more disease prone than corn.

Read today that part of the worldwide problem is our old friend, the UN. Seems they’ve been hoarding the money instead of buying food with it. They’re sitting on $1.2 billion and have more than that in pledges, yet are screaming for more money so they can get food to the needy.
 
geezerbob said:
To each his own. I grew up on local grass fed beef and all too often it had an off taste from weeds the cow got into and ate. I prefer meat from a critter that was fed grain for at least two or three weeks before slaughter.

Back to the grain shortage, a lot of wheat isn’t planted because it is more disease prone than corn.

Read today that part of the worldwide problem is our old friend, the UN. Seems they’ve been hoarding the money instead of buying food with it. They’re sitting on $1.2 billion and have more than that in pledges, yet are screaming for more money so they can get food to the needy.
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That is Socialism for you. :mad:
 
geezerbob said:
To each his own. I grew up on local grass fed beef and all too often it had an off taste from weeds the cow got into and ate. I prefer meat from a critter that was fed grain for at least two or three weeks before slaughter.
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I agree that what an animal eats can affect the taste. That’s probably part of the reason I can’t stand venison. One day on ragweed, though, won’t change it. However, that’s part (but only a small part) of the reason ranchers now are getting particular about what grass they have and where they have it.

Two or three weeks on grain is nowhere near as long as most feedlots feed grain, and I can’t see that as much of a burden on the world grain supply.
 

No surprise there. They’re probably playing the grain futures market with it. I mean, that’s “buying food” too, in a way, isn’t it? And then, luncheons for themselves on Caspian caviar from Iran and Russia is “buying food”. Buying cases of French wine at $1,000/bottle is “buying food”. Grapes are food, aren’t they? Maybe they’re buying farms for themselves in Zimbabwe from Bobby Mugabe. See, if there are crops on the land, that’s “buying food”. There are microbes that can eat oil, so oil futures would be “buying food” in a sense.

I don’t know why you are being so picky about this.
 
harveyc said:
I know very well that switchgrass and other biofuels are coming online but those have their own controversies as well. Many are bulky and costly to transport. There is no cure-all for the energy crisis.

Many people claim to look at the big picture but it’s one that they’ve painted themself. There are many biases and we all have them and there is no pure and perfect source of information.

Farm subsidies are all over the world and generally do not increase the cost to the consumer but do the opposite, keeping suppliers higher but helping marginal producers stay in business or even good producers in business during periods where prices are below the cost of production. I don’t really care if I get a subsidy payment or not, it is about 1% of my income, but it does help other growers that otherwise might not make it. Citizens in the USA spend less of their income for food than any other country, by the way. They also use more petroleum than any other country and that is a bigger source of the problem.
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It’s nice to hear from someone who is actually in the the business of farming who can tell us what it is really like. Thanks! I’m in Southern California but I have friends Tennessee who are farmers and they have made comments about the price of feed corn rising thus making it more costly to feed their cows. Is this a problem for your as well? Also, I’ve heard that some TN farmers aren’t going to plant so much this year because they can’t afford the fuel for their farm equipment. BTW, I’ve gotten some grass fed organic beef from a ranch here in Calif. and really enjoyed it. The steaks were great, tender and tasty and the ground beef was the best I’d ever had. I don’t have it often as I’ve cut way back on meat and it’s expensive (not the meat so much, though it is more, but the overnight shipping to get it here fresh, even from a few hundred miles away, is a killer). :eek:
 
Swan said:
It’s nice to hear from someone who is actually in the the business of farming who can tell us what it is really like. Thanks! I’m in Southern California but I have friends Tennessee who are farmers and they have made comments about the price of feed corn rising thus making it more costly to feed their cows. Is this a problem for your as well? Also, I’ve heard that some TN farmers aren’t going to plant so much this year because they can’t afford the fuel for their farm equipment. BTW, I’ve gotten some grass fed organic beef from a ranch here in Calif. and really enjoyed it. The steaks were great, tender and tasty and the ground beef was the best I’d ever had. I don’t have it often as I’ve cut way back on meat and it’s expensive (not the meat so much, though it is more, but the overnight shipping to get it here fresh, even from a few hundred miles away, is a killer). :eek:
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Swan, I’m fortunate that we got our land leveled in 2006 and alfalfa planted that fall before fuel prices spiked up in the last 18 months. There is a moderate amount of fuel used in harvesting but we hire that done by a custom operator and they aren’t charging much more this year since our production is good and they’re still making good money. While corn and other grains are getting much of the attention, I’m very fortunate that alfalfa prices are good and this will be our best year ever, financially. On top of that, I got my tax rebate today which was really not necessary for my particular situation but I know they will be getting it back when I file my next tax return.

I heard on the radio today a reminder that President Bush had proposed in his state of the union speach this year that 25% of food aid that the U.S. provide be allowed to purchase food locally from farmers in the countries receiving the aid to help provide an incentive for self sufficiency. I don’t know where that has gone, but it sounds like a very good idea. If we just shipped in our own food products we could very well put farmers there out of business.
 
Ridgerunner,

Your PM inbox is full and I can’t send you a PM. Here are a couple of links related to grass fed beef and silvopasture which you might find useful/interesting.

centerforagroforestry.org/practices/sp.asp
chilenobeef.com/

Apologies to others if you find this too off-topic!

I doubt we can produce enough grass fed beef in the country to meet everyone’s demand for beef so some grain is still going to go to beef even if a few of us switch. I’m interested in giving it a try because of the reported health benefits (higher omega 3 fatty acids, etc.)
 
harveyc said:
It’s very sad to see how Brazil has slashed and burned its rainforests to grow grains. It seems to offset any environmental benefit of biofuels.

time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html
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Depending on where they’re dong this, they might learn to regret it, as a lot of that Amazon Basin land will turn to laterite, a brick-like substance in just a few years without forest cover.

However, I have a vague recollection (I think) that this is not where they’re clearing for farming, but in an area called the Mato Grosso. It won’t laterize, but it does contain excessive amounts of some mineral I don’t remember (aluminum, maybe?) that has problems all its own.

Interestingly, I read where some anthropologists and archaeologists concluded that there were once huge populations in the Amazon Basins, and that the Amazon rain forests were actually once something resembling a huge orchard. A number of fruit and nut bearing trees are not “from there”, though they were once considered “native”. The prevalence of food-producing trees over vast areas surrounding seemingly very large precolumbian settlements, though “gone wild” now, seem to support the theory. The idea is that early, very brief, contact with Spaniards spread disease that wiped out the huge settlements. The very earliest Spanish accounts describe very large cities in the Amazon Basin. they were doubted later because much later explorers found only a handful of primitive Indians here and there.

Laterization was handled in those settlements by putting a lot of charcoal and pottery fragments in the soil. Charcoal prevents laterization by “holding onto” soil and nutrients. I don’t think they know why tiny pottery fragments are scattered throughout the soil over massive areas, in what seems a deliberate practice of smashing them into small pieces and digging them into the soil.
Possibly they helped prevent bogginess.
 
Wow, it’s really great to have so many posters here who can provide some professional and informed opinions.

I have a question for ya’ll. Petroleum prices are going up, but if we were able to generate our own non-food crop based biofuels, would it be possible for farms to be self-sustaining? That is, could they “grow” their own fuel, and put that fuel to work harvesting food crops? This sounds almost too good to be true, but if the amount of fuel generated can produce an amount of energy greater than all the energy costs that went into producing it, that wouldn’t be so far-fetched, would it?

Also, what do you (the professional farmers) think about genetically modified crops and the like? Beneficial? Harmful? Potentially dangerous? A scientific miracle? I’ve always been really against genetically modified crops because I’m worried about the potential and irreversible damages that could be done. For instance, some crop growers in various countries are finding genetically modified seeds have cross-pollinated into their own crops (unintentionally!) and Monsanto, et al have been trying to get these farmers forced to pay because of “patent infringement” and the like. I’m also (please don’t laugh) worried about “super-weed” problems that could crop up (forgive the pun). Ya know, where one crop kinda… takes over? Is that possible? People usually deride such ideas as bad science fiction, but it sounds legit from a logical POV. If you are “engineering” a plant to be resistant to all sorts of stuff, what keeps it from becoming a weed?
 
Telemachus said:
Wow, it’s really great to have so many posters here who can provide some professional and informed opinions.

I have a question for ya’ll. Petroleum prices are going up, but if we were able to generate our own non-food crop based biofuels, would it be possible for farms to be self-sustaining? That is, could they “grow” their own fuel, and put that fuel to work harvesting food crops? This sounds almost too good to be true, but if the amount of fuel generated can produce an amount of energy greater than all the energy costs that went into producing it, that wouldn’t be so far-fetched, would it?

Also, what do you (the professional farmers) think about genetically modified crops and the like? Beneficial? Harmful? Potentially dangerous? A scientific miracle? I’ve always been really against genetically modified crops because I’m worried about the potential and irreversible damages that could be done. For instance, some crop growers in various countries are finding genetically modified seeds have cross-pollinated into their own crops (unintentionally!) and Monsanto, et al have been trying to get these farmers forced to pay because of “patent infringement” and the like. I’m also (please don’t laugh) worried about “super-weed” problems that could crop up (forgive the pun). Ya know, where one crop kinda… takes over? Is that possible? People usually deride such ideas as bad science fiction, but it sounds legit from a logical POV. If you are “engineering” a plant to be resistant to all sorts of stuff, what keeps it from becoming a weed?
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LOL the farms near us (100 to about 180 acres) are turning back to animal power. Horse and mule seem to be the choice at this point in time. The orders for non gas/oil use equipment has gone way up. But then we live close to Amish farmers so the stuff is easier to get.😃
 
Telemachus, I’m not sure that this fits the topic of this thread but I will attempt to disuss it.

In some instances, it is possible that a farmer produce enough fuel for his own needs but generating biofuels specifically requires expensive plants for processing. I know there are several large dairies in California that generate all of their own electricity needs (to run their milk barn, water pumps, etc.) by fueling large generators running on methane gas being capture by large bladders over the manure lagoons.

I have mixed feelings at genetically engineered crops. Many centuries ago public opinion was against the idea of grafting plants as it was not natural. However, close to 100% of our tree fruits today are produced on grafted plants and consumers usually appreciate being able to buy a particular variety of fruit and knowing with some confidence what it will taste like. I think some of the fears over GE crops have the same cause for concern but others may have other risks. I think it’s probably best for consumers to avoid GE foods. I have recently quit buying canola oil for this reason. However, I honestly believe some GE crops are beneficial to the environment. Some of the alfalfa I am farming has been engineered by Monsanto to be resistant to Roundup (glyphosate herbicide) which makes weed control much easier and effective. It is controversial and additional plantings are prohibited by court order. Some of the arguments by the activists that brought about the complaint are downright false, claiming that it increases the need for pesticides. It actually reduces the need significantly, requiring less herbicides and less toxic herbicides. I grow both conventional and GE alfalfa and greatly prefer spraying the GE alfalfa. I am not concerned about it becoming a super weed. There are mechanical means to control them and still other herbicides that they are not engineered to be resistant to. Unfortunately, we are largely a society that gets laws based on fears sometimes more than science, IMHO.
 
Telemachus said:
Wow, it’s really great to have so many posters here who can provide some professional and informed opinions.

I have a question for ya’ll. Petroleum prices are going up, but if we were able to generate our own non-food crop based biofuels, would it be possible for farms to be self-sustaining? That is, could they “grow” their own fuel, and put that fuel to work harvesting food crops? This sounds almost too good to be true, but if the amount of fuel generated can produce an amount of energy greater than all the energy costs that went into producing it, that wouldn’t be so far-fetched, would it?

QUOTE]

I can’t claim to be all that informed. I do remember back in the early 1980s when a number of farmers brewed their own alcohol for machinery and vehicles. They used everything you could name, and some were really inventive. Garbage, paper, wood chips, grass, crop detritus, cane. You name it. They all seemed to have a good time doing it, but they didn’t do it for years and years either. As far as I know, none of them blew themselves up. But that was all just “home made” stuff, not necessarily viable commercially, because they put their own work into it. So it wasn’t really “free” because if you did that on a larger scale, you would have to pay people to do it (and probably have a lot better equipment as well as an energy source for distilling other than wood a farmer cuts himself) They didn’t have any transportation costs, either. Make alcohol, carry it to tractor, pour it in. That was their transportation system. So, I guess the answer is that it’s clearly possible as an “on the farm” thing. Beyond that, I don’t know.
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