Re: save the world
- From: Russell.Martin@xxxxxxx
- Date: 30 Jan 2006 07:14:30 -0800
Kamal R. Prasad wrote:
> Straydog wrote:
snip
> buy a piece of land,
The last time I checked good agricultural land was costing
$1000 an acre in the U.S., that's without buildings. Can
you raise a barn?
> a horse,
Do you even know how to care for a horse? Most in
people in the West don't. Do you know how to saddle
and ride one? Do you have the blacksmithing skills to
shoe one? Can you treat it if it gets sick, because
veterinarians are expensive (I know).
> some cattle and a cowboy hat.
As they say in cattle country, you're all hat, no cattle.
> Farming is
> one of the safest occupations known to mankind.
No, at least in the U.S. farming is more dangerous compared
to most occupations. Quoting from the BLS website
http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/osh/os/osnr0023.txt
"Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting. While the incidence
rate for this sector was significantly higher than that of private
industry in 2004, the number of injury and illness cases, as
well as the incidence rate, remained relatively unchanged from
2003." The figures are there if you want to dig out the details.
The sector number is skewed a bit by fishing, which is the
most hazardous occupation, but agriculture is still dangerous.
One is working with power equipment, dangerous chemicals,
sharp tools. People have been know to get buried and
suffocated in grain bins.
> You can eat farm fresh,
> organic food instead of stale supermarket food and that will improve
> your health and quality of life.
>
> regards
> -kamal
If you can raise them that way. Organic farming, at least
done profitably in the U.S., requires specialized techniques
and knowledge, much of which are still being developed at
places like where I'm working now. If you're talking about
subsistence farming, then you're probably talking organic
because the farmer can't afford to buy chemicals to increase
his yield even if he wants to. And of course you can only
eat crops "farm fresh" when they are in season. Do you
know how to preserve enough food to last between harvests?
I can recall some of the process from when I was young and
my mom used to help my grandmother on the farm, but I'd
wouldn't want to bet my life on my ability to do it now.
However I would bet a bit of money that the only place
many Americans have even seen a Ball jar is as part of
the decor at a Cracker Barrel restaurant. :-)
But in fact most of us who have never lived on a farm would
starve on a farm because we don't know how to plant and
raise a crop of food large enough to feed ourselves, ignoring
for a moment raising enough to sell or trade to get other
goods. There have been a couple of series on public TV in
recent years where modern families were given the tools
and land to try to live on in the manner of the late 19th
century (as you suggest, a horse, other livestock, etc.).
The assessment of the experts was that most of them
wouldn't have lasted the first winter, which in fact was the
fate of many of the settlers of the time even though they
had been brought up with that level of technology. IOW
IMO most of the Internet Age readers here would starve
to death attempting such a "back to nature" move, if they
were not killed outright in the process.
Cheers,
Russell
.
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