Tumbledown Farm .9 Acres (give or take an acre or two)

It is gratifying to see the NY Times start the year with an editorial plea for sanity in U.S. agricultural policy. (A 50-Year Farm Bill) It is hard to believe that the new administration in Washington will hear and act on such pleas. After all, Berry has been making essentially the same case for half a century as a respected public voice; why should we believe that CHANGE will happen now? (Check out the reviews of books by Berry and Jackson on our blog.) Those who lived through the floods of 2008 in the Midwest know the devastation of which Jackson and Berry speak. (Note: It wasn't just Iowa. Southern Indiana lost its share of topsoil too, and now sports gullies wide and deep enough to swallow cars in once-productive corn and soybean fields to prove it. Never mind that these fields shouldn't ever have been in production. There are now sections of Indiana farmland that will never be productive again in our lifetime, maybe in many lifetimes.) The solution proposed to the perennial problem of soil loss, a farm bill to support development of perennial grains, should be supported. If we can throw billions at the banks and car companies, why not support Jackson's research and actually produce something of benefit to rural communities at the same time.

Tag: "We need a farm bill that addresses the problems of soil loss and degradation, toxic pollution, fossil-fuel dependency and the destruction of rural communities."

What think ye? I'll hope but not hold my breath. Obama's appointment of Tom Vilsack as Ag Secretary, widely applauded by Ag Industry Farm Talk's Vilsack Report, doesn't bode well for alternative, sustainable proposals.