at Thu, 03 Mar 2005 16:56:41 GMT in <1109869001.780053.45920
@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>, (Neil) wrote :

>>Chemistry aside, it tends to keep farmland as farmland, giving
>>farmers an economically-viable option to selling out to developers.
>
>No real correlation there. Any system of farming that makes the farmer
>successful tends to keep the land out of development. Farmers are
>successful if they produce crops cheaply that the public desires.
>Organic production doesn't contribute much to that end.

It must be said that in fact organic production contributes a great deal to
that end. A lot of farmers are converting to organic for the simple reason
that they can't make ends meet growing conventionally. The problem with
growing conventionally, from the farmers' POV, is that it puts you
completely in the commodity market, where those who win are those who sell
for the lowest possible cost. A small American farmer can't compete on a
cost basis with either a large agribusiness or a farm in places where costs
are generally less, e.g. Mexico. Thus if he grows for the conventional
market, he faces minuscule to nonexistent profits because he can barely, if
at all, sell his products for enough money to cover his costs. Meanwhile,
organic products can be sold at considerable premiums over conventional,
enough, in fact, that the farmer can more than make up for increased costs
of production. So he converts to organic, makes a profit, and stays alive.
The farm doesn't get sold to developers.

The large industrial-scale farm sees a totally different economic position.
For him, his benefit comes from economies of scale, which allow him to cut
costs and thereby compete in the conventional market at commodity prices
while still making a profit. For him, there's no incentive to switch to
organic because that raises his production costs, and to a greater extent
than that of the smaller farmer because the extra management intensity must
be multiplied over the larger acreage under cultivation. So if he produces
organic, he stands to make less of a profit, possibly none at all. However,
the large industrial-scale farm also feels little market pressure from
developers to sell. His acreage is simply too large, and generally too far
removed from urban corridors, to command much value for nonfarm uses in the
real estate market. So developers rarely have an interest in his land.
Indeed, one of the things he probably did in order to achieve greater
economies of scale is deliberately to site his farm on land with low value
and little prospect for rapid appreciation.

Thus the farmland under threat is typically that with a patchwork of small
farmers struggling to eke out a living. In those conditions, organic
farming quite often offers the only realistic alternative that keeps the
farmer in business.

--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)