Food Is Not That Simple!

     "How about this for starters?" Miss Becky says. "The lawns in the U.S. cover more acres than any crop we raise in North America. Sixty percent of the water used in the west goes to homes and golf courses! And us? Seventy percent of our water resources on this side of the Mississippi goes to those homes and golf courses too!" Water problems and drought we know about, but did you know that "we've had the wettest 100 years in the U.S. of the last 1000 years" No wonder there is concern in desert urban areas and we have to ask, how can they survive? "We lose one million acres of farm land to urban sprawl each year while world population increases 88 million each year. How are we going to feed them? It takes 785,000 square feet of pizza alone to feed us each day, and that's just pizza!"

     Becky Vasko discussed current farming issues with Zion Lutheran Church's "Men's 710" at its February meeting in Silverhill.

     Becky Vasko shared a wealth of agricultural information and trivia at the February "Men's 710" breakfast and speaker fellowship meeting at Silverhill's Zion Lutheran Church. She has a heart for agriculture. College trained, in USDA services for 10 years, and with a background with the Agricultural Chemical Company--she came to the men's group with lots of agricultural statistics. Her background in the agricultural community is rich and varied including current animal husbandry and gardening. Until just recently, she and husband Steve owned and operated the Agricultural Spraying Company, a crop-dusting company.

     A man on the street might ask, "Can God really be in a program?" "In 1776 ninety percent of the population were farmers. By 1920 the percent had dropped to thirty. Today only two percent of our population farms. A lone farmer today feeds 140 other people. Think of a family of four eating 5000 pounds of produce a year and what that farmer has to produce to keep us happy. Yet, on average we feed our families with only ten percent of our income. Do you have any idea what food costs in the world " Becky stops for the question and data to sink in. "Twenty-one percent in Japan. That's over twice what we spend. Let's go east instead of west. Greece! How much " There's a bit of pondering going on at this point. "Forty-two percent!"

     Part of the American farmer's productivity relates to technology. "The amount and focus of agricultural fertilizer applications is controlled by satellite. The color scale on satellite-generated maps control the strength or intensity of fertilizer applications." Aren't geosynchronous satellites wonderful That's fine for many farmers, but what about "organic farming." "The fact of the matter is if we wanted to do just organic, that it would require more land than we have available. At most, organic farmers are giving us two and half percent of our food supply, but we need good, productive land and we need material to incorporate into the land in place of our chemical fertilizers.

     We do not have sufficient acreage available to raise enough animals to generate the organic fertilizer needs to produce crops for our existing population. In fact, with urban encroachment of farm land, we are losing much good land, and farmers are being marginalized to less productive land." Remember those home owners with their lawns and those golf courses They put ten times as much fertilizer on their land as the typical farmer uses on crops. "All agricultural chemicals applied to farmland today are biodegradable and are ultraviolet-light sensitive. Calculate a 72 hour half-life for those chemicals. So, one tenth of what goes on the lawn, goes on cropland, and within a week or so those chemicals are virtually gone. Our crops have insignificant residue of fertilizers and herbicides. Our produce is good. Recognize that this is untrue for produce from other countries, and we see a lot of their products in our stores," Miss Becky notes.

     "In 2003 three and half percent of our federal budget was labeled 'USDA' but only a third of those dollars went to farming. Food stamp programs and entitlement programs related to women and children and their nutrition took the other two-thirds. No wonder the statistics available sometimes seem to be so old!" You can almost hear the lament in her voice. "There are data available now if you go to the USDA Statistics Office. The number is 202-690-8141. The Alabama Statistics Office is available at 334-279-3555."

     Here's what the statistics reveal. In Alabama there are 467,000 agricultural jobs. They bring forty billion dollars into our economy. Today there are 1062 farms in Baldwin county. "The fastest growing crop is subdivisions. When a farmer can get $40,000 to $65,000 per acre from a developer, it is little wonder that the farm land in the county is shrinking! Yet, here in Baldwin, we are unable to produce what it would take to feed America even one day!" Part of the issue relates to "perfection." The consumer wants "perfect" and the farmer will produce what sells. "Perfect" requires labor-intensive farming. "The big farms are dying and the labor-intensive specialty farms are playing a bigger part in agricultural production. Purchase of crops is shifting also, from local middlemen to state-level purchasers."