
The Next American Farm Bust Is Upon Us - ryan_j_naughton
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-next-american-farm-bust-is-upon-us-1486572488
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tobltobs
Non paywall version of this article: [https://www.msn.com/en-
us/money/markets/the-next-american-fa...](https://www.msn.com/en-
us/money/markets/the-next-american-farm-bust-is-upon-us/ar-AAmJPpt)

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dalbasal
Whatever else about paywalls, they don't work well for a social news site.
...oh and thanks :)

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jelliclesfarm
The economics of farming now suggests to me to go smaller..to control costs.
[..]“You keep pinching and pinching and pretty soon there’s nothing left to
pinch,” said Craig Scott, a fifth-generation farmer in this Western Kansas
town. [...] this is why farm's have to become smaller and diverse. Focus on
self sufficiency..and not export.

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dalbasal
I don't think it works like that.

Agriculture can't just un-commodify itself. A large portion of agricultural
output is always going to be commodity-market goods. Even on a local scale,
this lends to price volatility. Global prices will always have an effect, but
even if they didn't farming would still be risky.

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jelliclesfarm
It's worthwhile looking at Cuba as a model. I am not saying that we should
mimic their model nor am I claiming that they enjoyed complete and total
sufficiency, but there is a certain lesson there about sustainable systems.

Also..if we are to prepare to colonize space or think about creating closed
loop living systems, we will have to start thinking about those models
anyways.

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nadezhda18
could you provide the source for the info about Cuba?

so far, I have had a strong impression agriculture is not doing well there.

My impression is based purely on surprisingly bad food served in all-inclusive
Cuban hotels. Normally, all-inclusive hotel food should attract tourists not
scare them away. Even local fruits are not good/ripe not mentioning main
dishes - it's not sophisticated and more on repetitive side.

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jelliclesfarm
Well..I am not sure Cuba is terribly effective with sustainability but there
was some pressure to be sustainable and self contained. We could certainly do
better if forced to be under such constrained circumstances.

we might end up in the same situation as Cuba...without the ability to import
food or have unfettered access to resources and fossil fuel and cheap energy.
Not to mention unrealistic demand for food and not enough human labour force
or expertise. What then?

We _have_ to automate agriculture. But modern automation should veer in a
slightly different direction to minimize and mitigate invisible environmental
damage. But we have to do

It's a little bit of bizarro world right now re how we tackle our problems.
Somehow the solutions to ag problems only seems to compound it higher.

What got me thinking about Cuba: [http://theconversation.com/cubas-
sustainable-agriculture-at-...](http://theconversation.com/cubas-sustainable-
agriculture-at-risk-in-u-s-thaw-56773)

I must stress that..I do not think we must follow cuba's footsteps but we must
study it as a cautionary tale but with a smattering of hope and use our
existing system in an advantageous way.

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jeron
anyone have the article without the paywall?

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chipperyman573
Click the "Web" link, then copy and paste it into an incognito window or
private browsing tab (anything without the same cookie session), click the
first link on google.

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SAI_Peregrinus
You also need to enable the referer header, if you've disabled transmitting
that.

