Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Tilling the earth since 1632 - This is a remarkable story in today's Boston Globe: the oldest-running family farm in America - the 134-acre Tuttle Farm - is shutting down. Well, they had a good run: "End of a 378-year era." I blame Tom Vilsack.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ever notice how its Big Ag-Business and Wal-Marts fault when the locals no longer want to pay extra for locally grown produce?

Nigel Tufnel said...

"Big Ag-Business" is a triumph of Big Government and massive subsidies, which allow for artificially suppressed pricing, especially of corn.

These businesses, assisted by intentionally dysfunctional policies on immigration, routinely exploit illegal immigrant labor to artificially suppress wages and to redefine what were once jobs for American citizens as jobs "that Americans just won't do".

Because of government interference in the free market we now have a system where it is cheaper to get your calories at McDonald's than it is to go to a supermarket and buy fresh produce, never mind going to a local farmer.

This situation is a validation of what should be a core conservative principle (keep the government's hands out of business).

Liberals shouldn't be the ones screaming about this - it should be conservatives.

Ideology is dead.

Eric said...

I agree w/Nigel, as in our previous discussion about ethanol.

By the way, ADM used to run commercials about how little Americans paid for sugar. WHY? Because ADM made corn syrup and they were worried about competition from sugar if it were allowed to float at worldwide prices.