Comments on: Big Tractor, Green Hypocrisy

By: Gene Logsdon

Gene Logsdon — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:54:21 +0000

To Lewis Clevendon, Deliberately, Ed, and aaron: Somehow I missed your comments earlier and don’t know if you will catch up to my thanks to all of you for keeping me honest. I like your reference to your old tractor as an “Italian wreck.” Mine is an American wreck (a 1948 Allis Chalmers). I have hills that I lean upwards on too. To Deliberately, you’re right. To Ed. I don’t buy putting the blame on carbon emmission on domestic animals. Jeez. What about all the wild animals, including humans? In the day of the dinosaurs, can you imagine the explosions of their methane??? Or what about those millions and millions of buffaloes and mammoths etc etc. Was there global warming from them???. To aaron: Your model is the model of BIG farming. I doubt big farming of animals or cash grain is the right way. What about a zillion or so SMALL pasture farms? Gene Logsdon

By: aaron

aaron — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 02:00:43 +0000

I appreciate Logsdon’s outside the box thinking but I have a few issues as to whether his idea would be feaseable. And yes I know all about Joel Salatin and others in the grass movement. A thousand cows would be an investment of well over one million dollars. Cross fencing and watering for numermous paddocks required would be another expense. Then the issue of wintering these cattle. Yes I know some do but a model that can be easily replicated is what’s required if you expect this to happen in any scale. Grain farming is as old as civilization. It was around before oil. It will be around after, which is still a long ways off. Oil will be rationed away from snowmobiles and RV’s before farm tractors.

South Dakota

By: Ed

Ed — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 15:52:09 +0000

Gene,

Great article until the end of the article. Have you read the UN report on the contribution of livestock farming to global warming? The livestock industry is the largest contributor to global warming, about 18% of all greenhouse gas emission. Maybe we should plant more vegetables and fruits isntead of raising animals.

By: deliberately

deliberately — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 11:03:49 +0000

Agree that there’s a bigger picture than just fuel mileage. But don’t you also think that we have to be careful about black-and-white thinking when there’s a ton of room for improvement between the unsustainable place we find ourselves in today and the Utopian world of complete sustainability we would like to be in tomorrow? I get concerned that we can disenfranchise others who are new to the ideas when we shut down progress just because it isn’t moving as fast as we would like. Isn’t something better than nothing?

By: Lewis Cleverdon

Lewis Cleverdon — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:16:27 +0000

Gene – thanks for your delightfully sharp article on the green mega-tractor.
We took on a large mountain farm for sheep & cattle here in mid Wales last year, and with it a 35HP Same tractor (Italian wreck).
We’ve a few acres we’ll put down to a cerials/roots-&-pigs rotation, but our main tractor use so far has been making hay (on fields so steep you lean uphill and pray as you go along).
As we’re in transition to organic status, we don’t use chem fertilizers, and would like to switch to horse power, but there are foreseeable problems with heavier tasks such as dung spreading, etc.

It appears that labour has to lower its income expectations enormously (and/or produce values have to rise greatly) before traditional labour inputs can return to viability on the farm, which is a real bind, as they are needed right now in recovering land run derelict (as here, with 60-year-old hedges and heavy weed growth) or abused, as in vast agribusiness holdings).

I wonder if you may have further thoughts on these tractor/draft animal/labour issues ?

With best wishes,

Lewis