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Finding a place for cultibotics in Obama’s rural agenda

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23 November 2008



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It’s not like there was any shortage of ideas for how to improve the stability of U.S. agriculture, the lot of farmers, and the economic vitality of rural America. Just have a look at President-Elect Obama’s rural agenda.

 

What would the ideas encapsulated here look like if embraced by the Obama-Biden team? What might they be called? Here’s a few focused statements that occur to me…

  • Help insulate farmers and farming regions from dependency on volatile bulk commodity markets by encouraging greater diversity of production.
  • Facilitate production improvements through both simultaneous and sequential polyculture.
  • Enable farmers to grow more of their own food without need for much time investment or manual labor.
  • Reduce the time spent in machine operation.
  • Reduce the acreage needed for an economically viable farming operation.
  • Reduce the initial investment required to start a farm.
  • Provide farmers and their children with high-tech experience.
  • Create a demand for skilled technicians and technical instructors in rural areas.
  • Create opportunities for rural youth.
  • Preserve local crop varieties and experiment with new crops.
  • Improve the quality and diversity of locally available produce.
  • Reverse the impoverishment of rural culture.
  • Reduce exposure to pesticides and pesticide residues.
  • Reduce the dependency of agriculture on fossil fuels and feed stocks.
  • Reduce contamination of runoff and ground water.
  • Reduce and eventually reverse the loss of soil fertility.
  • Reduce wind-borne dust.
  • Enlist productive land in the efforts to preserve endangered species and provide wildlife habitat.

This list could be far longer, but that should be enough for a sample.

 

Reposted from Cultibotics.



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John Payne





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