# John Block speaks.



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

This is a short great read on some fact based thoughts from John Block.

The Facts of Modern-Day Farming | Farm Journal Magazine

Regards, Mike


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

I find this interesting.Seems like every yr they tell us we are planting more acres lately.



> back to the U.S. - according to USDA, another surprising fact is that total crop land in the U.S. has decreased by 34 million acres between 2002 and 2007. That is the lowest level of crop land in 65 years.
> 
> Wait a minute - I thought we were cutting down the trees and plowing up the fields to grow corn for ethanol. The fact is that ethanol production has not resulted in expansion of crop acres at all. In addition, acres of grass land, pasture, and forest land has increased.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

swmnhay said:


> I find this interesting.Seems like every yr they tell us we are planting more acres lately.


Yeah, I was thinking the exact same. Block tells it like it is...... doesn't say alot for the current ag administrators. Common sense tells us that we are constantly losing ag land and we don't need the bean counters to tell us that fact. Croppers are just so much more productive with our access to hi-tech machinery, hybrids, and general farming methods. We utilize our fertilizers so much more effectively......was reading today about the national dairy farmer of the year.....from TN about an hour from my place. He is implementing a manure recovery system that lets him separate the solids and utilize on the farm(over 1000 milkers) and now he wont have to buy ANY fertilizer. Government needs to look at the Ag sector to learn how to operate more efficiently with less like WE do. Ag people in this country need to get government completely out of Ag and let us completely operate on our own.....create our own crop ins. co's, etc. Government just complicates the whole process. Whew.....dont get me started.









Regards, Mike


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## steve IN (Jan 13, 2010)

Never was a big fan of "John-Boy". Back in school in our ag class we learned that while he was preachingto cut our surpluses his son was using funding from FmHA to0 expand the home farm and also buying up foreclosed farm land. I will agree with you that we need less government interference. The idea of less land is misleading. In the US we are farming less acres but all over the world other nations along with US companies(Cargill,ADM and Monsanto along with others) are helping to expand acres in South America, Southern Africa and the former Soviet Union. So yes there are more acres coming online every year.


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## Mike120 (May 4, 2009)

The more interesting issue is the "urban sprawl" reference. We now have a huge population that is totally dependent on the local grocery store to survive and the grocery stores are pretty dependent on imported food to feed them. That totally dependent population is driving the push for more government interventation in the food supply.


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