Ron said:
> In an uncharacteristic lapsus Ann says:
>
> >Conventional yields reflect billions of taxpayers dollars spent annually
> to research and refine technologies in support of high yield,
> capital-intensive, power-concentrating agriculture. Organic yields reflect
> the initiative and experience of what, a few scattered hippies and farmer
> wanna-bees? Like, come on man, - what if they *could* achieve as much per
> acre as a real farmer? What would that say about all the glorious yield
> >increases *we* have accomplished? Yeesh! Perhaps that is why researchers
> who publish evidence that organic yields (or milk) are comparable to
> conventional yields are subjected to such withering scorn, ridicule, and
> abuse - from their own colleagues.
> >
>
> Yes Ann, but here your apologies must go to organic farmers, around the
> world. No "hippy" or "farmer wanna-be" ever made it through the winter
> unless he was lucky enough to learn from a real farmer. And it is those
> real farmers who made organic agriculture, through generations of "complex
> responsibility and formal mastery", ie of farming as a lifeway. (They also
> learn from "techies" and academics, in fact, would like to learn more.)
>
I have some difficulty believing that I need to say this, because I thought I'd
stretched the analogy about as far as my terminal screen would let me, but I used
the term hippies and farmer-wanna-bees facetiously, not literally. Ann
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