Anyway, what I would like to know is your thoughts on the usefulness
of this technology in sustainable farming, on the small farm and on the
medium sized farm. Is it an appropriate expenditure of public funds to
demonstrate these techniques? What should be the role of the public
sector? Should education and demonstration be left to the private sector?
How costly would it be for farmers to acquire the necessary equipment
to farm this way? Some have said that it would be more cost effective
and applicable to more farmers to provide information on "low tech"
methods such as ensuring realistic yield goals are used in calculating
fertilizer rates, that the late spring nitrate test, and other such measures
should be used, along with credits for legume rotations, manure
applications, and so on. Some have said that the high tech variable rate
application technology is just refining or tweaking a fundamentally
flawed system (chemical intensive, high production monocultures) and
we should be looking at questions such as are we using the right overall
management measures in the first place. Others think it is the greatest
thing since sliced bread, and the time is right to provide an educational
effort on it. We are beginning to see requests for funding to demonstrate
this technology , so I would like to know what you, out there in the
trenches so to speak, think. Here in the midwest, we are looking
primarily at its use on corn. Although this note turned into something
rather more wordy than I had intended, I hope it provides a stimulus for
discussion.