Re: High Tech and the Family Farm -Reply
Tom Armstrong (toma@crl.com)
Wed, 30 Aug 1995 20:11:45 -0700 (PDT)
> For the social aspects, precision farming is essentially no different than
> the housing and related technologies that made large-scale poultry and
> swine production possible, i.e., it may help to make the large-scale
> systems workable (in a context of cheap energy and social harmony). As
> such it can be expected to continue the trends toward the elimination of
> families in farming and decline of rural communities. Right now,
> precision farming technologies are very expensive and are not
> economically feasible for the average family farm. Those who will
> benefit from the technology will most likely be the suppliers of
> see no reason to believe that this would not lead to continued erosion of
> the social foundations of agriculture as I see little or no room for small
> and medium scale farm units in this technology.
> I am not yet convinced that public funds should be used to promote this
> technology as there should be a great deal of incentive for commercial....
I am a fourth generation family farmer.
This is the first year I have not planted a crop since 1961.
I farmed over 100 acres of CCOF Certified organic land since 1990
As an organic farmer I was required to keep specific records of inputs to
each field. I found this very complex, my system was far from perfect.