It's about time the media starts taking notice!...
The New York Times prints a story about monoculture agriculture, and its quoted on a web sight about bees. First, what does the NYT know about the heartland? I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. After reading the link I can only ask where was the New York Times or the article's author when the environmental movement insisted on indoor animal husbandry and waste lagoons to mitigate the effects of animal manure on the environment. What makes this so hilarious or maybe it's tragic is that the same asinine wing of the Environmental movement is shoveling "ORGANIC" fertilizer with both hands. What's the poor farmer to do? He is danged if he does and he is darned if he don't.
Then the Environmental movement gets involved with soil erosion and water runoff issues. This only results in more and more small farms on marginal lands going under because it becomes too expensive to buy or rent the Earth moving equipment needed to meet the new runoff rules. Then it comes down to, "Do I keep farming or do I want my kids to go to college?
I know that someone is going to mention all the corporate welfare that some farmers receive. Yea, try to qualify for this aid if your operation doesn't meet some arbitrary government rule.
But the thing that I find most ironic is the New York Times condemnation of large scale agriculture. The reason I say this is because large scale or monoculture agriculture is the beekeepers' cash cow. Without vast acerages of almonds, peaches and to a lesser degree apples, crops that all need large amounts of pollination in a very short period of time, beekeepers who rent hives for pollination would be in worse shape today than they already are.
http://discussions.agweb.com/showthread.php?14546-Riverkeeper-LawsuitPlease at least read the first few posts in the above link to find out what I mean. This is just the tip of the iceburg.
This is the reason that you hear that a farmers' or other businessmans worst fear is to rear the words,
"Hi there, I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."