Word: farmers
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...BIGGEST news magazine in the country has a message straight from the mouth of Earl Butz for America's farmers: Get bit or get out. Though Time counts on its readers to forget that writers (and editors) with opinions bang out its byline-less features, the author(s) of its Nov. 6 cover story, "The New U.S. Farmer," had obviously studied up on his Adam Smith economics and his Department of Agriculture (USDA) statistics in preparation for this defense of U.S. agriculture, "the productivity wonder of the world." Couched in Timese idiom, readers might almost be lulled into believing this...
...This new farmer is smarter as well as richer than the farmers of an earlier time. One man says, "It used to be that if you had a child who wasn't too bright, you'd say, 'Son, you're going to be a farmer." But things are different...
...survey of farms in different regions of the country, he concluded that most economies of scale "are achieved by the one-man fully mechanized farm. While the most efficient farm size has increased in the last decade, due mainly to tractor improvements, this 1973 report found that most farmers need a much smaller acreage and capital investment than Pat Benedict. For instance, a vegetable grower in California produces at his maximum potential on a farm of 200 acres with less than one-fifth of Benedict's investment in machinery, and a corn farmer in Indiana on a farm...
...American farmer today is land happy and iron crazy. He buys bigger equipment because he figures he is going to own more land; then he has to buy land to justify the expense. Then the farmer realizes he is not making much of a living considering his capital investment, and he quits...
...rotation. Insecticides and herbicides have done away with the need to rotate crops in order to keep pests from infesting the soil. No longer must a farmer periodically allow his best land to lie fallow, or plant it with unprofitable crops...