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How to solve this problem:

1) Drop all pretense of support for Ukraine and sanctions on Russia. No American gives a shit whether "Putin" sells gas to Germany or has access to Crimea. Fuck Zelensky and whatever he thinks he's going to get out of being NATO's lapdog. Time for America to worry about Mexico and Central America.

2) IMMEDIATELY institute the "Parity" system outlined by Elizabeth Warren in her primary campaign. I'm not sure she understood it, but it was what brought the US out of the Great Depression and dustbowl until it was undercut in 1953 by Eisenhower. In short, the Federal government guarantees the purchase of farm commodities AT or above the average cost of production, which is still calculated by USDA ERS. Corn should be about $14/bushel and wheat $18. Most of these costs already exist and are currently absorbed by futures speculators, but farmers make as little as $2-3/bushel. Parity will have 2 effects: 1) to move farmers from junk commodities like corn (much of which is used for ethanol and most for cattle feed and exports) into ones like oats, wheat, potatoes, beans, etc. which humans can eat, and 2) Destroy the $1 quadrillion commodity futures markets. As in out of business, which is what happened for all of WW2.

I assume this substack is for "investors"? This is YOUR fault. The US, since the early 70s (the era of Earl Butz) has been a de facto grain colony of global financial speculators. Farmers do not make enough money to grow responsibly, invest in the productivity of land, and in most cases, even to operate at a profit. We must destroy the speculators to save the farmers (and consumers).

FDR put the Parity system in place starting in the late 1930s on the counsel of Henry Wallace and farm economists like Carl WIlken. The relevant book is "Unforgiven," by Charles Walters. Some of the historical material is maintained by the National Organization for Raw Materials, and has made its way into proposals like Warren's, which I suspect was written by the National Family Farm Coalition.

https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/c821gj76b/6m312r739/kk91gp592/agpr0222.pdf (skip to p.21)

3) Seizure of California's water infrastructure and any relevant gas infrastructure by the US military (ie Army Corps of Engineers). There is no drought crisis. The crisis is draining aquifers into the ocean, because the politicians are being blackmailed by China and are trying to destroy the state and sell farmland off for pennies on the dollar and/or force farmers to drain underground aquifers for profit. "Environmentalism" needs to be redefined as building soil, making water and air cleaner, and protecting human health through cleaner food, consumer goods, etc. Malthusianism needs to be exposed as warfare.

4) Expropriation of monopoly farmland owned by people like Bill Gates and redistribution to family farms. That was the essence of Lincoln's Homestead Act. Sorry - too "socialist" for you? Too fucking bad. We'll know it's working when the institutional "investors" who manage these huge real estate trusts are jumping out of windows and farms don't need off-farm income to survive.

5) A slow, planned transition to organic agriculture. We need to reduce our reliance on foreign inputs like fertilizer and pesticide, and on meat production and export as such central parts of the economy. America has the best farmland on earth. We need to treat it like the treasure it is, build organic matter and tilth, and grow food for human consumption. Less meat, more calorie-rich starches, fruits and vegetables, and a more diverse, localized system with federal support for infrastructure (ie trains) and finance/price support.

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Sadhu Govardhan's avatar

I understand your concern, Signor Ugarte. However, we do have historical precedents of forced changes to sustainable agriculture and the results were nothing short of amazing. One outstanding example was Cuba: when Russia turned off the oil faucet a few decades ago, they were forced to switch to sustainable practices overnight. The results were astounding: it turned out that the Cuban farmers were extremely resourceful and with some International sustainable farming help, amped their production. Unfortunately, the oil faucet was later turned on again by Chavez and the Cuban Gov't decided to go back to their old and toxic ways (Cuba had one of the highest chemical fertilizer and pesticide uses worldwide from the 60's to the 90's).

The U.S. has pushed out too many small scale farmers and land grabbers like Gates are determined to destroy the largest amounts of previously excellent farm land. How? By exploiting the lands for a few "profitable" years and then moving on to another, more profitable business.

I was once in a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation meeting, and the future of food and energy was explained by the Foundation reps: no more soil grown food; everything artificially lab produced and monopolized. In short, the elite is moving the world into a medical, financial, agricultural, etc. dictatorship, in which they monopolize and control all essential human needs. We have the choice now to further slide into ecological devastation and global dictatorships or wake up and work out sustainable solutions. I have been doing this work in the Caribbean for some time now, and frankly, its stunning how much food just a handful of knowledgeable, skilled and dedicated farmers can grow in a sustainable/ethical way.

People in general have no clue about the state of agriculture. E.g. how many are aware of the fact that over 90% of all food crops are in danger of extinction because the food industry only pushes a very limited amount of crops? We can't go on pushing species to extinction and at the same time expect that we will all have quality food. That's an insane proposal.

Its a complex topic but one thing is certain: toxic chemicals, monoculture and genetic manipulation can't possibly be the answer to the problems. Why? Because these anomalies are the very cause of most agricultural problems experienced today. In the name of producing food for the masses, the industry produces toxic, denatured and dangerous food. In the U.S. alone, no less than 3,000 chemicals are added to our foods. Not a single one of them is beneficial for our health. No wonder over 50% of U.S. citizens today is on daily medication.

A gap and intelligent regrouping is always better than a long term ecological destruction.

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