What about farming?
Posted by blackramfarm on August 27, 2008
The Democratic National Convention has been playing, and much like staying up to watch the Olympics, I am exhausted. Yeah for recording television. I stay up as late as I can, then watch the recording in the morning while I knit. I got a bunch of rows done today, about 10 of 280 stitches.
So the fist evening was pretty touchy feely, as somewhat expected. I had hoped the Democrats would begin to take off the gloves and begin thumping McCain last night. Politics should be a good spectator sport. I wanted to hear about economics and energy and also a bit about farming. 
The only mention of farming came from the Democratic Governor of Kansas, http://www.democraticgovernors.org/content/614/governor-kathleen-sebelius-biography
She talked about renewable energy that can be grown. Good start, but does she realize that the price of corn has skyrocketed because of bio-fuel? If we are using corn in our cars, then speculators help to drive up the price because the crop has gone from food commodity to fuel commodity. Just like oil. ( Do you ever wonder why oil continued to go up even though more was being produced? The price of a barrel of oil was driven by its sale as a commodity. Another topic for another day.)
So yeah for the corn belt. Boo for the food market. Corn is in everything, so the price of a taco shell to the price of beef is higher. Not just because the cost of harvesting has gone up due to the fuel cost increase, and you need fuel to run your machines. But because corn has been the focus of bio-fuels. There are other crops that can do this as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel
I am for getting off American dependency on foreign oil. I am also for growing our fuel, but not to the detriment of the ability to keep the cost of growing food down. I think that fuel from wind, sun, water and plants can work, but with balance.
What was missing from the speeches last night was a bit more about rural living and farming. Its is all well and good that the former Pennsylvania Governor Warner thinks that folks should have broadband internet in rural areas so that there are job opportunities. However good the internet is, you can’t eat it. No one ever died without internet, but you will die without food.
Does anybody else see the storm on the horizon? It will be hard to buy new things to boost up our economy when we are using our income on food, housing and heating. Just a thought.
