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Texas | Gmo may not be solely to blame, I’m sure the internet plays some roll in parts and supplies being available from anywhere. But How many guys do you see farming more than 1000 acres of a non gmo crop besides wheat without a fleet of manpower?
So the county where I live is 910 square miles. Say 1/4 of that is GMO cotton (probably more like 1/3) that’s 194,000 acres. If you take the tech fee alone on that you’re looking at $5,820,000 leaving the economy. Say 1/3 of that pays farmers sons 100k a year to stay home and farm and the other 2/3 pays hired men 50k. That’s 19 young farmers and 38 hired men. In one low income county of Texas. And we’re not even looking at the Chem that’s gets bought instead of tillage tools.
Don’t give me the equipment BS, we farmed conventional cotton in the 90’s with 120’ of planters and cultivators. I’d cruise a 71 flex 7 mph just like guys do the new ones of course I was running on beds that were perfectly smooth. But we’d bed up every acre after harvest. Throw down yellows and plow it in early spring. Condition beds in front of planter and take out any weeds. Then cultivate every time it rained all summer. It took 2 men per 1000 acres even with 12 row 40 equipment. We hired whole families to hoe weeds all summer. Most of the advancements in equipment are eliminating skill requirements (making a straight row), creature comfort, and better control of that expensive seed pop. When we caught our own seed we would plant 60-70k (double). Always got a stand and we had enough to run a rotary hoe through it a couple times to stop blowing dirt. | |
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People just don’t understand eating healthy.
