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Comments

[Glenda Kernen]

I liked the article about gasohol. Of course, here I am living in the great corn state and filling my car with the cheaper gas. My farmers ( I rent out land) plant only two crops--corn and soybeans.Those are the money crops and no one raises farm animals anymore. Once the harvest is in a lot of farmers are done. Head for Arizona, Texas or Florida.

I think back to my childhood days of the good all purpose farm. My father and most other farmers rotated a variety of crops (oats, barley, wheat, corn, milo, rye, along with a lot of clover and alfalfa hay). Soybeans are really a johnny come lately crop. Most of these crops are no longer needed because few farmers remain in a multi-purpose operation. Poultry and hogs are raised in great enclosed operations. Cattle are raised in the country where the land is not as suitable for the big cash crops. Mainly the cattle are used as breeders to produce market calves for the big feedlots concentrated in the plains states.

What are the alternatives? There are many marketable crops that could be raised--rapeseed, grasses for fuel production, greaseweed, even yucca. I would love to have my farmers plant some of these crops to enrich my soil and diversify production. Big problem--no storage facilities, no distribution centers, the need for farmer education to learn how to raise new crops and machinery to harvest these crops. There is a wealth of possibilities to alter our production system but a dearth of imagination and will to encourage change.

Meanwhile, I fuel my car and write to my legislator to let him know that I'd rather pay more for fuel or preferably use water to power my car. At least I didn't invest in a cornburning stove like we had on the market a few years ago when it was cheaper to burn corn than to buy fuel.

I've watched the combines pouring out golden grain into large wagons and trucks this fall. The harvest is bountiful. I am saddened to think that all of that bounty could feed the whole world. No one should ever go hungry because I what I fuel my car with, enjoy a big juicy hamburger, and sing on the way to the bank with the profit I reap from rent payments that are skyrocketing because of the price of commodities.

I stand frustrated and sad that I don't know what I can do to make a difference. Yes, I can pray but somehow that doesn't seem like a lot when the growling of empty stomachs raise a roar that must indeed be a frustration to God---too mild---I think God is outraged. So should we all be.