OldMcDonald
Platinum Member
You have a sharp mind for someone who has been farming all his life. I am not saying that farmers are dullards. They are pretty good at what they do on the land. Your grasp of things, however, is astute across a wide range of subjects.
I am an educated peasant. I suspect you know gey few farmers for many others are also educated peasants.
I know more than a few who can match my aged 11 scholarship to a government free grammar school specifically for those who achieved that scholarship; a University degree, in my case majoring in law and accountancy. Also the necessity to understand crop nutrient requirements and animal feed needs - such as the following paragraph from a paper I wrote two years ago:
I do not profess knowledge of medicines for humans, having extremely rarely taken any. I do have a good knowledge of basic human nutrition and an extensive knowledge of animal nutrition. My wife studied human nutrition as part of her qualification as a Home Economist – accepting it was a long time ago. For 50 years we have formulated farm animal rations and are well aware of the need to maintain correct ratios of minerals; minimal daily quantities of vitamins and minerals; toxicity possibilities of excess intake and the antagonism between various vitamins and minerals. Obviously all this knowledge is not stored in our heads and we keep up to date on developments or past ideas being challenged.
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There is no reason why you should know that a huge number of farmers are well educated. We do not shout out about it. We just produce the food that keeps the rest of the planet alive. You buy it from a supermarket. You do not need to know who produces it any more than I need to know who produced the computer on which I am typing this response. That is the way of the world. Everybody is important. There is an old saying about a horse losing its shoe which resulted in the loss of a Kingdom.