Just used up the last of my old High sulfur Fuel

[UncleBuck01]

to me, genetic farming and cloning is one more step in the evolution of man away from the necessity and drudgery of growing and gathering foodstuffs.. .

we have replaced the above with what ?
the necessity and drudgery of making money to buy foodstuffs
the gathering is still there when you travel to the supermarket and haul it home

In the past, if people had taken the same attitude of resistance toward fertilizers and pesticides, we'd all still be working the land.

What year was it when we "ALL" had to work the land, 10,000 B.C.
Shall we confine this discussion to recent history (30-40 yrs)

the good old days weren't.

Sorry to hear that, they were good for me, and hopefully so will the future

 

[KICK]

What year was it when we "ALL" had to work the land, 10,000 B.C.
Shall we confine this discussion to recent history (30-40 yrs)

cant pinpoint the exact year we all stopped working the land but the majority of the population of the earth was involved in agriculture into the 19th century, was the invention of machinery and mass production that freed them up to move on to something else. most of the people on this board are hobby farmers or tractor users, my feeling is they are participating in tractor use out of enjoyment or for other reasons than survival or food production for business purposes.

so I'd say NO to the 2nd part of the quote, dont understand the arbitrary cutoff at the last 40 years.

 

[UncleBuck01]

dont understand the arbitrary cutoff at the last 40 years.

Most of my adult life !, first hand knowledge of history in that time span.

I just saw that 50% of the worlds population lives in cities.... how do you think they are going to get fed?

30 - 40 years ago the american farmer could have fed the world without cloning, without genetically modified crops, there were giant surplus's of most comodities. One example: In 1987 the U.S.Govt started to pay the American Farmer not to Farm, whole dairy herds were bought by the govt to encourage dairy farmers "TO RETIRE"!
http://www.aae.wisc.edu/future/alliance/dp_4.pdf
So, if you want to know how we would "FEED THE WORLD", let the American Farmer "FARM"

 

[KICK]

I guess we aint going to get confused by the facts around here.

As productive as the American Farmer may be, I doubt he can singlehandedly feed the world.

nor does science start today.

seems like DDt was in heavy use back then. so much for natural methods.