Central Ohio Relocalization Effort (CORE), Columbus, Ohio

Here are two blog entries from a Nebraska and a Ohio farmer sharing their concerns about growing corn-on-corn. How can we mitigate global warming when they are removing trees to grow more corn for ethanol? This Ohio farmer's obervations are not very reassuring when you think about increasing local food production. Also, the Ohio farmer states that the new jobs promised did not matierialize.

"At some point in time when we realize we need to feed humans not corn with the land and resources we have, we will have a very difficult time producing anything worth eating for the mineral base in the ground will be nonexsistant and the nutrient level of the food will be very low."
AL

http://www.alternet.org/story/52073?page=2

The devastation---seen with my own eyes, from a farmer
Posted by: zooeyhall on May 25, 2007 6:38 AM

I am a farmer in Nebraska, where I farm 160 acres of corn (a "small" farmer by any standard). I have lived on my farm for 50 years. I wish people could see up close the devastation to the local countryside that this ethanol frenzy has brought---and is going on as we speak. Landowners are ripping-out beautiful windbreaks and tree stands of cottonwoods and elms, these were windbreaks that were planted by the CCC back in the New Deal days, and getting the land ready to grow corn. This past winter, a factory hog farm came in and purchased a neighbor's farm. This farm was a beautiful piece of property with a grand 100 year old home and excellent buildings. They outbid all of the local farmers who wanted to buy it. Within 2 months they had completely stripped everything away--it's all gone. It just broke my 88 year-old dad's heart to see it. Other farmers around me are busy plowing-up grass pastures for corn production, land so hilly and highly erodable I never would have thought it could be used for growing row crops.

This corn-for-fuel thing has everyone in my area plowing-up their alfalfa fields. Alfalfa is an excellent low-input crop. Once it is established it pretty much takes care of itself, doesn't need any fertilizer or herbicides. It produces alot of protein and naturally enriches the soil. It takes a good two years after planting to get a crop from alfalfa, so with the dissappearance of these fields I don't care to think about the long term effect it is going to have on dairy farmers in my area, who need lots of locally grown hay.

I'm just a farmer and not good at writing, but I hope I have given Alternet's readers some idea about what is happening "out here". I wish I could post some pictures I have taken of the devastation.

New-built and proposed ethanol plants are going-up in the cities around me. No matter that they require enormous amounts of water in an area that is experiencing growing water shortages. The Platte River, which is about 10 miles from where I live, is a major gathering place for birds migrating to Canada. It has completely dried up in the summer months the past several years.

Our senators Nelson (D) and Hagel (R) beat the drum for ethanol production with every speech they make. But that is probably because Monsanto and ADM were big contributors to their campaigns.

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Not only in Nebraska...
Posted by: Farmertim on May 25, 2007 7:31 AM

Here in southwest Ohio our local ethenol plant is going up funded by a Iowa firm and local supporters complete with pickups with slogans of feel good ethenol running around to local hardware stores for the ocassional screwdriver, not anything more local than that for it is all shipped in. The workers are all from out of state and the only thing locally produced for the plant is the cement, 30,000 yards of it.

2.2 million gallons of water will be used per day at the plant and when they ran the test for the well to supply the plant people within a half mile lost there water pressure for 3 days yet it was still approved.

Long range plans are to move dairies and feedlots close to the plant to feed the remainder of the process and rebirthing the swill dairys of the 19th century that killed unknown numbers of infants due to the quality of the milk from that byproduct.

The corn base here has grown by at least 45 % and the only ones planting beans are the farmers who have long term contract to do so.

Alphalfa here is dissapearing under the spray boom and notilled into corn at a high rate, and there wasn't much to start with and hay prices are begining to show response to that.

As a biological Consultant for organic and conventional farmers and the test results from area soils around here putting corn on corn is the worst thing that could be done right now and will create a larger problem of production in the future.

At some point in time when we realize we need to feed humans not corn with the land and resources we have, we will have a very difficult time producing anything worth eating for the mineral base in the ground will be nonexsistant and the nutrient level of the food will be very low.

I have been to your state and cannot imagine the damage now being done to the fragile soils of Nebraska. How soon we forget when the old ones die off and we begin to make the mistakes of the past all over again. They might chew our ass and we feel it is not their place but we shall soon see what they meant and wish we would have listened.
Farmer Tim