The first day of the Small Farms Conference officially began with a kick-off speech by Commissioner Charles Bronson. He’s the head of the Florida Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services, a huge agency which oversees the agriculture industry and food supply, provides consumer protection, and manages one million acres of state forests.
Bronson wasted no time and began his speech with the dramatic statement, “Agriculture is in big trouble, huge huge trouble” because of the current economic situation. He stated that fuel prices are 60 per cent of farm expenses, and the cost of production has been slammed by these rising fuel prices. According to Bronson, “Consumers are paying six cents on the dollar for food, and would be shocked to find out how much it actually costs to produce food if subsidies were not taken into account. We can’t fool the public that food is really that cheap.” Bronson explained that large farms are spending too much money to produce food for the prices that they are getting. “Food prices will go up when the public understands that we [farmers] are spending way more than what we are getting. The rest of the world will not feed us.”
Commissioner Charles Bronson
One solution Bronson posed was to alternate growing food crops with fuel crops. University of Florida (UF) is the leader in developing cellulose as a fuel crop, and Highlands County is set to develop 35 million gallons of ethanol. Pessimistic about getting our oil supply cut off, Bronson said, “We have to be 100 per cent self-sufficient again, and reduce oil costs.” His hope of self-sufficiency also comes with construction of more offshore oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. He claimed they are not eyesores because they are completely underwater, and will not leak one drop of oil during a hurricane.
Bronson ended on a hopeful note. “Small agriculture has to pick up the pace, to grow specialty crops, put them directly to market, and make sure that the food supply is safe and healthy. Small farms are very important to the country and the state again.”
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In the past, I’ve heard from reliable sources that food prices in this country really are lower because of the huge subsidies that agribusiness is getting from the federal government. Environmental advocates will include long-run ecological costs, such as eroding topsoil and pesticide residues, which raise the true cost of food even higher.
A 2006 law written by Florida’s congressional delegation put a huge area of federal waters surrounding Florida off limits to drilling until 2022. However, it’s not a done deal. The Senate will take up a vote in September that would bring drilling rigs as close as 10 miles off Florida.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090727/pl_mcclatchy/3280169
University of Florida has studied biomass for ethanol coming from sugarcane, corn, citrus byproducts, and sweet sorghum, with sugarcane as the most promising source. “Potential Feedstock Sources for Ethanol Production in Florida,” UF/IFAS Publication #FE650 http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FE650, published July 2006.
Redland Rambles 