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Published May 15, 2008 10:39 pm - One cannot pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV without hearing a constant cry of despair about the high cost of energy and our food supply. Yet, there are few solutions offered to a very real problem.
Voices: Better off than us
One cannot pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV without hearing a constant cry of despair about the high cost of energy and our food supply. Yet, there are few solutions offered to a very real problem. We farm people can give you sympathy by reminding you how much better off you are than those of us in agriculture.
Most of our inputs are petroleum or petroleum-based. You probably know diesel prices are now about $4 a gallon, and we can’t farm without tractors. This is roughly an increase of 250 percent or more. Now look at fertilizer: Nitrogen fertilizers are made from natural gas. Our costs have risen from about $2.30 per ton to $6 per ton. Factoring in the diversion of corn to ethanol and you see the price moved from $2.35 per bushel to $5.90 per bushel. One needs not be a Rhodes Scholar to understand what is happening out on the farm and all animal productions.
Some time ago, we were in a meeting where the speaker of the evening was the chairman of the Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute (known as FAPRI). It is a think tank of three universities that counsels federal officials of the consequences of actions. His candid remarks to us were as follows:
About 25 years from now —
1. The Arab sands will be about dry.
2. America will come to its senses.
3. We will use atomic energy. (France now gets 80 percent of their electricity from that source.)
4. America has 200 to 400 years of coal that will be used.
5. Our large reserves of oil and gas that are off-limits will be brought into production and our evil oil companies will build the necessary refineries.
6. America will prosper.
Many of us are aware of atomic generating plants in Arkansas, Kansas and Fulton, Missouri. When in England, we saw many of their atomic generators. Incidentally, you can tell when they’re operating by harmless steam rising from the cooling towers.
Elza Winter
Neosho
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