Jan 03 2010
Missing The Forest Farmland For the Trees
Wow, check out these numbers from the National Grain and Feed Association:
Fifty-nine million! That’s the number of acres the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) economic analysis shows will be diverted from cropland and pastureland into tree plantings by 2050 if the House-passed version of climate-change legislation (H.R. 2454) becomes law.
Diverting cropland for another sort of plant might sound harmless, but consider America’s recent history of diverting food crops to become fuel crops — in the name of environmentalism, of course. Simple laws of supply and demand suggest that, all else being equal, prices for food would go up, and many worried that’s exactly what was happening.
So now people want to plant more trees (which, in other cases, wouldn’t really bother us since we like trees and nature), which will come at the expense of farmland and in turn at the expense of everyone who benefits from America being able to produce inexpensive food.
This is a bad idea. Of course, it won’t be long before we hear that it’s all in the name of public health because it will force overweight Americans to pay more for food.
Out here in the Front Range of Colorado , I’d just like them to figure out how to reseed the millions of burned out acres of mountain forest so they would not remain bare year after year .
One of the U.S.’s most valuable resource is its farmland. This cannot be taking for granted. The link is to a good article about how the U.S. has the best farmland in the world: http://farmlandforecast.colvin-co.com/2010/01/05/us-farmland-best-investment.aspx