www.Usenet.com
www.Usenet.com
| <-- __Chronological__ --> | <-- __Thread__ --> |
Good Gawwwwd -A- Mighty!
Steve Eaton brings the WHOLE "Fred Elbel" agenda to alt.guitar.amps...
bin Eaton...nice!
See Fred lives in Colorado and THIS is HIS whole gig Steve...google Fred Elbel.
I'm not a tech and AM among THE worst OT posters going, but AT LEAST I'm an active Guitar Player and gear, tubes, amps, guitars and music play a significant part in my life. Fred Elbel CLAIMS to "dabble in a little piano", but will NEVER post anything in alt.guitar.amps
dw outside of his personal battle
involving the population.
Steve Eaton wrote:
"Fred Elbel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 10:47:23 -0600, "Steve Eaton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
What happened was that there was a drought on the plains in the 30's
Yes, that certainly occurred. An incredible amount of topsoil was lost.
Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, etc. are the better farmlands.
I'm not an agricultural expert, but I suspect that only vegetables and fruits are grown in CA whereas predominantly wheat, corn and soy are grown in the midwest. I wonder if this is related to the growing season, soil differences and different climates?
hey Fred. I live in Illinios, downstate in the farming area, so what I know is mostly first hand. But while it is true that most farming here is grains and beans, most other vegetables, and most all fruit except citrus are grown here commercially as well. While Washington State is reknown for it's Red and Yellow delicious apples, IL supplies a good bit of the country's crop of winesap and jonathon apples.
We also are one of only 2 or 3 places on earth that has soil rich enough, and the proper climate for growing horseradish. The other major place is in China.
While Cal. produces many mellons, they are inferior in quality to those grown in Indiana or Florida. Same with Tomatoes, Squash, and many others. But California can make a better profit from selling theirs.
There are some things that don't do as well here. Carrots, (not sandy enough) lettuces,(too hot and cold to get more than a few harvests a year) potatoes, blueberries(too hot) and hot peppers come to mind.
I think that the reason that we do not specialize in truck vegetables is purely economic. We have a choice here. We can plant 2 crops of wheat a year and only one of vegetables, and the vegetables require much more labor than grain fields, so it is just more profitable. But the soil here is better, the rainfall is adequate, and the growing season long enough to grow the others. And we do. But keep them for ourselves. In season, our groceries and markets are full of top grade local produce. contrast that with a state that exports their produce, their groceries are usually selling the 2nd rate produce, because the good stuff must be shipped out to make profit. Beautiful peppers can be found here for $3 a bushell and Tomatoes for around 10 cents a pound. That is in season. For the import stuff we pay maybe $0.50 apeice for peppers and $2.50 a lb for vine ripened tomatoes. For that price only the best stuff sells.
In Cali, grain would be tougher to grow but the growing season is such that things like peppers and tomatoes can be grown nearly year round, the hitch is that it requires much cheap labor to do it.
I'm not trying to diss Cali. farmers, just pointing out that without the sophisticated irrigation and the availability of migrant labor, SoCal would not be growing much of anything. So it is easily concievable that something else could better be done on that land. As opposed to many places in the Midwest where our thick crust of rich organic topsoil, plentiful rains and hot weather make a natural farm land. There may not be a better use for land here. We have the same concern over paving the farms here too. And it is happening at an alarming rate in my area.
If Cali were to quit farming veggies, the midwest could likely pick up the slack, but at a higher cost no doubt given the seasons and labor expense. Likely the replacements would come from mexico and Chile, much of the produce imported into the midwest comes from mexico and florida now. I'd bet more than comes from Cali.
Oh well....I ramble.
Cali. can only do it by paying for massive irrigation with the money saved by using cheap
labor.
Yes, massive irrigation and cheap (illegal) foreign labor are key ingredients to California's agricultural productivity.
__________________________________________
Group Saves Large Chunks of State
Los Angeles Times, November 14, 2003
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-packard14nov14,1,4072477.story?coll=la-headlines-california
A Packard Foundation campaign conserves 342,000 acres. But the charity says that amount just scratches the surface of what's needed.
By Eric Bailey, Times Staff Writer
SACRAMENTO - Warning that growth continues to threaten California's vast open spaces, one of the West's largest philanthropic foundations announced that its ambitious five-year land preservation effort has conserved 342,000 acres in the state's broad midsection...
But officials at the foundation said the effort, which leveraged $175 million in Packard funds into nearly $1 billion in private and public investment in land preservation, merely scratched the surface of needs. Some experts have estimated that the state would need to spend more than $12 billion to preserve 5.4 million acres of critical habitat in California. ... The foundation expects to ultimately preserve more than 400,000 acres by 2006.
Since the late 1990s, 40,000 acres of California farmlands and ranchlands have been lost each year to development, according to a report issued by the foundation this week. That is an area 30 times bigger than the city of San Francisco. ...
Given the rapid change, the burst of land preservation "comes at just the right time," said Kevin Starr, the state librarian and California historian. "We are just on the verge of this move toward 60 million people in the state by the year 2040.
===================================
Though not addressed in the article, over 90 percent of California sprawl can be explained by population growth alone (see http://www.cis.org/articles/2003/SprawlFindings82603.html)).
By 1950, California's population had risen to 10 million. Since then, California's population has more than tripled.
California's growing by more than 570,000 people a year according to the Census Bureau. The state is already adding more people every year than the city of Fresno.
Mary Heim, California's state demographer, expects California to add 12 million people over the course of the next two decades. But this may be a gross underestimate. She noted in a 1999 interview that fifteen years earlier, "I was forecasting that in 2020 we would have 33 million people (in California). That's what we have today."
Fred Elbel
| <-- __Chronological__ --> | <-- __Thread__ --> |
