Here in the US (and, strangely, on Kinja) there’s a very vocal mocking of anyone who wants to claim any benefits to non-GMO farming. As if the only reason to object to GMOs is imaginary health risks. In fact, GMO farming = industrial farming, and it’s a huge threat to biodiversity as well as the ability for small…

Well this is what we (the US) get by having our ag policies dictated by corporate profitability / political contributions rather than public well being. If congress had its way we would all be eating GMO soy and corn pellets like our industrial livestock.

Poultry producers around here have been wiped out by bird flu mandatory culls. The ones who sell to the huge packers get loans to restock but small guys have trouble taking the hit / recouping the debt to restock. Still, those culls are probably essential. That's part of the inevitable volatility and risk in farming.

Same push here for de-industrializing livestock, but it’s driven by consumers and generally diluted by regulations that favor large producers.

The figures in that Journal Star article were contested, and handpicked by a senator trying to raise property taxes on farms, so I don’t think that’s a solid source for this discussion.

I think based on this conversation that Canada is just plain treating their farmers better than the US does. Not surprising, really. Our farm policies have deliberately engineered our system to encourage and support very large scale cultivation of a few commodity crops. There are also regulatory efforts that are easy…

Farmers here in the US don’t get a preferential tax rate on farm income. Oh, Canada!

The point of this article and many more similar studies is that there are fewer ranches and farms, so.

Are you a farmer yourself? Because I do have livestock, and those lambs I sell are far from pure income. From that I have to pay the electric bill, keep the tractor running, repair the well, feed the livestock dog, seed acres of pasture, pay an hourly wage for farm help, my liability and property taxes, transportation…

Ok I see this is Canadian data and you’re Canadian so I defer on this data. In the US all the farm-related sources of income you mention are reported on our Schedule F explicitly as farm income by our IRS and are also counted as farm income by our Department of Agriculture. In the US off-farm income is income…

In this table are you noticing “off farm income” represents by far the greatest part of the total income on the bottom? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the point you're making but these tables show people making very little from farming.

I very much hope your confidence proves well justified. And there are profitable micro and small farms for sure. But know that for every profitable farmer at the market there are many more failed farmers *not* at the market. Also, I can tell you as a farmer who sells at farmer’s markets that folks don’t like to moan…

Yep. Around here the folks who do well are planting at very least 1000 acres of commodity crops using equipment that allows maximum productivity with minimum labor. One of them just bought a helicopter. They’re doing fine. Little guys like me have got to focus on value added and niche products and market like crazy to…

Small farmer here. Most government subsidies benefit large farmers who are growing commodities (corn, soy, commodity dairy). I have qualified for some environmental grants partial reimbursement to plant borders to prevent runoff, etc) but not what folks generally think of when they think “farm subsidies.” Same for…

That dude will be Hillary Clinton.

Counterpoint: lamb

We don't need to reproduce it, all we need is to reflect or refract it, which become theoretically possible knowing it's a wave.

If gravity exhibits wave properties than we have the possibilities of (after additional non trivial amounts of science and engineering) leveraging interference. If (if) we can reflect or refract these waves then theoretically we should, yes, be able to manipulate gravity.

Without the “discovery of the speed of light” as you say, there would be no modern electronics. So, bad example.

Apparently I am woke af. Seems like I should get more done.