REH wrote: > It doesn't matter what it is that makes the land stay fallow. It is the > staying fallow that is the point I don't care whether it is a wealthy > big land owner or a small poor one as long as the ecologically correct > process is followed.
But it is practically unfeasible for big farms to act ecologically correct (and respect animal welfare) -- they can only function as factory farms, and that is the purpose of big farms and the agro merger-mania, after all. Practices like organic farming, leaving hedges and single trees on fields (important for biodiversity and recreationally valuable landscape), or even no-till farming are so labor-intensive that only small farms can do it. A farm with 50,000 hogs just can't provide decent animal welfare conditions, nor can the environment handle such big concentrations of animal waste. And no, the farm size is not just due to the size of the country -- it strongly depends on the system of subsidies, i.e. on which kinds of farming practices and which sizes of farms are promoted by it. What the WTO wants is a rat-race to the bottom of ag. product prices, recklessly taking into account that a rat-race to the bottom of enviro and animal-welfare practices will follow suit. Chris
