Saturday, October 4, 2008

Horse Park Task Force: Where are they now?

Well, I don’t know about the rest of the HPTF, but one member who was employed as a lobbyist serving at the pleasure of Ken Ulman was fired. Despite firing her, Ulman claims that he “thinks the world of her”. A replacement has already been tapped for the job. Tough love, I guess.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ulman is no supporter of farms, agriculture, or anything related, and it's no surprise the horse park task force hit the wall.

He doesn't understand the farming community and worse, he doesn't know what he doesn't know.

Anonymous said...

Why should Ulman have to understand the agriculture industry?

Personally, I am very glad that the HPTF hit the wall. The farm lobby is worse than the wall street lobby when it comes to asking for government handouts.

Anonymous said...

You're talking about corporate farming, I'm talking about people who farm for a living.

I know your position. How nice for you to be able to see everything in black and white libertarian views. Most of us are not so lucky.

Anonymous said...

Pray tell, what is the government not doing that they should be doing to support agriculture for "people who farm for a living"?

Anonymous said...

how are the people who work at corporate farms not farming for a living?

Anonymous said...

In an attempt not to write a book:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Agriculture/BG1542.cfm :

"Members of Congress who are poised to spend at least $171 billion on direct farm subsidies over the next decade would be wise to examine newly released statistics detailing who actually receives these subsidies. In 2001, Fortune 500 companies and large agribusinesses shattered previous farm subsidy records, while small family farmers saw their share of the subsidy pie shrink."

Local farming is critically important for food purity (case in point includes recent food contaminations) as well as moving toward what human beings naturally require and decreasing transport issues that add to the sullying of air and water (pollution).

A few years back, a preserved human body was discovered packed in ice (that is now melting due, by the way, in part to all those trucks transporting mass-produced and non-nutritious food over the nation). The method scientists used to determine what season the person died was examining what was in the stomach because humans naturally ate protein in winter and carbs in summer. We don't need oranges in Baltimore all winter, though soon we may be able to grow them here because of climate warming. Apples and carrots keep perfectly well for months in cool dark places.

Cancer mortality is at an all time high - in part because we don't eat nutritious food but instead ingest mass produced food grown in soil that is spent. And, we subsidize things like corn that add greatly to our epidemic diabetes which leads to failure of all major organs, and now is linked to alzheimers, also at epidemic levels along with the other end of the age spectrum, autism.

Look. I don't have time to write you a voluminous research paper. If you want to know the truth, it's right there for you to locate online just like anyone else.

Eating food grown and caught in China is not natural unless you live in China.

Anonymous said...

In summary, corporate farming has diminished food nutrition content, added to global warming, is highly costly to taxpayers, and promotes types of food that intensify disease.

Either you want the truth or you want to support your position. At times, your opinions are so strong that I believe you don't want the truth.

Anonymous said...

Anon, stop it with this ‘you don’t want to know the truth’ malarkey. You don’t even know what my position is.

I fully agree that corporate farming is costly to taxpayers, and I do not support any government subsidies paid to farmers (corporate or otherwise).

One of the legitimate purposes of government is to prevent externalities like those associated with fossil fuel use that you are talking about. Pigouvian taxes or carbon trading permits are ideas that utilize the power of the marketplace do exactly that. I support these kinds of initiatives to protect the environment. I am not totally convinced that shorter distances transporting food from farm to market offset the economies of scale achieved by large farms. Pigouvian taxes charged on fuel would help us figure that out and achieve efficiency.

People should be free to eat what they want so long as it does not harm other beings, even if eating those foods cause disease. Just because it is “natural” not to eat things grown in China or to eat oranges in wintertime does not mean that we should not be doing it. It is not natural to wear clothing either, so by your logic we should all be naked.