[Vigilanteman]

Monoculture industrial agriculture is a bigger threat to the world's food supply than most people realize. This is one area where some of the hippies are right.

It would be worthwhile granting tax breaks to people who grow backyard chickens, plant heirloom varieties of grains and vegetables or even engage in urban agriculture.

[cuz1961]

It would be worthwhile granting tax breaks to people who grow backyard chickens, plant heirloom varieties of grains and vegetables or even engage in urban agriculture.

Liberty Gardens in more ways than one.

[Pollard]

I like mixed agriculture and there are people doing it and doing very well at it. It's gaining popularity. When done right, they have healthier animals and healthier fields. Some are starting to mix staple crops into the system. Cattle rotate through followed by chickens in mobile housing, followed by a cover crop that gets rolled and crimped with a front attachment and a no till seed drill is on the back planting corn right into the flattened cover crop. No tilling, no fertilizer.

All that mulch breaks down and feeds and builds up the soil. There's a guy in SD who's soil can suck up as much rain as the sky can drop. No runoff like he used to get.

Mixed AG and soil building has been around for a long time but always as small operations but the bigger farms are getting into it now and with fertilizer prices the way they are, I'm sure a lot more will be getting into it soon. Cover crop seed is cheaper than fertilizer.

[Albion Wilde]

Monoculture industrial agriculture is a bigger threat to the world's food supply than most people realize.

It certainly figured into the Irish potato famine, sending thousands of future Democrats to America. (Kennedys, Bidens, Kerry, etc. Even Obama has Irish progenitors from, aptly enough, County Offaly.)