Sometimes there is a reason for monoculture - climate, soil type, growing season. Our area has high nitrogen from frequent lightning strikes, a very short growing season and is at high elevation. Best for growing alfalfa hay and cows. That is basically all we grow as that is the highest and best use. Farmers tried to grow medicinal herbs and met with frost. They tried to grow sunflowers only they had to completely retool and field equipment and machines are expensive.
I have heard wildlife biologists suggest we put cows on a “water diet” or drip irrigate in pastures. They are clueless. They came in and pushed “efficient” pivot wheels that the government helped purchase. That changed the hydrology of the watershed. Now the groundwater is no longer recharged and the water leaves the area downstream faster, leaving little for summer flows. Also more land is irrigated at a higher cost than with flood or wheel line irrigation.
Our Ag extension does experiments on best crops and w3hat we traditionaly grow is just about it. Obama is ignorant.
Not really. It's about the money -- charges on those greenhouse gases (agriculture, coal industry, etc.) = cap and trade, carbon credits, and a thriving market for his backers.
Way back in the distant year 2000, the Joyce Foundation of Chicago, with Barack Obama on the Board of Directors, announced:
"The third Millennium Initiatives grant, a one-year award of $347,000, will go to the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University to help fund the design of the first U.S. market for the trading of carbon emissions. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are believed to be causing climate changes such as global warming that threaten the stability of the earth's environment."
From that initial grant grew the Chicago Climate Exchange, and....
Indeed."In the spring of 2006, well before he launched his presidential campaign, Sen. Barack Obama delivered a keynote address on climate change at the Associated Press' Annual Luncheon in Chicago. Among a myriad of potential remedies for America’s dependence on fossil fuels, the Illinois senator made sure to highlight the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), a local institution that had only been in operation for three years. “To deal directly with climate change, something we failed to do in the last energy bill, we should use a market-based strategy that gradually reduces harmful emissions in the most economical way,” he said. “Right here in Chicago, the Chicago Climate Exchange is already running a legally binding greenhouse gas trading system.”
The name check was gratifying for leaders of the burgeoning CCX, many of whom had spent the market’s early days trying to establish its legitimacy in both environmental and financial circles.
Although balancing the demands of both greens and venture capitalists is tricky -- and the exchange has generated plenty of criticism from the two camps -- the CCX has undergone serious growth in five short years and has solidified its role as the nation’s premiere carbon trading market. Now, with politicians and environmentalists clamoring for increased carbon regulation, it’s well situated to become a crucial player on the national stage."