Interesting stuff. He obviously wants the best outcomes, and looks set to deliver them. I'm uneasy about losing the link between the individual farmer and the soil; the bloke who inherited his patch from his father, and knows it intimately. Can a scientific understanding of a "growing medium" replace that? I remember my old Soviet Politics professor saying that losing that link and moving to collective farming was what destroyed Russian and Ukrainian agriculture for decades. But that might well be my conservative prejudices, I've no idea, really.
At least he'll be able to ride out the Starmer farm tax, so good for him.
Sam - it is interesting, but there is the question of what happens to all that industrial precision when he is no longer there to drive it and all that equipment has begun to show its age.
James - it seems to be the way things are going, but it's not easy for outsiders to guess how far it might go.
Farming already is an "extension of industrialisation and machines". How else does one move from a 1750 model of 80% of the population engaged in agriculture barely scraping by with periodic famines to the current level of <2% population engaged in agriculture and no famines in the 1st & 2nd world.
Anon - if it's profitable it will probably go that way, but future developments seem likely to be politically steered too, which must make the future direction uncertain.
8 comments:
Presumably we'll still need a "Proper" farm on hand when the Dyson gets completely blocked up...
Interesting stuff. He obviously wants the best outcomes, and looks set to deliver them. I'm uneasy about losing the link between the individual farmer and the soil; the bloke who inherited his patch from his father, and knows it intimately. Can a scientific understanding of a "growing medium" replace that? I remember my old Soviet Politics professor saying that losing that link and moving to collective farming was what destroyed Russian and Ukrainian agriculture for decades. But that might well be my conservative prejudices, I've no idea, really.
At least he'll be able to ride out the Starmer farm tax, so good for him.
Farming as an extension of industrialisation and machines? Uh huh.
Dave - and we find we can't live on strawberries.
Sam - it is interesting, but there is the question of what happens to all that industrial precision when he is no longer there to drive it and all that equipment has begun to show its age.
James - it seems to be the way things are going, but it's not easy for outsiders to guess how far it might go.
Farming already is an "extension of industrialisation and machines".
How else does one move from a 1750 model of 80% of the population engaged in agriculture barely scraping by with periodic famines to the current level of <2% population engaged in agriculture and no famines in the 1st & 2nd world.
Anon - if it's profitable it will probably go that way, but future developments seem likely to be politically steered too, which must make the future direction uncertain.
Wonderful. Now can he apply his great mind to resurrecting our heavy industry?
Tammly - he probably could, it takes people like Dyson to get good ideas off the ground, but we don't do much to encourage such people.
Post a Comment