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RE: Farming
>A farmer with long-term plans to lease farmland has as much incentive as
>an owner in maintaining soil quality. Therefore, ag land renting can be
>an efficient land tenure arrangement.
>
>Richard L. Bowen
>Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics
>University of Hawaii
The *incentive* might be there but with fewer and fewer farmers farming
larger and larger areas of land, my concern is the *ability* of farmers to
adequately care for the soil when the scale of operation increases. I am
reminded of the quote "The best fertilizer is the farmers footprint" (don't
know who wrote/said it). Can a farmer maintain (or better yet build) soil
quality when they're jockeying thousands of acres? I'm not saying its
impossible - but it certainly gets more difficult. I know that as the scale
of things that I'm working on (whether that be in my garden, home, or
office) increases my ability to pay attention to detail and quality
declines. -John
John Hendrickson
Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1450 Linden Drive, Room 146
Madison, WI 53706
jhendrik@macc.wisc.edu
(608) 265-3704
http//www.wisc.edu/cias
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