Raising Less Corn, More Hell: Why Our Economy, Ecology and Security Demand The Preservation of the Independent Farm

By George Pyle

Book Overview

In Raising Less Corn, More Hell George B. Pyle shows us how the famous breadbasket of America is being bought up by large corporations, who produce less food per acre than the small farmer, push those... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1586481150
• ISBN13: 9781586481155
• Release Date: June 2005
• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 1.0" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Seeing the Big Picture

In this engaging book, George Pyle avoids clichéd hand-wringing about the "Crisis of the American Farmer." Instead, he delivers an informative, fascinating farmers'-eye-view account of US agricultural policy within the larger context of economic globalization, the energy crisis, global warming, water pollution, the US obesity epidemic, genetically modified foods and terrorism. Pyle enriches his account with links to slavery, communism, the Dust Bowl, Star Trek and Nobel economist Amartya Sen. Sprightly, direct writing, clear information and convincing analysis, all in 200 pages. Read this book, and you'll to understand where your dinner fits into the Big Picture.

Why should we care?

I've known farmers and always wished them well. However, I never really had a burning passion for their survival. Growing up in Houston didn't exactly make me a "man of the soil". Yet, after reading George's book, I understand and finally do care about their success. This is a great book for folks who, like myself, don't understand. A side bonus - unlike a textbook, it's fun to read. George brings the issue down to the level of the consumer, then elevates that level to greater understanding. You learn about the health, security, and economic reasons that you care...even if you didn't know you cared. I had the honor of working with George in Salina. Anyone who knows his body of work has to feel that, whether you agree with him or not, he's an excellent and entertaining writer. He's also a great guy. Bryant

Great reporting on something that is near and dear!

RAISING LESS CORN, MORE HELL: THE CASE FOR THE INDEPENDENT FARM AND AGAINST INDUSTRIAL FOOD by George Pyle is an eye-opening treatise on the damage that overproduction and overdevelopment of food does to our economy, our health and our ways of life. These wrongs are committed through the industrialization of food that has occured in the United States in the twentieth century, and Pyle makes a convincing case in easy-to-read reportage that outcomes of this process are not good. Pyle, who is currently an editorial writer for the Salt Lake Tribune, was raised in Kansas and spent several years as editorial page editor at a newspaper in Salina, Kan. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1998, and this book shows his valuable journalistic sensibilities in an issue of great public interest. He is able to clearly (and colloquially) make his case in all the areas he focuses on through thorough citation and primary reporting. The book (after an interesting prologue titled "Searching for Roots: Or, How I Learned to Start Worrying and Love the Small Farm") is divided into sections with chapters that explore the aspects of "Wealth," "Health" and "Security." "Wealth" deals primarily with the faulty economic assumptions that spur American growers to grow not just crops but their own operations, borrow money for bigger and better machinery, and commoditize themselves right out of a profit. He also deals with the corporate farms and giant cattle and hog farms that are springing up all over the nation. (The farmers make all the investments in facilities and the corporations take none of the risks, but control all the prices. The corporations can also decide not to use a farmer for whatever reason after he or she has made the investments in all the facilities...) This sections lays the groundwork for the fundamental pricing issue of Pyle's thesis: Overproduction drives down prices for American farmers, causes worldwide commodity "dumping" and discourages developing nations from growing their own foods. It's really a "death cycle" of farm economics, but individual farmers feel compelled (and are supported by short-sighted governmental policies) to get as much as possible out of their lands to get bigger profits (or smaller losses) each season, even while this action contributes to driving down real farm wages over time. The second section, "Health," deals with the consequences of genetic modification of crops and the issues associated with feeding livestock corn and chopped up animal bits, contrary to nature. And there ARE consequences. Some of the consequences are trade related (the EU and other nations won't allow GM crops to be imported, resulting in trade embargoes, political conflict and accusations and aspersions cast on U.S. crop exports) and some are health related (cows should not be fed corn, as when they are, e. coli develop in their intestines... this would be fine if slaughterhouses were clean or careful enough to keep the organs away from

Repeating a lie for 70+ years doesn't make it true.

Since the 1930's when subsidies were provided to farmers that grew program crops (corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, tobacco...), we were told by pretty much every politician running for office that such subsidies were necessary to save the family farm. Finally, somebody has taken the effort to point out that telling this lie for over seventy years hasn't made it true. In fact, if there is any one factor which is working to limit the viability of mid-sized family operations, it is the grain subsidies which encourage overproduction and mismanagement of the land and water resources and has created a producer base whose primary skill is "farming the government" rather than being true stewards of the land. While I agree with the author's main point, that grain subsidies are putting family operations at a disadvantage relative to the larger "mega-farms", I respectfully disagree with the point that the subsidies are being maintained for the benefit of all agribusiness entities. While major players in the grain market (Cargill, ADM, Continental Grain) have a vested in interest in having a lot of bushels of program crops around which they can handle and thereby tack a fraction of a cent/bushel margin on, I don't think this conspiracy includes the beef packing industry. Rather, this industry just evolved to its present state to operate in the environment which the subsidies created. If such obscene profits were being realized by all agribusiness entities, IBP (Iowa Beef Processors) would not have been boughten up by the poultry industry juggernaut, Tyson Farms and Swift Packing Co. would not be on Smithfield Farms acquisition list. In fact, I think these events provide a certain degree of circumstantial evidence that the grain subsidies provide a comparative advantage to the pork and poultry industries over the beef cattle industry. However, this one slip can easily be dismissed on the basis that the author is an aging baby boomer and raging against the establshment is what boomers do and shouldn't detract from the point that the grain subsidies are causing more problems than they solve.

A different perspective

I 'm a city girl and though I was raised in Kansas, I know little about the argricultural market. This book was an eye opener. The author's premise is sound and believe me, it took a lot of convincing on his part to bring me to this point. Let's stop feeding the poorer nations with our "surpluses."