What is minimum number for a generation ship?

[a425couple]

What is minimum number for a generation ship?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_ship
Here are some very different views.
(Seed of Light by Edmund Cooper had 10 start in it.)
--- One said, 100 with 2/3 fertile females with a sperm bank is
--- marginal at best. 200 is more realistic with a sperm bank.
Then the looked to where they got that idea, and came back,
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1936-magic-number-for-space-pioneers-calculated.html#.VPKVmoZOLCQ
- (which says) "The "magic number" of people needed to create a
- viable population for multi-generational space travel has been
- calculated by researchers. It is about the size of a small village
- 160. But with some
-social engineering it might even be possible to halve this to 80."

Perhaps.
or consider, "Here are a couple of real world examples:
Tristan da Cunha (current population 264) was populated from eight men
and seven women.
Pitcairn (current population 50 after extensive emmigration) did the same
with 15 men and 12 women.
Both islands are extremely isolated and survived for 200 years. Only Tristan
da Cunha had problems with inbreeding and they were relatively mild."
http://www.sciforums.com/threads/minimum-viable-human-population.105130/

Or consider, "Estimates of the minimum viable population vary.
The results of a 2005 study from Rutgers University theorized that
the native population of the Americas are the descendants of only
70 individuals who crossed the land bridge between Asia and
North America."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_ship

[Cryptoengineer]

"a425couple" <a425c...@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:md0mm...@news3.newsguy.com:

I've seen estimates that the initial Homo Sapiens group which left
Africa and are the source of all non-African populations may have been
less than 200.

pt

[J. Clarke]

In article <md0mm...@news3.newsguy.com>, a425c...@hotmail.com
says...

Going outside of humans, cheetahs are nearly a clone--the genetic
diversity is so small that skin grafts between individuals do not result
in rejection, and yet they seem to do just fine in the wild.

[Paul Colquhoun]

Are you just considering genetic viability? Unless you want the
crew/colony to drop back to an almost pre-historic lifestyle you will
need to have a reasonable number of people in various specialist fields,
with enough free time to pass on the knowledge down the generations.

How many, and what fields they need to be experts in depends on your
target industrial level for the colony. Even sending along a massive
stock of "How to" books and videos relies on the colonists being able to
read, or to produce electricity (or at least how to turn on the solar
powered training gear).

Maybe automated food production will reduce the workforce needed to
support these people. Or you could replace them with robotic teachers
and reduce the head count that way.

Either way, I would suggest having a large safety margin so that an
unexpected calamity doesn't wipe out the colony.


--
Reverend Paul Colquhoun, ULC. http://andor.dropbear.id.au/
Asking for technical help in newsgroups? Read this first:
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#intro

[JRStern]

Well, but the history on all that is still pretty fuzzy, because later
groups might have come and intermarried (sic), and then there were
maybe some neanderthals and others already out there to fool around
with.

J.



>
>pt

[JRStern]

On Sun, 1 Mar 2015 19:49:51 -0800, "a425couple"
<a425c...@hotmail.com> wrote:

But given advanced biological technology they can reproduce variant
genes from a library, so the whole generation ship thing is trumped.
Or they could choose the limited population with much greater than
usual variation in genes. Or they could all have ideal genes to start
with, and just let variation creep in after they arrive. I think you
can find existing stories already exercising all these options.

J.

[David Johnston]

Well its a generation ship so the colonist group should be a lot larger
by the time they get there.

[Thomas Koenig]

Paul Colquhoun <newsp...@andor.dropbear.id.au> schrieb:

> Are you just considering genetic viability? Unless you want the
> crew/colony to drop back to an almost pre-historic lifestyle you will
> need to have a reasonable number of people in various specialist fields,
> with enough free time to pass on the knowledge down the generations.

Raw materials and production facilities are going to be a major
issue, too.

An iron-age technology level would be relatively easy to manage given
access to fuel, iron ore, some sort of fiber and building materials
for housing etc.

Our modern technology depends so much on an extremely diverse
supply of raw materials from chemical industries. For example,
making an oil-resistant O ring is an extremely complex task if
you start from scratch (Propylene + Ammonia --> Acrylonitrile,
Butadiene from cracking for from Ethanol, ...). And of course,
you large amounts of different kinds of catalysts, coagulants,
antifoam agents, ... You should also have good seals on your
reaction vessels, both Butadiene and Acrylonitrile are nasty.
Also, please don't forget all the stuff that goes into the
rubber mixture prior to vulcanization.

Unless somebody brings along seeds for a nitrile rubber tree, of
course... see "A Gift From Earth".

[Walter Bushell]

In article <MPG.2f5dab5a7...@news.eternal-september.org>,

"J. Clarke" <j.clark...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Going outside of humans, cheetahs are nearly a clone--the genetic
> diversity is so small that skin grafts between individuals do not result
> in rejection, and yet they seem to do just fine in the wild.

They only get away with that because they are cheaters.

--
Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greed. Me.

[Chris Zakes]

Which brings up question # 2: After several generations of living in a
ship, I think acrophobia could be a major problem. Would the crew
*want* to live in a place with no walls, no roof and *gasp* weather?

They might be happier as asteroid miners.

-Chris Zakes
Texas
--

The only thing that preserved religious freedom in the United States was not the
First Amendment and was not tolerance... but was solely a Mexican standoff
between rival religious sects, each sect intolerant, each sect the sole custodian of
the "One True Faith"-but each sect a minority that gave lip service to keep its
own "One True Faith" from being persecuted by all the other "True Faiths."

-Maureen Johnson Smith in "To Sail Beyond the Sunset"
by Robert Heinlein

[a425couple]

"Walter Bushell" <pr...@panix.com> wrote in message...

> "J. Clarke" <j.clark...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Going outside of humans, cheetahs are nearly a clone--the genetic
>> diversity is so small that skin grafts between individuals do not result
>> in rejection, and yet they seem to do just fine in the wild.
>
> They only get away with that because they are cheaters.

Boooooo
You otter be ashambed of yourself!

[Don Bruder]

In article <MPG.2f5dab5a7...@news.eternal-september.org>,
"J. Clarke" <j.clark...@gmail.com> wrote:

Bananas. From what I've read, every living banana tree today is a clone
from one grown back in the 1930s or so.

It might be said that bananas are a kind of victory for humans - We've
bred, cloned, selected, and otherwise manipulated the species so far
that it *CANNOT* reproduce without us - They no longer make seeds. If
humans don't clone them, bananas will go extinct in fairly short order.

--
Security provided by Mssrs Smith and/or Wesson. Brought to you by the letter Q

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

IIRC, it already happened, around the time of "Yes, We Have No Bananas".

The current banana (Cavandish) is supposedly an inferior replacement for the
Gros Michel lost to Panama Disease. And the Cavendish is currently
in danger of another extinction disease.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[Walter Bushell]

In article <vqp8fa505utcn7nrq...@4ax.com>,

Chris Zakes <dont...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Which brings up question # 2: After several generations of living in a
> ship, I think acrophobia could be a major problem. Would the crew
> *want* to live in a place with no walls, no roof and *gasp* weather?
>
> They might be happier as asteroid miners.
>
> -Chris Zakes
> Texas

This shows up all over in SF. In Bujold's _Eathan_ the mighty Quinn
openly disdains planets and weather, and also in _Memory_.

I can remember reading stories where the colonist to be have to
be kicked off the generation ship.

[JRStern]

On Mon, 02 Mar 2015 08:01:44 -0800, Don Bruder <dak...@sonic.net>
wrote:

>Bananas. From what I've read, every living banana tree today is a clone
>from one grown back in the 1930s or so.
>
>It might be said that bananas are a kind of victory for humans - We've
>bred, cloned, selected, and otherwise manipulated the species so far
>that it *CANNOT* reproduce without us - They no longer make seeds. If
>humans don't clone them, bananas will go extinct in fairly short order.

Well, at least that variety would go extinct, but maybe not, there are
a number of plants including roses and many succulents that reproduce
by "cloning", by breaking off pieces which then root and grow
separately, much more often than they grow by seed. I'm not sure how
many choice human food plant species would survive, seeding or not,
without cultivation, rather like asking which domestic dogs would
survive many generations out in the wild.

J.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <8459fadovjekpuuk2...@4ax.com>,

Many fruit trees only produce palatable fruit due to cloning/grafting.

Apples grown from seed, for instance, will not produce the variety of
apple the seed came from, and while the unique new variety may be palatable,
it probably will not be.

[Will in New Haven]

While all living things are related, plant genetics don't tell us much about animal genetics. Plant genetics are such that many plant geneticists, and almost all citrus geneticists, commit suicide within a decade of getting their PHDs.

--
Will in New Haven

[Will in New Haven]

For a fairly poor version of "do just fine." They are extinct in the wild in Asia and hyena-bait and lion-bait in Africa. Some moron in the 1930s wanted to see if his wolfhound could run one down and kill it. It did. The cat could not get out of sight and eventually ran out of gas. It had no chance. Not the dog's fault.

[JRStern]

On 2 Mar 2015 16:58:42 GMT, t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>)
wrote:

Never heard that before.

J.

[Magewolf]

Well with frozen sperm and eggs all you would need is enough crew for
the ship and to raise the first generation on the planet so it could be
a quite small number.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote in
news:ktd9fa5n5vev09a8s...@4ax.com:

Apples are an interesting case (and faily extreme, in this regard).
If you plant the seeds from a given apple, you will get as many
different varities as there are seeds, and odds are none of them
will be particularly edible.

Historically, most apples are useful only for making cider. A small
percentage are usable for cooking, and a small percnetage of those
are edible. Apples, however, will grow unattended nearly anywhere,
so apple cider was cheap and easy to make - if you could stomach
it.

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <cljj62...@mid.individual.net>,

t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) wrote:

Ah, but from those you can make cider, so no big whoop.

[David Johnston]

Well...tough. It's going to be difficult enough getting the
hypothetical generation ship all the way to anywhere without a
catastrophic ecological failure. At least some of them are going to
have to get off when they arrive, or they die.

[Robert Bannister]

On 3/03/2015 12:01 am, Don Bruder wrote:
st fine in the wild.
>
> Bananas. From what I've read, every living banana tree today is a clone
> from one grown back in the 1930s or so.
>
> It might be said that bananas are a kind of victory for humans - We've
> bred, cloned, selected, and otherwise manipulated the species so far
> that it *CANNOT* reproduce without us - They no longer make seeds. If
> humans don't clone them, bananas will go extinct in fairly short order.
>

Since there are about a thousand different varieties, I find that hard
to believe. You may be talking about the Cavendish banana.

--
Robert Bannister - 1940-71 SE England
1972-now W Australia

[Robert Bannister]

On 3/03/2015 2:53 am, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:
> JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote in
> news:ktd9fa5n5vev09a8s...@4ax.com:

> Apples are an interesting case (and faily extreme, in this regard).
> If you plant the seeds from a given apple, you will get as many
> different varities as there are seeds, and odds are none of them
> will be particularly edible.
>
> Historically, most apples are useful only for making cider. A small
> percentage are usable for cooking, and a small percnetage of those
> are edible. Apples, however, will grow unattended nearly anywhere,
> so apple cider was cheap and easy to make - if you could stomach
> it.
>

What about wheat? There are self-reproducing strains, but all the most
common varieties are hybrids.

[Robert Bannister]

On 2/03/2015 1:55 pm, Paul Colquhoun wrote:

> Are you just considering genetic viability? Unless you want the
> crew/colony to drop back to an almost pre-historic lifestyle you will
> need to have a reasonable number of people in various specialist fields,
> with enough free time to pass on the knowledge down the generations.
>
> How many, and what fields they need to be experts in depends on your
> target industrial level for the colony. Even sending along a massive
> stock of "How to" books and videos relies on the colonists being able to
> read, or to produce electricity (or at least how to turn on the solar
> powered training gear).
>
> Maybe automated food production will reduce the workforce needed to
> support these people. Or you could replace them with robotic teachers
> and reduce the head count that way.

That sounds like a good idea. If the people have to spend all the
daylight hours working on food production, as still happens today in
some parts of the world, then they won't even have time to read, let
alone learn to read.

[Kurt Busiek]

On 2015-03-02 23:15:55 +0000, Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> said:

> You may be talking about the Cavendish banana.

THE CAVENDISH BANANA.

Worst Robert Ludlum novel ever.

kdb
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote in
news:clk9en...@mid.individual.net:

Most commercially planted crops of _all_ kinds are either hybrids
(which do not breed true) or genetically engineered to make more
difficult to keep seed to plant next year. As a business model, it's
been fairly successful for both seed producers and farmers.

(There is a specialty industry for thosew who insist one being able
to keep seed for next year, but it is small, for obvious reasons.)

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com> wrote in
news:md2ro1$g8l$1...@dont-email.me:

> On 2015-03-02 23:15:55 +0000, Robert Bannister
> <rob...@clubtelco.com> said:
>
>> You may be talking about the Cavendish banana.
>
> THE CAVENDISH BANANA.
>
> Worst Robert Ludlum novel ever.
>

Be a decent name for a punk band, though.

[Charles Bishop]

In article <md2ro1$g8l$1...@dont-email.me>, Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com>
wrote:

> On 2015-03-02 23:15:55 +0000, Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> said:
>
> > You may be talking about the Cavendish banana.
>
> THE CAVENDISH BANANA.
>
> Worst Robert Ludlum novel ever.

THE YELLOW CAVENDISH BANANA

John D. MacDonald?

--
charles,

[J. Clarke]

In article <proto-C5B3D7....@news.panix.com>, pr...@panix.com
says...

>
> In article <MPG.2f5dab5a7...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> "J. Clarke" <j.clark...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Going outside of humans, cheetahs are nearly a clone--the genetic
> > diversity is so small that skin grafts between individuals do not result
> > in rejection, and yet they seem to do just fine in the wild.
>
> They only get away with that because they are cheaters.

There was a story that ended with that pun. Anybody remember the title?

[Vance Frickey]

On Sunday, March 1, 2015 at 10:04:22 PM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:
> In article <md0mm...@news3.newsguy.com>, a425c...@hotmail.com
> says...
> >

> Going outside of humans, cheetahs are nearly a clone--the genetic
> diversity is so small that skin grafts between individuals do not result
> in rejection, and yet they seem to do just fine in the wild.

Because, in all likelihood, unfavorable (semilethal) genes have been "culled" out of the wild cheetah population by selection pressures in the environment.

Slow and cross-eyed cheetahs just might not live long enough to transmit those genes, to say nothing of worse semilethal traits.

[Vance Frickey]

In the fan-dedicated book "Fallen Angels," Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Michael Flynn show a multigenerational space station orbiting a largely (and actively hostile) anti-technological Earth.

One of the major issues confronting the space station residents was cosmic-ray induced genetic mutations in what used to be food staples like tomatoes - the tomatoes became poisonous to humans, and other food crops are either not nutritious any longer, or just won't grow well in their mutated forms.

Eventually two astronauts stranded when their spaceship was shot down by a Green-operated surface-to-air missile on a low pass to scoop fresh air for the station are rescued by a nationwide underground of SF fans (fandom being cause to for psychiatric confinement and job discrimination in the Green-dominated USA) who find an SSTO kept as a static display at the Edwards Air Force Base museum, find fuel for the ship, and load it up with one of the astronauts, the most fit and technologically-savvy member of the fan undergrouns, and a few hundred pounds of HEALTHY crop seeds and growing stock.

Eventually a Carribean island close to the old French launching pad in Guyana with no extradition treaty with the USA becomes the fans' and station residents' Earthside spaceport, and trade of fine biochemicals made in Zero-Gee for fine, unmutated crop seed stock and other desirable things goes on at the end of the story.

A generation ship had better emulate that deep-freeze seed vault in an old mine in Norway, and find a nice, radiation-shielded place for the crop and other seeds, as well as ova and sperm from the crew, so the interstellar gas (which at relativistic speeds becomes "cosmic rays" on a starship) doesn't rewrite all the DNA on the ship - randomly.

[MajorOz]

On Monday, March 2, 2015 at 5:47:24 PM UTC-6, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:

> (There is a specialty industry for thosew who insist one being able
> to keep seed for next year, but it is small, for obvious reasons.)

And the best is just down the road from me (where I sometimes play music):

http://www.rareseeds.com/

Been saving seeds from their products for years...including black hollyhocks...

[J. Clarke]

In article <md21b2$fsk$2...@dont-email.me>, dak...@sonic.net says...

What you've read is wrong. The "banana" as we know it does not and
never has occurred in nature--it's a hybrid, like a mule, and sterile,
like a mule. That doesn't mean it can't propagate--plants have means of
reproduction other than sex. In any case, those references are to the
Dwarf Cavendish, which is the most common cultivar for sweet bananas of
the kind that you peel and eat raw. There are many other varieties of
banana in commercial production but they need to be cooked or otherwise
processed before eating. It is not clear whether there is a
satisfactory substitute for the Dwarf Cavendish for commercial
production of sweet bananas.

[a425couple]

"Charles Bishop" <ctbi...@earthlink.net> wrote in message...

> Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com> wrote:
>> Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> said:
>>
>> > You may be talking about the Cavendish banana.
>>
>> THE CAVENDISH BANANA.
>> Worst Robert Ludlum novel ever.
>
> THE YELLOW CAVENDISH BANANA
> John D. MacDonald?

Where our dear Travis, the white knight, again recovered the
stollen goods and rescued the sad lady.

I read them back when I was in Uncle Sams Misguided Children
and got my all inclusive fully paid for tour of South East Asia
and the years after.
I'd put the books away. After years of living in one house
I recently moved, and found them. At first decided to
give them away (boy, they feel DATED!), but could not
quite do it. Still got a box with them.
The yellow one was "One fearful Yellow Eye" and of
all crazy things, I have two of them!

[Chris Zakes]

My younger daughter had a thing for cheetahs for a while. That means
we watched a *lot* of science-type shows about cheetahs.
Evolutionarily, they may be a dead end, because they're *too*
specialized, and can't--as you say--really compete with other big
preadators like lions, hyenas or leopards.

-Chris Zakes
Texas
--

The only thing that preserved religious freedom in the United States was not the
First Amendment and was not tolerance... but was solely a Mexican standoff
between rival religious sects, each sect intolerant, each sect the sole custodian of
the "One True Faith"-but each sect a minority that gave lip service to keep its
own "One True Faith" from being persecuted by all the other "True Faiths."

-Maureen Johnson Smith in "To Sail Beyond the Sunset"
by Robert Heinlein

[a425couple]

"Lynn McGuire" <l...@winsim.com> wrote in message...
> On 3/3/2015 5:19 PM, hamis...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Scott Lurndal wrote:
>>> Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> writes:
>>>> In Heinlein's "Universe", I think just a pair of people leave the ship
>>>> once it reaches the destination. I think that the colony from that
>>>> pair is mentioned in a much later book, but I forget whether it was an
>>>> archeological dig or a viable colony.
>>>
>>> In _Time Enough for Love_, if I recall correctly.
>>
>> It's referenced in TefL however I believe it's intending as a reference
>> to Orphans of the Sky where 3 men and their wives make it off the ship.
>
> I thought it was one pair also. However, it is three men and four women:
>
> http://www.e-reading.link/bookreader.php/73055/Heinlein_-_Orphans_of_the_Sky.html

Could some point me toward where it is referenced in
"Time Enough For Love" / TefL ?

> I was sad when I first read that Joe-Jim did not make the trip down to the
> planet.

Yes.
Just another example that neither life, nor stories,
have to be fair or happy.

[Lynn McGuire]

BTW, are these girls a real-life Joe-Jim?
http://www.buzzfeed.com/moonc/everything-about-conjoined-twins-abby-and-brittan-a1kb

Lynn

[Scott Lurndal]

"a425couple" <a425c...@hotmail.com> writes:
>"Lynn McGuire" <l...@winsim.com> wrote in message...
>> On 3/3/2015 5:19 PM, hamis...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> Scott Lurndal wrote:
>>>> Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> writes:
>>>>> In Heinlein's "Universe", I think just a pair of people leave the ship
>>>>> once it reaches the destination. I think that the colony from that
>>>>> pair is mentioned in a much later book, but I forget whether it was an
>>>>> archeological dig or a viable colony.
>>>>
>>>> In _Time Enough for Love_, if I recall correctly.
>>>
>>> It's referenced in TefL however I believe it's intending as a reference
>>> to Orphans of the Sky where 3 men and their wives make it off the ship.
>>
>> I thought it was one pair also. However, it is three men and four women:
>>
>> http://www.e-reading.link/bookreader.php/73055/Heinlein_-_Orphans_of_the_Sky.html
>
>Could some point me toward where it is referenced in
>"Time Enough For Love" / TefL ?
>

Chief Archivist Justin Foote in Boondock (:Bacchanalia:)

"Although it has almost been forgotten, the New Frontiers was not the first
starship. She had an older sister, the Vanguard, that left the Solar system
a few years earlier than the momentous date on which Lazarus Long commandeered
he New Frontiers"

"But the ship herself was found by accident, in open orbit a long way from where
she should have been by any rational assumption based on her mission-discovered
nearly a century ago and this tells the difficulties of historiography when ships
are the fastest means of communication; this story echoed back to Secundus via
five colonial planets before it reached Archives-a few years after Lazarus left
New Rome, a few years before I went to Boondock as (nominal) courier for the
Chairwoman Pro Tem."

"Everything in the Vanguard was dead while the ship herself was sleeping, her
converter automatically shut down, her atmosphere almost leaked away, her records
so destroyed, illegible, incomplete, or desiccated as to distress one."

"...backtracked ballistically by computer, it showed that she had passed close
to a Sol-type star seven centuries earlier. A check of that system turned up
one planet Terran in type; it was found to be inhabited by H. sapiens. But
not from the Diaspora. From the Vanguard."

[Lynn McGuire]

Neat! Thanks for looking that up!

Lynn

[a425couple]

"Scott Lurndal" <sc...@slp53.sl.home> wrote in message...

> "a425couple" <a425c...@hotmail.com> writes:
>>"Lynn McGuire" <l...@winsim.com> wrote in message...

>>> hamis...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>> Scott Lurndal wrote:
>>>>> Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> writes:
>>>>>> In Heinlein's "Universe", I think just a pair of people leave the
>>>>>> ship
>>>>>> once it reaches the destination. I think that the colony from that
>>>>>> pair is mentioned in a much later book, but I forget whether it was
>>>>>> an
>>>>>> archeological dig or a viable colony.
>>>>>
>>>>> In _Time Enough for Love_, if I recall correctly.
>>>>
>>>> It's referenced in TefL however I believe it's intending as a reference
>>>> to Orphans of the Sky where 3 men and their wives make it off the ship.
>>>
>>> I thought it was one pair also. However, it is three men and four
>>> women:
http://www.e-reading.link/bookreader.php/73055/Heinlein_-_Orphans_of_the_Sky.html
>>
>>Could some point me toward where it is referenced in
>>"Time Enough For Love" / TefL ?
>
> Chief Archivist Justin Foote in Boondock (:Bacchanalia:)
> "Although it has almost been forgotten, the New Frontiers was not the
> first
> starship. She had an older sister, the Vanguard, that

Wow!
Thank you very much Scott and Lynn.

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Mon, 02 Mar 2015 15:47:23 -0700, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
<taus...@gmail.com> wrote:

[snip]

>Most commercially planted crops of _all_ kinds are either hybrids
>(which do not breed true) or genetically engineered to make more
>difficult to keep seed to plant next year. As a business model, it's
>been fairly successful for both seed producers and farmers.

I can see why it is a successful business model for seed
producers, but why is it so for farmers?

[snip]

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[danny burstein]

In <e51nfap1ggjtjmrj8...@4ax.com> Gene Wirchenko <ge...@telus.net> writes:

>[snip]

>>Most commercially planted crops of _all_ kinds are either hybrids
>>(which do not breed true) or genetically engineered to make more
>>difficult to keep seed to plant next year. As a business model, it's
>>been fairly successful for both seed producers and farmers.

> I can see why it is a successful business model for seed
>producers, but why is it so for farmers?

(numbers purely for illustration)

Let's say it costs the farmer (pre-hybrid/genetically engineered)
a hundred dollars per acre in "production costs", namely water,
fuel and depriciation on the tractor, fertilizer, misc.
thises and thatses, and labor, etc., and she can harvest
the equivalent of $200 of wheat.

Now with the hybrid, etc., add another twenty dollars for
the seeds. If other costs are the same, the priduction
cost is now $120/acre.

But... let's say crop production has increased by 25 percent,
so instead of $200 of wheat, it's now $250

Farmer spends $20 more, makes $50..

--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Gene Wirchenko <ge...@telus.net> wrote in
news:e51nfap1ggjtjmrj8...@4ax.com:

Because preserving seed for next year takes finite resources - both
money and building space - and because the hybrids have a larger
yield. Between saving money on expenses and making more on a greater
yield, it generally[1] is more profitable in an industry where
profits can be hard to come by some years.

[1] There are exceptions, as business models go. Commercially
produced sees work best as part of a complete ecosystem - fertlizers,
weed and insect control chemicals, etc., and if one eliminates all
those expenses, one can make for a farily profitable family farm. But
so far, at least, these business models have not scaled up to
commercial proportions well.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

danny burstein <dan...@panix.com> wrote in
news:mdgdcm$2ac$1...@reader1.panix.com:

> In <e51nfap1ggjtjmrj8...@4ax.com> Gene Wirchenko
> <ge...@telus.net> writes:
>
>>[snip]
>
>>>Most commercially planted crops of _all_ kinds are either
>>>hybrids (which do not breed true) or genetically engineered to
>>>make more difficult to keep seed to plant next year. As a
>>>business model, it's been fairly successful for both seed
>>>producers and farmers.
>
>> I can see why it is a successful business model for seed
>>producers, but why is it so for farmers?
>
> (numbers purely for illustration)
>
> Let's say it costs the farmer (pre-hybrid/genetically
> engineered) a hundred dollars per acre in "production costs",
> namely water, fuel and depriciation on the tractor, fertilizer,
> misc. thises and thatses, and labor, etc., and she can harvest
> the equivalent of $200 of wheat.
>
> Now with the hybrid, etc., add another twenty dollars for
> the seeds. If other costs are the same, the priduction
> cost is now $120/acre.
>
> But... let's say crop production has increased by 25 percent,
> so instead of $200 of wheat, it's now $250
>
> Farmer spends $20 more, makes $50..
>

And the average family farm is at least a thousand acres. (And a
hell of a lot of farm land isn't run as family farms, it's run by
commercial operations with orders of magnitude more acres.)

It also allows more automation, which means the same number of
people can cultivate more acres.

[Joy Beeson]

On Sat, 07 Mar 2015 15:08:28 -0800, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@telus.net>
wrote:

> I can see why it is a successful business model for seed
> producers, but why is it so for farmers?

Because hybrid corn produces a *lot* more corn per acre than
open-pollinated corn.

Economies of scale. It's cheaper to buy seed from a skilled seed
producer than to keep your own strains from degenerating.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net

[J. Clarke]

In article <e51nfap1ggjtjmrj8...@4ax.com>, ge...@telus.net
says...

High crop yields of varieties that are popular with consumers.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <MPG.2f5e44512...@news.eternal-september.org>,

"J. Clarke" <j.clark...@gmail.com> wrote:

> In article <proto-C5B3D7....@news.panix.com>, pr...@panix.com
> says...
> >
> > In article <MPG.2f5dab5a7...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> > "J. Clarke" <j.clark...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Going outside of humans, cheetahs are nearly a clone--the genetic
> > > diversity is so small that skin grafts between individuals do not result
> > > in rejection, and yet they seem to do just fine in the wild.
> >
> > They only get away with that because they are cheaters.
>
> There was a story that ended with that pun. Anybody remember the title?

Ah, for that you could post a YSID, results usually come fast.

--
Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greed. Me.

[Oliver Cromm]

* Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy:

> And the average family farm is at least a thousand acres. (And a
> hell of a lot of farm land isn't run as family farms, it's run by
> commercial operations with orders of magnitude more acres.)
>
> It also allows more automation, which means the same number of
> people can cultivate more acres.

You must be talking about North America. In my native Germany,
average farm size is about 150 acres (55 hectares), and that's
fairly large within Europe. Everything over 100 ha (~250 acres)
isn't considered an actual family farm.

<https://www.lko.at/?+1-19-Durchschnittliche-Betriebsgroesse-Landwirtschaftliche-Nutzflaeche-2010-in-der-EU-27-in-ha+&id=2500,,1644178,,eF9NWV9NRE9DWzBdPTE4MDM3ODkmc1F1PSUyNXNRdSUyNSZtb2RlPSZwYWdpbmc9JnJlaXRlcj0xMTAmYmFjaz0x>

Well, it turns out, even Texas is far from a 1000 acres average:

<http://nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Farms_and_Land_in_Farms/fncht6.asp>

--
'Ah yes, we got that keyboard from Small Gods when they threw out
their organ. Unfortunately for complex theological reasons they
would only give us the white keys, so we can only program in C'.
Colin Fine in sci.lang

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Oliver Cromm <lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote in
news:vvkenh19e4u5$.d...@mid.crommatograph.info:

> * Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy:
>
>> And the average family farm is at least a thousand acres. (And
>> a hell of a lot of farm land isn't run as family farms, it's
>> run by commercial operations with orders of magnitude more
>> acres.)
>>
>> It also allows more automation, which means the same number of
>> people can cultivate more acres.
>
> You must be talking about North America.

The US, specifically. I have no idea if Mexico and Canda are
similar.

> In my native Germany,
> average farm size is about 150 acres (55 hectares), and that's
> fairly large within Europe. Everything over 100 ha (~250 acres)
> isn't considered an actual family farm.

Family farms are big business these days. Most farmers have college
degrees (plural - usually ag and business) because they need them.
>
> <https://www.lko.at/?+1-19-Durchschnittliche-Betriebsgroesse-Land
> wirtschaftliche-Nutzflaeche-2010-in-der-EU-27-in-ha+&id=2500,,164
> 4178,,eF9NWV9NRE9DWzBdPTE4MDM3ODkmc1F1PSUyNXNRdSUyNSZtb2RlPSZwYWd

> pbmc9JnJlaXRlcj0xMTAmYmFjaz0x>
>
> Well, it turns out, even Texas is far from a 1000 acres average:
>
> <http://nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Farms_and_Land_in_Farms/fnc
> ht6.asp>
>

I note two things:

One, that is "average farm size," not "average family farm size,"
and what's included isn't clear, nor is what they mean by
"average." There are a lot of hobbyists who own a few acres, but
are hardly commercial oprations for profit (and a living.) Without
more info, it's useless data.

And two, Texas isn't exactly farm country. Ranch, yes, but that's
not a farm.

[MajorOz]

Before we moved to town a couple years ago, our place deeeeep in the boonies had 63 acres. All we grew were veggies in rain gutters nailed to the porch rails.

We lived there for the beauty, the quiet, and the wildlife.

Many friends and neighbors are/were in the same category.

[rksh...@rosettacondot.com]

Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:

Ranches tend to be even bigger, especially in Texas...low carrying capacity.
The US government stats count as a farm any property that produces or
normally could produce over $1,000 per year in agricultural products
(livestock included).
There are a >lot< of fringe suburban properties that run a few pairs of
cattle, sheep, goats, horses, etc. in order to keep up their "agricultural
use" property tax rates...it makes an enormous difference.
(Example: Around us the taxes on an acre of residential land are about $1,000
per year. On agricultural land closer to $5. To make the "cutoff" for a
farm on the stats you'd need around 3-5 acres, which is not an uncommon
lot size for residences.)
That's why the median "farm" size in Tarrant county (mostly urban) is 13 acres
and, at the other extreme, is over 20,000 in Loving (middle of nowhere,
also middle of the Chihuahuan Desert). Nationwide the majority, and something
like 75% of "small" farms (under $100k in annual sales) are "retirement or
lifestyle" farms.

Robert
--
Robert K. Shull Email: rkshull at rosettacon dot com

[Lynn McGuire]

Texas probably has more farm land than any other state in the Union. Especially when the farmers could grab any water they needed
from the rivers and aquifers. With the drought west of I-45 in the last five years, many farms are lying uncultivated now.

Until twenty years ago, Texas was the number one rice producer in the USA. That crown has moved to Mississippi since then due to
water issues. It has cut our number of migratory geese from two million to 200,000 so the goose season is not quite a big event anymore.

Yes, on sheer acreage there is more ranch land than farm land but, Texas is freaking huge.

Lynn

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

rksh...@rosettacondot.com wrote in
news:mdtcj7$kqc$1...@memoryalpha.rosettacon.com:

Indeed. But they are not *farms*, and thus, should (and probably
do) not contribute to the average *farm* size.

> low
> carrying capacity. The US government stats count as a farm any
> property that produces or normally could produce over $1,000 per
> year in agricultural products (livestock included).

So, not _family_ farms, which is what I was referring to.

> There are a >lot< of fringe suburban properties that run a few
> pairs of cattle, sheep, goats, horses, etc. in order to keep up
> their "agricultural use" property tax rates...it makes an
> enormous difference. (Example: Around us the taxes on an acre of
> residential land are about $1,000 per year. On agricultural land
> closer to $5. To make the "cutoff" for a farm on the stats you'd
> need around 3-5 acres, which is not an uncommon lot size for
> residences.) That's why the median "farm" size in Tarrant county
> (mostly urban) is 13 acres and, at the other extreme, is over
> 20,000 in Loving (middle of nowhere, also middle of the
> Chihuahuan Desert). Nationwide the majority, and something like
> 75% of "small" farms (under $100k in annual sales) are
> "retirement or lifestyle" farms.
>

Which is to say, as I suspected, the link provided does not really
provide meaningful data on the subject of family farms.

[Oliver Cromm]

* Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy:

> Oliver Cromm <lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote in
> news:vvkenh19e4u5$.d...@mid.crommatograph.info:
>
>> * Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy:
>>
>>> And the average family farm is at least a thousand acres. (And
>>> a hell of a lot of farm land isn't run as family farms, it's
>>> run by commercial operations with orders of magnitude more
>>> acres.)
>>>
>>> It also allows more automation, which means the same number of
>>> people can cultivate more acres.
>>
>> You must be talking about North America.
>
> The US, specifically. I have no idea if Mexico and Canda are
> similar.
>
>> In my native Germany,
>> average farm size is about 150 acres (55 hectares), and that's
>> fairly large within Europe. Everything over 100 ha (~250 acres)
>> isn't considered an actual family farm.
>
> Family farms are big business these days.

Maybe, but how many employees can they have and still be a family
farm?

> Most farmers have college
> degrees (plural - usually ag and business) because they need them.

Absolutely. A famous German TV show for kids recently ran a
four-part portrait of a farm through the seasons (each part in the
appropriate season). Whatever the season, the first thing the
farmer did when he woke up invariably was turning on the computer.
Not much of his day involved touching dirt.

I looked for more statistical details. Found this:

<http://www.statistikportal.de/statistik-portal/landwirtschaftszaehlung_2010.pdf>

I believe "family farm" is not an official/statistical term. The
main categorization in Germany is whether farming represents the
only/dominant household income of the owner or a sideline. That
split gives us:

ha
overall average 55.8
mainline farms 61.1
sideline farms 20.8

So, that doesn't change much.

Further, 93% of farms in former West Germany and 72.5% in former
East Germany are "self-contained companies". Not all, but most of
those are probably family farms.

Average manpower is given as 3.3 people/100 ha, that comes out to
about 2 full-time jobs for the average mainline farm. Good bet
that's a family farm, then. Keep in mind that that "average" farm
is a statistical construct, not real. Workers in the sector
overall are given as roughly 50% family, 20% paid employees, 30%
seasonal.

Farms and ranches are not treated separately, maybe because most
have a bit of both. That might indicate that many of these are not
"big business", but I'm no expert.


--
Democracy means government by the uneducated,
while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.
-- G. K. Chesterton

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Oliver Cromm <lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote in

news:q6ualiowpo0k$.d...@mid.crommatograph.info:

> * Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy:
>
>> Oliver Cromm <lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote in
>> news:vvkenh19e4u5$.d...@mid.crommatograph.info:
>>
>>> * Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy:
>>>
>>>> And the average family farm is at least a thousand acres.
>>>> (And a hell of a lot of farm land isn't run as family farms,
>>>> it's run by commercial operations with orders of magnitude
>>>> more acres.)
>>>>
>>>> It also allows more automation, which means the same number
>>>> of people can cultivate more acres.
>>>
>>> You must be talking about North America.
>>
>> The US, specifically. I have no idea if Mexico and Canda are
>> similar.
>>
>>> In my native Germany,
>>> average farm size is about 150 acres (55 hectares), and that's
>>> fairly large within Europe. Everything over 100 ha (~250
>>> acres) isn't considered an actual family farm.
>>
>> Family farms are big business these days.
>
> Maybe, but how many employees can they have and still be a
> family farm?

Depends on the family, I guess, and how obsessed you are with what
you want to be true.

>
>> Most farmers have college
>> degrees (plural - usually ag and business) because they need
>> them.
>
> Absolutely. A famous German TV show for kids recently ran a
> four-part portrait of a farm through the seasons (each part in
> the appropriate season). Whatever the season, the first thing
> the farmer did when he woke up invariably was turning on the
> computer. Not much of his day involved touching dirt.

Is the farm equipment - tractors, etc. - as computerized in Europe
as it is here? The bigger, more expensive equipment drives itself
now.

>
> I looked for more statistical details. Found this:
>
> <http://www.statistikportal.de/statistik-portal/landwirtschaftsza
> ehlung_2010.pdf>

Since I haven't read German since high school, that isn't helpful.

>
> I believe "family farm" is not an official/statistical term.

I believe you are correct.

The
> main categorization in Germany is whether farming represents the
> only/dominant household income of the owner or a sideline. That
> split gives us:
>
> ha
> overall average 55.8
> mainline farms 61.1
> sideline farms 20.8

Does Germany have corporate owned farms? Some of those (in the US)
are huge. And it's hard to tell, sometimes, what's corporate owned
and what's family owned, because the corporations often hire
family-ish groups to run their farms as sharecroppers.

>
> So, that doesn't change much.
>
> Further, 93% of farms in former West Germany and 72.5% in former
> East Germany are "self-contained companies". Not all, but most
> of those are probably family farms.
>
> Average manpower is given as 3.3 people/100 ha, that comes out
> to about 2 full-time jobs for the average mainline farm. Good
> bet that's a family farm, then. Keep in mind that that "average"
> farm is a statistical construct, not real. Workers in the sector
> overall are given as roughly 50% family, 20% paid employees, 30%
> seasonal.

Europe has a lot more incentive to encourage smaller farms, both to
protect the ability to grow enough food domestically to not be
utterly dependent on other countries, and to provide more
employment (smaller farms are less efficient, and take more people)
than the US. So none of that is surprising.

>
> Farms and ranches are not treated separately, maybe because most
> have a bit of both. That might indicate that many of these are
> not "big business", but I'm no expert.
>

There really isn't enough room in Europe for what most Americans
think of as "ranches," though. Thousands of acres of pasture for
huge herds of cattle (or sheep, sometimes), that sort of thing.
Parts of Argentian has the same sort of idea of what a ranch is, I
guess, but a lot of the world just doesn't.

[Robert Bannister]

On 14/03/2015 5:02 am, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:

> There really isn't enough room in Europe for what most Americans
> think of as "ranches," though. Thousands of acres of pasture for
> huge herds of cattle (or sheep, sometimes), that sort of thing.
> Parts of Argentian has the same sort of idea of what a ranch is, I
> guess, but a lot of the world just doesn't.
>

On the whole, cattle stations (ranches in America) are on relatively
poor land that is not suitable for much else. Even then, to avoid the
degradation that hard-hoofed animals cause, they need to be very large.

From Wikipedia
King Ranch, located in South Texas between Corpus Christi and
Brownsville, is one of the largest ranches in the world.[3] (The world's
largest is the 6,000,000 acre Anna Creek station in Australia, and the
largest contiguous U.S. ranch is the Waggoner Ranch near Vernon, Texas.)
--
Robert Bannister - 1940-71 SE England
1972-now W Australia

[Lynn McGuire]

The King Ranch is now the biggest wind "farm" in The Great State of Texas. Maybe the world.

Lynn

[rksh...@rosettacondot.com]

The feds are the only ones with noses long and pointy enough to stick
into everyone's business, so the statistics tend to trace back to them.
They don't differentiate between "farm" and "ranch". A farm produces
agricultural goods for sale in an amount typically in excess of $1,000
per year. Doesn't matter if the goods produced are green and crunchy,
complain loudly when you bite into them, get turned into clothing or
get sold in artful arrangements by florists. Plus it's way too complicated
to try and figure out otherwise. Is someone who has some of their land
in crops and the rest in cattle a farmer or a rancher? What if sometimes
they sell the crops and sometimes they graze the cattle on them? I
suppose you could call them a fancher, but that just sounds wrong.
Not to mention that English is itself confused about it. Someone who
raises cattle is a rancher. But if you call someone a hog rancher you'll
probably get an odd look.

>> low
>> carrying capacity. The US government stats count as a farm any
>> property that produces or normally could produce over $1,000 per
>> year in agricultural products (livestock included).
>
> So, not _family_ farms, which is what I was referring to.
>
>> There are a >lot< of fringe suburban properties that run a few
>> pairs of cattle, sheep, goats, horses, etc. in order to keep up
>> their "agricultural use" property tax rates...it makes an
>> enormous difference. (Example: Around us the taxes on an acre of
>> residential land are about $1,000 per year. On agricultural land
>> closer to $5. To make the "cutoff" for a farm on the stats you'd
>> need around 3-5 acres, which is not an uncommon lot size for
>> residences.) That's why the median "farm" size in Tarrant county
>> (mostly urban) is 13 acres and, at the other extreme, is over
>> 20,000 in Loving (middle of nowhere, also middle of the
>> Chihuahuan Desert). Nationwide the majority, and something like
>> 75% of "small" farms (under $100k in annual sales) are
>> "retirement or lifestyle" farms.
>>
> Which is to say, as I suspected, the link provided does not really
> provide meaningful data on the subject of family farms.

My Google skills may be too weak (plus I only give a fraction of a shit),
but I'm not sure that data exists in distilled form. Although I do agree with
you. People who work 9-5 jobs during the week and sell the excess from their
home garden on the weekends aren't farmers, even if they do sell over $1,000
per year. We own enough land to do that, but doing so wouldn't magically
change me from an engineer into a farmer.

[Robert Bannister]

On 15/03/2015 10:09 am, rksh...@rosettacondot.com wrote:

> The feds are the only ones with noses long and pointy enough to stick
> into everyone's business, so the statistics tend to trace back to them.
> They don't differentiate between "farm" and "ranch". A farm produces
> agricultural goods for sale in an amount typically in excess of $1,000
> per year. Doesn't matter if the goods produced are green and crunchy,
> complain loudly when you bite into them, get turned into clothing or
> get sold in artful arrangements by florists. Plus it's way too complicated
> to try and figure out otherwise. Is someone who has some of their land
> in crops and the rest in cattle a farmer or a rancher? What if sometimes
> they sell the crops and sometimes they graze the cattle on them? I
> suppose you could call them a fancher, but that just sounds wrong.
> Not to mention that English is itself confused about it. Someone who
> raises cattle is a rancher. But if you call someone a hog rancher you'll
> probably get an odd look.

And the language is often different in different countries. I don't
think "rancher" is used outside North America. In this country, the
cattle people call themselves "graziers" and are distinguished from the
sheep people who call themselves "pasturalists". Many of these use vast
tracts of Crown land that they lease at a very low rent. Farmers, on the
other hand, many well have a few sheep and cattle, but mainly grow
plants: wheat, rape, bananas, flowers... I'm not sure what sugar cane
growers are called, but I think pork producers are called pig farmers by
most people - "hog" is not a word often used here with regard to pigs.

I'm sure the taxman takes a good cut whatever name is used.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

rksh...@rosettacondot.com wrote in
news:me2pkl$859$1...@memoryalpha.rosettacon.com:

Since the link is on a .gov site, that's not exactly hard to figure
out.

> They don't differentiate between "farm" and
> "ranch". A farm produces agricultural goods for sale in an
> amount typically in excess of $1,000 per year. Doesn't matter if
> the goods produced are green and crunchy, complain loudly when
> you bite into them, get turned into clothing or get sold in
> artful arrangements by florists. Plus it's way too complicated
> to try and figure out otherwise. Is someone who has some of
> their land in crops and the rest in cattle a farmer or a
> rancher? What if sometimes they sell the crops and sometimes
> they graze the cattle on them? I suppose you could call them a
> fancher, but that just sounds wrong. Not to mention that English
> is itself confused about it.

That still doesn't make the link about what I referred to, which is
family farms.

> Someone who raises cattle is a
> rancher. But if you call someone a hog rancher you'll probably
> get an odd look.
>

I've heard the term used, though not commonly. Sheep rancher, too,
and more commonly (and usually with some form of metaphorical
spitting on the ground in disgust).

[Chris Zakes]

<chuckle> There is a big Westinghouse plant just north of Austin that
has two, count 'em two, longhorns living on the property. Apparently
that's enough to qualify for the lower tax rate.

-Chris Zakes
Texas
--

The only thing that preserved religious freedom in the United States was not the
First Amendment and was not tolerance... but was solely a Mexican standoff
between rival religious sects, each sect intolerant, each sect the sole custodian of
the "One True Faith"-but each sect a minority that gave lip service to keep its
own "One True Faith" from being persecuted by all the other "True Faiths."

-Maureen Johnson Smith in "To Sail Beyond the Sunset"
by Robert Heinlein

[Walter Bushell]

In article <XnsA456C18B559...@69.16.179.43>,

Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:

> [1] There are exceptions, as business models go. Commercially
> produced sees work best as part of a complete ecosystem - fertlizers,
> weed and insect control chemicals, etc., and if one eliminates all
> those expenses, one can make for a farily profitable family farm. But
> so far, at least, these business models have not scaled up to
> commercial proportions well.

s/commercial/industrial/


A family farm is already commercial.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <mdtei7$huk$1...@dont-email.me>,

Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote:

> Texas probably has more farm land than any other state in the
> Union. Especially when the farmers could grab any water they
> needed from the rivers and aquifers. With the drought west of I-45
> in the last five years, many farms are lying uncultivated now.
>
> Until twenty years ago, Texas was the number one rice producer in
> the USA. That crown has moved to Mississippi since then due to
> water issues. It has cut our number of migratory geese from two
> million to 200,000 so the goose season is not quite a big event
> anymore.
>
> Yes, on sheer acreage there is more ranch land than farm land but,
> Texas is freaking huge.

>
> Lynn

Remember ranch land is usually unsuitable for crop farming even
with irrigation which in many places is mining water and depleting
the aquifers and as such unsustainable.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote in
news:proto-069045....@news.panix.com:

> In article <XnsA456C18B559...@69.16.179.43>,
> Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> [1] There are exceptions, as business models go. Commercially
>> produced sees work best as part of a complete ecosystem -
>> fertlizers, weed and insect control chemicals, etc., and if one
>> eliminates all those expenses, one can make for a farily
>> profitable family farm. But so far, at least, these business
>> models have not scaled up to commercial proportions well.
>
> s/commercial/industrial/
>
>
> A family farm is already commercial.
>

Good point.