[Cricket Tragic]

screener, it is fairer to say that using other energy sources to make fertilizer is more expensive with TODAY’S technology. It may also be more expensive with a new technology, but I am less willing to bet my life savings on that. I doubt the organic industry would see a chemical fertilizer made with renewable energy as appropriate, but as we don’t have one, we can’t test the idea.

I am interested in your statements about cropping land being left idle in Canada. This has not been my experience on the prairies. Equally in the US, CRP land is coming out of conservation programs and back into crop production as a result of the increased prices paid for grain.

I disagree with your assessment that “companies didn't see fit to gang up and take all of the bread… there would be a lot more farmers in production today” on the basis that it just doesn’t make sense if you start to think about it. It would be perfectly possible to farm without use of gas, agrochemicals, banks, GM seed, chemical fertilizer, grain handling companies and petroleum-based transport. A few people still do. It is just that the costs of doing the alternative are so high that most farmers utilize these technologies. Also, until recently, there was plenty of cheap competition. It is the price squeeze that has been the main problem, not the cost squeeze. If grain was worth 3 times what it is today, farmers could afford all sorts of more expensive inputs.