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What is needed to help re-localize food systems quickly and on a large scale is a franchise-ready sustainable farming system. That is the concept behind SPIN (S-mall P-lot IN-tensive ) Farming. SPIN farmers work plots less than an acre in size, utilize relay cropping to increase yield and achieve good economic returns by growing only the most profitable food crops tailored to local markets. SPIN’s growing techniques are not, in themselves, breakthrough. What is novel is the way a SPIN farm business is run. Contained in the seven SPIN Guides, which can be purchased online and downloaded for immediate access, is everything you’d expect from a good franchise: a business plan, marketing advice, and a detailed day-to-day workflow. In standardizing the system and creating a reproducible process it really isn’t any different from McDonalds. And SPIN-style farming removes the two big barriers to entry
Posted by Roxsen on Jul 23, 2008 at 9:41 AM
Since there are no truly free markets on earth because of intrusive and overbearing government regulations, you can’t really sit there and complain about something that doesn’t exist.
As history has shown, most shortages are caused by government regulation, not by “free” markets, or partially free markets, as we actually have.
The most current example, after such past marxist attempts of control such as the windfall profits tax on oil in the 1980’s, is the current shortage of corn as food. The US government in its blindness decided to mandate production of ethenol. Thus a shortage of corn for food which impacted other areas looking for a replacement.
Free markets would actually solve shortages, because ultimately, no one can repeal the law of supply and demand.
Posted by saintknowitall on Jul 24, 2008 at 9:13 AM
So they problem is NOT free markets, but the government “running” of those “free markets”. So the proposed solution, according to the article, is MORE GOVERNMENT CONTROL?! You’re joking, right?
Some bureaucrat, with no experience in agriculture (but with greased palms from beltway dealings) is going to force me to: farm a certain crop, in a certain way, sell to a certain buyer, at a certain price, and throw me in jail if I don’t comply? So when it actually costs me $100 to produce 1 pound of a certain crop, the government will FORCE me to sell that crop at $10 for 1 pound?
Why farm? I’ll wait for someone else to feed me. Wait, won’t that decrease the collective supply of whatever I’m producing? Won’t that make people wait longer to receive the crop at $10 a pound? No wonder why the bread lines were so long in The Glorious Worker’s Paradise of Mother Russia!
The Solution is to get the government 100% out of the equation and ALLOW people to grow their own food without fear of government reprisal if they happen to sell the surplus from a bumper crop to a neighbor who is willing to pay for it.
When I see, as quoted in the article: ‘What
Posted by Craig Gorsuch on Jul 24, 2008 at 11:22 AM
Speculators belong in jail. People die and wars have started as a result of speculators.
The timing of the start of the Korean War may have come about as a result of soy bean speculating by Chiang Kai Shek, Syngman Rhee and their friends in the U.S.
Almost 60 years later and this “stuff” still goes on. This “stuff” makes me #@$%#@ sick.
Posted by drobe on Jul 24, 2008 at 8:06 PM
Agricultural markets have price inelasticity. They lack
Posted by Brad Wilson on Jul 26, 2008 at 1:51 PM
I don’t shiver when the Government subsidizes agri-business… It makes my blood boil!
Money skimmed from MY hard work (which should go to my family first) is being “given” to large corporations in argi-business, to do the job they’re supposed to be doing anyway. Are government subsidies meant as a “safety net” for corporation with billions in the bank? This implies either: A) agri-business is too big for it’s britches and is “in bed” with government, and/or B) these businesses have absolutely no chance of survival in the “real world” where people like you and I (who genuinely work for a living) go hungry if we can’t deliver on our abilities. It behooves everyone to work for what they earn, and to keep it; otherwise, they become whiners that expect everyone but themselves to do for them what they can do for themselves.
It merely reinforces my initial point. (One that is echoed by some of the other posts.) Government NEEDS to get out of the process! Unless one is advocating increased subsidies from the government to [insert name of industry here], then one is advocating for a smaller government. I have the usual position of coming from a view point that others don’t usually see, while not speaking of views that others usually do see.
It’s one thing to have benefactor to supply one with capital at the outset of one’s business, either to be repaid, or as a philanthropic gift. It’s another thing entirely for the Government, whose only “source of income” is a combination of preemptive taxation (of which the populace has no say in how much to “give”), and devaluation of the currency (of which we’re deeply in the throes of).
Take the Government out what ever system is experiencing difficulty. It won’t solve 100% of the problems, but it will solve a majority of them.
Posted by Craig Gorsuch on Jul 26, 2008 at 3:26 PM
To change from a system where, a. government pays subsidies to substitute for the market, to one where, b. government uses price floors, strategic reserves and price ceilings, and manages supply and demand so they work, as before, might be considered a smaller government. At least the government would make money off the programs, instead of paying out tens and hundreds of billions to programs designed to export America’s wealth.
But government must not get out, since, as I’ve said, farm commodities lack “price responsiveness.” That would be anti business and anti American. It would mean usually losing money, (ie. under market conditions the vast majority of the time throughout the 20th centuries,) even when we dominate export markets. What a huge hemorrhaging of our wealth.
We must not let free market ideologies (ie. libertarian) interfere with good, widely used business practices, like managing supply to market needs, so we make a profit. It doesn’t work without the government help. The historical record and econometric studies show this.
Posted by Brad Wilson on Jul 27, 2008 at 7:55 PM
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Reader Comments
What is needed to help re-localize food systems quickly and on a large scale is a franchise-ready sustainable farming system. That is the concept behind SPIN (S-mall P-lot IN-tensive ) Farming. SPIN farmers work plots less than an acre in size, utilize relay cropping to increase yield and achieve good economic returns by growing only the most profitable food crops tailored to local markets. SPIN’s growing techniques are not, in themselves, breakthrough. What is novel is the way a SPIN farm business is run. Contained in the seven SPIN Guides, which can be purchased online and downloaded for immediate access, is everything you’d expect from a good franchise: a business plan, marketing advice, and a detailed day-to-day workflow. In standardizing the system and creating a reproducible process it really isn’t any different from McDonalds. And SPIN-style farming removes the two big barriers to entry
Since there are no truly free markets on earth because of intrusive and overbearing government regulations, you can’t really sit there and complain about something that doesn’t exist.
As history has shown, most shortages are caused by government regulation, not by “free” markets, or partially free markets, as we actually have.
The most current example, after such past marxist attempts of control such as the windfall profits tax on oil in the 1980’s, is the current shortage of corn as food. The US government in its blindness decided to mandate production of ethenol. Thus a shortage of corn for food which impacted other areas looking for a replacement.
Free markets would actually solve shortages, because ultimately, no one can repeal the law of supply and demand.
So they problem is NOT free markets, but the government “running” of those “free markets”. So the proposed solution, according to the article, is MORE GOVERNMENT CONTROL?! You’re joking, right?
Some bureaucrat, with no experience in agriculture (but with greased palms from beltway dealings) is going to force me to: farm a certain crop, in a certain way, sell to a certain buyer, at a certain price, and throw me in jail if I don’t comply? So when it actually costs me $100 to produce 1 pound of a certain crop, the government will FORCE me to sell that crop at $10 for 1 pound?
Why farm? I’ll wait for someone else to feed me. Wait, won’t that decrease the collective supply of whatever I’m producing? Won’t that make people wait longer to receive the crop at $10 a pound? No wonder why the bread lines were so long in The Glorious Worker’s Paradise of Mother Russia!
The Solution is to get the government 100% out of the equation and ALLOW people to grow their own food without fear of government reprisal if they happen to sell the surplus from a bumper crop to a neighbor who is willing to pay for it.
When I see, as quoted in the article: ‘What
Speculators belong in jail. People die and wars have started as a result of speculators.
The timing of the start of the Korean War may have come about as a result of soy bean speculating by Chiang Kai Shek, Syngman Rhee and their friends in the U.S.
Almost 60 years later and this “stuff” still goes on. This “stuff” makes me #@$%#@ sick.
Agricultural markets have price inelasticity. They lack
I don’t shiver when the Government subsidizes agri-business… It makes my blood boil!
Money skimmed from MY hard work (which should go to my family first) is being “given” to large corporations in argi-business, to do the job they’re supposed to be doing anyway. Are government subsidies meant as a “safety net” for corporation with billions in the bank? This implies either: A) agri-business is too big for it’s britches and is “in bed” with government, and/or B) these businesses have absolutely no chance of survival in the “real world” where people like you and I (who genuinely work for a living) go hungry if we can’t deliver on our abilities. It behooves everyone to work for what they earn, and to keep it; otherwise, they become whiners that expect everyone but themselves to do for them what they can do for themselves.
It merely reinforces my initial point. (One that is echoed by some of the other posts.) Government NEEDS to get out of the process! Unless one is advocating increased subsidies from the government to [insert name of industry here], then one is advocating for a smaller government. I have the usual position of coming from a view point that others don’t usually see, while not speaking of views that others usually do see.
It’s one thing to have benefactor to supply one with capital at the outset of one’s business, either to be repaid, or as a philanthropic gift. It’s another thing entirely for the Government, whose only “source of income” is a combination of preemptive taxation (of which the populace has no say in how much to “give”), and devaluation of the currency (of which we’re deeply in the throes of).
Take the Government out what ever system is experiencing difficulty. It won’t solve 100% of the problems, but it will solve a majority of them.
To change from a system where, a. government pays subsidies to substitute for the market, to one where, b. government uses price floors, strategic reserves and price ceilings, and manages supply and demand so they work, as before, might be considered a smaller government. At least the government would make money off the programs, instead of paying out tens and hundreds of billions to programs designed to export America’s wealth.
But government must not get out, since, as I’ve said, farm commodities lack “price responsiveness.” That would be anti business and anti American. It would mean usually losing money, (ie. under market conditions the vast majority of the time throughout the 20th centuries,) even when we dominate export markets. What a huge hemorrhaging of our wealth.
We must not let free market ideologies (ie. libertarian) interfere with good, widely used business practices, like managing supply to market needs, so we make a profit. It doesn’t work without the government help. The historical record and econometric studies show this.
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