Walter, for the life of me, I could not figure out where you were coming from. And then it hit me and I looked it up. Ouch! The light bulb came on and shocked the heck out of me.
No wonder you and I have so much in common, but such diverging conclusions. It boils down to the values of the states where we grew up. I think a dose of WTF is in order.
82% of Americans live on less than 3% of the total land area in the United States. Please stop reading, until that sinks in.
With a whopping 2.26-billion acres of land, the United States is the largest exporter of food in the world.
However, the world’s 2nd largest exporter of food is teeny tiny Netherlands with a measly10.2-million acres of land and only 18-million citizens. Moreover, the Netherlands is the global leader in agricultural education, agricultural technology, and agricultural yields with the minimal use of water use and pesticides. While the Netherlands imports crops from America, it re-exports a large percentage as value added food stuffs. Given the Netherlands agricultural capacity, it’s not surprising that the Dutch have a higher per capita income than the United States.
At the global level, Chinese Universities for Agricultural Sciences rank #1, #2, #4, 5 6, 7, 9, 10, 11 etc. The 3rd highest ranking goes to Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands.
U.S., agricultural university rankings start at a pathetic #8 with the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, followed by #12 Cornell and #13 University of California, Davis. Obviously, Americans place very little, if any, value on agricultural education, let alone their own frigging food supply.
When it comes to agriculture, Plucky Kentucky is boldly leading the nation. Kentucky Governor, Andy Beshear is a man with vision. Instead of bowing his head in shame over the way Americans talk about Kentuckians, Governor Beshear established a partnership between the Netherlands’ Wageningen University & Research and Kentucky’s K-12 public schools, University system, and agricultural innovators and entrepreneurs.
Venture capitalists JD Vance and his Silicon Valley tech-bros were involved in one of Kentucky’s first high-tech agricultural projects. When Vance and his tech-bros cashed out, they left the project bankrupt and Kentuckians out of work. A Dutch company bought the project, corrected the tech-bros’ ignorant and stupid mistakes and Kentuckians are back at work, growing food.
Bottom line: Americans are in very serious danger of losing control over their food supply. If independent farmers and ranchers go out of business, Americans will find food prices are higher than their car and auto insurance payments combined. Harder still, American grocery stores won’t be selling fresh meat, fruits or vegetables anymore. It won’t be long before Americans can’t buy vegetable seeds to plant in their gardens, that have not been sterilized.
I’m not suggesting anyone go into farming. I am suggesting that Americans start demanding American schools and universities return agriculture to the curriculum. If they don’t, I hope Americans like eating petroleum three times a day. Petroleum eggs for breakfast, petroleum sandwiches for lunch, petroleum over their mashed petroleum dinner and petroleum popsicles for dessert.
And that my friend, is the WTF reality of the American billionaire club – and Elon Musk and his tech-bros’ stupid science fiction vision for Mars.
