The war on small farmers since OKC federal bombing - change in fertilizer regulations & prices

Living in one of the most productive farm counties in the world, if not the most productive in the US, I have seen the devestating effect of the current situation in which most farmers find themselves in. Farms that have been in families for 50 - 350 years are having to be sold because they can't make the profits which they once could. If you look at the rate at which farm land has been sold in my county since 1995, you will see a drastic increase in farm sales which result in disgusting urban sprawl (and suburban hell) as well as more strip malls, shopping centers and stores than our county could ever possibly use even if we were rich and shopped 12 hours a day. But non the less, every week or month we see articles in the paper with "historic farms" being sold for land development. It is disgusting and reprehensible. I sometimes get angry at the land owners but they are facing some of the highest taxes in the nation b/c of school taxes and the re-assesments have made it very difficult to get fair and realistic appraisals on the farm land (they appraise as if it were developed so a million dollar 30 acre farm may be appraised as 6.5 million due to similar properties of same size, but have shopping centers on them).

My county may be THE most historic farming county in the US and was a major factor in settling early PA, supported Philadelphia, Baltimore and even DC once that was up and running and was a gateway to the West with the Conestoga wagon (along with providing supplies for the long trip). The county is full of firsts in many industries and can rival the more "advanced" areas like Philly, NYC, Boston, New Jersey, Richmond, etc when it comes to the level of output (quality and quantity) for a relatively small population base and was industry leader in much of the nations farming industrializations.

On top of all of this, we have been extremely blessed to have the most productive soil in all of the US (as per reports from 17-19th century) where often no need for nutrient supplementation or fertilizing was needed or minimal and rarely needed. Comparing this to areas in California which, granted they are productive, they often require a fair to moderate amounts of fertilizers and amendments to the soil as well as pesticides (another plus is that our soil has a lot of natural pest control bacteria and bugs already living there).

So, when you have a large county that is so extraordinarily productive and has a strong history of farming (many children only wish to be farmers and continue family tradition) then why are these farms and familys selling out to real estate developers to create hideous monstrosities of cookie cutter houses/apt complexes or the modern shopping center (when other centers 7-12 years old largely remain empty and great centers in excellent locations that are 30-40 yers old are empty as well). Why do we need to destroy this farm land, never to be fruitful again. We are paving paradise (an actual town in this country) and putting up a parking lot .

Time and again we hear that the farmers can't make ends meet, which is astounding in this county. These are people of modest means and they aren't saying "they can't make $250,000 per year in net profit, they are saying it is costing more to run the farm than they are making in sales! This BLOWS my mind ESPECIALLY with all the tourism and farmers markets where the farmers hock their goods, direct to shoppers, making a nice profit - and these markets are extremely busy and popular.

In about 1995 a ton of ammonium nitrate 34-0-0 could be purchased for $220-300 per ton (at some times, especially in the winter it may have been as low as $150 per ton). This was the primary source of nitrogen for many farmers as it was basically the perfect fertilizer for crops that had a high demand for nitrogen and it didn't leave behind toxic byproducts or salts that many other fertilizers do. Since the bombing, there have been major steps to make it almost impossible for the small farmer to get ammonium nitrate without jumping through tons of regulatory hoops, having to have special containment facilities for storing the substance, having to get very high insurance coverage and a whole host of other issues such as majorly increased Hazmat fees (and being denied for delivery because of hazmat storage conditions - which had been fine for 60 years).

The new fertilizers that often used to replace ammonium nitrate are calcium nitrate (which has the added problem of placing a basic calcium into the soil which may need an additional chemical to counter act this) which is an NPK of 15.5-0-0 or about 40% of the nitrogen of the ammonium nitrate. The kicker is that a volume of 2-2.5x is needed for the same nitrogen content and the calcium nitrate costs anywhere from $800-$1200 per ton. So the total cost for getting an equivalent amount of nitrogen if buying Calcium Nitrate is anywhere from 8-12x the cost of ammonium nitrate before the bombing. now if the calcium needs to be neutralized (because it is basic) with an acid, that could add anywhere from $50-$200 per ton of Calcium nitrate - which comes out to $100-$400 additional costs (on same area of what ammonium nitrate would cover) that were never an issue with the old fertilizer.

There are many other issues that can be considered, but these are the main ones. If a farmer wanted to graze his cattle and he wanted to fertilize the pasture, he could use ammonium nitrate and get a HUGH boost in production of grass or alfalfa (maybe 2-3x production w/o fertilizing). This was excellent for producing grass fed cattle and the milks/butters from them (YUMMY!!!!!) now it may be economically unfeasible and farmers have to have many less head of cattle per acre of land . So a farmer that could support 300 cattle (milkers) on his land, may now be down to 100-200 cattle and many have gone the organic way of using manure to fertilize (smells bad, but it works well)...

So it is very difficult for a farmer to get the Ammonium nitrate. I have a 50 acre plot that I wanted to graze cattle on and I wanted ammonium nitrate and was laughed at by 12 different ag supply shops. they wouldn't even sell potassium nitrate! The cost to do the same thing with calcium nitrate (calcium was actually helpful but I could have used slacked lime at 1/8th the price) was 9 times higher than what the big companies are paying for ammonium nitrate. There is no way I could get a foot in the door using the fertilizers that are available while the big companies can get daily deliveries (by the truck load) of ammonium nitrate at the very lowest market price and often at a discounted or subsidized rate due to chemical industry lobbies ts (where they get either a tax credit or refund for large purchases of the nitrate!!! talk about unequal playing field!!!)

TLDR - Prices for equivilant amounts of nitrogen based fertilizers have increased anywhere from 6-14x since the OKC bombing effecting all small farmers while major corperations are able to get the same heavily regulated fert and use it at prices (often discounted or subsidized due to chem company lobbying) very close to those of 1995 (some years it's lower in price than then, even with inflation!!).

This causes beautiful farm lands, in families for 50-300+ years, to have to be sold for monstorous developments, cookie cutter houses, strip malls/shoping centers, etc. The most beautiful (opinion of course) and productive (fact) farmland in the country (county wise) is loosing farms because of the prices facing them in these areas.

in my county there are many dairy farmers that can't even sell their milk for profit (cheap out of state milk and out of country) is flooding US markets (and Odumma's repeal on milk in school lunches). They would be able to do this if they had more productive grazing pastures (more nitrogen for the grass) but it is too expensive to buy the available fertilizers.

I want to see if I can help the local farmers but don't know where or how to start this. It seems criminal what is happening to this county.

Science says "nitrogen is nitrogen" which is all you need to know about science and it's bullcrap lies.

Sooo!
maybe they just want you to use GMO!
or control the supply of food?

originally posted by: AdKiller
Science says "nitrogen is nitrogen" which is all you need to know about science and it's bullcrap lies.

now why would you use nitrogen gas on a farm?
or is it liquid nitrogen? to make it cold?

yes I agree with you.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

Yes you are quite correct. what is happening is that a plan is being rolled out. A plan that has been a long time in the making and a long time in the implementation.

Read this.

These are Dr. Lawrence Dunegan’s recollections of a lecture he attended on March 20, 1969 at a meeting of the Pittsburgh Pediatric Society. The speaker was Richard Day, MD.

The talk was called "Everything is in place and nobody can stop us now."

Lawrence Dunegan, MD was offended by the Dr Richard Day Speech of 1969 and took notes including these where Dr Day elaborated on the plan to limit and control food.

Dr Day Quote: Some of you will think I'm talking about Communism. Well, what I'm talking about is much bigger than Communism!"

Lawrence Dunegan took notes on over 100 items Dr Day talked about.

This is what Dr Day said on Food Control:

Food supplies would come under tight control.

If population growth didn't slow down, food shortages could be created in a hurry and people would realize the dangers of overpopulation. Ultimately, whether the population slows down or not the food supply is to be brought under centralized control so that people would have enough to be well-nourished but they would not have enough to support any fugitive from the new system.

In other words, if you had a friend or relative who didn't sign on, growing ones own food would be outlawed. This would be done under some sort of pretext. In the beginning, I mentioned there were two purposes for everything -one the ostensible purpose and one the real purpose- and the ostensible purpose here would be that growing your own vegetables was unsafe, it would spread disease or something like that.

So the acceptable idea was to protect the consumer but the real idea was to limit the food supply and growing your own food would be illegal. And if you persist in illegal activities like growing your own food, then you're a criminal.

Farmer are not the only ones hit by the high cost of fertilizers.
As a user of ammonium nitrate 34-0-0 in the mining industry i saw the cost go from $12 a 80 pound bag of fertilizer grade when i started mining back in 1976.
To when i retired in 2003 it was over $350 a bag and could be got only as ANFO. plus another $500 to have it shipped 125 miles to the mine from the supplier. and $5000 for a explosives magazine to store it in that was not needed for fertilizer grade ammonium nitrate 34-0-0 that could be stored in any dry place.