[GBlist] farming or housing?

[Chris Koehn <chris@koehn.com>]

I'd like to post a question in hopes of eliciting thoughtful response from
this thoughtful group:

Is farming really a greener use for land than building houses?

Here's where I'm coming from: we've recently built a small place in the
country on 12 acres that aren't suitable for much besides grazing from an
agricultural prospective; the land is quite hilly and the soils are
generally considered poor and rocky (we're in the "kettle moraine" area-
where the last glaciers unloaded all their accumulated rocks and stuff..).
Surrounding land, that is more suitable for farming, is farmed. Primarily by
operations that are ever increasing in size- which seems to be a national
trend. Bigger farms seem to have a much harder time being stewards of the
land and their animals, as with size comes the need for all kinds of
infrastructure that makes most kinds of sustainable agriculture not viable
economically.

We bought 12 acres and are trying hard to be good stewards of it- we mow
very little; we are reforesting; we work from home; we are members of a
local CSA, etc. Our next door neighbors, who aren't quite as ecologically
sensitive as we, are still doing little to damage the land, and in fact are
planting trees as well (this area was a climax hardwoods before settlement
150 years ago).

I would argue that by building a home on our land we are actually doing much
less irreparable damage to it than the 1,000 head dairy farm down the street
is doing to their 2,000 acres.

I understand that subdivision development presents a whole other layer of
complexity to this issue, but I'd bet that the average amount of lawn
chemicals spread on a suburban lawn pales in comparison to what gets spread
on the average farmer's field. Not only in the form of chemicals to make the
crops grow in abused soil, but the manure he spreads from his milk machines
(cows) that's full of antibiotics, and has been allowed to go anaerobic in a
pit all summer.

Meanwhile, 3 miles down the road is our CSA, which effectively feeds 300
families by organically farming 20 acres. They've reinvigorated the soil
tremendously with various composts; they plant crops for direct consumption
by humans;  seems like a much more sustainable model, and one that doesn't
require nearly as much land as a mega dairy farm.

Guess I don't know exactly where I'm going here, except to say that farming-
the way it's largely practiced in this country- is far from bucolic, and
that sometimes I think all this hoo ha about eating up farm land for houses
is perhaps overstated, and may not be such a bad thing in the end.. What do
you think?

Thanks,

Chris 

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