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A Thanksgiving lesson for environmental alarmists
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The American Farm Bureau Federation just released its annual survey estimating the cost of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. It reminds us that, while our nation struggles to recover from its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, there are still blessings to be counted.
The average cost of this year's feast for 10 is $44.61, according to the Farm Bureau survey. That includes a 16-pound turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls with butter, peas, cranberries, a relish tray of carrots and celery, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and coffee with milk.
The price is up $2.35 from last year, which may not seem a blessing. That is, unless we adjust for inflation, in which case the cost of this year’s Thanksgiving dinner is actually is 8 percent less than it was 20 years ago.
That decline amounts to a near miracle considering that, just three decades ago, the American public was warned that the so-called population "explosion" would almost certainly lead to food scarcity, starvation and higher commodity prices.
That was the dire prediction of Paul Ehrlich, a latter-day Malthusian, who authored the 1968 jeremiad titled, "The Population Bomb." Ehrlich warned that the Earth eventually would be overrun by human beings, and that worldwide famine would follow, accompanied by global chaos and social unrest.
Ehrlich's zero-sum thinking, which continues to inform the more radical fringes of the environmental community to this very day, proved wrong.
He assumed, incorrectly, that farm output would remain relatively constant over time. He failed, shortsightedly, to foresee agricultural advances -- scientific, mechanical and technological -- that have enabled American farmers to multiply their output.
Indeed, in 1850 a farmer needed about 75 to 90 hours of labor to produce 100 bushels of corn with a walking plow, harrow and hand planting. Today, a farmer needs only two hours to produce 100 bushels of corn using a tractor, five-bottom plow, 25-foot tandem disk, planter, 25-foot herbicide applicator, 15-foot self-propelled combine and trucks.
America's farmers are so efficient, so productive, that they not only fill the nation's supermarkets and grocery stores, but they also provide their leftover bounty to the rest of the world.
In fact, the United States supplies nearly half of the world market for soybeans, more than a third for corn and more than a tenth for wheat. And it would be even more if other nations lowered their protectionist barriers to American farm exports.
So, as we sit down tomorrow to a dinner of turkey and dressing, we Americans have something for which we truly can be thankful – the millions of farmers who till the soil and tend the livestock, who put meat on America's tables and provide our daily bread.
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