Dems’ Dream Come True… Gas Prices Force Farmers to Ditch Tractors For Oxen
Posted by Jim Hoft on Tuesday, May 10, 2011, 5:48 AM
Good news for democrats!
Their American plan is taking shape – More farmers are moving away from tractors because of the record gas prices and using oxen instead.
If they’re lucky they’ll get us to move into mud huts by next year.
The Daily Mail reported:
When farmers Danielle and Matt Boerson realised they could no longer afford to run their tractors, they took the bull by the horns – and ditched them for oxen.
Soaring petrol prices had become so high that the couple, who run an 80-acre farm near Madison, Wisconsin, were forced to get rid of their two tractors, hay baler, plough and rotavator.
So they took a course at the agricultural institute in traditional farming techniques.
‘It gave me the confidence that, yes, I could do this’, Danielle told the Times. ‘It just required a lot of concentration and a firm voice.’
Their instructor was former peace core volunteer Dick Roosenberg, 64, who learned the trade while working for the UN in West Africa.
He took the skills he had honed back to Michigan and set up Tillers International
At first the company was aimed at helping Third World farmers harvest in the cheapest way possible.
On the side, he also helped historically-themed villages.
But his specialist knowledge is now enjoying a new wave of interest with farmers from Wisconsin to Alaska now joining his courses.
He is already teaching up to 20 farmers every weekend.
‘People want to get away from petroleum fuels where they can, because it’s getting more expensive,’ he said.
A pair of plough-ready oxen cost $3,000 (£1,800) – roughly the same as a second hand tractor.
But younger cattle are a snip at $150 each. They only eat grass and can work for up to 14 years.
Now, if they could just get the cows to quit farting.
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Published May 23, 2012 at 4:57 am - 64 Comments
rbosque commented:
This is why they call themselves “progressive”.
Vercingetorix commented:
How long before the animal rights activists start protesting the exploitation and enslavement of these animals?
Chisum commented:
Liberals bringing America down to the level of their favorite culture.
Tom63010 commented:
Actually the Democrats would prefer if they would set aside their 80 acres and live off farm subsidies. Not exactly sure how anyone could live financially off 80 acres in the first place. I suspect this is a fluff piece designed to promote the green agenda. Most farmers today are what I call “Corporate Farmers” who farm thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of acres. I don’t see any of them switching to oxen anytime soon.
CoolCzech commented:
Well, YEAH… but oxen fart a lot.
Liberal Nirvana will be when farmers ditch their oxen and hook up their WIVES to the plows, as in the Good Old Days. You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby!
Pat the First commented:
Yeah, using cattle is going to actually work . . . right. LOL!! Farming is kind of passed it a long time agao. No, food prices are just going to rise. The consequences of trying to force the country to go “green”. Your milk, bread, meat, fruit, vegetables . . . all going to cost you a ton of money more. Get used to it.
CoolCzech commented:
I really have to wonder how long before Americans tell the “Go Green” people to “Go Get Lost.”
What will it take? $10 a gallon for gas? $10 for a loaf of bread? You know it’s coming… the question is, How long before the average American finally says, Enough!
greg commented:
All this farmer has to is declare himself a green jobmaker and he will be showered with fed subsidies. In the winter time all one has to do to store a tractor is park and turn the ignition off. Them cows now need daily feeding and heat and water.
pamlinson commented:
We are all going to be riding in horse drawn carriages if the scum that’s sitting in the white house now gets to stay after 2012
wheezer commented:
There is absolutely no excuse for this. The Obama regime should be ashamed of themselves for placing our farmers in these situations. I am sure they sleep at night tho…
chuck in st paul commented:
I thought his goal was to turn us into Greece. Silly me. It’s Zimbabwe we’re after.
We’re so boned.
ebayer commented:
Green acres is the place to be
Farm living is the life for me
Land spreading out,
so far and wide
Keep Manhattan,
just give me that countryside.
We’re all Amish now
CoolCzech commented:
In other news, Drudge reports “Liberals in southern Arizona seek to create new state.”
What will they name it? “Mexico”?
Taqiyyotomist commented:
Oxen are incredible, actually. I’ve worked with a team in NH, dragging felled trees through the woods that would make most heavy equipment shudder. “Gee!” and “Haw!” are commands for right and left, can’t remember which was which.
I’m 6’4″, and looking UP to watch for falling “chips” is impressive, nasty as that sounds. They are one big beast.
L.E. Liesner commented:
Since the Democrats took power in 96 this country has quit progressing and started regressing. So calling these people progressives is a misnomer, they should be called regressives.
vityaz commented:
Oxen= less efficient/slower than tractors.
Outcome–decreased production.
(Hey I didn’t go to an Ivy League school to figure this out)
Decreased production=less food
Less food= higher prices
Higher prices=some people starve.*
Oh well!
*Read Spengler’s new Asia-Times article on the people of Egypt starving.
L.E. Liesner commented:
Made a booboo I mean 2006 instead of 96.Sorry
Mitch Rapp commented:
The EPA has a request in to tax flatulence, the forms and procedure have been reduced to 1218 pages
driguana commented:
“peace core”???? really!!!!
Trialdog commented:
80 acres? Not a productive farm. Perhaps beef. That’s just grazing anyway; and water, and vet.
$3000 for a good used tractor? In your dreams. Writer not versed in farm life.
Oxen are strong. And dangerous too, don’t let anyone fool you. Taq should be able to tell you that.
Now the fantasy of destroying capitalism and becoming a third world nation managed by elites is very powerful to writers edumacated at our finer Urinalism screwools. This article indulges that fantasy so strongly, I’m tending to call bulls%#t on the whole thing.
gtg now – farmer’s market this afternoon and the university professors all like to drive their Prius’s down to sample my legumes. heh heh sick bastards.
Taqiyyotomist commented:
#9 driguana
Hello? It’s pronounced “peace corpse”. And no, I’ve never joined.
A lot of mass-graves have been filled with a lot of “peace corpses”, actually. Damn near a quarter billion last century. This current lot of cancerous communists calls that a “benchmark”.
Taqiyyotomist commented:
#20 Trialdog
gtg now – farmer’s market this afternoon and the university professors all like to drive their Prius’s down to sample my legumes. heh heh sick bastards.
Hey! Do come back and tell us the Prius/Volvo ratio at the end of the day, okay?
(I heard a rumor the other day. Toyota and Volvo….they make *gasp* profits!!! Don’t tell the profs.)
American Patriot commented:
What kind of world do we live in where going backwards is “progressive?” Like another poster said, they won’t be happy until we’re all living mud huts. This government is forcing us to devolve our standard of living in order to live cleaner, while every third world crap hole is using oil, coal, and any other fossil fuel they can to generate power to drive their developing industries. So in order to save the planet, Americans are the only ones required to sacrifice our way of life and stifle our productivity while everyone else gets to pollute mother earth.
What’s it going to take for us to wake up to this reality? China is out-pacing our manufacturing ability, while dozens of countries drill for oil just off our coasts, yet we can’t for fear WE might harm the environment. I pray it’s not too late, and that in this next election cycle we can begin to set things right, or my kids, your kids, and our grandkids won’t live in America any more.
befuddled commented:
why don’t we all invest in oxen and wheelbarrows, so when the inflation hits we can easily transport our money on the cheap. maybe, while the progressives are at it, they should hold cooking classes on how to stretch our dollars by cooking rat meat for the entire family. being envious of North Koreans is not a road i want to go down.
Nano commented:
The vast amount of our food is raised I have to agree on corporate farms and simply the reason is due to the vast productivity gains from technology.
Laser and satellite directed rows, exact row depth and seed placement are just some of the gains.
Still weather patterns and other factors have heavy influence on timing and selection of crops planted as well as government distortions due to subsidies such as the one for ethanol production.
Sasja commented:
I don’t know the cost to house and feed oxen 24/7, 365 days a year, nor much about farming, but would seem to me fuel would be less expensive in the long run, especially on just 80 acres. Do they plant winter and summer crops so they need to use their equipment most of the year? Someone educate me.
Taqiyyotomist commented:
#24 befuddled
Hey, the culinary arts in America is top-notch. You know we’d come up with amazing rat-meat recipes. There are a few thousand 4 and 5 star chefs in this country. They’d mostly balk at the idea….at first. Until they realized the necessity — then they’d find a way….Rat a l’Orange, Rat Stew, bacon-wrapped rat, rat tartare on crostinis….
You get the idea. We’d make rat much better than the North Koreans make rat.
Peter Warner commented:
As crazy as it may sound, there are some advantages to using draft animals. I remember some of the old-timers telling stories about calling the team of horses from across a field, they’d bring the wagon over for you. Can’t do that with a dumb ol’ tractor.
But realistically, I’d much rather start up a tractor and get to work, than hitch up a team. Considering the feeding, caring, training and cleaning up involved with livestock, there’s a whole lot less hassle with that dumb ol’ tractor that sits quiet until you need it. Running a team takes a lot more than just ‘a firm voice’.
Best regards, Peter Warner.
gus commented:
When they kill Capitalism. Who will pay them??
contessa61 commented:
Hey, this couple is from Madison. They were probably thinking of using oxen before the gas prices went sky high.
Charlie commented:
—”But his specialist knowledge is now enjoying a new wave of interest with farmers from Wisconsin to Alaska now joining his courses.”—
Farms… in Alaska? Maybe they anticipate global warming a little too far.
Agent 99 commented:
http://westernfarmpress.com/government/epa-s-clean-water-act-guidelines-cause-concern
“The proposed guidelines are worrisome to our farmers as federal agencies could have the authority to regulate ditches and ponds,” NCGA President Bart Schott, a grower from Kulm, N.D. said. “The announced guidelines have the potential to expand federal jurisdiction in a way that could lead to additional permitting requirements and make famers more vulnerable to citizen action lawsuits.”
According to the agencies, the draft guidance was developed to clarify the scope of protections under the law following two complex Supreme Court decisions over the past decade. While the guidance maintains existing exemptions for normal farming and ranching activities, NCGA remains concerned that the new proposal could expand EPA’s authority over isolated waters including ditches and farm ponds, Schott said. NCGA believes states should have the authority to regulate waters and that specific definition between state and federal jurisdictions are important………”
CLEAN WATER ACT!!
Can not locate the article I wanted…BUT ….This allows the FEDS on Your Property or My Property ((And Cattle Ranched and Farm Lands)
Includes MudPuddles, Ditches, Ponds , Etal & ETC.
So Now What?? Will Oxen Help in the long Term??
Not when the Feds/EPA enforce these “”Rules”"…
FGT commented:
Well befuddled, maybe if we’re lucky (or we vote the right way), dear leader will give every family a rice cooker.
bman commented:
This articles stupidity is only matched by the comments.
You people have no idea what a farm is or where your food comes from.
J commented:
This should work well, at least until moonbats begin regulating oxen flatulence…
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/cow-emissions-more-damaging-to-planet-than-cosub2sub-from-cars-427843.html
Agent 99 commented:
Ofcourse Gas and Oil Shortages wlll never cease because Obama wants the USA without Oil
In the midst of rising gas prices, chaos in the Middle East, President Obama’s muddled energy policy (buy a new hybrid mini-van), we receive reports of a small lizard potentiall bringing oil production in Texas to a standstill. How is that? Yes, the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard is crawling toward the Endangered Species List and when that happens, evolution and the economy stops, just like it did with the Spotted Owl and the timber industry, and a little minnow turning much of the most productive farmland in the country into a dustbowl.
http://libertyslifeline.com/2011/04/27/what-happened-to-evolution/
AND just in case you haven’t heard…
Obama to sale Gov’t Lands to???
China?? Anyone?? Whatever??
SERIOUSLY ….Obama to sale Gov’t Land!!!!
Joanne commented:
Quite frankly, these people ditching the diesel tractor for the oxen may be the only ones able to produce food in the future. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop communists from shooting the oxen. One should read up on Stalin and what he did to the Ukranian farmers and the food produced – end of story, Ukranians starved to death.
http://ukraineanalysis.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/genocide-or-not-stalin-starved-millions-to-death-and-soviet-regime-concealed-for-54-years/
“Added to these volatile elements, the Soviet regime began rapidly to collectivize farms starting in 1929. Ukraine was among the first republics to be collectivized. In Kazakhstan, a third of the peasantry (about one million people) died by 1931. Stalin’s goal was “to liquidate the kulaks (rich peasants) as a class.” Many so designated destroyed their livestock rather than give it up to the new collective farms. The countryside became a war zone in which millions were dispossessed, with many deported to Siberia or the Far North.
After collectivization, state grain quotas were imposed on the farms. Grain was taken before the farmers could feed themselves and their families, and quotas were raised sharply in Ukraine, despite a poor harvest in 1931 in particular. Stalin, who used the grain to feed the growing urban population as well as the Red Army, appointed Extraordinary Grain Commissions in several regions. Vyacheslav Molotov led the one in Ukraine. When the grain ran out, Molotov demanded that the commissions take all food from the villages, which were stripped bare as though a plague of locusts had descended on them.”
Marmo commented:
Yay! We’re lessening our dependence on foreign oil! And people called me crazy when I started up that buggy whip factory!
SturJen commented:
Stupid on the face of it.
Oxen pull the wagon…guess who does the harvesting? The Farmer! Farmers back in the old days were doing well to harvest a few acres a day. 80 Acres would take about ….40 days to harvest (2 acres/day). By the time they got to those last few acres, well the snow would be flying and the harvest would be rotted. Now…each person needs something like 5 acres of farmland to survive each year. Heck I am not sure what it is, but I’m sure it’s more than 1 acre: this includes wheat, sugar, veggies and forage for the animals we eat.
So this farmer would not be able to harvest enough to even feed his whole family, forget about anyone else. How did they do it in the old days? Thousands of hands, migrating from field to field would harvest for money and meals. Perhaps we get a few thousand unemployed people to wander and harvest? Oh wait…where do we put them up for the night.
Like I said, Stupid on the face of it. There’s a reason that mechanized farming exploded onto the scene: It’s hugely efficient. DUH.
shibumi commented:
I think the liberal plan goes like this:
1. Get rid of tractors, replace with oxen
2. Tax farmers with “carbon tax” for farting oxen
3. Put all farmers out of business
4. make every US citizen rely on government for all food
5. Democrat rule forever!
Marmo commented:
#41 shibumi
Here’s the footnote for your #5:
5. Democrat rule forever! *
*until the massive die-offs from starvation and disease outbreaks
nadadhimmi commented:
Why have people forgotten Obama’s ’08 statement: “under my plan, energy costs will necessarily skyrocket”? I doubt any GOP candidate in ’12 will have the guts to turn it into a commercial to sink this Socialist Pig. “Raaacism” dontcha know. Except the two GOP candidates with the biggest, clanking brass balls of all, Palin and Bachman. Don’t expect anything but arse kissing from ANY GOP male!
Marmo commented:
#43 nadadhimmi:
I don’t think Bammie worhsippers ever cared that he said energy costs would skyrocket under his policies. And now that this is the only campaign promise he kept, lefties are blaming high gas prices on oil speculators.
Bammie can do no wrong.
Nina commented:
I do not look at this as a “green” thing. This is about survival and YES a family can survive on 80 acres.
free` commented:
Just wait until the oxen unionize!!!
chuck in st paul commented:
After looking this over I agree that 80 acres is a hobby farm. They could support themselves on it but they won’t sell much to others. For one thing, it’ll take a lot of that acreage just to feed the oxen. duh.
I think the comment about the article being an ad for greenies is true.
“Nothin’ ta see here folks. Move along now. Just a couple of retards. Move along now.”
GDCritter commented:
Just one problem with the “mud huts” part. Out here in New Mexico, we call the mud adobe. And we know that adobe homes are MUCH more expensive to build than traditional houses.
Iconoclast commented:
Agent 99 commented about the consequences & extremes of the Clean Water Act as if this were something in the future. With no criticism of you intended, this has been in force for drainage ditches, farm ponds and seasonal ‘wetlands’ for a good 20 years.
Basically, it uses the authority granted in the original migratory waterfowl legislation of the early 1930s (another of fdr’s big gov’t ‘solutions’) to extend Federal environmental authority over any water body capable of holding a duck. There is case law going back decades in which drainage ditches, seasonal areas behind levees & other such is upheld as in the purview of the EPA. You can bloody well *straddle* ‘Federal’ waters under the EPA regs. BTDT & have the anecdotes to prove it.
Iconoclast commented:
For certain terrain & applications, oxen actually are preferable to mechanical equipment . . . but these circumstances are limited. I know of several gents who use them to log in the rocky hills of central NH.
Depending on the crops, 80 acres can do quite a bit, but the sorts which can be harvested using oxen is not going to feed very many people.
I agree, this article is written as a paean to an idyllic utopia with very little basis in the real world beyond the cost of fuel. Now, if we were to hitch up the elitist progs to the plows, that would be a win-win: give them something productive to do and keep them from interfering with the adults.
Josh commented:
That’s because we will be doing the plowing and the hard sweaty labor while they sit in their air conditioned lear jet, zooming back in forth to work in Washington D.C. so that they can hop into their govt. funded luxury cadillac with AC which uses gas paid for by the hard working tax payers.
It’s all easy and do-able in their eyes… so long as they are the ones who don’t actually have to do the plowing.
noah commented:
This is really going to piss PETA off.
Ron commented:
While this shows the clear negative side of Democrat control (that we all knew about beforehand) it always shows a positive thing. These people have better skills of adaptability and more self-reliance during financially harder times for them. The same can’t be said for “progressive” politicians and their “progressive” sheep. Sorry, but rooftop gardens, recycled rainwater and solar panels just won’t cut it alone liberals
richard mcenroe commented:
Since we’re adopting Third World farming policies and practices,what say we adopt the one where we drive the professors and students of UW Madison out into the fields to labor for the People, along with Wisconsin’s other faux intellectuals? Finally, a use for hipsters!