Gene Logsdon's Blog, page 7

Missing From Syria’s News: The Ag Angle

From GENE LOGSDON Recently I heard on the news that a widespread sandstorm was blanketing a large part of Syria. The farmer in me immediately perked up but there was no commentary, no details, and I did not hear the news repeated. I admit, ashamedly, that I know nothing much about Syria, but a widespread […]

Firing The Landlord

From GENE LOGSDON That’s the term farm economists are using to describe the situation we are in right now when farm prices don’t justify the rental fees farmers are paying for corn and soybean land. The renting farmer says he can’t pay and if the landowner won’t agree to a lower fee, the farmer breaks […]

The Sustainable Farm — New Monastery?

From GENE LOGSDON As I try, without sounding like an idiot, to define the kind of economy best suited for sustainable farming, I think of the old monastic farm and then I do sound like an idiot. But hear me out. I lived and worked on a farm attached to a monastic-like seminary for several […]

Cover Crop Frenzy

From GENE LOGSDON I get chided sometimes for harking back to the past too much but I can’t avoid it. Much of what constitutes farming today is harking back to the past. No better example is the increasing interest in cover crops, a practice as old as the hills. Instead of leaving crop fields bare […]

Two Peachy Economies

From GENE LOGSDON I cheer for the local food movement  every chance I get, but I’m a little uneasy with the word “local.”  Just as all politics are local, as someone famous has said, all food is local. And like politics, just because it’s local does not necessarily mean it’s good.  I recently ran into […]

Basket-less In the Garden

From GENE LOGSDON Carol ambled in from the garden recently with enough vegetables balanced on her left arm to feed us for a week. A cabbage head, a cauliflower, a swatch of lettuce, four carrots, and a zucchini tucked up under her arm. For some reason we all resist taking a basket to the garden […]

Nature’s Rush To Brush

From GENE LOGSDON There’s a stealthy invasion creeping up on us from all directions, but if you don’t live in an environment like mine, you may not be aware of it. It is called brush but not the kind you use to rearrange your hair.  Brush is thicket composed of bristly weeds, thorny bushes, and […]

Deep Trouble Down In The Ground

From GENE LOGSDON ​In my local newspaper column, I harp and carp about what I think is an overuse of farm field tile drains. Our local Ohio farming depends heavily on tile drainage for good crops so being critical of it is precarious. But now there is an uproar in Iowa indicating that perhaps I’m […]

To Survive In Farming, Try Taoism

From GENE LOGSDON I thought I had made a tremendous discovery a few years ago.  It came to me one day when I was hoeing (hoes are great think machines). I decided, all of a sudden, that the world was eternal. It had no beginning and won’t end. That was a frightening idea because it […]

Foodroom Gardening: No Rows, No Woes

From GENE LOGSDON As I battle mud and mosquitoes in this wet year, in the wallow that used to be our garden, I think faraway, crazy thoughts. I keep trying to imagine a future time when all human beings would be responsible for their basic food necessities just as they are responsible for their own […]