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Comment by schiffern | Hacker News Reader

>Grazing fields aren't really growing crops.

Right, they grow food for animals, which walk around the field and graze on it autonomously. Hey, I wonder if that's why they're called that... :)

I'm not really sure what the point is in making this observation. Just a "farmer vs rancher" thing, or something deeper?

>I can't see any good way to harvest a field with solar panels

See above.

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Pastures used for grazing are managed intensively using big machines. (Source: I live next door to a large dairy farm. Pastures irrigated with centre-pivot systems.) Pastures get replanted/supplemental sowing every so often, weeds get sprayed with herbicides, fields get mowed to maintain uniform growth after they've been grazed...

Pastures requiring machinery is the exception not the rule. I can’t figure out what your neighbor is doing.

Factory-farming dairy. Nothing at all unusual. If you have some bucolic vision of cows peacefully grazing all day, being led to a milking shed twice a day, flies buzzing in the sunshine... disabuse yourself of the illusion. When people say "factory-farming" they mean something far closer to "factory" than "farm". To keep cows at maximum productivity, dairy farmers (others farmers, too, I'm certain!) are squeezing the maximum productivity out of their pastures, and that means working them intensively; constant management = plenty of machinery.

I can't for the life of me imagine how these operations are going to continue to produce at these levels without the fossil-fuel subsidy they depend on completely.

I grew up in Pennsylvania Dutch country so rich with cows that Milton Hershey located his chocolate company nearby. I grew up on over 100 acres of that same farmland doing farming things. My Dad in Florida used was a member of the National Cattle Man's Association. I feel grounded in views of farming and acknowledge that my experience has nothing to do with factory farms. Frankly I'm a little embarrassed by the brain power exerted on this thread. I have been a member of both Future Farmers of America, and 4-H.

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