Comment by eth0up | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eth0up | Hacker News Reader

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Just slipping in to encourage you to ignore the vacuous comment. I am aware of all the things you alluded to. Land restrictions can be surprisingly strange. I mean, I know geriatric people who've been fined and endured attempts by the city/county to steal their property because their grass and trees were too unwieldy, requiring class-action level intervention to save them. The patented seed has a well documented precedent, but is probably moot for small farms. Water, you can expect, to be an extremely contentious issue in the future.

Stay informed, build positive networks of similar minded/valued people and choose your spot wisely. I have lived on farms, but I am far from a guru on the subject. Your list of concerns, in my opinion, is far too short. If you take land seriously, keep learning, and don't let ankle biters discourage you. Freedom is important for a homestead or farm, and not every district agrees.

I will tell you of a serious problem few speak of... Sludge(1). It has been used all over the country, especially in Florida. It can have permanently disastrous effects on soil, replete with your 'forever' chemicals and such. I advise looking into that before buying, if you want organic. A lot of prospective farmers buy land, then have it tested, and discover Sludge has rendered it unfit for even conventional farming.

1. (bio-solids, along with everything ever flushed down a toilet or run down a sewer or drain, and then some)

Thank you for sharing all that, and your experience. I didn't know sludge was an issue, and that's valuable for me to remember that it can be tested for! In some of my past I lived on eco villages and sustainable cooperative farmland housing, and we had a regenerative farming process going - since they were on remote regions like Hawaii big island or Oregon sludge likely wasn't used though I know now to check wherever I go next.

> 1. (bio-solids, along with everything ever flushed down a toilet or run down a sewer or drain, and then some)

Ah yes so the sludge or at least the other undesirables ends up on the land even without the owner intentionally using it there?

I think from our convo maybe the options in popular states or counties are limited or corrupted and that leaves a few. I wonder if non-USA areas are just simply better for many of the reasons mentioned.

Good chatting my friend.

Not exactly. Sludge(®) is the product of that. It is sprayed on land, often through coercion (subsidies) and marketed as beneficial. It's waste capitalism.

I think it could be fine, for strictly industrial purposes, eg lumber. But not indiscriminately.

Right. when you say waste capitalism, I hear that it's really a hostile form of extractive, incredibly selfish, self-serving philosophy that takes more than is sustainable.

When I believe sustainable practices can go farther that waste capitalism, and that we could feed most people on earth with that change, I do feel anger and frustration.

Waste management has a problem. What do they do with the final product? They asked that question and figured out how to turn an expense into a profit. But instead of doing so in a way that would be sustainable long-term, they bought their way through legislation and got authorization to dump it everywhere anyone couldn't fend it off. Cow pastures being one example. Farmers, watching their cattle chew on condoms, literally.

As I said, they could have used it in other, less hostile ways, but corruption is default in the US.

Things are far worse than we are allowed to openly identify. Mentioning it can make enemies. But the corruption is everywhere, as more of a rule than exception.

Ever heard of the documentary, "Everything is a rich man's trick?" it's more like some really rich people can trick a lot of other people. And then the next layer down of rich people, can perpetuate the same until you get to the lower rung of people who get it the worst.

It's just a layer of hierarchical nasty, horrible, aggressive people who have made rules for others for their own benefit but when they get caught they cause disarray, havoc, chaos and distraction to skirt the rules and start over when attention has moved on.

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