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- <text id=89TT2415>
- <link 90TT1299>
- <title>
- Sep. 18, 1989: Business Notes:Agriculture
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Sep. 18, 1989 Torching The Amazon
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 65
- Business Notes
- AGRICULTURE
- This Is No Way to Grow
- </hdr><body>
- <p> For nearly 50 years, the U.S. has followed an agricultural
- policy of showering farmers with subsidies and encouraging them
- to use plenty of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. U.S.
- farmers are among the most productive in the world, but their
- techniques are harming taxpayers and the environment. Chemical
- runoff is polluting groundwater. At the same time, rich
- Government subsidies that encourage farmers to devote too much
- land to a single crop have contributed to topsoil erosion.
- American agricultural policy should be changed to support
- "environmentally benign" farming methods, declared a study
- published last week by the National Academy of Sciences. The
- report urged the Government to encourage farmers to adopt such
- techniques as crop rotation and mechanized weeding, which the
- study found to be as productive as chemical methods.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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