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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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091889
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09188900.016
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1990-09-17
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BUSINESS, Page 65Business NotesAGRICULTUREThis Is No Way to Grow
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.