Mayor Bloomberg’s take on agriculture

February 19, 2020 |

“I could teach anybody even people in this room to be a farmer, even you,” says former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, currently running for US President. The remarks from 2016 surfaced this week, and can be viewed here.

So, let’s take the Bloomberg course in agriculture, how does it work?

“You dig a hole, he says. “You put a seed in. You put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn.” He looks at the audience in the room he is addressing. “You could learn that.”

So, that’s the Bloomberg take on agriculture. Fegeddaboud the rest. Seed development, land valuation and preparation, market forecasting, environmental stewardship, crop selection and rotation, permitting, crop protection, real-time soil analysis, harvest, storage, bioconversion, trading. Most of these skills developed over thousands of years — fegeddaboudit.

Mayor Bloomberg also offers his view on industrial manufacturing.

“Then we had 300 years of the industrial society. You put a piece of metal in the lathe, you turn the crank in the direction of the arrow, and you can have a job, and we created a lot of jobs. At one point 98% of the world worked in agriculture, today it’s 2% of the United States.”

Now, the Mayor opines on how the information economy is different.

“Now comes the information economy, and the information economy is fundamentally different because it’s built around replacing people with technology, and the skill sets that you have to learn are how to think and analyze, and that is a whole degree level different. You have to have a different skill set. You have to have a lot more gray matter.

So now, you know. Feel small, gentle reader, working diligently in the agricultural or manufacturing economy, apparently you’re a person turning a crank or a person digging a hole.

Former Iowa Lieutenant Governor, and chair of Focus on Rural America, the fiery Patty Judge, was having none of it.

“Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg owes American farmers an apology and a visit. There’s a great deal of science, technology and personal investment that go into providing an abundant, affordable and safe supply of food for Americans and the growing global population, particularly in the face of climate change.

“I’d be happy to take Bloomberg to an ethanol facility to see how bio-manufacturing is adding value to corn, to Iowa State University to see the farm labs and latest innovations, or the Iowa AgriTech Accelerator to talk with farmers, scientists and business leaders. The agriculture economy is a critical component of our GDP and a key employer in small towns across America. Candidates for U.S. President need a proven track record of uniting Americans, not disparaging or condescending them. We saw how that turned out in 2016.”

Again, you can view the actual video of his remarks, here.

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