4 ms·

I cannot comment on how poorly the BLM manages land, but private ownership, especially farmland, does an objectively terrible job at managing soil. Half the wor

by zasz 10y ago

I cannot comment on how poorly the BLM manages land, but private ownership, especially farmland, does an objectively terrible job at managing soil. Half the world's topsoil has eroded away due to farming in the last 150 years. https://www.farmland.org/our-work/areas-of-focus/soil https://www.farmland.org/our-work/areas-of-focus/soil To say that agriculture is good for the land on average is just an outright lie.

lend000 10y ago
> To say that agriculture is good for the land on average is just an outright lie. No one said that, but it doesn't have to be bad. And with the BLM, it is. Farmers have an inherent interest in keeping their own land profitable, which is an incentive that never applies to leased BLM land. Same with ranchers, which is what BLM land is more commonly used for. > I cannot comment on how poorly the BLM manages land That should be your first step. It should be noted that ranchers do NOT want the land to be privatized, because it's less exploitable. http://wildhorsepreservation.org/media/ranchers-want-our-public-lands-their-livestock-and-want-govt-stick-it-wild-horses-and http://wildhorsepreservation.org/media/ranchers-want-our-pub... Agricultural land is not going to be perfectly managed anywhere anytime soon, if that's what your standard is, but private property is managed less terribly. It should be obvious that people are better incentivized to care for their own property than the government's -- why is that so hard to believe?
- zasz 10y ago
  The objective evidence on how well people care for their land shows that your supposition about how incentives should work is not borne out by the facts. I believe that your supposition is false because reality itself disagrees with you.
  - lend000 10y ago
    > I believe that your supposition is false because reality itself disagrees with you. You have only even attempted to demonstrate that some private farms are mismanaged -- where have you shown that the damage that objectively occurs on BLM land is less bad?

by zasz 10y ago

lend000 10y ago

> To say that agriculture is good for the land on average is just an outright lie. No one said that, but it doesn't have to be bad. And with the BLM, it is. Farmers have an inherent interest in keeping their own land profitable, which is an incentive that never applies to leased BLM land. Same with ranchers, which is what BLM land is more commonly used for. > I cannot comment on how poorly the BLM manages land That should be your first step. It should be noted that ranchers do NOT want the land to be privatized, because it's less exploitable. http://wildhorsepreservation.org/media/ranchers-want-our-public-lands-their-livestock-and-want-govt-stick-it-wild-horses-and http://wildhorsepreservation.org/media/ranchers-want-our-pub... Agricultural land is not going to be perfectly managed anywhere anytime soon, if that's what your standard is, but private property is managed less terribly. It should be obvious that people are better incentivized to care for their own property than the government's -- why is that so hard to believe?

zasz 10y ago
The objective evidence on how well people care for their land shows that your supposition about how incentives should work is not borne out by the facts. I believe that your supposition is false because reality itself disagrees with you.
- lend000 10y ago
  > I believe that your supposition is false because reality itself disagrees with you. You have only even attempted to demonstrate that some private farms are mismanaged -- where have you shown that the damage that objectively occurs on BLM land is less bad?