Wasted land

What if every state raised crops on medians and road sides,
instead of paying mowers to cut the grass that grows there?
Could they possibly save the taxpayer the burden of all that
maintenance, while simultaneously earning enough money
for each state to maintain all the highways in their respective
states? Thus saving the taxpayer that burden also!
Seems like a lot of wasted land and money!
Just a thought.

I like when I see drainage ditches turned into parks. Still functions the same but is now also a park.

Isn't the government already paying farmers to not grow food on farmland to keep food prices where it wants it? Admittedly I am no expert on farm subsidies but isn't that basically how it works?

In other words, not enough land to grow crops is not a problem that we have.

Do they really mow the grass where you live? this has been noticeably done less in ohio. Actually the problem would be the grass itself and not the mowing. I would either consider wild plants not needing maintenance or putting the land to good use, say for growing blueberries or whatever people could eat. Personally I don't even know the purpose for the medians but there should be a few.

I had thought about this before as well and had decided either it was too dangerous, too lengthy a tract, or stepping on toes of farmers, food manufacturers and importers. Maybe it's not feasible to even work or maybe political will doesn't need bothered. Perhaps a politician couldn't make good money with this idea for his time compared to all their other enterprises.

Quote: AxiomOfChoice

Isn't the government already paying farmers to not grow food on farmland to keep food prices where it wants it? Admittedly I am no expert on farm subsidies but isn't that basically how it works?

In other words, not enough land to grow crops is not a problem that we have.

Uh, no. That's a gross oversimplification as well as a distortion.

For PARTICULAR COMMODITIES, in CERTAIN INSTANCES, the government will keep prices high enough to prevent a market collapse by subsidizing farmers to either a) switch from a commodity that is being overproduced to one that is not or b) let a field lie fallow if a) is impractical. This is true only for commodities a surplus of which cannot be easily exported, and that's very few things these days.

The idea is to prevent a mass abandonment of production of a commodity, the price of which has fallen so much due to overproduction that it is no longer profitable to grow it.

Quote: Thomas

What if every state raised crops on medians and road sides,
instead of paying mowers to cut the grass that grows there?
Could they possibly save the taxpayer the burden of all that
maintenance, while simultaneously earning enough money
for each state to maintain all the highways in their respective
states? Thus saving the taxpayer that burden also!
Seems like a lot of wasted land and money!
Just a thought.

Crops need maintenance, too. Also harvesting, marketing, etc. Any revenue from the crops grown wouldn't make up for those costs. Farming is only profitable using economies of scale (not on sub-1 acre plots).

Quote: onenickelmiracle

Do they really mow the grass where you live? .

They mow the medians and they even mow
the tall grass alongside the country roads in MI.
If they don't it becomes a safety hazard.
Is OH a 3rd world country now?

Quote: Eaglesnest

Crops need maintenance, too. Also harvesting, marketing, etc. Any revenue from the crops grown wouldn't make up for those costs. Farming is only profitable using economies of scale (not on sub-1 acre plots).

If you let farmers grow whatever they want (like hemp) and do whatever they want with their crops (like distill alcohol) they wouldn't have to be subsidized.

Quote: EvenBob

They mow the medians and they even mow
the tall grass alongside the country roads in MI.
If they don't it becomes a safety hazard.
Is OH a 3rd world country now?

I thought it was. Grass on highways seems at least a foot high often until it gets whacked. Definitely gets much longer than years past. Rest stops we just shut down instead of maintaining them, then abandon them for 10 years until we finally raze them.

Quote: Eaglesnest

Crops need maintenance, too. Also harvesting, marketing, etc. Any revenue from the crops grown wouldn't make up for those costs. Farming is only profitable using economies of scale (not on sub-1 acre plots).

it could be profitable depending on the crop but there are many unknowns. I imagine a highway 100 miles maybe 100 feet wide. Lots of land still. They're usually hilly raised beds which might be a problem being too dry sometimes. All this would have to be looked. Sure would be one hell of an amount of blueberries seeing them for 100 miles.

Quote: Thomas

What if every state raised crops on medians and road sides, instead of paying mowers to cut the grass that grows there?

I expect this is against the constitution of most states. This would put them in direct competition with private business.

They might be able to lease the land to private growers.

Depending on the crop in question, this will create a safety hazard. Corn, for instance, is tall - this would block visibility at some corners, and allow deer to get even closer to the roadways, unseen.

Wheat isn't much shorter, and can still hide foxes and turkeys - neither of which are any fun to collide with at high speed.

Harvesting would be a challenge - on highways, for instance, medians and roadsides are often lower than the roadway, so that if a vehicle goes out of control and leaves the roadway, gravity helps keep it from becoming a new hazard on the roadway. Those same little hills are going to be challenging to drive a combine harvester along effectively.

That "dead space" is there for a reason. If it were full of tall crops, expect that the speed limit would drop.

Quote: Thomas

What if every state raised crops on medians and road sides,
instead of paying mowers to cut the grass that grows there?
Could they possibly save the taxpayer the burden of all that
maintenance, while simultaneously earning enough money
for each state to maintain all the highways in their respective
states? Thus saving the taxpayer that burden also!
Seems like a lot of wasted land and money!
Just a thought.

I have thought of uses for medians, but I don't think crops is the answer. Most medians would not lend themselves to laying out crops as they are often hilly, rocky, narrow, or otherwise just not wide enough to make it commercially viable. OTOH I have thought the last few years that they could be used to raise timber. Plant varieties that you can cut in about 10 years and let it grow. Rotate where you clear-cut, then plant again.

Issue would be you could not see the other side of the road where you were planting, something I doubt the states would accept for safety reasons.