[Henriksson]

The statistics about this are quite bitter. Farming is a skilled profession that most people fail at - even those who were born and raised on farms.

Reality:

When it's suggested that our food system be comprised of millions of small, organic gardens, there's almost always someone who says that it isn't realistic. And they'll quip something along the lines of, "There's no way you could feed the world's growing population with just gardens, let alone organically." Really? Has anybody told Russia this?

On a total of approximately 8 million hectares (20 million acres) of land, 16.5 million Russian families grow food in small-scale, organic gardens on their Dachas (a secondary home, often in the extra urban areas). Because growing your own food happens to be a long-lived tradition in Russia, even among the wealthy.

Based on the 1999 "Private Household Farming in Russia" Gosmkostat (State Committee for Statistics) statistics, these Dacha families produced:

38% of Russia's total agricultural output
41% of the livestock
82% of the honey
79% of the sold cattle
65% of the sold sheep and goats
59% of the milk
31% of the sold poultry
28% of the eggs
91% of the potatoes
76% of the vegetables
79% of the fruits

If Russian families can manage such production in their region's very short growing season (approx. 110 days), imagine the output most parts of the world could manage by comparison. Unfortunately in just the US alone, lawns take up more than twice the amount of land Russia's gardens do (est. 40-45 million acres).

[Henriksson]

16.5 million Russian families grow food at their own private getaways. Must be good friends of Putin's? What do the other 129.5 million Russians eat? Oil? Oh right, that is their food. It's our food also.

Yeah, so was my late grandmother.

Professional farmers will feed them with large-scale agriculture staple crops - their yields might not be as good as in times past but I'd say one has to be really pessimistic to say they'd just vanish. They will also be fed more variedly through household, coop etc. farming (worked by the "hobby farmers" KaiserJeep deride) who can use labour input to produce more per area even without added oil inputs.

[KaiserJeep]

Those Russians (and other peasants everywhere) are the survivors of generations of subsistence farmers, and have lived and worked the land since the Middle Ages. Would any one of you honestly believe that fat and lazy suburban and urban Americans could do and live the same way?

I would also remind you that the peasants are regularly starved by crop blights, extreme weather events, and warfare that destroys crops. How many of the family farms (what few remain) in California had enough stored food to withstand the 3-year drought we are in now? Recall that drought ravages entire regions - my paternal grandparents and my Father were displaced permanently from their Oklahoma home in the Dust Bowl (a 5-year drought) and my Mother's family suffered greatly in Arkansas during the Depression.

So we are going to have to give up personal transportation. That does not mean we have to cease running trains and some portion of the heavy truck fleet for food transport. Nor does it mean that we have to abandon cities or supermarkets.

As a productive member of a community, you will live and prosper. As a rugged and self-sufficient individualist, you will suffer for some months - or years - before you perish. Please leave all your lands fallow and we community residents will reclaim them, after the second big die-off, when all the Doomers starve.

Knowledge is never lost. Even in the Dark Ages, generations of monks quietly manufactured ink and paper and patiently inscribed scrolls and individually bound books. Today with an information network, all the knowledge will be available to anyone with network access. I believe some form of Internet and power grid will persist for decades to come, they are too usefull and we have already got so much time and energy invested in them to walk away from such capabilities.

[radon1]

16.5 million Russian families grow food at their own private getaways. Must be good friends of Putin's? What do the other 129.5 million Russians eat? Oil? Oh right, that is their food. It's our food also.

Well, that's families, you'd have to multiply it by anything from 3 to 7 to get the headcount.

But this small scale gardening now relies on industrial supplies such as fertilizers to a significant extent.

[Henriksson]

"Professional farmers will feed them with large-scale agriculture staple crops" Yup just like today in America. Folks will get enough endorphin/diabetes-producing mush to keep them fat, unhealthy, and docile. Good for the Masters.

OK, I guess...?

Those Russians (and other peasants everywhere) are the survivors of generations of subsistence farmers, and have lived and worked the land since the Middle Ages. Would any one of you honestly believe that fat and lazy suburban and urban Americans could do and live the same way?

People will do whatever it takes to survive. History-wise it's not too long ago in developed countries that most were employed in agriculture, and even less time since most were employed in industry.

I would also remind you that the peasants are regularly starved by crop blights, extreme weather events, and warfare that destroys crops. How many of the family farms (what few remain) in California had enough stored food to withstand the 3-year drought we are in now? Recall that drought ravages entire regions - my paternal grandparents and my Father were displaced permanently from their Oklahoma home in the Dust Bowl (a 5-year drought) and my Mother's family suffered greatly in Arkansas during the Depression.

Climate change is certainly a trend none of us are safe from.

So we are going to have to give up personal transportation. That does not mean we have to cease running trains and some portion of the heavy truck fleet for food transport. Nor does it mean that we have to abandon cities or supermarkets.

As a productive member of a community, you will live and prosper. As a rugged and self-sufficient individualist, you will suffer for some months - or years - before you perish. Please leave all your lands fallow and we community residents will reclaim them, after the second big die-off, when all the Doomers starve.

Knowledge is never lost. Even in the Dark Ages, generations of monks quietly manufactured ink and paper and patiently inscribed scrolls and individually bound books. Today with an information network, all the knowledge will be available to anyone with network access. I believe some form of Internet and power grid will persist for decades to come, they are too usefull and we have already got so much time and energy invested in them to walk away from such capabilities.

I appreciate you kicking in open doors.

[Loki]

These discussions inevitably result in too much simplistic either-or thinking.

Once things start going downhill in a serious way, it won't be a "nation of farmers" OR big industrial chemical ag. It'll be both.

We got a taste of it during the height of the Great Recession, when there was a resurgence in interest in gardening. This also occurred during the 1930s and 1940s.

But Big Ag still has plenty of years left in it.

My guess would be that a major downturn on the order of the Great Depression, only lasting for decades, would result in a polarization of food production: Big Ag getting stronger as small commercial growers go bankrupt, but home food production also becoming more popular. GMO white flour and corn syrup for calories, home-grown heirloom tomatoes for vitamins and variety.

As my signature says (from a WWII propaganda poster), a garden will make your rations go further.

[Ibon]

Would any one of you honestly believe that fat and lazy suburban and urban Americans could do and live the same way?

By some of your own arguments yes. If we go from 7 billion to 1 as you mentioned and for arguments sake if this drop would be homogeneous than the US population would also drop by 6/7 from 300 million to 45 million. That difference, 255 million would be those fat and lazy suburban and urban Americans that didn't make it through the correction. Along with those 255 million would be a few hundred thousand that didn't bother to try because they held on to the dilusion that we would one day propogate outer space.

[Ibon]

These discussions inevitably result in too much simplistic either-or thinking.

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/ ... nking.html

That’s when thinking in binaries goes haywire, the middle ground becomes invisible, and people think, say, and do resoundingly stupid things because they can only see two extreme alternatives, one of which is charged to the bursting point with desire (food rather than nonfood) or fear (predator rather than nonpredator). Watch the way that many people on the American right these days insist that anybody to the left of George W. Bush is a socialist, or tfor that matter the way that some people on the American left insist that anybody to the right of Hillary Clinton is a fascist. Equally, and more to the point in our present context, think of the way the peak oil debate was stuck for so long in a binary that insisted that the extremes of continued progress and sudden catastrophic collapse were the only possible shapes of the postpetroleum future.

[Newfie]

Ibon,

That reminded me of how a NY Times market analyst described the markets. They are driven by two things; greed and fear.

Not very encouraging.

[Shaved Monkey]

Ive got 2 tomatos in 2 wicking pot they have been producing tomatoes daily since February (its now October)
They are over 8 foot tall now
They get watered 2 o 3 times a week
I wee into a bucket and fill it with water once a week.
My window sills and bench tops and freezer are full of tomatoes,I havent bought one for about 9 months.
I grew them from seed I collected/saved for the last 6 years here (so they are totally adapted to my climate).
The water is rain water.
Thats pretty sustainable.

[Shaved Monkey]

I went to visit another poster from here today.
He has a composting toilet and has been systematically burying the contents over his property for the last 12 or so years.
He dug up a random sample over a decade old it was black, humus rich soil, full of worms that had spread way beyond the hole he had originally dug.
He is concentrating on one large flat area that he constantly adds humanure,bio char and ash to, in a hole followed by a hole of composted vegetable matter.
The difference in soil structure from one area thats had the treatment to the adjoining area is chalk and cheese.
No imports, no money spent, just making good,rich, fertile soil sustaineably,there if he needs to ramp up his food production in the future.
In a few years his top pad will be totally converted to viable potential market garden.
Making money is not his motivation ,just maintaining lifestyle into retirement/economic decent.
As the poo never stops he will continue to expand the fertile soil over his whole property.
One day his daughter will inherit a fertile property,established food forest,environmentally friendly house and infrastructure making her life easier and cheaper to run too.

[Shaved Monkey]

How many farmer, even organic farmers can hand over a property that was better and costs less to run than when they got it?
Permaculture is scary revolutionary magic.

[Subjectivist]

How many farmer, even organic farmers can hand over a property that was better and costs less to run than when they got it?
Permaculture is scary revolutionary magic.

That is great in theory, but only works out if the successor owner continues to use permaculture techniques.

[MonteQuest]

Sustainable agriculture is an oxymoron. Agriculture in any form is inherently unsustainable. In fact, agricultural and aquaculture practices present the greatest immediate threat to species and ecosystems around the world.

[careinke]

Sustainable agriculture is an oxymoron. Agriculture in any form is inherently unsustainable. In fact, agricultural and aquaculture practices present the greatest immediate threat to species and ecosystems around the world.

True, but Permaculture is a whole different animal. You have already started using it with your new place. Welcome aboard.

I'd like to classify Permaculture as a religion, right up there with the Overshoot Predator, except there is no metaphysics in Permaculture, so I guess it can't be a religion.

[Quinny]

I'm in a village with only 600m2 garden and pretty much starting from scratch, but it's amazing what you can get without a lot of work once you think system like. Chickens are our best and most productive project so far.

[MonteQuest]

True, but Permaculture is a whole different animal.

Yes, it is. Permaculture embraces horticultural ideals over those of agriculture. Permaculturists still wrestle with what to do with any surplus, though. Agriculture always leads to a concentration of power by the elite due to the surplus that is at the heart of agriculture. But as I have always argued, we must not try to feed and maintain a population in overshoot, even with the best of practices.