[Zardoz]

The point is well taken and, looked at from a global perspective, leads to only one conclusion: Eventually, at some point in the near or distant future, people are going to be starving to death by the billions. Those who deny that inescapable fact are kidding themselves.

[smallpoxgirl]

He then goes on to say the key to sustainability is GARDENING, that of which he relates to the older Horticultural practice which he says is akin to Permaculture.

Avant Gardening has a number of very good essays about gardening and makes basically the same point about gardening vs. agriculture.

[katkinkate]

and the problem is that those nutrients carry infectious diseases (especially certain parasite eggs) that are highly resistant to heat, ultra-violet, and chemical treatment.....

They don't survive being digested by worms and other detritivores. Basically if you can separate the humanure from the production of human food by passing it through at least one other organism first, eg. worms/insects to chooks/fish to humans or leafy plants/trees to mulch for veges to humans. Basically use the humanure as food for something else first.

[billg]

Recently, i got interested in no-till farming after seeing a video on Emilia Hazelip's Synergistic Gardening techniques. Emilia Hazelip, who was influenced strongly by Masanobu Fukuoka, helped introduce permaculture concepts to France. The Hazelip video is being sold in the Permaculture Activist magazine. I don't see why these techniques can't be applied on a larger scale. Hazelip was working an acre with only 2 people including herself.

Also, here is an interesting ARTICLE by Chris Wells about how to manage cover crops on a small-scale, no-till farm. Chris doesn't use grass cover crops that need to be killed off through tilling. He uses buckwheat, winter and field peas, and calendula and explains how and why he uses it.

-Bill

[Ludi]

Natural farming techniques can be applied on a larger scale, in the sense of more people can be involved in natural farming/gardening. But, natural farming can't be applied to large-scale industrial type farming. It requires the close participation of the individual gardener. It can't be done with big power equipment.



Most people are capable of gardening, hence all food could be raised through gardening/natural farming/permaculture, but such a situation could only come about with massive change in our way of life, values, and goals, in my opinion, and probably relocation of large populations (those in high-rise cities).

[Newsseeker]

Iowa has gone from 17" of top soil in the 1800s to only 6" today. Yet horticulture is slash and burn and equally unsustainable.

[Tanada]

Iowa has gone from 17" of top soil in the 1800s to only 6" today. Yet horticulture is slash and burn and equally unsustainable.

Take an old farm with adequite rainfall and 1" of topsoil and seed it with Alfalfa. Use it as pasture land for 10 years. Your pasture now has 12-15 inches of topsoil.

The problem is, people never want to give nature time to heal her scars.

[Daculling]

Iowa has gone from 17" of top soil in the 1800s to only 6" today. Yet horticulture is slash and burn and equally unsustainable.

You are so full of shit I don't even know where to start... well let's start here... anywhere I see erosion (rivers/creeks) the topsoil is 12 plus feet. Yes, that is feet not inches. You have never been to Iowa.

[Loki]

Also, here is an interesting ARTICLE by Chris Wells about how to manage cover crops on a small-scale, no-till farm. Chris doesn't use grass cover crops that need to be killed off through tilling. He uses buckwheat, winter and field peas, and calendula and explains how and why he uses it.

-Bill

Good link. I read The One Straw Revolution a few weeks ago. Really good stuff. But didn't Fukuoka grow two crops per year? My best recollection is that he'd harvest both summer and winter crops, but would return the stalks and other "waste" to the fields as mulch/fertilizer.

Steve Solomon says the no-till system doesn't work in the wet parts of the Pacific Northwest. Anyone tried it here?

[Denny]

All kinds of places have had agriculture in place for thousands of years, like southern Europe. So, what is suddenly so impossible?

There may be poor practices happening in parts of America, but some of that is due to a continuation of poor farm prices which has led to overspecialization. A lto fo famrer know what to do better, but cannot survive growing the way they'd like to do and the wya which is better for the land. Look at th Amish for instance. They do take care of their land, but get by living as our acnestors did 200 years ago.

I think if North American farm prices went to Europepan levels the quality of agriculture would improve. Most city people do no realize how low incomes farmers live on, and what gambles they take each putting in crops. Yes, some farmers have major assets, but this does not translate into paying next year's bills. Perhaps its is high time that farm people were given special political power, reflective of their land holdings, ans they are generally very practical and likely to make better decisions than most of us when it comes to government policies. Again, some European countires have smaller population constituencies in farming areas to give farmers more clout.

I think the worst soil loss potential comes for deep tilling. There are more shallow tiling methods, such as the one way disc.

As for the fuel issue, lilely if there was grave shortge of some kind, farmers would get their normal rations, as happened in World War II. They are a special group in this way, by producing food. Most people do not really need gasoline and diesel. but truckers and farmers do.

[paimei01]

A very interesting article here :
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/02/0079915

Plato wrote of his country's farmlands:

What now remains of the formerly rich land is like the skeleton of a sick man. . . . Formerly, many of the mountains were arable. The plains that were full of rich soil are now marshes. Hills that were once covered with forests and produced abundant pasture now produce only food for bees. Once the land was enriched by yearly rains, which were not lost, as they are now, by flowing from the bare land into the sea. The soil was deep, it absorbed and kept the water in loamy soil, and the water that soaked into the hills fed springs and running streams everywhere. Now the abandoned shrines at spots where formerly there were springs attest that our description of the land is true.

Plato's lament is rooted in wheat agriculture, which depleted his country's soil and subsequently caused the series of declines that pushed centers of civilization to Rome, Turkey, and western Europe. By the fifth century, though, wheat's strategy of depleting and moving on ran up against the Atlantic Ocean. Fenced-in wheat agriculture is like rice agriculture. It balances its equations with famine. In the millennium between 500 and 1500, Britain suffered a major “corrective” famine about every ten years; there were seventy-five in France during the same period. The incidence, however, dropped sharply when colonization brought an influx of new food to Europe.

The new lands had an even greater effect on the colonists themselves. Thomas Jefferson, after enduring a lecture on the rustic nature by his hosts at a dinner party in Paris, pointed out that all of the Americans present were a good head taller than all of the French. Indeed, colonists in all of the neo-Europes enjoyed greater stature and longevity, as well as a lower infant-mortality rate—all indicators of the better nutrition afforded by the onetime spend down of the accumulated capital of virgin soil.

[americandream]

A very interesting article here :
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/02/0079915

Plato wrote of his country's farmlands:

What now remains of the formerly rich land is like the skeleton of a sick man. . . . Formerly, many of the mountains were arable. The plains that were full of rich soil are now marshes. Hills that were once covered with forests and produced abundant pasture now produce only food for bees. Once the land was enriched by yearly rains, which were not lost, as they are now, by flowing from the bare land into the sea. The soil was deep, it absorbed and kept the water in loamy soil, and the water that soaked into the hills fed springs and running streams everywhere. Now the abandoned shrines at spots where formerly there were springs attest that our description of the land is true.

Plato's lament is rooted in wheat agriculture, which depleted his country's soil and subsequently caused the series of declines that pushed centers of civilization to Rome, Turkey, and western Europe. By the fifth century, though, wheat's strategy of depleting and moving on ran up against the Atlantic Ocean. Fenced-in wheat agriculture is like rice agriculture. It balances its equations with famine. In the millennium between 500 and 1500, Britain suffered a major “corrective” famine about every ten years; there were seventy-five in France during the same period. The incidence, however, dropped sharply when colonization brought an influx of new food to Europe.

The new lands had an even greater effect on the colonists themselves. Thomas Jefferson, after enduring a lecture on the rustic nature by his hosts at a dinner party in Paris, pointed out that all of the Americans present were a good head taller than all of the French. Indeed, colonists in all of the neo-Europes enjoyed greater stature and longevity, as well as a lower infant-mortality rate—all indicators of the better nutrition afforded by the onetime spend down of the accumulated capital of virgin soil.

What do we do to remedy this. Who among us will forego the wastefulness of capitalism for a more austere lifestyle based on community and sharing.

Instead, we will turn to xenophobia and turn on the defenceless to preserve our wastefulness. We're a perverse bunch of stupid buggers.

[GoghGoner]

Posting articles that describe the good or bad effects weather/climate/other environmental factors have on food production. (I saw the food chain thread but it did not seem adequate).

For reference this site has a graphical browser of USDA statistics: Agriculture Statistics and Early spring worries mid-Columbia farmers

In orchards and fields across the Mid-Columbia, those who make their living from the land are watching thermometers and short- and long-range weather forecasts with some anxiety. With nighttime low temperatures staying at or above freezing and daytime highs reaching into the mid-50s, Mother Nature is responding to the call of an early spring. And that has increased the potential destruction a hard frost could wreak on orchards and fields.

[GoghGoner]

Delaware still counting storm damage to chicken houses

More than three dozen chicken houses in Delaware suffered damage as a result of last week's double dose of snow. State Agriculture Secretary Ed Kee says 37 chicken houses suffered roof collapses or other damage because of the weight of heavy snow resting on top of the buildings.

[GoghGoner]

Argentina Soy May Rot, Face Fungus Because of Rain

Argentina, the largest soybean producer after the U.S. and Brazil, is forecast to produce a record crop this year after rain caused by the El Nino weather pattern boosted yields. Fungal disease and the rotting of beans could prompt output to fall short of the exchange’s estimate for more than 52 million metric tons of the oilseed, Anchubidart said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts Argentina’s crop to rise to 53 million tons from a drought-hit 32 million in 2009.

[Loki]

Early spring worries mid-Columbia farmers

In orchards and fields across the Mid-Columbia, those who make their living from the land are watching thermometers and short- and long-range weather forecasts with some anxiety. With nighttime low temperatures staying at or above freezing and daytime highs reaching into the mid-50s, Mother Nature is responding to the call of an early spring. And that has increased the potential destruction a hard frost could wreak on orchards and fields.

I've definitely noticed the early spring on this side of the Cascades. Buds started to swell very early this year, many trees and other plants seem to have flowered and leafed out earlier than usual (one of my horticulture profs said about 2 weeks earlier than he remembers). Could very well be problematic if we have another freeze.

Global climate change may very well play a role in this, but it's also an el Nino year. With the exception of a record-breaking deep freeze early in the season, it's been a warm, dry winter here in the Pac NW.

It'd be a good year to experiment with planting an early garden.

[GoghGoner]

Global climate change may very well play a role in this, but it's also an el Nino year. With the exception of a record-breaking deep freeze early in the season, it's been a warm, dry winter here in the Pac NW.

It'd be a good year to experiment with planting an early garden.

Yes, a typical El Nino pattern. Expected rain in Argentina fell as predicted. We are definitely having extreme weather events this winter, though -- if it continues, I would like to track the effect on food supply.

Typical Influence of El Niño

[GoghGoner]

Orange Juice Rises as Florida Temperatures Fall; Cotton Gains

Lows reached 43 degrees Fahrenheit (6 Celsius) on Feb. 19 in parts of central Florida, 11 degrees below normal, U.S. National Weather Service data show. A crop-withering cold snap last month contributed to a 21 percent drop in the government’s forecast for Florida orange output this season. Oranges exposed to freezing weather for too long can be harmed by the cold.