[FossilFool]

Let's see. I have read some about the fact that we eat oil and such. We export much of our food. And we give half of our crops to livestock. Not to mentioned all the land for crops that have no nutritional value like sugar. So, if we cut out meat, does that make things better? Has our petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides reduced agricultural fertility so much that the land will not be able to produce enough food for everyone without them?

[gego]

Beef raised in feedlots does use a lot of energy because they are fed grains. Growing grains is energy intensive using modern fertilizers and pesticides, and then feeding it to cattle is an inefficient way to get food to humans. Grass fed beef, on the other hand, is a win/win situation because it does not use grains, and land that is not suitable for grain production can be used to grow grass for pasture and hay.

Without oil and gas to fuel tractors, and to produce fertilizers and pesticides, farming will need to revert to the old way of doing things. This includes the use of more manpower, draft animals, crop rotation, organic fertilizers and alternative pest management techniques. However the old way did not product the output per acre so there will be less food, not even taking into account the acrage, now feeding us, that will be diverted to feed the draft animals. Then there is the problem of how to get the food to market.

It does not look like a good situation to me.

[pip]

Last years corn crop was 11.1 billion bushels. 2.9 billion bushels will be used for food and seed. The country can grow that much organically.

Last years wheat crop was 2.1 billion bushels. 1.0 billion bushels will be used for food and seed. The country can grow that much organically.

I hate to disappoint the majority here that believe half the country will starve but I just don't see it. Go organic, let the yields fall, there will still be plenty unless maybe if you're an Angus steer.

[Andrew_S]

Furthermore, these nutritionally vapid foods must be shipped long distances to the market with all the associated negative consequences.

'Scuse my ignorance, but what does vapid mean?

[Heineken]

In this context, "vapid" means "empty."

[pip]

Last years corn crop was 11.1 billion bushels. 2.9 billion bushels will be used for food and seed. The country can grow that much organically.

organic corn requires just as much nitrogen fertilizer as conventional except it must come from organic sources (chicken poop, plant and animal by-products like blood meal, fishmeal, and soybean meal etc) that are difficult to cart around without cheap petroleum.

Organic corn doesn't require just as much nitrogen. It requires just as much nitrogen for the same yield. Corn will grow and use what nitrogen is available. Yield will be less. Luckily it can be 75% less and we all still eat.

838 million bushels of corn were grown in 1860. I assume they did it all without petroleum, cheap or otherwise. I wonder what they could of done with 5 times as much land under cultivation, a little modern management, and DeKalb's latest hybrid.

[backstop]

An aspect of post-peak food supply worth considering is its marlet value.

Any substantial decline in US output will not only cut global supplies, it will also be mirrored by declines in other countries, leading to substantially higher prices.

It is a central tenet of laisez-faire or "free-market" capitalism that goods must be allowed to move to wherever they can get the highest prices.
Many are the famines where TPTB have continued massive food exports under this ideology -
You can still see the heavilly barred grain warehouses down the west coast of Ireland.

Given US external & internal debt, it seems more than likely that US per capita purchasing power will decline substantially with a post peak crunch, meaning that many Americans will be just as short of the price of food as people in other countries.

So would the US commitment to Free Trade fade under those conditions and, for the sake of US saving lives, an interventionist govt. be elected to cut food exports ?
Or would the ideology be obeyed, and the newly poor be left to starve ?

regards,

Backstop

[gego]

First of all, I think that the USA is now a net importer of food. I do not know if this is measured by $ value or some other measure, but I was surprised to find out that we are no longer food selfsufficient.

Secondly, I have seen two reports of conventional vs. "old" farming yields. One was years ago in Mother Earth News. A man tried organic farming using draft horses and only natural fertilizer. His yield was 50 bu per acre. His conventional neighbor was getting 150 bu per acre. The cost for the organic farmer was lower, so both methods produced similar profits for the farmer.

I have also seen a study funded by Prevention Magazine which I think is suspect. They claimed that after a few years they managed to get a yeild with organic methods almost equal to conventional farming, but when you looked at the footnotes they failed to mention that they could not get that yeild every year because of crop rotation and letting the field lay fallow occasionally.

Neither of these two tests took into account the need to divert some of the yeild to the draft animals so the net yield for human consumption suffered. Neither addressed the problem of finding sufficient organic fertilizer if everyone is trying to switch back to organic methods. Where are all the draft animals going to come from?

I think that it is not safe to assume that we can just jump back to the old ways of doing things and everything will be fine.

[pip]

First of all, I think that the USA is now a net importer of food. I do not know if this is measured by $ value or some other measure, but I was surprised to find out that we are no longer food selfsufficient.

That's really hard to believe. How about a link?

For the 2004-2005 crop year.

Corn
Production 11.8 billion bu.
Imports 0.011 billion bu.
Exports 1.8 billion bu.

Wheat
Production 2.1 billion bu.
Imports 0.07 billion bu.
Exports 1.1 billion bu.

Soybeans
Production 3.1 billion bu.
Imports 0.006 billion bu.
Exports 1.1 billion bu.

http://www.msu.edu/user/hilker/outlook.htm

[Ludi]

Let's see. I have read some about the fact that we eat oil and such. We export much of our food. And we give half of our crops to livestock. Not to mentioned all the land for crops that have no nutritional value like sugar. So, if we cut out meat, does that make things better? Has our petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides reduced agricultural fertility so much that the land will not be able to produce enough food for everyone without them?

More people will eventually need to go into farming and farming will need to become local. Permaculture and biointensive are two systems which can produce a large quantity of food in a small area and at the same time renew the soil's fertility.

http://www.growbiointensive.org/biointe ... NSIVE.html

http://www.permacultureactivist.net/

[grabby]

...Not if you mean producing high fructose corn syrup with draft horses and chicken poop. ...but if folks want strawberries in January they had better have a personal or community greenhouse.

After two standard deviations after peak there will not be strawberries in January...

and high fructose Corn syrup will be totally useless product. What would you do with it?

Regular eating corn will be in damand.
there will not be pepsi and pop nor aluminum.

REally, you might go to a large library while it still stands and look at some old newspapers on microfich from the 1800's you'll see the lifestyle was sustenance only.

you couldn't get an orange even in the wintertime unless grandpa was traveling from California and brought one in his pocket.

Apples, squash potatoes frozen food was a luxury. don't know if we'll have energy fro freezers. (talking money/kw hour which will be atronomical.

canned beans are good and tomatoes, that is about it.
till next spring.

watermellons were the treat of the day.

and sugar cane was exotic in the north.
but everyone was not hungry, chickens laid eggs and the wheat was plenitful and granny sure could bake.

all kinds of cookie treats.

[Doly]

don't know if we'll have energy for freezers.

Considering that freezers are a pretty essential thing nowadays, we'll have to give up a lot of things before freezers. Starting with TVs, that use more energy than freezers.

[Ludi]

I keep very little food in the freezer, so a freezer is definitely a luxury item for me and not a necessity. A little refrigerator can be run on solar panels, to keep medications or small quantities of meat and milk cold. Most frozen food is a huge energy user and not a necessity.

[FossilFool]

But exactly how much has the Green Revolution ruined our soil? I have heard someone refer to the Dust Bowl for a measure of the fertility of the Great Plains without petrochemical fertilizers. And compare it to the "Fertile" Crescent.

[Ludi]

But exactly how much has the Green Revolution ruined our soil? I have heard someone refer to the Dust Bowl for a measure of the fertility of the Great Plains without petrochemical fertilizers. And compare it to the "Fertile" Crescent.

The Dust Bowl and the depletion of the Fertile Crescent happened from the same cause, use of plow agriculture. Plow agriculture depletes the soil by releasing stored carbon in the form of CO2 (our favorite gas). Soil without carbon in the form of humus doesn't hold water or nutrients, and blows or washes away. Putting chemical fertilizers on the soil doesn't solve this problem at all, the nutrients only feed the immediate crop, and excess nutrients leach into groundwater and streams in the form of nitrates, which are toxic.

The Great Plains were enormously fertile when the soil was initially broken, because there was thousands of years of stored carbon in the form of humus, created and held in place by the prairie grasses. The initial large yields were short-lived, because in drought, without the grass roots to hold the soil in place and the humus to stabilize it and hold moisture, the soil just blew away, tons and tons and tons of it.