[MalcolmV]

Thank you for your post Phebagirl.

Your concerns are valid. I share the philosophies of alternative agriculture but something about articles like this really get my goat. I distrust any fundamentalist dogma. Is it just me or does anyone else take issue with their self satisfied, holier than thou attitude?

I was one of the first members of the organic club at U of G, I've worked on organic farms. The people I know who are farming organically are great and don't proselytize. But this article helps me understand the people who say organic agriculture is evil.

Conventional farms could feed the world today. It's a distribution problem, there is enough food in the world. It's poverty that causes hunger, not lack of production. We will need to make massive changes as we powerdown, we should use what works. The realities of a market economy and a government cheap food policy have caused the industry to develop the way it has. Good small farmers are forced out of business because of the pressure to get big or get out.

If organic farms can have higher yields in the developed world why don't they? If they have higher economic yields conventional farmers would adopt those methods.

Organic farmers often choose lower yields, their economics favour a lower input/output model, and they don't want to push the biological system. Too many organic farms are "chicken manure" farms, really a conventional approach to agriculture with a different set of rules. They truck in their nitrogen. It's not sustainable and they are dependent on conventional chicken farms.

To say that organic methods could triple sub-Sahara African yields is unfair. Any farming system would increase yield. Traditional methods have been lost and the conventional system has broken down. Low international commodity prices make it impossible for these farmers to purchase the inputs they once did. Yields are between 17 bu./ac (Sacks) and 25 bu./ac. IITA US now averages 150 bu./ac.

The best organic farms are dairy farms. They produce their nitrogen with the alfalfa crop and market it through the cows. Organic cash cropping is a more difficult proposition, although interesting work is being done with living mulches. You don't have to be an organic farmer to recycle on-farm nutrients. The University of Manitoba is doing work on low input agriculture, optimizing plant protection products and fertilizers for sustainability.

What does recycling nutrients in integrated agriculture systems have to do with not growing GMOs? Having corn and potato produce their own BT seems the low input way to go. I guess I object to having this bundle of technologies tied up with a piece of ribbon and held up as the be all to end all.

One reference to Jevons give his yields with bio-intensive methods as; 2 100 ft.sq. beds produce one loaf of bread per week. That works out to 140 bu./ac. or 100 bu./ac if we subtract the walkways. That is an excellent yield, 60 to 80 bu./ac would be a very good crop in Canada. In Holland average yields are 120 bu./ac., but that is with heavy N applications.

There is no magic bullet here, fu-fu dust doesn't increase yield. It's a matter of input/output. I'm assuming Jevons is irrigating and using alot of compost fertilizer. Sure, we could increase inputs and increase yields but irrigating corn isn't economic at $4.00 /bu. Being organic isn't going to solve the water crisis in the American SW. Trucking in chicken litter isn't sustainable.

I get tired of this "organic good", "conventional bad" assumption. Many consumers are choosing organic for the food safety issue. This seems self-centered to me. Organic agriculture was originally a biological design approach to the farm as organism, integrated into the biome and society. People who buy organic only because "our food is contaminated" are willing to buy at Wal-Mart and that is not sustainable.

We need good farmers who are moving toward sustainability. Whether they are conventional, organic, biodynamic or use permaculture is less important. Conventional agriculture talks about sustainability and stewardship, you don’t have to be organic to be a good farmer.

[Ludi]

Conventional agriculture talks about sustainability and stewardship, you don’t have to be organic to be a good farmer.

I agree, and what we know of as "organic farming" currently, as you point out, isn't sustainable.


BTW Jeavons does irrigate and use compost, the compost is grown in the garden, not trucked in. He also advocates low-water use gardenign methods but points out yields will be lower and land area will need to be larger.


See link to Biointensive below for more details.

[oswald622]

In the book Deep Economy, Bill McKibben cites research that claims that, yes, organic farming does produce greater yields per acre - because so much detailed care goes into tending the crops - but it requires much more human labor than industrial farming.

The argument that 'we're all gonna starve!' is a little overblown, in my opinion, for it relies on the argument that 'those lazy Americans, they'll never get their hands dirty!' Come on, that's transparent nonsense. There are plenty of people who do 'back-breaking' labor in other working class jobs, every day; and assuming that TSHTF, people are going to be without jobs and without anything better to do than to work on the farm.

Ever been to a farmer's market, where ordinary, non-professional farmers can put their produce on display? Those are places of abundance, and that's just a tiny percentage of the population getting involved.

Moreover, regarding the 'backbreaking' part, and the 'misery' that comes from sustained contact with nature - you are simply projecting your own morbid and unhappy psychology onto others. I come from an agricultural community and I know lots of people who've worked from sun-up to sun-down, in intense heat, since they were kids. And you know what? They are some of the happiest, best-adjusted people I have ever met.

Anecdotal evidence, yes - but do you suppose that mankind was profoundly unhappy before the tractor was invented, before we moved from the barnyard to Best Buy? Give me a break. All the evidence from anthropology, and from your own common sense, suggests that life was much more pleasant for the average person before we had to deal with all the psychic traumas of the industrialized world.

The only way these arguments hold any water, is if there is an overnight petrocollapse.

[NEOPO]

Good people with good intentions yet nonetheless brainwashed sheeple...

Ancient raised bed gardens

Ahh for one simple single second to believe that the way IT IS is not the way TPTB want it to be and that the way most people think is also not a product of the same system...

Totalitarian agriculture is not sustainable...

I believe the quote was something like "America's farmland is nothing more then a sponge we pour chemicals on"...

[denverdave]

Anecdotal evidence, yes - but do you suppose that mankind was profoundly unhappy before the tractor was invented, before we moved from the barnyard to Best Buy? Give me a break. All the evidence from anthropology, and from your own common sense, suggests that life was much more pleasant for the average person before we had to deal with all the psychic traumas of the industrialized world.

This reminds me of something I was thinking about the other day: is the general tone and mood of religion an accurate reflection of a society's level of happiness? Are people more likely to believe in an angry, vengeful god when life sucks, and a happy feel-good god when life is easy? If this is true, then it is safe to say that life from the middle ages in Europe up to the end of the victorian era sucked pretty bad.

I think going back to the land with labor intensive agriculture could be a really great life or really miserable, depending on the circumstances. If you own your own land and have another source of income, it could be great. But if all you have to offer is your labor to work someone else's land, it would be a miserable existence.

[MalcolmV]

Ludi I thought I was going to take some flak for that post

I hear what you're saying, I think because you're doing it. It's the armchair Organic proponents that I have trouble listening to.

I was taking to agronomist at the co-op and he said he has seen conventionally managed soils in this area with soil organic matter from 6 to 0.8%. Organically managed soil do tend to have higher OM. That helps hold soil moisture. Organic crops do better in drought. We were just on the edge of drought here and you could see the soil variation across the fields in how twisted the corn was.

Nitrogen is going to be a big issue. I keep coming back to the traditional small farm model, with cattle to market the alfalfa through. Even Fukuoka brought in duck manure. When you grow green manure crops for biointensive compost doesn't that area have to be added in and lower yield /sq.ft.?

[Ludi]

. When you grow green manure crops for biointensive compost doesn't that area have to be added in and lower yield /sq.ft.?

Because the entire garden is seen as a system, the compost crops area is computed into the total garden area, but not to the area devoted to growing the diet crop during that season. So, if you're growing potatoes during one season and a green legume manure crop the next season, on the same plot of ground (say, 500 squ ft), the potato yield from that area in that season is used as the basis for per sq ft calculations. The total area needed to grow food crops might only be 1000 sq ft (for a grown woman's diet) but her total growing area might need to be 4000 sq ft, because of the need to grow compost crops. Often compost crops and diet crops are the same crop, for instance, wheat may be grown both for the grain and the straw. So yes, it is a little misleading to say, "you only need 1000 sq ft to grow a diet" when you actually need more sq ft because of the compost area. But it is still much more efficient in terms of land area than conventional and organic farming. Compost materials can come from trees and shrubs grown along the edge of the garden, grown expressly for their ability to produce large quantities of biomass.


I agree with pstarr it is extremely unlikely our culture will change to egalitarian land-sharing any time soon (if ever). A permaculture society could only occur if our culture changed completely. I say this a lot. Permaculture ethics and methods aren't compatible with our present way of life, in general. But small permaculture communities are certainly possible.

[killJOY]

Pheba, ludi, Heineken, etc.

I could weep that you're not my neighbors/

[Ludi]

Thank you, I wish we could be neighbors too! But, I might not work hard enough.... I still haven't figured out what is the "backbreaking" part of gardening.....

[Sys1]

This is the title from an article claiming that we don t need oil and gaz to feed the world. Anyone can argue about it please
Organic farming can feed the world

[Ludi]

http://peakoil.com/fortopic30659-0.html

[frankthetank]

I wonder how many years of current fertilizer use and oil used for transportation, planting, etc we have left? 100 years?

I guess a lot of it depend on us continuing to use gasoline to drive to our mailboxes.

[BastardSquad]

.... I still haven't figured out what is the "backbreaking" part of gardening.....

Yeah I'm stumped!

What are we doing wrong?

I grow quite a bit of food on a very limited space,and only rarely do I have to do work I would call "backbreaking".

[MonteQuest]

This makes me question the die-off mantra that PO will result in mass starvation as synthetic pesticides, herbicides, fertilisers and feed additives become unaffordable.

Food is not the only limiting factor; the least abundant necessity relative to per capita requirements determines carrying capacity.

You could be swimming in food and experience a die-off due to lack of energy, shelter from the elements, potable water, air, topsoil, biodiversity, and environmental sinks.

Continued argricultural success is our biggest threat. It will allow even more overshoot, thus a greater correction and a reduced ability to return to a sustainable population.

As William Catton remarked in his book Overshoot:

"We must learn to live within carrying capacity without trying to enlarge it. We must rely on renewable resources consumed no faster than at sustained yield rates. The last best hope for mankind is ecological modesty."

[MonteQuest]

I trueley believe "IF" Americans were to devote a large percentage of their lawn space to the production of biofuels there would be no impending crisis.

Sorry....

Yearly Americans are using twice as much fossil energy as the total solar energy captured by all plants through photosynthesis in the United States each year.

http://www.npg.org/forum_series/forum0205.html

[MonteQuest]

There is farmland in Iowa that is producing 200 bushels of corn per acre. That is phenomenal, and there is no way on earth that any organic farmer can get even 100 bushels per acre. (average corn yield before the green revolution was about 60 bushels per acre)

Pheba is spot on. I own 212 acres in NW Missouri 1/2 mile from the Iowa line and 15 miles from the Missouri River.

Atchison County, just north of Maryville, Pheba, 7 miles from Westboro, MO.

Last year, my farm made 200 bushels of corn per acre and 240/ acre just south of the barn where livestock ran for years and we had good terraces.

We use no-till. No plowing, no discing, no harrowing, no rotary hoe, no cultivation.

Plant with nitrogen, spray with herbicides and combine. That's it.

Love to farm without chemicals, but no one will rent the land if I insist on it. I also have two sisters and a brother who don't always share my ecological views. But my renter is a good farmer and doesn't abuse the soil. We still rotate crops.

If we had to go back to crop rotation, plowing, discing, harrow, rotary hoe, and two passes of the field with cultivation as I did as a boy growing up there, we might make 60 bushels an acre.

And since we wouldn't have the machinery anymore.... ...we couldn't.

Connect the dots.

[EnergyUnlimited]

There is farmland in Iowa that is producing 200 bushels of corn per acre. That is phenomenal, and there is no way on earth that any organic farmer can get even 100 bushels per acre. (average corn yield before the green revolution was about 60 bushels per acre)

Pheba is spot on. I own 212 acres in NW Missouri 1/2 mile from the Iowa line and 15 miles from the Missouri River.

Atchison County, just north of Maryville, Pheba, 7 miles from Westboro, MO.

Last year, my farm made 200 bushels of corn per acre and 240/ acre just south of the barn where livestock ran for years and we had good terraces.

I wander, how you can find so much time to write on PO.com, keep yourself busy with sustainable Arizona, write books etc, if you are a farmer.
Farmers are expected to be busy with more "down to Earth" activities.

We use no-till. No plowing, no discing, no harrowing, no rotary hoe, no cultivation.

Thats awful.
Farmers in my area are every year busy with that (or most of that).
Perhaps that explains why you have so much time online.

Plant with nitrogen, spray with herbicides and combine. That's it.

Farmers in my area (north Poland) are already sacrificing yields, because fertilizer and pesticides are too expensive for them and they use those only sparsely for the same.
Even famous CAP cannot change that...

Love to farm without chemicals, but no one will rent the land if I insist on it. I also have two sisters and a brother who don't always share my ecological views. But my renter is a good farmer and doesn't abuse the soil. We still rotate crops.

Why not?
If you pay rent they (owners) should not care, are you using chemicals or not.

And since we wouldn't have the machinery anymore.... ...we couldn't.

Once you will have plenty of debtors to work, you may no longer need machinery.

[MonteQuest]

EU, either you cannot read or you are being a troll.

I live in Arizona. I own a farm in Misssuori. I rent the farm to another farmer who works the land.

No-till minimizes top soil loss.

[MonteQuest]

I'd like to start off by saying that I appreciate your intellectual ability Montequest, and your desire to share your knowledge here on the board. I cannot even begin to think of jumping in with my opinion. Having said that......

EU, either you cannot read or you are being a troll.

Unless the person happens to know you here on peakoil.com that post before EnergyUnlimited DID sound like you were farming up in Missouri. In fact I have been trying to make up my mind whether or not you were in Arizona or Missouri but haven't really cared enough to ask outright.

I'm wondering though....why sound so snippy? I mean...you type for a living yes? Is it too hard to just correct EU? Why not just answer short and sweet and assume that people here are not keeping track of you or reading your 50 page posts in their entirety? I notice that you often refer back to your posts like they are required reading before we ask questions or give our opinion. Why not regurgitate what you have already said just to keep the dialog going. This site runs strong because people like you keep us reading. You're near 10000 points so you must like speaking your mind. I sense your impatience with people and I must say it's a little annoying. I hope you don't take this as a flame but constructive critisizm.

EU has a history of posts like that. It has become annoying. My post clearly said I was renting the land.

I'm tired of regurgitating what I have already said. 10,000 may well be my final post for a while.

Yes, I am impatient. I've been at this for 37 years and still people are in denial.

Is reality so hard to grasp?

Whatever happpened to critical thinking?