Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on July 9, 2015
What’s the Future of Agriculture?
In a world moving towards vat-grown meats and Soylent, Bryce Oates hopes for a return to the sustainable, diverse, and local:
I suppose we all have our favored notion of what’s to come, what’s preferable, how we should move along the path. Mine is more people on the land farming a mix of crops and livestock, minding the recycling and biological renovation of nutrients while producing healthy food for people, and leaving room for the wildlife with whom we share the planet. That’s already a mouthful, I know, but there also needs to be something said for economic fairness, decent pay, and incomes sufficient to support these food producers and conservationists.
Creating such a future may be difficult, Oates writes, as we would need to build “a policy framework and developing market opportunities and infrastructure. You know, truly sexy things like food processing shops and developing trucking routes.”
Meanwhile, Gene Logsdon wonders whether we ought to forsake capitalistic farming methods altogether, and turn farming into a not-for-profit enterprise:
Not-for-profit farming would be based on a different economic model for farmland. “Profit” would come from the satisfaction and enjoyment and recreational value of possessing or owning land, not squeezing it to death for money profit. Then the land and the farmer’s life on it would not be subject to money manipulation and would not need the highest yields or the biggest machinery to survive. It would just need more not-for-profit food producers.
The major goal for successful farming would not be to reap the highest amount of money from the land but to reap the most pleasure and satisfaction that a farm can provide. For example, the not-for-profit farmer would be content to derive as much enjoyment out of fishing, ice skating, boating, swimming, and bird-watching on his pond that others derive from taking vacation trips to far off lands. Rather than seeing the farm primarily as a place to make money, the non-profit farmer would see it as a refuge from strife. They would then have to make only enough money to pay taxes and cover living costs, the latter being minimal since the farm, correctly managed, can provide many of those costs without cash outlay. The financial reward would come from the rise in the value of the land both as property and as increasingly fertile soil.
Why does Logsdon see this as a more beneficial method than the current one? “When highest possible profit rules farming, the possession of the land inevitably flows into the hands of the richer people and more and more poor people are dispossessed— forced off or lured off the land,” he writes.
Both of these posts seem to raise the question, “Has capitalism broken farming?” As I’ve written in the past, I think it’s more likely that crony capitalism has broken farming, giving us the bloated industrialized system we have today. But these writers aren’t wrong to call for a return to a simpler, more diversified, craftsman-esque style of agriculture. Our current industrialized mode of farming has resulted in a swath of deleterious consequences.
Oates identifies the greatest challenge here: the need for a new infrastructure, one that gives local-food-craving consumers access to the goods they desire. That infrastructure is building, but slowly—impeded by miles of red tape.
The idea of not-for-profit farming is intriguing, but I wonder how well it would sell to farmers themselves—many of whom want to build a sustainable livelihood they can pass onto their sons and daughters. (Although perhaps it’s not a bad idea to open up the possibility of not-for-profit farming for those who are interested in such a lifestyle.) Many of today’s farmers are making “only enough money to pay taxes and cover living costs” as it is: rewarding them for their toil and hard work is a good use of our time and resources. We want to make (sustainable, local) farming a lucrative practice, so that smart and talented people will be drawn to the enterprise. That’s not as likely to happen if we transform farming into a not-for-profit enterprise.
26 Comments on "What’s the Future of Agriculture?"
apneaman on Thu, 9th Jul 2015 6:53 pm
Apparently a bunch of new land has just been cleared and fertilized – everything is awesome //////////////////////////////////////////
Unprecedented Fire Season Has Burned 11 Million Acres So Far For Alaska and Canada
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/07/09/unprecedented-fire-season-has-burned-11-million-acres-so-far-for-alaska-and-canada/
wildbourgman on Thu, 9th Jul 2015 7:44 pm
This author thinks that farming today is always a zero sum game. I can farm in ways that I can be efficient, maximize my profits AND still have fertile soil for generations to come. My farming practices can have profits and still leave plenty of room for wildlife.
Maybe as a hole big agribusiness doesn’t work in this manor, but you don’t have to kill capitalism in order to have a profitable yet environmentally responsible farm.
apneaman on Thu, 9th Jul 2015 8:36 pm
Bumblebees being crushed by climate change
““Climate change is crushing [bumblebee] species in a vice,” says ecologist Jeremy Kerr of the University of Ottawa in Canada, the study’s lead author. The findings underscore the importance of conserving the habitat the insects currently persist in, says Rich Hatfield, a biologist with the Xerces Society for Insect Conservation in Portland, Oregon, who was not involved in the study. Where bumblebees vanish, the wild plants and crops they pollinate could also suffer.”
http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/07/bumblebees-being-crushed-climate-change
Makati1 on Thu, 9th Jul 2015 8:42 pm
“What’s the Future of Agriculture?”
If we are lucky, permaculture and local farmer’s markets to barter/trade and a change to the tax system that allows us to actually own the land and our homes.
If we are unlucky, hunter gathering by the remnants of humanity as we become extinct.
Bryce Oates is still talking huge systems to make his dream possible. Not going to be possible when oil goes away. And it still is only a twist on the current “for profit” farming.
Gene Logsdon has another dream, equally reliant on oil and making money(profit) to pay for the costs of being a slave to banks and government. Taxes are what prevents anyone from truly “owning” their land/home. Don’t pay your taxes/mortgage and see who actually owns it.
Until the tax structure is destroyed, it is impossible to be totally self reliant and free. Ask the serfs of Europe if they had to pay taxes to the conquering Romans or lose their land. Even the Egyptian kings ruled by taxes and total ownership of everything. Taxes/tithes have been the industry of kings since man started farming and paid the local big man.
Only the collapse of governments that prevents them from being able to collect income and property taxes, will end the slavery we, the 99%, enjoy. Who are YOU a slave to besides your Federal, State and Local governments? Banks? Employer? Bad habits?
BTW: A VAT(Value Added Tax)tax only on the things we buy would be the answer. Then WE the citizens would control how much we paid and would not lose our lands and homes if we did not have sufficient income. It is used here in the PS because only part of the population has a job with taxable income. Many trade and barter and are self sufficient without an ’employer’.
penury on Thu, 9th Jul 2015 10:03 pm
What is the future of farming? Probably limited. Single source GMO seeds will assure that no crops are planted after the crash.
Makati1 on Thu, 9th Jul 2015 11:38 pm
penury, you are correct, of course. GMO is another control method to eliminate us useless eaters en mass. No seeds, no crops and they are making sure it is illegal to save the seeds for the next year in most countries.
Who controls the seeds?
Monsanto 27%
DuPont 17%
Syngenta 9%
Groupe limagrain 5%
Land-O-Lakes 4%
KWS Ag 3%
Bayer 2%
The 3 largest control over 50% of the seeds used in commerce.
http://www.nationofchange.org/10-companies-controlling-world-s-seed-supply-1382363748
Davy on Fri, 10th Jul 2015 2:36 am
What should the future of Agriculture be? I say should be because the way our globalized system is structured significant and meaningful changes are next to impossible except around the edges. We really must include population and how 7BIL people can be supported. The system is incapable of doing the necessary changes while a population is expanding and consumption rising. The current system must have both consumption increases and population increases. Catch 22’s anyone?
The economics of monocultures, distribution, and finance ensure an adequate food supply. We can talk about subsistence in the third world and permaculture in the west but both of these are inadequate for 7BIL people. We have a train wreck with population and food once peak oil dynamics and economic decay progress to a breaking point. This breaking point is likely in 10 years or less. We must any way we can support permaculture and third world subsistence farming at the minimum. These will be the seeds of whoever is lucky enough to survive the coming bottleneck.
What should be done? Let me make it clear what should be done would throw the global system into economic crisis from the disruption. The optimum way forward now is having agriculture the primary focus of all efforts. We would start “de-urbanization” and “re-pastoral-ization” of smaller urban areas. (new salad words). We would not end industrial agriculture we would support it but at a diminishing rate. The collapsing economy from these changes will collapse industrial agriculture and globalism relatively quickly.
We must have industrial agriculture as this programs base or we would have mass famine by the next growing season. There must be adequate food to transition. We would move half or more of the people back to the land from other nonessential survival activities. Folks this is about survival. This in itself would be so disruptive as to be almost like the return of Pol Pot minus the death squads.
We would end modern food choices and variety. Seasonal, local, and low energy preservation foods would be the norm we would work towards. Small towns would have fruit trees and animals everywhere. We would go back to the cycle of animals and land in the old ways of a vital nutrient cycle ex fossil fuels. This would be done as an end game with uncertainty of the outcome with material standards dropping to third world standards.
Consumerism and complexity would evaporate quickly. We could try to save the best of our complexity but most would be gone. The degree of change and disruption is unprecedented. The duration until results uncertain because there is no way to know if this transformation could occur successfully before chaos. We could also stockpile the logistics and initiate the education then pull the trigger.
OK, if you have read this far then you realize this is fantasy. It is not going to happen. Yet, folks, is not the green climate change fantasy similar? The only way we can mitigate climate change is rid the earth of 6BIL people within 10 years. These are the solutions and the tradeoffs none wants to hear. Anything less for agriculture and climate mitigation is nothing more than fantasy. Do you see why they call me Doomer Davy?
We have progressed to a point of no return on population and consumption. The solutions are the type of solution related to predicaments. Predicaments have no solutions per the equation. The equation has to be changed so it adds up. We are talking mass death and mass disruption just to get to a system that “MAY” work for the interrelated topics of climate change and agriculture. This would be a hybrid effort of new and old in a free fall of descent with no certainty of success. The marginal success would be a best case scenario. The failure would be extinction. Do you see the challenges ahead? This is reality not fantasy.
penury on Fri, 10th Jul 2015 11:30 am
The failure will be extinction. Do you see the challenges ahead? This is reality not fantasy.
Fixed it for you Davy.
BobInget on Fri, 10th Jul 2015 11:49 am
If such a hurricane hits our East Coast there will be serious food shortages.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/typhoon-chan-hom-china_559f9e76e4b01c2162a64498?
As there will be in China.
BobInget on Fri, 10th Jul 2015 11:58 am
Farming is already ‘not for profit’.
When the Soviet Union or China experimented,
there was famine at a time when climate changes were not yet at issue.
North Korea is the best living example. Millions starved to death because the government failed distribution. This year NK is having an even worse drought but because they now permit farmers to sell produce directly to the public, NK may survive this drought round… Unless of course, droughts persist.
Boat on Fri, 10th Jul 2015 8:12 pm
While your brains dream of a world where you hook up the team to haul veggies to market, don’t forget your dead from disease and pestilence from open raw sewage. Oh yea and the nuke plants built downstream of dams no longer monitored. Did I mention nuke plants? No taxes no monitoring. Are your local farms melting yet?
Makati1 on Sat, 11th Jul 2015 8:56 am
Boat, many have such narrow visions of the real world that they can easily live in the chaos we call normal today. Perfect examples of: “Ignorance is Bliss”. That is the rampant disease in America today, although I suspect it is a case of denial in many instances, not ignorance.
Although I might disagree with you in some areas, you seem to be navigating reality very well. If we agreed on everything, it would be a modern miracle. Not likely. LOL.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/07/10/national/tepco-sending-water-cannon-kashiwazaki-kariwa-nuclear-plant-case-disaster/
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/how-washington-spreads-the-peace-118000-air-strikes-against-other-countries-since-2000-and-counting/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/07/07/heroin-use-spikes/29788031/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-newstopstories
Those are examples of the real world.
Boat on Sat, 11th Jul 2015 10:52 am
Mak, and a silt fence directs the contaminated water to where?
2nd link. America would love to hand off Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan etc. to a responsible party that would pump oil and take care of it’s people. Problem is, no such political machine available. So bomb it is.
Personally I would love to see the US hand off to China, Japan, Russia and the rest of the countries that use Middle East oil. But unfortunately they probably couldn’t do any better.
Boat, many have such narrow visions of the real world that they can easily live in the chaos we call normal today. Perfect examples of: “Ignorance is Bliss”. That is the rampant disease in America today
I agree, with there being a lot of chaos but when have humans been without chaos. Where I do disagree is being ignorant about it or living in bliss. Even in chaotic times it is easier than at any time in human existence to be informed with eyes wide open.
apneaman on Sun, 12th Jul 2015 3:41 pm
“Currently, 72% of pollination provided by wild bumblebees even when commercial bumblebees used” ~ Dave Goulson, world-renowned bumblebee expert
http://www.soci.org/~/media/Files/Conference%20Downloads/2012/Insect%20Decline%202012/Speaker%20Presentations/Dave_Goulson.ashx
Davy on Sun, 12th Jul 2015 4:57 pm
Ape Man, you up on this?
http://rt.com/news/273169-solar-cycle-ice-age/
The model demonstrates that solar activity will fall by 60 percent by 2030 as the magnetic waves inside the Sun will become increasingly more desynchronized during the next two cycles, especially during cycle 26, which covers the decade between 2030 and 2040.
When there is full phase separation, we have the conditions last seen during the Maunder minimum, 370 years ago,” she added.
The Maunder minimum is a name of a period between 1645 and 1715 characterized by prolonged low solar activity as well as by extremely cold winters in Europe and North America as it also correlates with a climatic period between 1550 and 1850 called the ‘Little Ice Age.’
apneaman on Sun, 12th Jul 2015 5:50 pm
Denier hype and media stupidity. And there never was a “little ice age”, that is colloquialism; not a scientific term. There was a similar “ice age” media hype, denier pumped story a couple of weeks ago. Theses news stories are based on a conference paper not peer reviewed. I only expect more delusional shit like this as it becomes all too apparent that the apes are going down. Shouts of delusional last minute saves (heavenly & technologically) and rebirth (energy independence) along with “everything is awesome” are common features of societies in their final days/years. The history books are full of such examples. The wizard Greer is good at sharing them with his readers. I’m sure you are familiar with many of them.
There’s only a two year reprieve if the sun gets cold – though northern countries might feel it
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/07/theres-only-two-year-reprieve-if-sun.html
What would happen if the sun fell to Maunder Minimum levels?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/What-would-happen-if-the-sun-fell-to-Maunder-Minimum-levels.html
Solar Activity and the so-called “Little Ice Age”
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/11/solar-activity-and-the-so-called-%E2%80%9Clittle-ice-age%E2%80%9D/
apneaman on Sun, 12th Jul 2015 6:01 pm
Mini ice age?
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/07/12/mini-ice-age/
Davy on Sun, 12th Jul 2015 6:21 pm
I thought that would drive you Ape Shit Ape Man. It sounded good for a moment anyway kinda like a fairytale of luck. You know we piss up the planet then by a stroke of luck the Sun decided to cool for a few years. Nope Not.
peakyeast on Sun, 12th Jul 2015 6:28 pm
Glacial and interglacial periods and CO2 in a larger context than the now…
http://www.nbi.ku.dk/english/sciencexplorer/earth_and_climate/golden_spike/video/spoergsmaal_svar1/
apneaman on Sun, 12th Jul 2015 6:43 pm
I expect it Davy and more, both in intensity and frequency. When the terror really cranks up after a few more years of increasing fire drought deluge storms, the Geo engineering people will be making all sorts of promises and the sheep will be screaming/begging for government approval. You’ll know it will be getting close when we start seeing a big media/think tank/troll blitz (lot’s of priming opinion pieces and comments on how it’s safe and we don’t have any choice, bla bla bla) All the patents are owned by the heavy hitters; profit to the bitter end – last ape standing.
Northwest Resident on Sun, 12th Jul 2015 6:50 pm
Little Ice Age in 2030? You gotta be kidding me!
Anyway, we have more pressing problems at hand.
http://news.yahoo.com/hoover-dam-lake-mead-officers-getting-52-000-203102853.html
Who says TPTB are oblivious to the mounting dangers? Maybe they see something coming down the road that we can only guess at?
Cassie on Sun, 12th Jul 2015 7:56 pm
The future of agriculture is nomadic animals fleeing the annual grass fires, running before the flames to whatever oasis can be found.
It is a millennium of lovely red sunsets, as slime molds eat the remains of vegetation piled high by the coastal hurricanes and becoming buried and beginning to lignify; with luck the raccoons will never choose fire.
It is a reshaping of our oceans, as the jellyfish stage passes to the new aeons of phytoplankton dominance; maybe something like smelt and sardines will return, and then otters and seal like organisms.
The earth abides, as does the dude.
Cassie on Sun, 12th Jul 2015 7:58 pm
Just got home from the Red Cross disaster shelter; I volunteer as a nurse. I can see the future of agriculture out the gymnasium windows. A lot of it looks like gray smoke.
apneaman on Sun, 12th Jul 2015 9:27 pm
I can’t wait for the new ice age to come and cool down the smoldering ash pile the earth will be as it continues to burn. I recall people I know saying to me that we will be fine in Vancouver because we live/are surrounded by a rain forest…tell yourself.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
The Wettest Place in North America Is Burning
““We have a lot of fuel to burn because these forests are big and old. Some places haven’t seen fire in in over 150 years,” said Richard Hebda, curator of botany and geology at the Royal British Columbia Museum. He added that the drought-stricken forests of Vancouver Island are extra susceptible to fire due to a lack of controlled burns in recent years which usually help remove extra brush from the forest floor.
In a not-so-surprising turn of events, climate change is likely to blame. As Arctic temperatures continue to rise in the North, the Pacific coast can bank on hotter, longer, and more dangerous dry seasons becoming the new normal.”
“Over the last twenty years scientists have been talking about British Columbia becoming like California, and here we are. We’re California,” Hebda sighed. In the long term, longer, drier summers could mean losing the rainforest, the heart and soul of Pacific ecotourism, forever.
“What we’re experiencing now is the kind of future that will become the norm here within a few decades,” said climate scientist Trevor Murdock at the University of Victoria, adding that we should “still expect extreme years on top of the new normal, and [that] those extremes will be new extremes that we haven’t yet seen in recorded history.”
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-wettest-place-in-north-america-is-burning?utm_source=mbfb
apneaman on Sun, 12th Jul 2015 9:38 pm
New ice age better hurry up because quite a bit of agriculture relies on regular volumes of water from glacier and snow-pack runoff. All over the world this is happening, anyone can see. Here is one famous example.
Kilimanjaro
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/drupal6/files/meteo469/lesson03/KilimanjaroDP.jpg
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/KILIMANJARO_KEEN.jpg
apneaman on Sun, 12th Jul 2015 9:59 pm
Farmers fight over water as Thailand suffers worst drought in 10 years
http://www.trust.org/item/20150710113443-0j3za/?source=fiOtherNews3