[pip]

I've got 160 acres of wheat to harvest this year. The custom harvesters that have done it the last few years have not called yet and I've lost their card. From the article, it looks like they might be out of business. I've got a local guy with one combine lined up, but I'm third on his list.

I still think ag will survive. By my calculation, I could continue to grow wheat as I do now if I planted about 15% of my acres to canola and make biodiesel. I think the industry's got some slack if you look at all the grain going to animal feed. However, the painfulness to change may be pretty great.

[bruin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pip', 'I')'ve got 160 acres of wheat to harvest this year. The custom harvesters that have done it the last few years have not called yet and I've lost their card. Looks like they might be out of business. I've got a local guy with one combine lined up, but I'm third on his list.

I still think ag will survive. By my calculation, I could continue to grow wheat as I do now if I planted about 15% of my acres to canola and make biodiesel. I think the industry's got that much slack if you look at all the grain going to animal feed. But the painfulness to get there may be pretty great.

[MicroHydro]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bruin', 'f')ast food hamburgers are going to get walloped by PO.

[Taskforce_Unity]

The most energy doesn't go to primary production (actually producing the crops) the most energy goes to processing and secundary production

It's a 1 to 5 ratio


1 energy unit on primary
5 energy units on secundary

Go and read the book eating oil from 1976.. its ALL in there (the ratio's)

[eric_b]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MacG', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sys1', 'M')oreover, global warming will certainly decrease what is left to harvest in the post peak oil world.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('albente', 'I') was building a small garden for vegetables this spring in our backyard and couldn't believe how much physical work was involved. It took me a whole day to move the earth for a mini field of just 4 square meters and I did sweat like a pig.

[RonMN]

I'm not sure i understood you Pops. I was talking about his 120 acres feeding "him & his family", with some left over to sell...not feed denver or dallas. (?)

[frankthetank]

Having maintained small gardens for years, there is plenty of work involved. However, once a garden is in place, you do have it a bit easier in the spring, but crop rotation, fertilizing, and garden safe bug killers (i use neem, BT) are a requirement in my book.

I don't know if we can feed the world/let alone the country without the necessary inputs of fertilizer and weed/bug killers.

[Pops]

My point Ron, is that his 120ac feeds more than his family today. Should he (and every other producer) decide to feed ONLY his family, that leaves out the others he is feeding now, including to a large part - me.


Ludi, while I appreciate your tomatoes (pardon the expression) – man doesn’t live by tomatoes alone. Not to start an argument, but what happens to the garden when the tree grows and shades the tomatoes? Or in planting the tomatoes next year (without digging) you cut the feeder roots of the apple? Or in watering the tomatoes you drown the tree?


I like to work less and gain more, but I also believe after these many eons of agriculture, there is no free lunch.

[Ludi]

Pops, you seem to believe that hard work is necessary, and I wouldn't want to try to convince you otherwise. I don't like hard work, personally. That's why I study and implement the methods of Bill Mollison and Masanobu Fukuoka.

In the garden depicted, in a few years the tree will overshade the planting bed and I'll have to plant something which requires less sun than tomatoes. In Central Texas, we tend to have an oversupply of sun, so I'll welcome the shade. The roots of the apple won't be in particular danger from planting, as only small holes are dug (oh no! And I said no digging!) with a little hand tool to plant the vegetables. When this bed is overshaded, I will have started another bed for tomatoes elsewhere. I don't see any danger in drowning the apple tree, as apples are fairly flexible in their water requirements. Tomatoes don't require a great deal of water, so drowning just isn't an issue in this case.

I recommend Bill Mollison's "Permaculture: a designers' manual" for complete information about permaculture.

I'm not sure why the idea of hard work is so important to many people here. Is it some kind of Puritan Work Ethic? I prefer my Hedonist Sloth Ethic.

Eons of agriculture have developed a way of growing food which is terrifically labor intensive. People like Mollison and Fukuoka are trying to break the bad habits of this old style of agriculture, and they have been very successful with their methods.

[RonMN]

Ludi...if you know of a non-labor intensive way to garden...please point the way (links, book titles, etc.)...I know my gardens are very labor intensive and i'm only talking 2 - 12 foot by 12 foot gardens (nowhere near enough to actually feed myself).

I understand now Pops...I'm not saying for everybody to ONLY think of themselves...however if there comes a time where there is nobody to harvest the 120 acres of wheat...no trucks to haul it anywhere...there's really no point in planting all wheat & at that point it would be time (past time) to focus on feeding yourself & family & help immediate neighbors as best ya can...that's all.

Ya know it get's frustrating to think how much easier it would all be if EVERYBODY was aware of PO and accepted it.

1 person building a lifeboat for 1 is almost impossible.
2 people building a lifeboat for 2 is tough...but doable.
3 people could build a lifeboat for 5.
5 people could build a lifeboat for 10...ya see, the results of working as a team grow exponentially with each additional person involved...but instead of joining in the work, 97% just don't wanna hear it. Some times it really makes me wanna bitch-slap somebody but i don't...i don't really know why...but i don't.

[aldente]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MacG', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('albente', 'D')riving by the large mechanically plowed fields the next day I realized that there is no way on this earth to go back to an agriculture that is managed by hand, not even remotely

[katkinkate]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'P')ops, you seem to believe that hard work is necessary, and I wouldn't want to try to convince you otherwise. I don't like hard work, personally. That's why I study and implement the methods of Bill Mollison and Masanobu Fukuoka.....

[linlithgowoil]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')'m not sure why the idea of hard work is so important to many people here

[RonMN]

The cold hard fact is that most "millionairs" got to that position by

1- working hard every day of thier lives.
2- taking calculated risks
3- spending SMART...not buying crap products...not buying fancy cars...not going on vacation...

but slowly, smartly, accumulating their wealth over years & years. I saw 1 show on casinos where a worker said he saw bill gates a few times...and it was RARE that bill would ever gamble but on the occasions that he did, he never bet over 5 dollars!

If you see a supposed "millionare" driving a rolls & spending ike there's no tomorrow, chances are he'll be broke in a couple years or he's living on credit cards already! More than 60% of all million dollar + lottory winners are broke & have NOTHING to show for it.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RonMN', 'L')udi...if you know of a non-labor intensive way to garden...please point the way (links, book titles, etc.)...

[Starvid]

Funny. We pay $5 a gallon and have no problems with our harvesters.

When do you think we see the first hybrid harvester?

[Leanan]

What Pop said. Of course agriculture will survive. I would say it's probably the best field you could be in, at least if you have the option to switch to subsistence farming and aren't dependent on irrigation.

The problem is all the other people, who aren't farmers now. A hundred years ago, something like 97% of Americans were farmers. Now, it's the opposite. 3% of Americans are farmers, and they feed the rest of us.

Permaculture, I'm afraid, is a luxury. They bill it as the "natural" way to farm. They're right; it is likely how farming was in the beginning. Even hunter-gatherers do some farming; they just don't work very hard at it.

So, why have we drifted away from the "natural" way to farm? For same reason we pursued complexity in general. We were forced to.

Here's a couple of what I see as likely scenarios of how post-peak agriculture might play out:

1) As happened during the LA riots, the police are unable or unwilling to intervene, and hordes of hungry people raid and loot farms. Some farmers manage to fight off the interlopers, but to do this, they need more people...which means farming more intensively to feed them all.

2) We move toward a totalitarian state. The government confiscates all arable land, and forces people to become farm laborers. Naturally, they too lean toward farming intensively, so they can feed the people and avoid widespread rebellion.

In either case, there will be a lot of pressure toward intensive farming, just because of the population we have to feed.

I think that's one thing a lot of people don't get. Oil has given us agricultural surpluses, and the means to move them when they are needed. No longer do large numbers of people starve to death or significant political unrest follow when there's a bad year. That will change, and it's going to be a hell of a shock to a people who believe obesity is the biggest health problem they face.

[Ludi]

Why would it be considered a "luxury" to produce the same or greater yields of food as conventional agriculture for less work? This makes absolutely no sense. I'm not saying you don't have to work hard if you want to, what I'm saying is, this kind of hard work isn't necessary. You can bust your ass all you like, but merely working harder isn't going to produce greater yields. At least if you insist on working hard, use Biointensive techniques which produce very high yields in a small area.

I know I'm going against the flow here, but I'm trying to save people from going back to an horrendously difficult way of life.

http://www.growbiointensive.org/