[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DomusAlbion', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ktblaloc', '&')quot;Do you have any idea how fossil fuel intensive modern agriculture is? Unless you are envisioning some sort of return to using animals and people working from dawn to dusk doing stoop labor to survive. Even then, how does a cube dweller go from running a computer to managing a team of oxen?"

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kublikhan', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sparky', 'a') sustainable agriculture ipso facto imply no external inputs of energy or fertilizers

[Loki]

Glad this thread inspired such an interesting discussion, I mostly started it to share what I considered a historical curiosity.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdumars', 'I') think about the implications of a serious cold snap, or geologic event that blocks out the sun for a period of years. What would this mean in terms of agriculture? Would there be a way to have agriculture function on any large scale in that sort of condition? My feeling is that it would be game over for civilization as people started starving on a massive scale.

I wonder if anyone has figured out a mitigation for this? Are we really just one large volcanic explosion away from depopulation?

This scenario scares me more than just about any other.

[Serial_Worrier]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdumars', 'I') think about the implications of a serious cold snap, or geologic event that blocks out the sun for a period of years. What would this mean in terms of agriculture? Would there be a way to have agriculture function on any large scale in that sort of condition? My feeling is that it would be game over for civilization as people started starving on a massive scale.

I wonder if anyone has figured out a mitigation for this? Are we really just one large volcanic explosion away from depopulation?

This scenario scares me more than just about any other.

[sparky]

.
jdumars
"Are we really just one large volcanic explosion away from depopulation? "

Yep !

Sustainable or local cycle farming , doesn't protect from starvation ,
in fact it would make it more likely in a lot of small places a lot of times
beside a putative overall reduction ,it would decrease inter-regional trading

But it would protect against an overall system collapse ,
it is simpler , much more robust overall
recovery from a disaster is very fast , of course this imply no mega cities

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Serial_Worrier', 'M')ore AGW to prevent such a horrific scenario!

[radon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', '
')This would be a devastating scenario indeed given current global population pressures and maldistribution problems. And a scenario that's more and more likely as our climate changes.

[Lore]

We are already setting up for another disastrous year as far as food production is concerned. We needed a banner one. Expect short supplies of staple grains in the next couple of years.

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e can't do that anymore; the safety cushion is gone.

That's why the food crisis of 2011 is for real, and why it may bring with it yet more bread riots cum political revolutions.
...
With grain stocks low and climate volatility increasing, the risks are also increasing. We are now so close to the edge that a breakdown in the food system could come at any time. Consider, for example, what would have happened if the 2010 heat wave that was centered in Moscow had instead been centered in Chicago. In round numbers, the 40 percent drop in Russia's hoped-for harvest of roughly 100 million tons cost the world 40 million tons of grain, but a 40 percent drop in the far larger U.S. grain harvest of 400 million tons would have cost 160 million tons. The world's carryover stocks of grain (the amount in the bin when the new harvest begins) would have dropped to just 52 days of consumption. This level would have been not only the lowest on record, but also well below the 62-day carryover that set the stage for the 2007-2008 tripling of world grain prices.

[rangerone314]

Screw it, I'm going to be raising as much cattails http://www.rewild.info/fieldguide/index.php?title=Cattail here as potatoes. Cattails have greater calorie yield per square foot and can survive droughts and floods and temperature variations more.

[dolanbaker]

Given the fact that about 25% of all food produced in the west is simply thrown away, we (in the west) could easily survive a couple of bad seasons without any ill affects.

The price of food would most likely rise considerably, thus making it more valuable and reduce wasteage.

Different matter for the rest of the world of course.

[Loki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dolanbaker', 'G')iven the fact that about 25% of all food produced in the west is simply thrown away, we (in the west) could easily survive a couple of bad seasons without any ill affects.

The price of food would most likely rise considerably, thus making it more valuable and reduce wasteage.

Different matter for the rest of the world of course.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dolanbaker', 'G')iven the fact that about 25% of all food produced in the west is simply thrown away, we (in the west) could easily survive a couple of bad seasons without any ill affects.

[Lore]

What is the average citizen’s home food stores in the US, something like two weeks? Once the cheese doodles are gone and the catsup bottles are drained without being restocked back on the shelves at Walmart there is going to be lots of fights at the dumps trying to retrieve last month's garbage.

[Pretorian]

US is one of the richest countries in the world, food-wise. Even if most of the food will go abroad farmers will need to feed the zombies to keep them out of their fields, and no, you can't put a machine -gunner on every field.

[rangerone314]

Actually you could... I've seen demonstration of paintball sentry guns that track moving targets, even ones that hide behind obstacles, and fire paint balls with pretty good accuracy. Just modify the design to mount machine guns instead.

[dolanbaker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dolanbaker', 'G')iven the fact that about 25% of all food produced in the west is simply thrown away, we (in the west) could easily survive a couple of bad seasons without any ill affects.

[Hawkcreek]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')o you have any idea how fossil fuel intensive modern agriculture is? Unless you are envisioning some sort of return to using animals and people working from dawn to dusk doing stoop labor to survive. Even then, how does a cube dweller go from running a computer to managing a team of oxen?

[Lore]

Yes, America can be driven to malnutrition and starvation very easily. Such events have happened in the past. They will happen again.

In fact the system today is much more precarious then it was 100 years ago. Most all production farming that feeds 95% of the nation is done in a high stakes game centralized on a monoculture of specialized crops in certain geographic regions. In nineteen forty, there were more than six million farms in America. Today there are fewer than two million. The average farm today is about two hundred hectares. In nineteen hundred, it was sixty. The modern farm requires large inputs of money and resources for equipment, fertilizers, irrigation, insecticides, transportation, processing, distribution, and marketing, etc.

Once the system breaks down that feeds energy or provides a stable environment to grow crops in this, just in time, food chain. The pieces will unravel pretty quickly with no redundancy to back it up from small local diverse producers to feed the masses.

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Hawkcreek', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')o you have any idea how fossil fuel intensive modern agriculture is? Unless you are envisioning some sort of return to using animals and people working from dawn to dusk doing stoop labor to survive. Even then, how does a cube dweller go from running a computer to managing a team of oxen?