[DesuMaiden]

This is an interview where he talks about the Green Revolution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdr-maH3jtc

It is a very interesting watch. The main point of the interview is as following...

We peaked in arable land for agriculture in 1960. We can't create anymore arable land. But since 1960, we were able to increase food production by 3 times by increasing productivity of food per acre. We dwarfed crops like rice, grain and corn. We were able to decrease the size of the stem and increase the size of the seed (which is edible).

But another reason our food system is able to increase its food production is because we are using fossil fuels to grow food. If we run out of fossil fuels, our food production will go down. It is that simple. Can we produce food without fossil fuels? Yes, but we can't produce as much food without fossil fuels.

Those are the most important points of the interview. Watch the rest of the interview for more information.

[Pops]

I'm data impaired so will just address your points,
We tripled yield since 1960, why are we prevented from tripling it again? I've mentioned before that maize converts about 3% of sunlight into carbs yet sugar cane converts 18% - why can't we work on that?

The reason some plants take up P better than others is they have more growing root tips that capture p from the soil, why can't we work on that?

Just a couple of thoughts off the top, I'm sure if I can pull those out of my ear that smart people have been working on them and a hundred or thousand more.

--
Oil is neat because it is so concentrated that we can waste huge amounts doing nothing - running the radio and a/c in the tractor cab, etc. I've worked on a couple farms, big and little and there is huge waste - even though - as I've also said before - ag only uses 2% of total consumption to the farm gate and 1% for transport from there. Essentially 97% of oil will disappear before tractors run out.

For that matter soy beans yield something over 3.2 efficiency energy as biodiesel. Contrast that to .83 for petroleum based diesel. And beans yield less than 50 gals of oil an acre while peanuts, rape, sunflower and other offer 2-3 times that.

Obviously big change needs to take place; from transport to processing to packaging but petroleum or veg oil used for traction will be the last thing to change. IMHO.

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'I')'m data impaired so will just address your points,....
sniped
....

Obviously big change needs to take place; from transport to processing to packaging but petroleum or veg oil used for traction will be the last thing to change. IMHO.

[Shaved Monkey]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DesuMaiden', ' ')We can't create anymore arable land.

[careinke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shaved Monkey', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DesuMaiden', ' ')We can't create anymore arable land.

[Shaved Monkey]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shaved Monkey', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DesuMaiden', ' ')We can't create anymore arable land.

[Apneaman]

I saw that interview a month or so ago and then got Manning's 2004 book from the library-
Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization

What is possible does not matter when we are trapped in a food system that is shaped for and exists for big Ag. Big changes will only happen after this system collapses and a younger generation rebuilds - if anyone is left. Most everyone else will cling to and defend to the death the system they were raised in. The big 3 crops will not be able to handle the changes that are already baked into the cake. Their proteins start to denature at around 4 degrees c, which will be here in a few decades. Then there is the water/drought issues already well under way. This is just the beginning. Drought is the destroyer of civilizations.

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . . What is the definition of arable land?

If it is undulating lightly timbered land with forty inch rainfall with plenty of gullies that can be dammed for small scale horticulture there are millions of bloody acres available up the east coast of Australia . . . if you are talking the plains of Ukraine, Australia, and the US where you can pull a hundred feet of implement with a three hundred horsepower John Deere, then maybe not so much.

I am not saying there is not a problem but this peak arable land bullshit gets right up my nose. Are those beautiful open fields grazing sheep I see in the Pommy "escape to the country" TV series my wife watches not suitable for vegetable production?

Of course they are . . . it's just that the farmer is not motivated to do so, vegetables are too cheap and in oversupply and you can't make any money out of the bloody things . . . far better to sit back and grow some fat lambs or other meat, it's a lot less work and investment.

A drench gun, a vaccination syringe and a castrating knife or band tool and you are pretty much in business . . . and they even walk up on the trailer themselves, you don't have to buy plastic bags and boxes or pay unmotivated twits to pick them

As I have said before the seasonal food for most towns and cities in Australia could be grown within a hundred kays of the CBD and I won't buy that claptrap about running out of land.

Cheers.

.

[SeaGypsy]

A lot of our agriculture happens on what was non agrible land. We also have the near virgin tropical savannah, supposedly non agrible.

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . . pstarr.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n England there are over 1,000 folks per km of arable land.

[Shaved Monkey]

Fertile land is depleted and getting depleted but their is also the distortion of markets.
Cherries are being planted now in the highlands of Tasmania to supply the Chinese New Year market.(its colder and they will ripen later)
It extends the growing season to a new market but that wasnt done before as it would eat into the fruit market of the fruit that was available in Feb
Currently stone fruit and grapes are going cheap in Australia because Vietnam cancelled orders, because Australia wouldn't buy their dragon fruit and lychees.
Tasmanian apples used to supply the UK until the EU
Now Tas apples supply Asia.
Lots of talk in Australia of damming rivers in the tropics and opening up more land to feed the middle class of Asia.
The expansions of the Ord river scheme and new areas in the top of Queensland
These are predominantly untouched areas or currently used for dry land grazing,due to lack of dammed water.
The idea is scary feed more people and create more environmental devastation, while a few big rich farming families and agricultural corporations makes some short term profit
I've lived in the edges of the tropical/dessert nothing grows until it rains and then it just takes off the soil is very fertile,but only good for grazing without water.

[Pops]

There are huge swaths of land gone to seed because they are not economically viable in the current system.

This is a topic I've ranted on for years, the "getting from here to there" of transition. There is no "corruption," there is just transport enabled regional specialization that enables the huge economies of scale. The challenge of transitioning to any local agriculture (organic/permie/manual/whatever) is the opportunity cost, except for the tiny specialized, luxury farmer's market clique, small time farming is a money loser in the current system.

I know, theoretically small farms are more "productive" but I can be very productive and still go bankrupt. And yes I know there are authors who farm and make lots of money, and yes I know that farmer's markets grew big time around the turn of the century
but I can be a small farmer and spend every bit of outside income and direct sales have long since stopped growing.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')rom 2007 to 2012 the value of food sales of farmers face-to-face with consumers dropped by 1 percent in real dollars. For some context, from 2002 to 2007 that value increased 32 percent. The increase was 36 percent in the five-year period before that.

[Pops]

Just saw this, reality:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')maller farms actually lost money farming and earned 109 percent of their household income from off-farm sources.
.. 90 percent of farmers in this country rely on an outside job, or a spouse’s outside job, or some independent form of wealth, for their primary income....

When a student asked if my farm was sustainable, I told her that I was certified organic, I managed my soil fertility through crop rotations and compost applications, I didn’t use synthetic pesticides, I conserved water. But no, I’d said, I didn’t think my farm was sustainable. Like all the other farms I knew, my farm relied on uncompensated labor and self-exploitation. My farm was not sustainable because I knew the years my partner and I could continue to work without a viable income were numbered.

[Shaved Monkey]

and the profitable industrial farms are subsidised by cheap oil

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shaved Monkey', 'a')nd the profitable industrial farms are subsidised by cheap oil