Agriculture Response to Peak Oil

Pops

Back in the 19th century there were large farms, hitches of twenty or 30 mules pulled harvesters over wheat fields in the northwest. There is no way to sustain anything near todays population or that of 50 years ago harvesting wheat with a sythe.

My Amish neighbor makes big round bales of hay with a baler pulled by two big Percherons and a little 10hp gas engine that powers the wrapper when the baler stops and the ground-drive can't function. But even that ignores the lessons learned about stockpiling graze for winter - the animals do the harvesting, manure spreading, weeding, etc. - no machinery required.

I guess I both agree and disagree with Heiney and Dude to this extent, the only option is for modern ag to evolve. If it dies outright, then so do we, if it doesn't become more local and less reliant on transport and begin to employ the many lessons learned the last 150 years we may get pretty slim and if it survives in anything like the current mode only through subsidies, rationing or other political action we are simply passing down the pain to our kids.
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fletch_961 · Tar Sands Joined: Jan 31, 2008 Posts: 55

Pops

I take your points fletch, but what is your conclusion about the ag response to PO going forward?
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fletch_961 · Tar Sands Joined: Jan 31, 2008 Posts: 55

fletch_961 · Tar Sands Joined: Jan 31, 2008 Posts: 55

cube · Fission Joined: Mar 12, 2005 Posts: 2927

I remember watching a news video where a Thai farmer said:
"I used to grow oranges, but the money wasn't that good so plowed over all my trees and now I'm growing rice!" *insert big grin*

I think the first thing that will happen (if it has not already) is farmers going back to growing the basic necessities for life: rice, wheat, corn. In a PO world there will be less people eating "luxury goods" like strawberries and peaches so you can expect a lot of fruit trees to get plowed over pretty soon! Smile

Ludi

Heineken

Actually we have failed to mention two favorable developments in agriculture: (1) the trend toward organic farming and (2) the proliferation of local farmers' markets. Two such markets just got going in my county this year. We need a lot more of the same if there is to be real hope.

I totally disagree with the belief that Big Ag will just get more efficient and that more resources will be channeled its way and away from other economic nodes, in order to prop up Big Ag at any and all costs. Big Ag will make no sense, for example, when the immense chain of fast-food outlets and air-conditioned big-box grocery stores are no longer viable because they can't be maintained, because they can't be kept stocked by the trucking system, because people have lost their jobs or can't afford the fuel to drive to these far-flung sites, and because the roads and bridges are falling apart. Or when the banking system collapses or the government defaults and farmers can't get their loans and subsidies.

The System consists of tightlly interlocked parts and when one part starts malfunctioning this tends to ramify throughout the system.

In any case there will not be enough water in future to support Big Ag. Its consumption of irrigation water is mind-boggling and the water sources are in steady, mathematical decline.

The population will shrink, until it reaches the level that is supportable under the new regime that is going to force itself upon us whether we like it or not. That's Montequest 101.
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careinke

Our wheat lands in Eastern Oregon use no irrigation. The downside is you can only plant every other year. Takes two years of rain to get enough moisture for one years worth of grain.

Cliff (Start a rEVOLution, grow a garden)

cube · Fission Joined: Mar 12, 2005 Posts: 2927

Pops

One thing I saw growing up in the Central Valley of CA was not just increasing specialization by each operator but the change to increasing specialization regionally.

When I was young, there was a huge variety of fruit and vegetables to supply the many canneries and there were poultry, dairy and beef operations all cheek by jowl.

Fast, cheap, refrigerated transport from virtually anywhere in the world and just about year-round along with hybrids designed to ship and not necessarily eat, put an end to most of the canneries except tomatoes. The egg and poultry operations moved to the foothills where land was cheap and they could spread out and build huge houses. Small milk bottlers and creameries and cheese factories merged into ever larger and distant plants.

Gradually each soil type and climate range became more specialized to the crop most suitable to the area. In the area where I grew up, where once you could once see virtually any food you might want growing in a one or 2 mile range, now is almost totally almonds. I think CA, with that county at the center grows more almonds than any other in the world.

I know it is popular to bad mouth Monsanto, ADM and all, but most every part of that particular production chain; from sprayers to shakers to pick-up machines and hullers to haulers to packers are owned by little guys. Mostly all family businesses and each one invested in and dependent on one crop that is shipped all over the world.

Also in my old home town is the largest winery in the world, up the road ten miles, the headquarters of the biggest egg producer west of the Rockies and 20 miles the other way the largest cheese plant under one roof in the US - they make cheese in 55 gallon drums to put in your mac and cheese and on your Taco Bell taco.

So it isn't just mono culture at the farm level that seems the biggest hurdle for change in my mind, it is mono culture at the regional level in those areas with huge investments in infrastructure all geared to one specialty crop with a huge marketing range - worldwide in some cases and few people around who know anything different.

Having said all that, here are some threads about new-old ways, most have lots of good links:

No-till and other conservation tillage

A snip of a snip...
“South-central Pennsylvania vegetable grower Steve Groff is pioneering what he calls "New Generation Cropping Systems," which emphasize no-till transplanting vegetables with a customized Holland transplanter into cover crops killed with a Buffalo rolling stalk chopper.”

Grass Farming
Snip from Gene Logsdon paraphrased...
He talks about the inevitable rise in fossil fuel costs and his and others attempts to achieve animal production without the use of fossil fuel powered equipment. The method is grass farming, which in a nutshell is rotational grazing to slaughter weight of animals on a number of small plots for quick, uniform grazing of the pasture before moving on to the next plot; allowing the first to recover and regrow.

Who Will Be The New Small Farmer?

The new Small Town

Especially the writings of this guy
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Pops

careinke

Thanks Pop I'll check it out. My wife's family was farming down there during that time (and still are). I have seen pictures of the 20 horse teams pulling the harvesters. I guess fire in the fields was their biggest problem.

Cliff (Start a rEVOLution, grow a garden)

Pops

I think the bumpersticker slogan that corporations own all the farms hides a bigger problem - they control all the distribution channel past the farm gate.

Take hogs again (as they eat so much corn) in MO only three counties allow corporations to own hog farms, granted they raise lots of hogs but the majority I think are raised by contract farms.

There is an up side and a downside here as we move forward.

Today a contract farmer is basically a hired hand who is told what, when, how much and how to operate by the packer; Cargil, Premium or whoever in return for a guaranteed market. The downside of course is the hired hand is also the guy who risks the capital - sort of like the janitor on the hook for the mortgage on the skyscraper.

On the up side though, as we have seen with the construction of all the co-op ethanol plants, given a sufficient market the landowners can make a change.

http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=81786

http://www.newrules.org/agri/constit.html
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Ludi