Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 11:38 am Post subject: Re: feeding the US without oil
Ludi
Whats your vision of post peak farming?? You've taken a couple of shots at my point of view but put forth none of your own at least not in this thread. And "Who knows" is indead not much of an argument. It wasnt meant to be. Those that are positive about the future and the correctness of their predictions are if anything less likely to be correct then those that acknowledge the limits to human forsight.
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13177 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 1:51 pm Post subject: Re: feeding the US without oil
vtsnowedin wrote:
Whats your vision of post peak farming?? You've taken a couple of shots at my point of view but put forth none of your own at least not in this thread.
Sure I have.
My views on post peak farming as posted in this thread:
Quote:
Most of the few remaining farmers will probably go out of business, losing their land, as so many did during the Depression.
My "vision" on post peak farming:
I would love for folks to learn how to farm by hand,horse, or however they prefer. For more about my views on farming, see the Planning Forum, where I have been posting about farming (my own efforts and my views about farming in general) for years.
My vision on post peak farming is completely irrelevant to the reality of what is likely to happen.
I find it extremely unlikely for tens of millions of people who have never grown one item of food in their lives to begin streaming out of the cities and learning how to grow food in ways very few people have done in this country for generations. It's possible they will do it, but, I find it very very unlikely given the evidence. The trend is for people to move to the city as fuel costs increase, not to disperse to the countryside and start farming on land they don't own with tools and seeds they do not have. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 2:56 pm Post subject: Re: feeding the US without oil
kPeav wrote:
It works out to between 2 and 3 people per acre to tend the crops, harvest, operate a greenhouse, gather and process compost, process the harvest, pack, store, take to market.
Seems unlikely.
3 people per acre and you're not raising enough food per acre to feed the people tending the crops. _________________ Massive Human Dieoff must occur as a result of Peak Oil. Many more than half will die. It will occur everywhere, including where you live. If you fail to recognize this, then your odds of living move toward the "going to die" group.
Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 4:02 pm Post subject: Re: feeding the US without oil
Ludi
If most of the few remaining farmers give up and lose their land. Who do they lose it to and what becomes of it?
What percentage of farmers lost their farm in the Great Depression?
I think you are being overly pessimistic. Both farmers and city dwellers are more resilient and adaptive then many give them credit for. We are a nation of fat and unmotivated people. Miss a few meals and people will come around in a hurry. Many will try. What other option will they have? And many will fail but with three hundred million chances we should get plenty of winners. Of course this is just a parlor discussion. In any real world outcome farmers will find alternate ways to power their machinery. Compressed methane bio gas. wind/solar charged battery powered EV tractors or good old steam power using wheat straw for fuel. Any of those would be better than retooling back down to human power.
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13177 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 4:50 pm Post subject: Re: feeding the US without oil
vtsnowedin wrote:
Who do they lose it to and what becomes of it?
The bank/other creditors. It sits idle.
Between 1929 and 1933, one third of farmers lost their farms.
I think you are being overly optimistic about how adaptive most people are. Most people cling to what is familiar. They won't even know what to "try" as the idea of farming is foreign to them. Farming is what farmers do. The vast majority of people in the US are not and have never been farmers.
I wish I were as optimistic as you, but I see no evidence to make me that way. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 7:00 pm Post subject: Re: feeding the US without oil
cashmere wrote:
kPeav wrote:
It works out to between 2 and 3 people per acre to tend the crops, harvest, operate a greenhouse, gather and process compost, process the harvest, pack, store, take to market.
Seems unlikely.
3 people per acre and you're not raising enough food per acre to feed the people tending the crops.
This is a debate fit for its own thread, and that thread is already out there. In the prospective situation as proposed in this thread, with newbie farmers-in-training and chemical agriculture fields in transition to organic, there is no way they can grow enough food to feed themselves.
vtsnowedin wrote:
Both farmers and city dwellers are more resilient and adaptive then many give them credit for.
There is also a number of people out there who would give them far more credit than they are due.
Quote:
Miss a few meals and people will come around in a hurry. Many will try. What other option will they have?
Back in the day it was called tightening their belts.
History, and in particular the Great Depression, has shown that people will flock TO the cities, as that is where the government delivers its handouts to the greatest number of people using limited manpower and budgets and that is where the charity soup kitchens and missions are. For the people already in the cities, they will remain in the cities even when the last chance to leave is offered. It is their home, they are familiar with it, they know what to expect, even if that expectation is crime and suffering, be it upon them or by them.
"I did not eat yesterday, perhaps I should go to work on a farm." This would not be uttered by an urbanite. More likely would be: "I did not eat today, perhaps they have something down at the soup kitchen." Even more likely "I'm starving, my neighbor has some tomatoes growing, and has to sleep sometime."
Quote:
In any real world outcome farmers will find alternate ways to power their machinery. Compressed methane bio gas. wind/solar charged battery powered EV tractors or good old steam power using wheat straw for fuel. Any of those would be better than retooling back down to human power.
The reality is that these farmers would also need the knowledge, equipment, supplies and skills to convert their equipment to operate on these alternative fuels as well as produce the fuels from local resources. With todays energy prices, I would think many of these farmers would be converting to such systems and industries now to take advantage of opportunity. The fact is that the farmers have no idea what is about to hit them broadside, they are as unprepared and oblivious as the urban masses and most of the rural folks as well. It's all going to come to a screeching halt, 500 miles an hour into a brick wall. (There, I said it!)
Your plan may seem feasible to you but you have excluded reason from your notions. The future will not see masses of people moving to farms to raise food and sing Kumbaya. The future has lots of running, screaming, starving and dieing. The problem before us has no practical solution. Mother Nature rules the nest and she has no remorse, no pity, no sympathy, no feelings. We have long since overstepped the boundaries of what the Earth can provide and kept on populating. When the crash comes, it will be hard, it will be fast, it will be inescapable. You, me, them, everyone, everywhere will take it up the arse. There will be no money, no food, no fuel, no law, no peace, no heat, no rest, only death, with a whole lot of violence and injustice just before that.
I'm going to stop there, time to cool off. I'll go store wheat in mylar bags. _________________ If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever."
-George Orwell, 1984
Joined: May 10, 2007 Posts: 3342 Location: Resiliency Farm
Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 7:09 pm Post subject: Re: feeding the US without oil
kpeavey wrote:
Mother Nature rules the nest and she has no remorse, no pity, no sympathy, no feelings. We have long since overstepped the boundaries of what the Earth can provide and kept on populating. When the crash comes, it will be hard, it will be fast, it will be inescapable. You, me, them, everyone, everywhere will take it up the arse. There will be no money, no food, no fuel, no law, no peace, no heat, no rest, only death, with a whole lot of violence and injustice just before that.
To kpeavey's point, an ancient philosopher once observed,
Lao tzu wrote:
Heaven and earth are ruthless, and treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs;
Tao Te Ching _________________ “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”
J.R.R. Tolkien
"The time has come for men to act like men; and for women, well, to act a lot more like men."
-Ma Cur
Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 6:20 am Post subject: Re: feeding the US without oil
kpeavey wrote:
History, and in particular the Great Depression, has shown that people will flock TO the cities, as that is where the government delivers its handouts to the greatest number of people using limited manpower and budgets and that is where the charity soup kitchens and missions are. For the people already in the cities, they will remain in the cities even when the last chance to leave is offered. It is their home, they are familiar with it, they know what to expect, even if that expectation is crime and suffering, be it upon them or by them.
History is a great teacher if one know how to read it. The GD is only able to teach us hardship. Since the coming depression is resource induced, it will be different. Most particularly people will listen, learn and understand that this is oil and resources and overpopulation. The ones that realize it early will flock to the country as they understand that the city is certain death.
kpeavey wrote:
"I did not eat yesterday, perhaps I should go to work on a farm." This would not be uttered by an urbanite. More likely would be: "I did not eat today, perhaps they have something down at the soup kitchen." Even more likely "I'm starving, my neighbor has some tomatoes growing, and has to sleep sometime."
No. It will be like this:
I lost my job and for over 1 year I wasn't able to find another one, even tough I'm highly skilled, with tons of experience. I can't even find a job as a dishwasher. Oil is now $250/br. Maybe there's some truth to this peak oil stuff as everybody is talking about. My neighbour was a smart one, he went to work for a farm last year. Let me follow and do the same thing.
kpeavey wrote:
The reality is that these farmers would also need the knowledge, equipment, supplies and skills to convert their equipment to operate on these alternative fuels as well as produce the fuels from local resources. With todays energy prices, I would think many of these farmers would be converting to such systems and industries now to take advantage of opportunity. The fact is that the farmers have no idea what is about to hit them broadside, they are as unprepared and oblivious as the urban masses and most of the rural folks as well. It's all going to come to a screeching halt, 500 miles an hour into a brick wall. (There, I said it!)
It's true that farmer and people alike don't have much idea right now. But that will change, and it will chnge quickly. Forget your brick wall. Once people realize this peak oil, action will come, and it will come swift. Peek oil affect the life directly, not like global warming. Therefore the reaction to it will be fast and intense.
And once it changes you can count on smart enterpreneurs to provide any possible tools and energy alternative conceivable. Why don't you start your own business? (If I din't already have one, I'd start another one, opportunity has never been better).
kpeavey wrote:
Your plan may seem feasible to you but you have excluded reason from your notions. The future will not see masses of people moving to farms to raise food and sing Kumbaya.
No, but the future sees a trickly to farms that grows to a stream at its height and then falls off again. (See the bell shaped curve in this, don't you, there's nothing brick wall, edge, discontinouity in nature)
Joined: Sep 04, 2005 Posts: 444 Location: central MA, USA
Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 8:03 am Post subject: Re: feeding the US without oil
vtsnowedin wrote:
Ludi
You underestimate the intelligence and abilities of the american farmer.
I seriously doubt that.
If by "American farmer" you mean the kind of industrial scale farming done in the American Midwest? I spent my adolescence in Iowa on such a farm in the 1970s. Many of our neighbors were great mechanics, all-around repairmen and scroungers, but didn't raise a lick of their own food. Many were increasingly getting away from the labor-intensive task of raising commercial livestock and concentrating on commercial crops.
And it really is on an industrial scale; extremely large tractors and combines (air-conditioned cabs with stereos, and these days with GPS systems), that would never work in any kind of post-Peak world where fuels are very scarce.
This isn't to say that that average farmer couldn't learn to raise his own food. I dare say most of them would still be better able to make that transition that your average office worker. But don't look to them to be teaching everyone else how to grow potatoes and beans with manual labor on a smaller scale. They need to learn how themselves. If they're lucky, they'd live near an Amish community where they could learn.
Joined: May 26, 2008 Posts: 1186 Location: Chicago, IL
Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 8:58 am Post subject: Re: feeding the US without oil
Ludi wrote:
As Cashmere points out, not enough farmers. 2% of the population can't feed the rest without oil.
And I doubt those 2% even know or can feed themselves without oil. Farming is 99.9% mechanized, powered by oil. It will take decades to transit to non-oil farming, ie, renewable farming. Feeding 300M Americans without oil? Fat chance.
Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 12:28 am Post subject: Re: feeding the US without oil
VMarcHart wrote:
Ludi wrote:
As Cashmere points out, not enough farmers. 2% of the population can't feed the rest without oil.
And I doubt those 2% even know or can feed themselves without oil. Farming is 99.9% mechanized, powered by oil. It will take decades to transit to non-oil farming, ie, renewable farming. Feeding 300M Americans without oil? Fat chance.
The Ironic thing is that Cuba was forced to make that transition after the end of the cold war and now with it's better relationship to VZ will probably "revert".
Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 4:29 am Post subject: Re: feeding the US without oil
Ludi wrote:
vtsnowedin wrote:
Who do they lose it to and what becomes of it?
The bank/other creditors. It sits idle.
Between 1929 and 1933, one third of farmers lost their farms.
I think you are being overly optimistic about how adaptive most people are. Most people cling to what is familiar. They won't even know what to "try" as the idea of farming is foreign to them. Farming is what farmers do. The vast majority of people in the US are not and have never been farmers.
I wish I were as optimistic as you, but I see no evidence to make me that way.
That was also the time of the dust bowl and the transition from horse power to tractors. Got to wonder how many would have gone down anyway if the rest of the country was in a boom. My father had former bank tellers working for him for room and board still wearing their suites while shoveling horse s***. He never forgave FDR for closing the banks and stealing the 145 dollars he had in the checkbook.
Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 4:48 pm Post subject: Re: feeding the US without oil
"In 1935, the number of farms in the United States peaked at 6.8 million as the population edged over 127 million citizens. There are over 285,000,000 people living in the United States. Of that population, less than 1% claim farming as an occupation."
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
News
Discussions
Resources
Members
Forum FAQ
Search
Usergroups
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
