[JohnRM]

I'm just wondering how many people think we can grow enough food for 7 billion plus people after peak oil.

How many people CAN we grow food for?

How are we going to do it?

Etc, etc, etc.

[SeaGypsy]

Pops worked out the number of energy slaves each of us has; from memory it's 26. That is 26/24/7 equal to over 80 full time workers each. Talking gross averages, the answer is clearly no.

[Wootan]

If "we" want to, it is easy to produce enough food after peak oil for a long time. But if "we" use the remaining oil to fly jets, make war not food, there will be problems, there already are problems. The MENA uprisings last years can to a large degree be ascribed to resource depletion.

The only thing we need to do, is to get ALL the politicians in the world to agree. It really is as simple as that.

[careinke]

I'm just wondering how many people think we can grow enough food for 7 billion plus people after peak oil.

How many people CAN we grow food for?

How are we going to do it?

Etc, etc, etc.

I think I can grow/gather enough food for me and my family. I don't think I should have to feed the rest, (although I could probably help some out). I am almost certain I could even do it with NO off property inputs.

[jodell8964]

We will need to go back to some kind of organic agriculture. With no readily available fossil fuel, then the labour will either human or animal. There won't be any pesticides, fertilzers etc. No fossil fueled machinery to work the fields or transport produce to distant markets. I don't think organic agriculture will be able to feed the current human population and our animal slaves.

[Fishman]

"If "we" want to, it is easy to produce enough food after peak oil for a long time." Only if those unicorns show up in time. Otherwise not a chance. There are not enough mules, draft horses, fertilizer, pesticides, transportation, water pumps, etc to even come close. If the world went vegetarian overnight, maybe, just maybe we could feed half. Just the transportation alone makes distribution nearly an impossible task.
On the other hand, University of Fairbanks has some great articles on making your own fertilizer.

[vtsnowedin]

The question is how long after peak oil are you talking about? The expected decline in crude oil available for all purposes is six percent per year or something in that area. We will have to stop doing things with crude oil derived products that we are doing now and decide which things should be stopped first. I expect flying a thousand miles for a three day vacation or commuting a hundred miles a day to work in a single occupant vehicle will go first and fuel for ag tractors, fertilizer and food transport by train will be far down the list.
Where the pinch will come in is uncertain but a oil deprived economy will likely have few if any surpluses so there will be no food excess to sell or give to third world countries so their next famine will be their last.

[Tanada]

8) The question is how long after peak oil are you talking about? The expected decline in crude oil available for all purposes is six percent per year or something in that area. We will have to stop doing things with crude oil derived products that we are doing now and decide which things should be stopped first. I expect flying a thousand miles for a three day vacation or commuting a hundred miles a day to work in a single occupant vehicle will go first and fuel for ag tractors, fertilizer and food transport by train will be far down the list.

Where the pinch will come in is uncertain but a oil deprived economy will likely have few if any surpluses so there will be no food excess to sell or give to third world countries so their next famine will be their last.

Agree completely with the first paragraph the amount of fossil fuel needed to actually grow, fertilize and use pesticide on is small compared to total fossil fuels extracted every day. If we use local food as much as possible and only use rail or ship for long distance transport of foodstuffs then we can haul the food to where it is needed with much less fuel. The fact that you can get Grapes from Chile and Salad Greens from Greece with beef from California on the super market shelf in Michigan will become a thing of the past, but that doesn't mean there won't be enough calories to eat, just less variety. Before rapid long distance transport came about in the 1950's and after food that was going to be shipped long distances was canned or otherwise preserved. It isn't as nice to eat canned Peaches as it is fresh, but they are still good to eat.

As for the second paragraph I would say food surpluses will shrink, but it is way to optimistic to say this will cause the last famine. Famine has been a part of human existence always, sometimes due to climate/weather sometimes due to human restrictions from war or genocide.

[Cog]

The theory I'm operating under right now for my garden, is to get my soil as rich as it can possibly be with organics and then if I can no longer access those transported in imputs, still grow veggies for a few years on the what soil fertility remains in the ground. Supplemented of course with humanure if needed.

As a backup, I have laid in store a few hundred pounds of 12-12-12 inorganic fertilizer to continue my garden if I can't do anything else.

[Pops]

I think the problem will be political instead of physical for a long time. As was already exemplified in this thread, 'me first' will be the biggest and first cause of starvation.

But take Hubert at face value and say we've already used half of what we'll ever use and that peak oil/coal/gas is right now. If the slope down is like the slope up then we have 150 years to transition to zero oil. 150 years ago we knew from experience to rotate crops with livestock but nothing specific about the nutrient cycle for example or hybridization and on and on. I think on the down slope we'll put much of what we've learned to use. As one example even today in reddest Missouri the government pays 75% of transitioning dairy and beef operations from grain based to grassed based grazing systems.

So a) we aren't going to run out of fossil energy oil overnight, b) mechanical food production is so efficient it will be the last of all uses for fossil fuels (maybe along with Predator drones) c) we'll prolong mechanization past oil and d) we'll use what we've been able to learn indefinitely.

Will there be 7 or 9 or 12 billion in 150 years? Who knows? I hope not because it probably won't be too comfortable. But perhaps sometime a new messiah will come along to preach be frugal and don't multiply.

[vaseline2008]

How many people CAN we grow food for?

Who is this "we" you speak of? Commercial farming only feeds those who have the purchasing power. "We" don't produce food for 7 Billion as it is, only those who can purchase it. This is a fact today and will be a fact post Peak Oil.

The rest will grow their own food. Look around at the world we live in. This is already a reality. Remember the stories of people eating mudcakes or have we all forgotten?

Look at the posts here in this thread alone, there are those survivalists who are already preparing. There are others who really don't give a shit and continue living life BAU. As cynical and mean-hearted as I may seem, correct me if I'm wrong.

[vtsnowedin]

. (Tan, I believe you misrepresented Vt's "last famine" He meant is as in; "it will kill all the people. none left to die.")

:

You are correct.

[Loki]

As others have pointed out already, the key word is “we.” If by “we” you mean the United States feeding Americans, no problem. If by “we” you mean the world feeding itself, Houston we have a problem. There will continue to be a great deal of geographic variability in the production/distribution of food. I'd be a bit worried about the future of food if I was an Egyptian or Bangladeshi, not so much if I was an Argentine or Canadian.

The post-peak food problem is too complex to think about at a global scale, at least for my pea brain. Besides, I'm strongly opposed to globalization of food production, regional self-sufficiency should be our goal.

In terms of post-peak food production in the United States, even industrial agriculture requires comparatively little oil. Worst case scenario is government rationing, agriculture and military getting first dibs. We can continue producing huge amounts of food, though I suspect we'll see a further widening of our class divide, which means cheap corn-based garbage for the peasants (often via food stamps), real food for the aristocracy.

Short-term, smaller farms may be pushed out of business because of higher fuel costs (not to mention lack of credit). We use a fair bit of diesel for our tractors, but I think we could withstand much higher prices---tractor fuel is not a hugely significant expense, especially when you consider how much tractors reduce labor costs. Where we'd be screwed would be distribution, it costs quite a bit to fill up our delivery truck as it is. Double that cost and we're probably out of business. That doesn't even account for the rising costs of everything else, or the ability of workers to commute to the farm (I'm the only one who lives here), or the drying up of farm loans.

As for organic vs. chemical ag, and small local vs. big centralized ag, those are interesting questions. Most peak oil writers assume that localized, organic farming and gardening will come to the forefront (see Richard Heinberg, Sharon Astyk, James Kunstler, John Greer). But Stuart Staniford makes an interesting case for the opposite in his piece “Why Peak Oil Actually Helps Industrial Agriculture” on the Oil Drum.

I'm staking my future on local, organic farming and personal self-sufficiency, but I'd do that regardless of peak oil.

A far more pressing challenge to food production is climate change. Makes peak oil look practically insignificant.

[PrestonSturges]

The theory I'm operating under right now for my garden, is to get my soil as rich as it can possibly be with organics and then if I can no longer access those transported in imputs, still grow veggies for a few years on the what soil fertility remains in the ground. Supplemented of course with humanure if needed.

As a backup, I have laid in store a few hundred pounds of 12-12-12 inorganic fertilizer to continue my garden if I can't do anything else.

And don't forget the lime, where appropriate. I have a couple barrels for 10-10-10 and lime from 2008, but they are near empty now. The barrels keep it from getting damp and lumpy.

[Cog]

The theory I'm operating under right now for my garden, is to get my soil as rich as it can possibly be with organics and then if I can no longer access those transported in imputs, still grow veggies for a few years on the what soil fertility remains in the ground. Supplemented of course with humanure if needed.

As a backup, I have laid in store a few hundred pounds of 12-12-12 inorganic fertilizer to continue my garden if I can't do anything else.

And don't forget the lime, where appropriate. I have a couple barrels for 10-10-10 and lime from 2008, but they are near empty now. The barrels keep it from getting damp and lumpy.

Excellent point. I keep a couple of tubs of wood ash for that particular purpose.

[rangerone314]

The theory I'm operating under right now for my garden, is to get my soil as rich as it can possibly be with organics and then if I can no longer access those transported in imputs, still grow veggies for a few years on the what soil fertility remains in the ground. Supplemented of course with humanure if needed.

As a backup, I have laid in store a few hundred pounds of 12-12-12 inorganic fertilizer to continue my garden if I can't do anything else.

Sounds like you're doing what I'm doing... areas before where they had obviously stripped off topsoil along time ago are now much richer, with compost & wood chunks etc mixed into it, black with earthworms all throughout.

Going to try to make a closed system, including composting toilets in the future, but using external inputs for now to build up the soil to where it should have been.

I do a little of each, gradually, whether permaculture or defense. I spend a certain amount on plants which is matched by a certain amount on guns, ammo etc... The resumption of raised annual biointensive beds will wait until the permaculture is all planted, including the hedge.

Today I used a large piece of cardboard and laid it down right up near the stream after removing a layer of muddy grass and pushed it down into the mud & then added enough compost to replace what I removed from about 9 square feet Then I put about 1/10 of one of my 5 seed packets of watercress onto the compost (about 1,000 seeds, I have 49,000 more seeds left roughly). Then I sprinkled a thin layer of compost over the seeds and then put shrinkwrap over top the whole thing and weighted them down with rocks. The cardboard is oriented so that it won't wash into the stream. So 9 square feet of watercress seeded out of about a planned 400 square feet.

[Shaved Monkey]

Even if farming becomes the priority of the last few drops of oil.
I can see you will need to feed the masses to keep them happy in your own country if you can.
But exporting grain to the masses on $2 a day isn't going to stop them rioting if they cant afford it.
The highest bidders from richer food dependant places will drive the price up further.
The only other solution is war it galvanises people and gets rid of a lot of them and in the end the winners get some more resources.
Needs oil though if its going to effectively move enough future corpses to future grave sites to put a dent in the population.
You also need to feed them before they die.
There's always nuclear but its hard to contain.
#puts on tin foil hat
Pre- engineered DNA specific pandemic would be the safest and most effective.
#takes off tin foil hat

My only solution is to sort out my long term soil fertility and contribute to my communities soil fertility and food resilience.
Seed,skill and knowledge sharing and forming close knit bartering and support networks.
Luckily my community is pretty good as it already
We have people who may not be all PO aware, but they all share the same dream of escaping the rat race,simplifying their lives and becoming more self sufficient in various forms.
I dont think it would be hard to feed us all with what we already have,with some dietary changes and some distribution management.
being a an isolated island helps keep the Zombies away too

and the rest of the world can do what it does like it always has

[Fishman]

My thinking is similar to Cog, soil analysis, supplement with long term phos like rock phosphate and long term potash like greensand. The ph issue that Preston mentions is being addressed with lime but also crushed oystershell for chickens. Theoretically I'll only need a nitrogen source afterwards at least for several years. Areas around the garden have seeded with clover for nitrogen source and a big comfrey patch for more immediate release potash. All fruit frees, berries, etc have rock phos, greensand and even left over bones from beef and pork to provide long term nutrients

[PrestonSturges]

My GF was planting some flowers and she said "You so lucky to have such good soil, you could grow anything here....."

And I said "Whoa! Luck? Did you say luck? Do you forget the semi that brought in compost, the dumptruck of top soil, the rototiller dragging me around the yard, me sieving out all that gravel?"

And she said "Oh yeah...."

That was just to rehabilitate an area the size of a tennis court. If I had it to do over, I would have worked in full truck load of municipal compost at the earliest stages and buried it deep.

I wish there was more I could do, but I have about 15 good quality fruit trees established, another half dozen low yielding ornamentals or novelties or figs in pots, and a whole lot more being propagated in pots. This should be the first year we get well over 100 lbs of fruit, and there's no reason not to expect half a ton in a couple years.

The next step would be to take an axe to anything not producing food, which would free up space for a couple more trees, but mostly increase the light available to what I have.