[DesuMaiden]

Totalitarian agriculture has made humanity go into a food race. We produce more food to feed our ever-growing population. Our population increases as a result of every time we increase our food production. We keep on increasing food production in order to increase or population and so forth. This race cannot be won because we need to constantly increase our food production to increase our population.

We are reaching the end of the food race. We cannot increase food production anymore. We are also near peak population. We need to abandon this food race. And to abandon this food race, this might mean abandoning totalitarian agriculture. But without totalitarian agriculture, most of the world's population would die because all 7 billion people on this planet exist as a result of totalitarian agriculture.

How do we give up this food race without having to eliminate most of the world's population? Or will nature naturally eliminate most of the world's population because of the population overshoot we are in right now? I think we need to give up this food race if we are to survive as a species because it is impossible to indefinitely increase food production and population.

This message is from Daniel Quinn's Ishmael and Story of B.

[GHung]

The answer to your question depends on what you mean by "we".

[DesuMaiden]

The answer to your question depends on what you mean by "we".

"We" as in every human being on this planet.

The following statement is wrong.

all 7 billion people on this planet exist as a result of totalitarian agriculture

Totalitarian agriculture is not the most effective agriculture production system. Rather it is the most effective system for using cheap fossil fuels, concentrating wealth, producing credit, and oppressing the masses. Totalitarian agriculture actually wastes nutrients (as proof consider how much waste N,P,K is washed into the ocean) and is an ineffective solution to land-use optimization. We could probably support many more than 7 billion.

Ask me how?

You are right. Inequality in wealth (poor vs rich), unparalleled power in the hands of a few people (oligoarchy) and social stratification are due to totalitarian agriculture. But I doubt we can sustain a population of greater than 7 billion people with some other form of agriculture or growing food.

[DesuMaiden]

You haven't asked me how yet?

Then please tell me how totalitarian agriculture managed to concentrate the power into the hands of so few?

[careinke]

Pstarr I would like to know how.

[DesuMaiden]

Pstarr I would like to know how.

Me too!

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . . Over the years I have had many discussions about the 'scale' of agriculture and how the human race is going to feed itself in future with limited energy.

I have done my bit and developed a viable rotary small scale cropping system that can be powered by draught animals or solar power . . . but at this stage no one wants it.

Of necessity farms will get smaller and more of any population will be employed in growing food . . . food, shelter and clothing are paramount and all human endeavour is subservient to these needs.

Some posters on here seem to think it is impossible/impractical to produce sufficient food without large scale totalitarian agriculture and the most quoted example is how would we grow wheat?

The answer of course is that we grow it like we used to . . . my Mum could remember hand cutting, stooking and threshing "corn" (English for wheat) when she was a young girl in England.

It was normal practice for small holders to grow a couple of acres for domestic use and take it to a mill to be ground . . . it was a valuable commodity not a cheap throw away item the way we treat it now.

And nothing has changed. A thousand acre paddock is still a thousand acres whether it is worked by one man with a three hundred horsepower John Deere or by hand/solar/draught animals by five hundred people on two acre plots . . . and when it comes to going hungry or working on a plot of wheat what do you think a person is going to do?

Hunger is a very effective motivator.

Now it is about here that peoples eyes glaze over, or they walk away or think I am a complete and utter nut case . . . so be it but remember the Global production of rice and wheat are pretty much the same and the average size rice farm is I believe around two acres and I have seen it grown commercially in fifty foot by fifty foot plots.

Just something to think about.

Cheers.

[AndyA]

Ishmael sounds like a good book, I may have to read it. I can abandon totalitarian agriculture easily enough, but you mean everyone, and that takes a will and desire that many people lack. Who wants to buy lettuce that may have bugs in it, or an apple that isn't the perfect shape? Who wants to go without tomatoes in winter or strawberries at Christmas?

Having farmed floodplains, it is no fun! Luckily our floodplain is in pasture, and we are very careful when and how we renovate those pastures. Want to know where all those silts come from during a flood? Try cultivating a field on a floodplain! Goodbye topsoil.

As a point of reference Scrub, compared to a new tractor, how much would your circle worker cost? For a small plot I would recommend a walk behind rotary hoe, and some good hand tools.

I think people are going to have to produce the majority of their own vegetables, because without modern farming methods, growing commercial quantities of them is backbreaking work for close to minimum wage. Not something I would be interested in.

[SeaGypsy]

Scrubby, the proof of rotation systems has to be in the numbers. Apparently yeild increases per area, stock & crop health, soil stability, all look extremely good for some systems. The trick with selling to farmers is in dealing with stubbornness, same with government, & in Australia its always both.
I would recommend fishing around at James Cook University Ag department, particularly Atherton campus. Mainly because there is a high concentration of young farmers not found elsewhere in our country, with a University known for supporting developing agriculture technology. You are probably aware of their early development of the aquaculture unit @ Innisfail, followed by the OTT clampdown by government panic about environmental concerns. Meanwhile 90% of our best land produces only 2 crops, dairy & sugar, both non essential, both nutrient expensive & ecologically dodgy.

[AndyA]

There is no lack of land in the US, there is a lack of will and desire to move onto that land, people want land where they are, get out onto the back roads, look around the country, be prepared to move. You will find very cheap land, if you actually want it. 1 years wages will buy you more then enough land to grow veggies, meat, fruit and grains. I think people must wonder around Los Angeles looking for a good plot of dirt, and then complain about how expensive it is. I dunno, you just have to think outside the square a bit, IF that is really what you want to do.

[DesuMaiden]

Dairy is essential unless you are a vegan. Sugar is essential also so you can enjoy mass media without interruption.

Human beings are the only mammal species that consumes milk after weaning off of their parent's milk. We don't need dairy products to remain healthy.

[ralfy]

Is totalitarian agriculture the same as farming practiced for thousands of years?