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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Approaching The Collapse: Don’t Panic, Go Organic, By Ronnie Cummins
  • Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 11:36:35 -0600


Approaching The Collapse: Don’t Panic, Go Organic, By Ronnie Cummins
http://carolynbaker.net/2011/08/25/approaching-the-collapse-dont-panic-go-organic-by-ronnie-cummins/

So-called “business as usual” is neither sustainable, nor even possible, for
much longer. Out-of-control energy corporations, Wall Street, the Pentagon,
agribusiness/biotech corporations, and indentured politicians have driven us
to the brink. They tell us: don’t worry; trust the experts, things will soon
return to “normal.” But reality and common sense tell a different story.

Extreme weather, crop failures, commodities speculation, land grabs,
escalating prices, soil degradation, depleted aquifers, routine
contamination, food-related disease, and mass hunger represent the “new norm”
for food and farming. The global agricultural system, with the exception of
the rapidly growing organic sector, rests upon a shaky foundation. Patented
seeds, genetically engineered crops, expensive and destructive chemical and
energy-intensive inputs, factory farms, monoculture production, eroding
soils, unsustainable water use, taxpayer subsidies, and long-distance hauling
and distribution, including massive imports that amount to 15% of the U.S.
food supply amount to a recipe for disaster.

A “perfect storm” or “ultimate recession” as described by Lester Brown in his
new book, World on the Edge, could develop at any time, precipitated by
extreme weather and crop failures on a massive scale. A growing number of
nations, including the oil giants and China, are now scrambling to secure
overseas farmland to feed their domestic populations. World grocers and
supermarkets, including the U.S., have, on the average, only a four-day
supply of food on hand. An oil shock, global disease pandemic, prolonged
drought in the American heartland, or nuclear meltdown could set off a global
food panic. Supermarket shelves and grain silos would be stripped bare within
a short period of time. Have you thought about this? Are you and those in
your local community ready for this?

Peak Food, Peak Oil, Peak Water, Peak Soil

World grain reserves amount to less than 75 days of supply. Harvests of
strategic food grains and cereals have basically leveled off or even
decreased, with enormous amounts of acreage now providing fuel for cars
instead of food for people. At the same time, affordable fossil fuel energy
supplies have peaked (Peak Oil), with the world increasingly dependent on
“extreme” oil and natural gas extraction (deep sea and Arctic drilling, tar
sands, and fracking), accelerating the prices of petroleum-based farm inputs,
as well as food distribution and processing costs. Billions of people in the
Global South are now spending 50-70% of their household income on food
(although in the U.S. it is only 11%). Hydrologists and agronomists warn that
Peak Water is fast approaching, when the already limited availability of
water from underground aquifers for crop irrigation exponentially decreases.
Peak Soil is also fast approaching, with soil erosion and desertification
already degrading 25% of the earth’s land. Peak Soil is directly related to
unsustainable farming and forestry practices, including heavy pesticide use,
chemical fertilizers, genetically engineered mono-crops, and non-sustainable
grazing and clear-cutting. Meanwhile global population numbers (in direct
relation to poverty and lack of education for women) and demand for food
(especially meat and animal products) are accelerating.

Of course, we could go on and on, citing the ever more disturbing information
we read every day in the mainstream media and on the Internet. But the life
or death question is: what are we going to do about it?

Crash-Resistant and Climate-Friendly: The Organic Revolution

Fortunately, over the past 40 years, a new generation of organic farmers and
ranchers have proliferated, building upon the wisdom and practices of
indigenous and traditional farmers over the past 10,000 years. A growing
corps of organic farmers and gardeners are producing increasing amounts of
healthy, nutritious foods without the use of chemical fertilizers,
pesticides, genetically engineered seeds, or animal drugs. At the same time,
these 21st Century organic stewards of the land are consuming far less (50%
or more) fossil fuels and water. Study after study has demonstrated that
organic small farms in the developing world out-produce chemical and
genetically engineered farms by a factor of two to one; while in the
industrialized nations, sustainable organic yields are comparable in “normal”
weather to industrial farms; but far superior (up to 50-70% higher) in times
of drought or torrential rain, the types of extreme weather that have become
the “new norm.” In other words, not only can organic farming feed the world,
but it is in fact the only way that we are going to be able to feed the world
in this 21st Century era of energy, water, and climate crisis.

The burning question then becomes how do we build up a stronger Movement that
can promote and scale up organic, local and regional-based systems of food
and farming (while complimentary green Movements do the same in the energy,
housing, and transportation sectors)? How can we, as quickly as possible,
build up a critical mass of organic farms, gardens, seed banks, farm schools,
and distribution networks in all the local regions of North America and
world? We don’t have room in this essay to go into all the details, but here
are a few things that millions of us are already starting to do, that are
moving us forward and preparing us for survival in the likely eventuality of
economic collapse.

(1) Step-up public education and consciousness-raising. We have now
crossed a major threshold of raising public awareness: the majority of
Americans say they prefer organic food, for a variety of health,
environmental, and ethical reasons. After forty years of public education and
campaigning, organic foods and products are the fastest growing items in
America’s grocery carts. Thirty million households, comprising 75 million
people, are now buying organic foods and other products on a regular basis.
Fifty-six percent of U.S. consumers say they prefer organic foods, citing a
wide variety of reasons that we and the Organic Movement have taught them.
Millions of young people and urban residents are starting to learn organic
farming and gardening techniques.

(2) Step-up the campaign against industrial agriculture and genetic
engineering. The more we educate people about the hazards of chemical and
energy-intensive food and farming and genetically modified organisms (GMOs),
the greater the demand for organic foods and products, and the greater the
number of new organic farmers, young organic farm apprentices, and urban
organic gardeners (now 12 million-strong). The Achilles heel or weakest link
of industrial agriculture is truthful labeling: consumers right to know. If
toxic pesticides, chemicals and genetically engineered ingredients are
labeled, consumers will not buy them, retailers will not sell them, and
farmers will not grow them. Even though Washington has fallen under the
control of Monsanto and corporate agribusiness, we can still change public
policies at the state and local level, with grassroots-powered ballot
initiatives and state legislation. Even though we live in Monsanto Nation, we
can still bring down Goliath.

(3) Link up with other Movements, local to global. Reducing global poverty
and war and stabilizing the climate go hand-in-hand. The best way to reduce
global rural poverty, conflict, and war is through land reform and
sustainable organic farming practices. With land reform and technical
assistance, millions of organic farms in the Global South can develop and
prosper, helping the world’s poorest people, especially women, to produce far
more food with less or no fossil fuel or chemical inputs. This organic
revolution will enable several billion peasants and rural villagers to rise
up from poverty and reduce the unsustainable population growth that
accompanies abject poverty. At the same time, one of the best ways to reduce
fossil fuel use and naturally sequester climate-destabilizing greenhouse
gases is to change our current land use practices, to go organic. For 10,000
years indigenous people and traditional farmers fed the world with organic
farming and animal husbandry practices. By converting the world’s 12 billion
acres of farmland and pasture land back to organic soil management we will be
creating, instead of destroying, soil fertility, as well as restoring the
soil food web’s amazing ability to permanently sequester enormous amounts of
climate destabilizing CO2 through increased plant photosynthesis. With
organic soil management spreading across the world’s 12 billion acres of
farmland and pastureland, and a global mobilization to replant the 10 billion
acres of forest that industry and agribusiness have destroyed, we can
literally reverse global warming, bringing atmospheric concentrations of CO2
back down to a safe level of 350 parts per million from the current dangerous
level of 390 ppm.

The hour is late, but there is still time to prepare ourselves and our
communities before the economy collapses. Educate yourself and get active.
Start to make preparations for an end to “business as usual.” Step up your
efforts. Help link the issues and different constituencies in the body
politic. Don’t panic. Go organic.

Ronnie Cummins is the National Director of the Organic Consumers Association.





  • [Livingontheland] Approaching The Collapse: Don’t Panic, Go Organic, By Ronnie Cummins, Tradingpost, 08/28/2011

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