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  • From: Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Mechanical Revolution in Agriculture | lowland European "wet meadow" farming system | recapture of topsoil from crop land in a streamside flood plain
  • Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2016 09:22:26 -0400

Steve should be interested in this fascinating discussion thread in the
Sanet-MG mailing group at:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/sanet-mg/3M1u49OY_sw
-
Hello folks,

During the first half of my Intro to Sustainable Ag class at Western
Illinois University, we spend about 4 weeks exploring the mechanical,
chemical and genetic revolutions that greatly increasing productivity but
brought many unintended consequences.

thought some of you might enjoy taking a look at the Mechanical Revolution
lecture slides:
https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/wNXg3 (link will expire on 10/16)

The file is ~ 40 Mb so it may take a little while to download.

Let me know if you have any comments.

Joel
WIU Agriculture

<>

Hi Joel,

Thanks for sharing your slides. I always enjoy seeing them because I have
taught a similar course at the undergraduate level. The detail of the
mechanical, chemical and genetic revolutions is interesting, but misleading
if not connected to its appropriate context. The historical context
includes changes in agricultural practice, rural socio-economic changes and
dislocation and changing political goals that affect how one views and
judges the innovations. So I think a systems approach would be more
instructive so that the innovations are presented as part of a history of
agrarian systems. The best example of this that I know of is Mazoyer and
Roudart's *A History of World Agriculture from the Neolithic to the Current
Crisis. *The great flaw as I see it in scientific inquiry and education has
been the reductionist approach that takes things out of context, a paradigm
that has come to dominate science since the Enlightenment.

Without knowing the accompanying lectures it is easy to infer from just the
slides that the innovations are just a long march of technological
progress. In fact they are an unsustainable blip in natural and human
history permitted by fossil fuels. Because human history is at the peak of
that technological bonanza and is entering the downslope of industrial
civilization (and industrial agriculture), I think it is important for
students to see the innovations in that historical light.

Your slides do not focus entirely on the technological revolution; they
start with the emergence of agriculture and the decrease in quality of life
that represents from a labor viewpoint. Then you present agriculture
history until the innovations started by Jethro Tull in the 18th century as
"prior to the mechanical revolution, similar farming practices were used
for thousands of years". I would disagree. In fact, in that pre-industrial
period many mostly nonmechanical innovations occurred that were not only
historically important, but will be important to study as cues to the
design of the post-industrial future of farming.

One example of such innovations, covered well in the work I cited above, is
the whole systems revolution in European farming that started with the
intensive use of fallow land in the 17th and 18th centuries. That led to
increased livestocking rates and diversity, improved manure production,
storage and use, and, with the invention of the dump cart, overall
improvement in agricultural productivity. Here is a diagram of the
resulting system from the book I cited:

Here is a causal loop diagram that reveals the reinforcing feedbacks that
powered that agrarian revolution and, for a while, accelerated agricultural
productivity.



Unlike many of the mechanical innovations in the era of industrial
agriculture, this was a whole system agroecological, social and economic
revolution. Preindustrial agricultural history includes many such
revolutions that I think are important to include in a course in
agricultural sustainability. Many are based on the incredible productivity
of wetlands. Early American colonial farming made effective use of the 'wet
meadow' system brought from lowland Europe. The Aztec chinampa farming
system was an intensively managed wetland, as were the highly productive
wet rice systems of East Asean Pacific rim countries.

Cheers,

Karl


<>

Karl,
Can you point me to more resources on 'Early American colonial farming made
effective use of the 'wet meadow' system brought from lowland Europe.' Our
farm is located on lowlands and always looking to learn more about how to
use it well.
Thanks!
~Crystal Powers

Darby Springs Farm
darbysprings.wordpress.com

(their farm blog is worth seeing - LL)

<>

The most detailed source I know of is Donahue, Brian. 2004. *The Great
Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord. *New Haven:Yale University
Press.Also of some use is Redman, Charles L. and David R. Foster. *Agrarian
Landscapes in Transition: Comparison of Long-Term Ecological and Cultural
Change.* Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. The key to the system was
the recapture of topsoil from crop land in a streamside flood plain in
which the water levels were intensively managed. This maximized forage
productivity, animal stocking rate, manure production and therefore overall
farm ecological health and productivity, as in the European farming
revolution that I cited.

An example of a more ambitious use of New England of seasonally wet meadow
land is the adaptation to Vermont of the Japanese duck/rice system. The
original source is Furuno, Takao. *The Power of Duck.* Tasmania: Takari
Publications, 2001, which describes it as a whole agroecosystem design.
Here is some documentation of the adaptation using northern Japanese rice
varieties:

<http://goog_1580136395>


- http://www.livablefutureblog.com/2016/04/rice-paddies-
double-as-artificial-wetlands-in-vermont

<http://www.livablefutureblog.com/2016/04/rice-paddies-double-as-artificial-wetlands-in-vermont>
- http://phys.org/news/2011-07-vermont-farmer-cold-hardy-rice.html
- http://www.ricenortheasternus.org/about/

​Thanks for your interest,

Karl​


--
Lawrence F. London, Jr.
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/site/avantgeared



  • [permaculture] Mechanical Revolution in Agriculture | lowland European "wet meadow" farming system | recapture of topsoil from crop land in a streamside flood plain, Lawrence London, 10/14/2016

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