Homestead mailing list

[Don Bowen <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

At 6/18/2007, you wrote:
> The main reason, you've heard this spiel before, is that since the "green
> revolution" we've been merely converting oil into food, which is the same 
> thing
> as saying we've been converting oil into people.

The so called "Green Revolution" was about developing hybrids that put most 
of their energy into seeds then planting those hybrids in monoculture 
fields.  Those monocultures needed massive amounts of nitrogen fertilizer, 
made from Natural Gas, and water, pumped by fossil fuels.  They also needed 
herbicides and pesticides, both made from more Natural Gas.  And finally 
they need massive inputs of capital to purchase the seeds, fertilizers, 
herbicides, insecticides, and machinery to plant and harvest.

There are many unintended (or unintended as the case may be) side affects, 
more farmers were forced off marginal plots into towns to become the raw 
labor for industrialization.  Shorter stem crops left little for animal 
bedding and forage making keeping animals more expensive and reducing 
animal manures as a fertilizer source.  Dependence on a much smaller choice 
of foods as machinery does best with a single purpose use.  Herbicides are 
killing the weeds along side the fields which were a significant portion of 
a summer diet which in turn leads to vitamin deficiencies.  The proposed 
cure?  GMO "Yellow Rice", another expensive seed requiring even more inputs.

It has been suggested by Richard Heildberg that in an oil less future the 
earth's population will have to settle to around 1 billion.  Burland (sp?) 
is called the father of the Green Revolution in the early 50s.  He said at 
the time that unless we control world population his efforts would be wasted.



Don Bowen              Awl Knotted Up                       KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com
My travel journal
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html

I am omnivagant.  
> From mmcharry AT gmail.com  Mon Jun 18 20:44:53 2007
Return-Path: <mmcharry AT gmail.com>
X-Original-To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Delivered-To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Received: from nz-out-0506.google.com (nz-out-0506.google.com 
[64.233.162.238])
        by lists.ibiblio.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 068FA4C013
        for <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Mon, 18 Jun 2007 20:44:52 -0400 
(EDT)
Received: by nz-out-0506.google.com with SMTP id r28so1483634nza
        for <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:44:52 -0700 
(PDT)
Received: by 10.142.84.3 with SMTP id h3mr326124wfb.1182213892337;
        Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:44:52 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.142.102.1 with HTTP; Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:44:52 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <18c9df6e0706181744k65dc927ei72d576b43c819448 AT mail.gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 19:44:52 -0500
From: "Marie McHarry" <mmcharry AT gmail.com>
To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20070618170603.01dcee60 AT earthlink.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline
References: <c60.12af3e09.33a86dd3 AT wmconnect.com>
        <6.1.2.0.2.20070618170603.01dcee60 AT earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Homestead] Green Revolution was: Reduction Emissions Project
X-BeenThere: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9
Precedence: list
Reply-To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
List-Id: <homestead.lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/homestead>,
        <mailto:homestead-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/homestead>
List-Post: <mailto:homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Help: <mailto:sympa AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=HELP>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/homestead>,
        <mailto:homestead-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 00:44:53 -0000

On 6/18/07, Don Bowen <don.bowen AT earthlink.net> wrote:
 Burland (sp?)
> is called the father of the Green Revolution in the early 50s.  He said at
> the time that unless we control world population his efforts would be wasted.
I think you may be thinking of Norman Borlaugh.

Marie