Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>]

This bears repeating:
>The most important and pressing challenge we all face is the creation of
>self-sustaining trading networks for local and regional food, i.e., the
>re-building of successful regional food systems.  We need those successful
>systems so that small and middle-sized family farms, small-scale
>processors, local truckers and distributors, and family-owned grocery
>stores can once again work together to delivery fresh, wholesome, tasty,
>affordable food from local and regional sources to people in the
>community--and in the process re-capture the wealth now extracted from our
>communities by the large corporations.

But I need to take exception to
> the large corporations
>succeed because they create a highly organized, cohesive, efficient,
>effective, reliable and consistent networks link production and
>consumption.

Because the long distance transport, processing, and storage of food has been 
subsidized for decades by artificially cheap oil which is going, going, gone. 
They mined and pumped the easy stuff first, cheap to get and transport. Now 
the long distance agribusiness networks will fail. As the cost of oil (and 
gas) production rises to meet the ceiling price society can pay for it, 
production will dwindle to a trickle.  Local networks will spring up to fill 
the need. This is not fifty years in the future. It's starting now.

paul@largocreekfarms.com
http://medicinehill.net

Following is from Eating Fossil Fuels by Dale Allen Pfeiffer
http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/fossil-fuels.cfm

The Green Revolution resulted in the industrialization of agriculture. Part 
of the advance resulted from new hybrid food plants, leading to more 
productive food crops. Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution 
transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 
250%.4 That is a tremendous increase in the amount of food energy available 
for human consumption. This additional energy did not come from an increase 
in incipient sunlight, nor did it result from introducing agriculture to new 
vistas of land. The energy for the Green Revolution was provided by fossil 
fuels in the form of fertilizers (natural gas), pesticides (oil), and 
hydrocarbon fueled irrigation.

The Green Revolution increased the energy flow to agriculture by an average 
of 50 times the energy input of traditional agriculture.5 In the most extreme 
cases, energy consumption by agriculture has increased 100 fold or more.6

In the United States, 400 gallons of oil equivalents are expended annually to 
feed each American (as of data provided in 1994).7 Agricultural energy 
consumption is broken down as follows:

·        31% for the manufacture of inorganic fertilizer

·        19% for the operation of field machinery

·        16% for transportation

·        13% for irrigation

·        08% for raising livestock (not including livestock feed)

·        05% for crop drying

·        05% for pesticide production

·        08% miscellaneous8

Energy costs for packaging, refrigeration, transportation to retail outlets, 
and household cooking are not considered in these figures.

To give the reader an idea of the energy intensiveness of modern agriculture, 
production of one kilogram of nitrogen for fertilizer requires the energy 
equivalent of from 1.4 to 1.8 liters of diesel fuel. This is not considering 
the natural gas feedstock.9 According to The Fertilizer Institute 
(http://www.tfi.org), in the year from June 30 2001 until June 30 2002 the 
United States used 12,009,300 short tons of nitrogen fertilizer.10 Using the 
low figure of 1.4 liters diesel equivalent per kilogram of nitrogen, this 
equates to the energy content of 15.3 billion liters of diesel fuel, or 96.2 
million barrels.

 Of course, this is only a rough comparison to aid comprehension of the 
energy requirements for modern agriculture.

In a very real sense, we are literally eating fossil fuels. However, due to 
the laws of thermodynamics, there is not a direct correspondence between 
energy inflow and outflow in agriculture. Along the way, there is a marked 
energy loss. Between 1945 and 1994, energy input to agriculture increased 
4-fold while crop yields only increased 3-fold.11 Since then, energy input 
has continued to increase without a corresponding increase in crop yield. We 
have reached the point of marginal returns. Yet, due to soil degradation, 
increased demands of pest management and increasing energy costs for 
irrigation (all of which is examined below), modern agriculture must continue 
increasing its energy expenditures simply to maintain current crop yields. 
The Green Revolution is becoming bankrupt.

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 9/26/2004 at 12:55 PM Hank@c-prep.org wrote:

>I have the highest respect for the science and the formulation of policy
>based on research (from biochemistry to ethnography).
>
>However I would argue that at the end of the day, the nutritional value of
>food is likely to fall within an acceptable range regardless of production
>methods.  To illustrate, the discovery centuries ago that sailors needed
>citrus fruit to prevent scurvy made a significant difference in health
>status.  I doubt if organically-produced citrus would provide
>significantly more or less benefit than conventionally-produced citrus.
>So my point would support one aspect of Fern's original argument--let's
>not get caught up in endless debate over the comparitive nutritional value
>of organic versus conventional production.  Let the research proceed and
>inform our opinions as it emerges.
>
>The most important and pressing challenge we all face is the creation of
>self-sustaining trading networks for local and regional food, i.e., the
>re-building of successful regional food systems.  We need those successful
>systems so that small and middle-sized family farms, small-scale
>processors, local truckers and distributors, and family-owned grocery
>stores can once again work together to delivery fresh, wholesome, tasty,
>affordable food from local and regional sources to people in the
>community--and in the process re-capture the wealth now extracted from our
>communities by the large corporations.
>
>It would be easy at this point to launch into an attack on the large
>corporations.  But let's step back a moment to analyze why they succeed
>and we proponents of regional food systems have yet to develop a
>successful operating model.  I would argue that the large corporations
>succeed because they create a highly organized, cohesive, efficient,
>effective, reliable and consistent networks link production and
>consumption.  They succeed, in short, at the organizational level.
>
>Our challenge is to create regional food trading networks that are fair to
>all (i.e., value chains), highly organized, efficient and that support
>diverse ownership and democratic process.  Let's figure out ways--multiple
>ways, unique for each foodshed--to create such self-sustaining networks.
>
>Hank
>
>