Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

>From the E. F. Schumacher Society:

As the world passes peak oil production we will again be "subject to the
net-energy principle: it takes energy to get energy from the environment,
and costs have to be subtracted from gross yields."  Richard Heinberg, in
his 2006 E. F. Schumacher Society lecture, says "we've been living on
virtually free energy for the past two hundred years."  He invites us to
"imagine pushing our car twenty or thirty miles," the distance that car
could travel on one gallon of gasoline. "That," he says, "[is] the energy
equivalent of roughly six to eight weeks of hard human labor."  What the
abundant energy of fossil fuels has facilitated is the mechanization of
every imaginable process, including farming.

With peak oil--according to some analysts--in sight, the industrial
agricultural model is looking increasingly unsustainable.  As Heinberg
states, ours is a "food system profoundly vulnerable at every level, to
fuel
shortages and skyrocketing prices.  Both are inevitable."

"Is it possible," he asks, "that a solution liesŠin deliberately
de-industrializing production but doing so intelligently, using information
we have gained from the science of ecology as well as from traditional and
indigenous farming methods?" He believes that it is possible, and in fact,
imperative that we apply such an approach.

With the Special Period in Cuba as reference, Heinberg estimates that to
maintain national food production up to fifty million farmers will need to
join the three to four million current farmers.  However a return to the
land would require more than just willing farmers. Heinberg believes that
these farmers must be aided by affordable access to land, university
training in small-scale ecological farming methods, direct financial aid
through start up phase, and long-term low-cost loans.

"It is not a simple or easy strategy, and it will require a coordinated and
sustained national effort.  But in addition to averting famine this
strategy
may also permit us to solve a host of other seemingly unrelated social and
environmental problems."  Heinberg tells us that "if we do this well, it
could mean the revitalization not only of democracy but of the family and
of
authentic, place-based culture."

In his lecture Richard Heinberg has vividly outlined the reasons for
returning to an agricultural system designed specifically to supply food to
its own region. As an expert on the future of oil and natural gas he is
well
positioned to tell us that we must begin making changes.  The production of
food is of central concern not only because it is heavily dependent on
fossil fuels, but also because continued production is vital to our
survival.

Heinberg would have us "accept the current challenge--the next great energy
transition--as an opportunity to re-imagine human culture from the ground
up, using our intelligence and our passion for the welfare of coming
generations and for the integrity of nature's web as our primary guides."

Heinberg's 2006 lecture "Fifty Million Farmers" edited by Hildegarde
Hannum,
is now available in pamphlet form from the E. F. Schumacher Society. Cost
is
five dollars each.  Pay with BerkShares (http://www.berkshares.org), cash,
check, or credit card.

For a full list of E. F. Schumacher lecture pamphlets with descriptions, a
printable order form, and secure online payment form, go to:

http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/publications.html

The complete text of most all of the lecture pamphlets may also be read
online at no cost--thanks to the support of Schumacher Society members.
Enjoy the fine reading!

Sincerely,

Susan Witt, Chris Lindstrom, Peter Tiso,
Michael Gordon, and Kristen Fix
E. F. Schumacher Society Staff
140 Jug End Road, Great Barrington, MA 01230
efssociety@smallisbeautiful.org
http://www.smallisbeautiful.org