Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

John Ikerd, Agriculture After Fossil Energy
http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd/papers/Iowa-FmUnion-Energy.htm

John Ikerd is Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO –
USA; author of, Sustainable Capitalism: A Matter of Common Sense,
http://kpbooks.com; E-mail: JEIkerd@centurytel.net ; web site:
http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd .



The world is running out of cheap fossil energy. Some dismiss the current
energy crunch as nothing more than a short run phenomenon, arguing that we
have used but a small fraction of the earth’s total fossil energy
reserves. While there is truth to this argument, it masks far more than it
reveals. The industrial era of the past 200-years has been fueled by cheap
energy, first by wood from abundant forests and then by fossil energy from
easily accessible sources. But the days of old-growth forests, oil gushers,
surface veins of coal are gone. Most of the remaining reserves of oil and
natural gas are buried far below the earth’s surface or deep beneath
ocean floors. The remaining reserves of coal likewise are more costly to
mine and to burn without degrading the environment. There are no more
sources of cheap fossil energy. Industrialization, which has dominated
modern society for the past two centuries, is coming to an end.

The concept of peak oil has gained wider public attention over the past few
years, as petroleum prices have climbed.[1] Petroleum geologists observed
several decades ago that the peak in production from a given oil field
typically occurs when approximately half of the recoverable oil in the
field has been extracted. After the peak, production continues but only at
a diminished rate. Historically, the time lag between discovery and peak
production has averaged about 30-40 years. It takes time to get started
drilling and time to drill a sufficient number of wells to reach peak
production. Beyond the peak, production continues, but the old wells yield
less and less oil, and as residual reserves decline, new wells typically
are deeper, more costly, and less productive.

U.S. oil discoveries peaked in Oklahoma and Texas in the late 1930s and
early 1940s. U.S. petroleum production peaked in 1971 and has been
declining ever since.[2] The new oil fields in Alaska caused but a
temporary “blip” in a persistent downtrend in production. In spite of
rhetoric to the contrary, the U.S. has been powerless to reduce its growing
dependence on foreign oil by increasing domestic production. The peak in
global oil discoveries occurred in 1962, which would indicate a peak in
global production sometime in the early 2000s. Experts disagree about when
the peak will actually occur, with estimates ranging from as late as 2025
to as early as 2005. Global production has been essentially flat since
2005, in spite of record oil prices, so the peak may have already been
passed. Even the major oil companies, such as BP, Exxon-Mobile, and
Chevron-Texaco, have begun to focus their attention on energy alternatives
for the future.

The experts generally agree that we have not come close to depleting the
earth’s petroleum reserves. However, about half the total reserves are
considered to be non-recoverable, using any known technology. And we have
only used about half of the estimated recoverable oil reserves. The problem
is that recovery costs will increase and annual production will decline, as
the remaining recoverable reserves are diminished. Even if new technology
is found to recover more of total reserves, recovery will still likely be
slower and more costly.

The logical alternative sources of fossil energy also are all more costly
than is petroleum produced by existing oil fields. The inevitability of
increasing costs can be seen most clearly in the relative amounts of
existing energy required to extract new energy from various alternative
sources. Energy is required to drill, mine, extract, crush, distill,
refine, and carry out the other processes necessary to turn potential
energy into usable energy. Regardless of changes in dollar and cent costs,
alternative energy sources that require more existing energy to create new
usable energy will be more costly.

Oil produced in the U.S. during the 1940s yielded more than 100 kcals of
energy for each kcal of energy used in extraction, a net energy ratio of
over 100 to 1.[3] By the 1970s, with deeper, less productive wells, the
ratio had dropped to 23 to 1. For today’s production from oil discoveries
made during the 1970s, the ratio has dropped to only 8 to 11 kcals of new
energy per kcal of existing energy used to produce it. Falling net energy
ratios and rising energy costs have made alternative sources of petroleum
competitive with current U.S. production. For example, oil from tar sands
in Alberta Canada are attracting increased investments, in spite on net
energy ratios of less than 8 to 1. Liquefied coal, which was used by Hitler
to fuel the Nazi army during World War II, also has a net energy ration of
about 8 to 1. Oil shale, although abundant in supply, presents an even more
formidable challenge from a net energy perspective.

In addition, all of the most competitive alternatives to oil raise far more
serious environment risks than do oil production and refining. For example,
replacing existing petroleum usage with oil from coal would add large
amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide,
at a time of growing concern about global warming. Replacing current global
usage of crude oil with tar sands would require a waste pond equal to half
the size of Lake Ontario to accommodate the liquid waste.[4] Further
exploration and drilling offshore and in national parks and wildlife
reserves threaten ecological destruction – for nothing more than another
small blip in the downtrend in energy production – at a time when long
run sustainable energy production clearly depends on maintaining biological
diversity.

All of the other sources of fossil energy face futures very similar in
nature to petroleum. Natural gas supplies may be the next to peak after oil
and the peak in coal will depend to a great extent on whether environmental
issues are resolved, either through new technology or by relaxing
environmental standards. If coal is used to replace the shortfalls in oil
and natural gas, within 50 years, the energy obtained by extracting oil
from the coal might well be less than the energy required to mine the coal.
The world isn’t running out of fossil energy, at least not yet, it is
just running out of cheap fossil energy.

New technologies may be found to extract more energy quicker, turn energy
peaks into plateaus, and recover energy reserves now considered
non-recoverable. But such technologies would simply sharpen the ultimate
drops in fossil energy production as total reserves are diminished. All
economically recoverable, nonrenewable energy resources eventually will be
depleted. In addition, global population is projected to double within the
next fifty years, and booming industrial economies in the two most densely
populated countries of the world, China and India, promise to increase
global energy demand far faster than growth in global population. Fossil
energy production will almost certainly fall far short of meeting this
growing global demand. All of the alternative energy sources – nuclear,
wind, water, photovoltaic – will be more costly than today’s fossil
energy, both in terms of net energy produced and dollar and cent costs. The
result will be continued rises in energy costs, into the indefinite future.
Cheap and abundant energy has shaped the past two hundred years of human
society – the industrial era. The next two hundred years may well be
shaped by the scarcity and high cost of energy.

A new “oil boom” in agriculture as been sparked by rising petroleum
costs and fueled by prospects for even higher energy costs in the future.
Ethanol and bio-diesel can be produced domestically from renewable sources
and present fewer environmental threats that do most alternative sources of
liquid energy. To many, bio-fuels seem to be an answer, if not the answer,
to America’s growing dependence on imported fossil fuels. With the
growing economic and human costs of U.S. military involvement in the Middle
East, politicians have been quick to support any alternative to our
continued reliance on Middle-East oil – the only major oil-producing
region that has not yet peaked. Only the most naïve believe that the cost
of U.S. dependence on foreign oil is fully reflected in prices at the gas
pumps. Bio-fuels might also be a source of employment and economic
development for chronically depressed rural communities.

So ethanol plants have begun to spring up all across rural America,
reminiscent of grain elevators along the railroads in earlier times. In
early 2006, the Renewable Fuels Association reported 95 ethanol plants
already in operation, 46 farmer-owned, capable of producing four billion
gallons of ethanol a year, with another 31 plants under construction.[5]
The industry organization estimated that ethanol has created 147,206 new
jobs and added $14 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product. USDA
estimated that ethanol claimed 18% of the 2005 U.S. corn crop, and seems
certain to use even an even larger share of the 2006 crop. An agricultural
oil boom clearly is under way.

But are bio-fuels really the answer, or even an answer, to the most
important questions raised by rising energy costs? Admittedly, ethanol and
bio-diesel are alternative sources of liquid energy – the type of energy
currently in shortest supply. If bio-fuels were simply promoted as such,
there might be nothing misleading about their growing popularity or
political support. However, bio-fuels can never significantly reduce U.S.
reliance on imported oil. And perhaps most important, bio-fuels are not a
sustainable source of either renewable energy or rural economic
development. It’s easy to understand why American farmers are willing to
accept all of the government subsidies for bio-energy production they can
get. Other businesses “root their way to the public trough,” so why not
farmers? But neither bio-fuels nor government subsidies offer realistic
solutions to growing foreign energy dependence or to the chronic economic
crisis in rural America.

If all of the solar energy collected by all of the green plants in the U.S.
could be magically converted into fossil energy, it would replace only
about one-half of the fossil energy currently consumed annually in the
U.S.[6] However, agriculture accounts for only about one-third of all green
plants, meaning that total solar energy captured by agriculture amounts to
only about 16-17% of U.S. fossil energy use. In addition, only about
one-fifth of solar energy captured by agriculture is harvested as food
crops, such as corn and soybeans. So the total energy in all food crops
amounts to only 3-4% of total fossil energy use or about 10% of the total
energy in U.S. petroleum use.[7] A recent Academy of Science report
indicated that if the total U.S. corn and soybean crops were devoted to
bio-fuels, ethanol could supply about 12% of current gasoline use and
bio-diesel about 6% of current diesel use.[8]

In addition, it takes fossil energy to produce agricultural crops and to
transform those crops into bio-fuels. The net energy estimates for ethanol
range from a net deficit, suggesting the fossil energy used in production
exceeds the bio-energy produced, to a net energy surplus of about 50%.
Bio-diesel typically comes out somewhat better on the high side, with up to
two kcals or energy produced per kcal of fossil energy used. With net
energy ratios between the lowest and highest, the net energy gain by
producing ethanol and bio-diesel from all food crops would be only about
3-4% of current liquid energy use. Switch grass, sugar cane, and other
high-energy grasses have been suggested as sources of renewable energy. But
even if the whole of agriculture were devoted to replacing fossil energy,
bio-fuels would replace only about 12-16% of current petroleum use and 5-7%
of total fossil energy.

Americans clearly are addicted to fossil energy. But Americans will give up
air conditioning and their SUVs before they give up eating. Thus,
agriculture cannot be devoted entirely to energy production. Even if
current net energy ratios are improved significantly, bio-fuels can never
be a significant replacement for fossil energy. Bio-fuels are simply a
means of converting some of the immobile energy used in agriculture, such
as natural gas and electricity, into a more mobile, liquid form of energy.
The current enthusiasm for bio-fuels, however, risks becoming a distraction
from the more important task of developing renewable energy resources with
far greater total potential, such as wind, water, and photovoltaic cells.

The highest priority for American agriculture should be on reducing the
fossil energy dependence of food production. Our current food system,
including food processing and distribution, claims about 17% of total U.S.
fossil energy use, with about one-third of this total used at the farm
level.[9] In fact, we use about ten kcals of fossil energy for every kcal
of food energy produced, not counting the energy use in final food
preparation. This means that even at the farm level, American agriculture
uses about three kcals of fossil energy for every kcal of food energy
produced. In a world of rising population and dwindling fossil energy, the
first priority of agriculture should be producing more food with less
fossil energy.

The fundamental purpose of agriculture is to collect solar energy and to
transform it into forms that can be used to support human life. People
simply cannot eat sunlight. Solar energy must be collected, converted,
concentrated, and stored by green plants before it is useful to humans.
Agriculture is quite capable of meeting the food needs of the global
population of today, and possibly twice or even three times as many people
in the future, even while reducing its reliance on fossil energy. However,
achieving this objective will require a fundamentally different kind of
agriculture. The industrial agriculture of today is not sustainable.

The lack of sustainability of industrial agriculture is not a matter of
personal opinion; it is a logical consequence of the most fundamental laws
of science, the laws of thermodynamics. Sustainability ultimately depends
upon our use of energy, because anything that is useful in sustaining life
on earth ultimately relies on energy. All material things that are of any
use to us – our food, clothes, houses, automobiles, – require energy to
make and energy to use. Actually, all material things, such as food,
gasoline, wood, plastic, and steel are concentrated forms of energy. All
useful human activities – working, managing, thinking, teaching, –
require human energy, which comes from the physical energy in the things
people use. Physical scientists lump all such useful activities together
and call them “work.” Thus, all work requires energy.

In performing work, energy always changes in form – specifically, from
more-concentrated to less-concentrated, more-dispersed forms. In fact, this
natural tendency to disperse gives energy its ability to perform work.
Energy is dispersed when matter is changed into energy, as when we eat food
or burn gasoline. Energy also is dispersed when heat is used to produce
electricity and electricity used to produce light. However, regardless of
its form or the work it performs, the total energy embodied in matter and
energy always remains unchanged. This is the law of energy conservation, as
in Einstein’s famous E=MC2. At first, it might seem that we could
simply go on recycling and reusing energy forever. If so, sustainability,
meaning the ability to continue performing work, would be inevitable.

However, each time energy is used to perform work, some of its usefulness
is lost. Once energy is used, before it can be used again, it must be
reconcentrated, reorganized, and restored; and it takes energy to
reconcentrate, reorganize, and restore energy. The energy used to
reconcentrate, reorganize, and restore energy, is simply no longer
available to do anything else. It has lost its usefulness. This is the law
of entropy; the tendency of all closed systems to tend toward the ultimate
degradation of matter and energy; a state of inert uniformity of component
elements; an absence of structure, pattern, organization, or
differentiation.[10] The desolate surfaces of the Moon and Mars are systems
as close to entropy as most of us have seen. Since this loss of useful
energy is inevitable, it might seem that sustainability is impossible. And
in fact, life on earth would not be sustainable without the daily inflow of
solar energy, which could be used to offset the usefulness of energy lost
to entropy.

So what does this have to do with American agriculture? Industrial systems,
including industrial agriculture, are very efficient in using and reusing
the energy embodied in natural resources, but they do nothing to offset the
inevitable loss of usefulness of energy due to entropy. Industrialization
is driven by the economic motives of maximum profits and growth, and
economic benefits accrue to individuals, within individual lifetimes. It
makes no economic sense to invest in restoring natural resources for the
benefit of someone else of some future generation. Industrialization
inevitably dissipates or uses up the physical energy embodied in natural
resources, because industrialists have no incentive to renew or restore the
resources from which they extract their productivity. Thus
industrialization, by the logic and reason of the laws of science, quite
simply is not sustainable.

Industrial farms, like other industrial organizations, are essentially
resource-using systems; they use land, fertilizer, fuel, machinery, and
people but they do nothing to replace the energy that is inevitably lost
when anything is used to do any kind of useful work. Industrial farmers
don’t use the solar energy from the sun to restore the productive
capacities of their farms; instead, they transform solar energy into crops
and livestock that are sold off the farm to be used up elsewhere. It makes
no economic sense for industrial farmers to maintain the productive
capacity of the land if the benefits of doing so will accrue to some future
generation. An industrial agriculture accelerates the tendency toward
entropy – it is not physically sustainable.

Industrialization not only uses up the natural resources required for
sustainability, it also uses up the human resources. The law of entropy
applies to social energy as well as physical energy. All human resources
– labor, management, innovation, creativity – are products of social
relationships. No person can be born or reach maturity without the help of
other people who care about them personally, including their families,
friends, neighbors, and communities. All organizations, including farms and
businesses, depend on the ability of people to work together for a common
purpose, which depends upon the civility of the society in which they were
raised.

Industrialization inevitably disperses and disorganizes social energy
because it weakens personal relationships. Maximum economic efficiency
requires that people relate to each other impartially, which means,
impersonally. People must compete rather than cooperate if market economies
are to work efficiently. When family members work away from home to
increase their productivity, they have less time and energy to spend
together, and personal relationships are threatened. When people shop in
another town rather than buy locally to save money, personal relationships
among community members suffer from neglect. Industrialization inevitably
devalues personal relationships and disconnects people, thus dissipating
social energy. There are no economic incentives for industrialists to
invest in renewing or restoring personal relationships within families or
communities for the long run benefit of society.

The industrialization of American agriculture has torn the fabric of rural
society apart. The specialization and mechanization of American agriculture
has resulted in consolidation of farmland into larger and fewer farms,
meaning fewer farm families. It takes people, not just production, to
support rural communities – to buy feed, fuel, clothes, and haircuts on
Main Street, to support local schools, churches, and other public services.
Some farming communities have become so desperate they will grasp at any
opportunity for survival. Unfortunately, outside investors see rural areas,
with their open spaces and sparse population, as ideal places for things
other communities don’t want, such as prisons, urban landfills, toxic
waste incinerators, or giant contract confinement animal feeding
operations. Ethanol factories are but the latest “economic
opportunities” to join this list. Such enterprises create economic
benefits for a few but at the expense of the many – those who live
downstream or downwind. The industrialization of agriculture inevitably
creates conflicts and degrades relationships within rural communities.
Industrial agriculture accelerates the tendency toward social entropy –
it is not sustainable.

Economies are simply the means by which we deal with relationships among
people and between people and the natural environment in complex societies.
There are simply too many of us to barter with each other and to produce
our own food, clothing, and shelter. Economies actually produce nothing;
they simply transform physical energy and social energy into forms that can
be traded or exchanged in impersonal marketplaces. All economic capital,
meaning anything capable of producing anything of economic value, is
extracted from either “natural capital” or “social capital.”
Industrial agriculture extracts its economic resources from the earth and
from society; it uses up the fertility of the farmland and the productive
capacities of rural people. Thus, when all of the physical and social
energy of rural areas has been extracted and exploited, industrial
agriculture will have nothing left to support it economically. Industrial
agriculture inevitably tends toward economic entropy – it is not
sustainable.

A sustainable economy must be fundamentally different from the industrial
economy of today. A sustainable economy must be based on the paradigm of
living systems. Living things are self-making, self-renewing, reproductive,
and regenerative.[11] Living plants have the natural capacity to capture,
organize, concentrate, and store solar energy, both to support other living
organisms and to offset the energy that is inevitably lost to entropy.
Living things have a natural propensity to reproduce their species, and
thus, to renew and regenerate energy. Humans, for example, devote large
amounts of time and energy to raising families, with very little economic
incentive to do so. Obviously, an individual life is not sustainable
because every living thing eventually dies. But, communities and societies
of living individuals clearly have the capacity and natural propensity to
be highly productive while devoting a significant part of their life’s
energy to renewing the ecological and social capital needed to sustain
economic capital.

The only renewable source of energy for the future is solar energy. Wind,
water, and photovoltaic cells are the most promising sources of energy for
the future. Even a society that relies on renewable solar energy, however,
must continue to invest energy in renewing and regenerating material energy
resources for the future. Windmills, water generators, and solar cells are
made of physical materials, which eventually lose wear out, and must be
replaced. No society will ever be sustainable unless its members are
willing to make investments not just for themselves, but also for the
benefit of the future of humanity.

The logical alternative to the energy-using industrial agriculture of today
is an energy-renewing sustainable agriculture. The sustainable agriculture
movement emerged in the U.S. during the 1980s from growing concerns about
declining farm profitability, environmental impacts of agrichemicals, and
the viability of rural communities. The sustainable agriculture movement
includes farmers who identify with organic, biodynamic, holistic,
bio-intensive, biological, ecological, and permaculture, as well as many
who claim no identification other than traditional family farmer. These
farmers and their customers share a common commitment to creating an
agriculture that is capable of maintaining its productivity and value to
society indefinitely.

Sustainable farms must be ecologically sound, socially responsible, and
economically viable. A farm that degrades the productivity of the land or
pollutes its natural environment cannot sustain its productivity. A farm
that fails to meet the needs of a society – not only as consumers, but
also as producers and citizens – cannot be sustained over time by that
society. And, a farm that is not profitable, at least over time, is not
economically sustainable, regardless of its ecological and social
performance. A sustainable farm ultimately must rely on renewable solar and
social energy for its economic productivity.

Sustainable agriculture embraces the historic principles of organic
farming. Sir Albert Howard, a pioneer of organics, began his book, An
Agricultural Testament, with the assertion, “The maintenance of the
fertility of the soil is the first condition of any permanent system of
agriculture.”[12] He contrasted the permanent agriculture of the Orient
with the agricultural decline that led to the fall of Rome. He concluded,
“The farmers of the West are repeating the mistakes made by Imperial
Rome.” J. I. Rodale, another prominent proponent of organic farming,
wrote, “The organiculturist farmer must realize that in him is placed a
sacred trust… As a patriotic duty, he assumes an obligation to preserve
the fertility of the soil, a precious heritage that he must pass on,
undefiled and even enriched, to subsequent generations.”[13]

Rudolph Steiner, the founder of Biodynamic Farming defined an organic farm
as a living system, as an organism, whose health and productivity depended
on healthy relationships among its ecological, social, economic, and
spiritual dimensions. He wrote, “A farm is healthy only as much as it
becomes an organism in itself – an individualized, diverse ecosystem
guided by the farmer, standing in living interaction with the larger
ecological, social, economic, and spiritual realities of which it is
part.”[14] To Steiner, organic farming was about the farmer becoming an
integral part of a natural, living, productive, regenerative system.

Sustainable farmers rely on green plants to capture and store solar energy
and to regenerate the organic matter and natural productivity of the soil.
They use crop rotations, cover crops, intercropping, managed grazing, and
integrated crop and livestock systems to manage pests and to maintain the
natural fertility of their soils. Sustainable farmers reflect a sense of
ethical and moral commitment to preserve the productivity of their land –
to leave it as good as or better than they found it. Many of today’s
industrial organic producers have adopted large-scale, specialized,
standardized systems, but sustainable organic farmers have remained
committed to creating a permanent agriculture capable of supporting a
permanent society.

Even though agriculture cannot generate enough renewable energy to replace
fossil fuels, a shift from industrial to sustainable agriculture could
reduce the dependence of food production on fossil energy. Shifting to a
vegetarian diet has been suggested as a means of reducing energy use in
agriculture, since most food crops are net energy producers and livestock
are net energy users. A vegetarian diet might cut the food energy
input/output ratio in half, since today’s meat animals are inefficient
converters of fossil energy into food energy. But the energy used and lost
in processing and distribution would still leave a deficit of about five
kcals of fossil energy to each kcal of food energy. [15] In addition, the
solar energy captured by pastures and forages are large net energy
producers, accounting for about of 80% of total solar energy captured by
agriculture. Meat is also a major source of food protein, much of which is
produced from pastures and forages. Most pastures and forages are grown on
land unsuitable for food crops, and pastures and forages cannot be digested
by humans. Thus, a vegetarian diet would sacrifice most of solar energy
currently captured by agriculture.

Significant fossil energy savings for sustainably produced livestock and
poultry might well be achievable without any significant reduction in
animal protein. Shifting from confinement livestock feeding to forage and
grass-based operations would be a more logical means of reducing the energy
used in animal agriculture. A shift to grass-based systems could save an
estimated 35% of total energy now used in beef, dairy, and lamb
production.[16] Sustainable grass-based livestock systems, utilizing
management intensive grazing, are capable of producing from 50% to 100%
more protein per acre than conventional pasture/forage system, while using
less fertilizer, pesticides, and fuel. Free-range and pasture-based pork
and poultry operations also are far more energy efficient that confinement
feeding operations. In addition, hogs and chickens are natural scavengers
and thus could get a significant portion of their diets from waste
products. The elimination of confinement animal feeding operations also
would result in significant social, environmental, and diet related
benefits, in addition to energy savings.

Sustainable crop production practices could reduce agricultural energy use
even farther. For example, recent research, based on more than 20 years of
data, indicates that shifting from conventional to organic farming
practices could save as much as 30% of the fossil energy used in cropping
systems, without reducing total production.[17] Changes in food processing
and distribution, such as increased use of raw and minimally processed
foods, more meals prepared at home, and a shift to more community-based,
local food systems, could increase the efficiency of energy use in food
marketing by comparable amounts.

Although no comprehensive studies have been done, shifting to a more
sustainable agricultural system, using currently available methods and
technologies, probably could cut total fossil energy use in agriculture as
much as one-half, resulting in a savings equivalent to about 3% of total
U.S. fossil energy use. Similar efficiencies in processing and distribution
could save an additional 6% or so in fossil energy use, but would still
leave total food production with an 8% fossil energy deficit. It seems
unlikely that agriculture will ever be able to produce more energy than
will be needed to meet the increasing food and fiber needs of people, but
sustainable agriculture could eventually make food production fossil-energy
independent. Such a goal is fundamentally incompatible with industrial
agriculture, which will continue to rely on non-renewable resources for
maximum short run productivity, until those resources are gone.

Many conventional farmers have considered sustainable agriculture to be a
niche market, okay for a few small, “fringe farmers” but not for
“mainstream agriculture.” Today, however, sustainable agriculture, by
its various names, is showing signs of becoming the new agricultural
mainstream. Organic foods first brought widespread attention to sustainable
agriculture when organic food sales grew by more than 20% per year
throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. In spite of this rapid growth,
organic foods still only account for about 2-3% of total food sales.
However, the potential market for sustainable/local foods now appears to be
far larger.

Various studies and surveys indicate that as many as one-third of American
consumers have core values consistent with the principles of
sustainability.[18] Thus, sustainable farmers today have an opportunity to
help create a new food production and marketing mainstream simply by
developing relationships with like-minded customers who share their same
core values. In addition, sustainable farmers are finding new allies as
more independent food processors, distributors, and retailers realize they
face the same kinds of challenges and have the same kinds of opportunities
as do independent family farmers.

In some cases, the initiative for creating the new sustainable food
mainstream is coming from the retail level. For example, New Seasons Market
is one of the fastest growing retail food chains in Portland, Oregon,
currently operating seven stores with plans to open at least nine. As Brian
Rohter, co-founder and president writes, “Three families and about fifty
of our friends decided in late 1999 that we wanted to create a business
that we could be proud of – a company that had a true commitment to its
community, to promoting sustainable agriculture and to maintaining a
progressive workplace.”[19] New Seasons markets look like other modern
food supermarkets, with delis, bakeries, and other amenities Americans have
come to expect. Once inside the store, the most noticeable difference is
that virtually every item in the store is labeled with respect to origin
and there is an organic and conventional option for nearly every food item.
In 2005, New Seasons started a new “Home Grown” program to promote
items produced in Washington, Oregon, and northern California and to buy as
many items as possibly from this region. In mid-2005, approximately 40% of
the products in their stores were coming from this “local” area.

Sometimes the initiative has come from farmers. For example, Good Natured
Family Farms is a cooperative made up of thirty-some farmers in
southeastern Kansas and southwestern Missouri. Diana Endicott, who farms
with her husband Mel, was the moving force in gaining access to Kansas City
supermarkets. Today, they market most of their products through Hen House
Markets, a 13-store supermarket chain operated by Ball Foods Inc., a family
corporation with a long history of community connections in Kansas City.
The cooperative owns and manages their own brand, which broke into the
market with premium, locally grown beef, but now includes an expanding line
of food products with chicken, eggs, sausages, and milk, with other
products in various stages of development.

Their website states, “We have three goals: Support local farmers by
providing them with a market for the food they raise, provide our customers
with fresh, natural foods raised humanely, without hormones or
sub-therapeutic antibiotics, and raise our beef, chicken, eggs, and milk in
a manner which protects and conserves the precious resources upon which
they rely.”[20] Diana also serves as marketing liaison between Ball Foods
and a number of other local growers providing a wide range of local
products. Their “Buy Fresh, Buy Local” campaign now accounts for more
than $4 million in annual sales of “local products.”

Heritage Acres Pork is produced by 52 family farmers throughout the state
of Missouri and processed by the Ozark Mountain Pork Cooperative, which was
recently certified by Humane Farm Animal Care to use the “Certified
Humane Raised and Handled” label on their products. The Heritage Acres
brand was developed by the Missouri Farmers Union Family Farm Opportunity
Center to promote Ozark Mountain Pork. The pork co-op, which now owns
processing facilities in Mountain View Mo, was started by a group of 34
family farmers. Heritage Acres Pork made its official debut in Associated
Wholesale Grocery food stores throughout southern Missouri in 2003 and now
collaborates with Niman Ranch in supplying pork to Chipotle restaurants and
Whole Foods supermarkets and markets directly to several upscale
restaurants in New York City. The Missouri Farmers Union website states,
“two hundred fifty pigs per week are being processed into high quality
pork products like hams, loins, smoked pork chops and a whole variety of
sausage products.”[21]

These are just three of many notable examples of people who are committed
to creating a new kind of sustainable/local food system. Others who are
leading the way include restaurants, both upscale and family diners;
institutions, such as public schools, universities, and prisons; and a wide
variety of farmers’ cooperative ventures. For example, more than 500
public school districts and 95 colleges and universities currently have
active programs to provide U.S. students with locally grown foods.[22]

The future of agriculture is in producing food for people, not fuel for
automobiles. There is nothing wrong with farmers reaping the short-term
benefits of government subsidies to provide liquid energy for an energy
addicted society, as long as they don’t lose sight of their future.
Production of ethanol and bio-diesel is just another industrial development
strategy that ultimately will result in the further exploitation of
farmland, farmers, and people of rural communities. Ultimately, the large
agribusinesses, such as ADM, and the large energy companies will control
ethanol and bio-diesel production and distribution. Those few farmers who
invested in the initial energy coops may make money. Eventually, however,
they either will be bought out or be driven out of business by larger
corporate competitors. Energy crops of the future will be produced under
comprehensive corporate contracts, with producers receiving just enough
money to put in another crop. Young people will continue to leave rural
areas and rural communities will continue to wither and die.

American society eventually must break its addiction to fossil energy and
farmers must break their addiction to government subsidies and corporate
domination. As fossil energy becomes increasingly scarce and expensive,
Americans eventually will realize that a fossil energy dependent
agriculture cannot replace fossil energy. As fossil energy becomes
increasingly scarce and expensive, Americans eventually also will realize
that the highest priority for agriculture must be to produce more food with
less non-renewable energy. America has perhaps a 50-year window of
opportunity to develop a sustainable, fossil-energy independent food
system.

It can be done. Many organic and sustainable farmers today produce just as
much per acre their industrial counterparts; they just have to put more of
themselves into the production process. It will not take more land but it
will take more farmers – more thinking, innovative, creative, caring
farmers. It will also take more caring food consumers who are willing to
pay the full ecological and social costs of sustainable food production.
And it will make more independent food processors and distributors willing
to work with farmers and consumers to build a more sustainable food system.
And all of this will take time. So now is the time to get serious about
creating the kind of agriculture that America must have to survive, after
fossil energy.
---------------------------------

[i] Presented at the Iowa Farmers Union Annual Conference, , Ankeny, IA,
August 25-26, 2006.

[ii] John Ikerd is Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
– USA; author of, Sustainable Capitalism: A Matter of Common Sense,
http://kpbooks.com; E-mail: JEIkerd@centurytel.net ; web site:
http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd .

[1] For the basics of  Peak Oil, see The Community Solution,
http://www.communitysolution.org/peakqanda.html

[2] Wikepedia, the free encyclopedia, “Hubbert Peak Theory,”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_peak

[3] Richard Heinberg, The Party’s Over: Oil War and the Fate of
Industrial Societies (Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers),
152.

[4] Heinberg, The Party’s Over, 111-112.

[5] Christopher Cook, “Business as Usual,” The American Prospect,
online edition, April 8, 2006,
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleI
d=11322

[6] From a presentation by David Pimentel, Cornell University, at Local
Solutions to Energy Dilemma, New York City, April 28-29, 2006. Revised to
account for increased energy use from earlier estimate of solar energy
collected as two-thirds of fossil energy use, published in David and Marcia
Pimentel, Food, Energy, and Society (Niwot, CO: University Press of
Colorado), 1996.

[7] Pimentel, Food, Energy, and Society.

[8] As reported by Alexei Barrionjevo, “It's Corn vs. Soybeans In A
Bio-fuels Debate,” New York Times, July 12, 2006.

[9] Pimentel, Food, Energy, and Society.

[10] For a more in- depth discussion of entropy, see John Ikerd,
Sustainable Capitalism: A Matter of Common Sense, Chapter 3 (Bloomfield,
CT: Kumarian Press Inc., 2005).

[11] For a more in- depth discussion of living systems, see Ikerd,
Sustainable Capitalism, Chapter 5.
[12] Sir Albert Howard. 1940. An Agricultural Testament. Oxford University
Press: Oxford, England. also in Small Farms Library
<http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/howardAT/ ATtoc.html>

[13] J. I. Rodale. 1948. The Organiculturist's Creed, Chapter 8. The
Organic Front. Rodale Press: Emmaus, PA, USA.
<http://www.soilandhealth.org/copyform.asp?bookcode=010133>

[14] Rudolph Steiner.1924. Spiritual Foundations for the Renewal of
Agriculture. Gardner, M. (1993) (ed). Bio Dynamic Farming and Gardening
Association of USA: Junction City, OR, USA. <http://www.biodynamics.com/
index.html>

[15] Pimentel, Food, Energy, and Society, 146.

[16] Based on estimates in Pimentel, Food, Energy, and Society.

[17] David Pimentel, Paul Hepperly, James Hanson, David Douds, and Rita
Seidel, 2005,“Environmental, Energetic, and Economic Comparisons of
Organic and Conventional Farming Systems,” BioScience, 55, No. 7:
573–582.

[18] The Hartman Report, a nationally respected source of market
information for natural food products, estimates that two groups of
consumers, the New Green Mainstream and True Naturals, represent prime
markets for natural foods and make up approximately 28 percent of all
American consumers. See Hartman Report: Food and the Environment – A
Consumer’s Perspective, 1999.
<http://www.hartman-group.com/products/reportnatsens.html>

[19] See New Seasons Market, <http://www.newseasonsmarket.com/>

[20] See Good Natured Family Farms, <http://goodnatured.net/>

[21] Missouri Farmers Union, Family Farm Opportunity Center,
http://missourifarmersunion.org/coop/ffcenter/ompc.htm

[22] For more information see, <http://www.farmtoschool.org>  and
<http://farmtocollege.org> and for case studies, see Agriculture of the
Middle, <http://www.agofthemiddle.org/archives/2004/09/case_studies.html>

[23] For additional discussion of entropy, see Ikerd, Sustainable
Capitalism, 2005.

[24] For a more in depth discussion of living systems, see Ikerd,
Sustainable Capitalism, Chapter 5.