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  • From: "Lynn Montgomery" <sunfarm@toast.net>
  • To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Running dry
  • Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:45:58 -0600

Some flies in the ointment:
Water is a very heavy substance. It takes a lot of energy to inject and then
pump from an aquifer.
Growing high value crops and trading for staples depends on an energy
intensive shipping industry.
Water scarcity, global warming, and peak oil are starting to demand that
production occur locally, utilizing only local resources.
If we are going to consume meat and other thirsty products, we are going to
have to produce them ourselves in the future.
Money will not be necessary to obtain food in the future, but barter goods
will. Instead of 2% of us producing food, 80% of us will be producing food
and other agricultural products. Another 18% will use these products to
produce value added goods for local barter. 2% will be lawyers, doctors,
teachers, and other professionals. They won't get paid (receive goods in
trade) anymore than anyone else.
Looks like we are going to have to grow our own fuel for tractors and other
critically necessary machines to produce locally. Alcohol is the only
alternative to run these on a local basis. Water must be allocated to
produce these and local fuel to run the stills must be gathered. (firewood
and other forest waste, etc.) Solar energy must be built now to provide
power for local mills.
A general dependence on the global markets will ultimately result in failure
to provide sufficient food and other agricultural products for local
sustainability and communities, the only way out of, as David Letterman
quipped the other night; "we're dead meat". Otherwise, prepare for a
"Terminator" world. Here in Las Huertas Valley, we are looking at going back
to a "carretera de burro" or donkey cart society, which is how it was done
here until recently.
All these folks trying to offer "solutions" need to think things through
better and further. Back to picking tomatoes for afternoon market.....
Lynn at Sun Farm, NM

----- Original Message -----
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Sent: Friday, September 19, 2008 11:21 AM
Subject: Livingontheland Digest, Vol 160, Issue 5


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Today's Topics:

1. Running dry (Tradingpost)
2. Re: Livingontheland Digest, Vol 160, Issue 4 (Dan Conine)


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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:38:45 -0600
From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
Subject: [Livingontheland] Running dry
To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
Message-ID: <200809181238450593.0CED1609@mail.lobo.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"



Running dry
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12260907
Sep 18th 2008
>From The Economist print edition
The world has a water shortage, not a food shortage

MOST people may drink only two litres of water a day, but they consume about
3,000 if the water that goes into their food is taken into account. The rich
gulp down far more, since they tend to eat more meat, which takes far more
water to produce than grains. So as the world?s population grows and incomes
rise, farmers will?if they use today?s methods?need a great deal more water
to keep everyone fed: 2,000 more cubic kilometres a year by 2030, according
to the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), a research centre,
or over a quarter more than they use today. Yet in many farming regions,
water is scarce and likely to get scarcer as global warming worsens. The
world is facing not so much a food crisis as a water crisis, argues Colin
Chartres, IWMI?s director-general.

The solution, Mr Chartres and others contend, is more efficient use of water
or, as the sloganeers put it, ?more crop per drop?. Some 1.2 billion people,
about a fifth of the world?s population, live in places that are short of
water (see map). Farming accounts for roughly 70% of human water
consumption. So when water starts to run out, as is happening in northern
China, southern Spain and the western United States, among other places,
farming tends to offer the best potential for thrift. But governments,
whether to win votes or to protect the poor, rarely charge farmers a market
price for water. So they are usually more wasteful than other consumers?even
though the value they create from the water is often less than households or
industry would be willing to pay for it.

The pressing need is to make water go further. Antoine Fr?rot, the head of
the water division of Veolia Environnement, a French firm, promotes
recycling, whereby city wastewater is treated until it can be used in
industry or agriculture. This costs about a third less than desalination,
and cuts pollution. He expects his recycling business to quadruple in the
next decade.

Yet as Mr Fr?rot himself concedes, there are many even cheaper ways to save
water. As much as 70% of water used by farmers never gets to crops, perhaps
lost through leaky irrigation channels or by draining into rivers or
groundwater. Investment in drip irrigation, or simply repairing the worst
leaks, could bring huge savings.

Farmers in poor countries can usually afford such things only if they are
growing cash crops, says David Molden of IWMI. Even basic kit such as small
rainwater tanks can be lacking. Ethiopia, for example, has only 38 cubic
metres of storage capacity per inhabitant, compared to almost 5,000 in
Australia. Yet modest water storage can hugely improve yields in rain-fed
agriculture, by smoothing over short dry spells. Likewise, pumping water
into natural aquifers for seasonal storage tends to be much cheaper than
building a big dam, and prevents the great waste of water through
evaporation.

Even when water is scarce, it is often squandered. Mr Molden cites the
example of cotton-farmers in Uzbekistan, who used to receive a fixed
allocation of water for irrigation whether they needed it or not, in a
holdover from the days of Soviet central planning. Simply putting farmers in
control of the irrigation network, and allowing them to decide how much
water they needed, cut consumption by 30%.
Science Photo Library Cotton paying a high price for water

Similarly, rice farmers can sharply cut water consumption by flooding paddy
fields only some of the time. Wheat growers in hot places such as India and
Australia can conserve water by minimising tilling, leaving a layer of mulch
on the fields? surface to absorb rainwater and limit evaporation. In arid
regions like the Middle East, Mark Zeitoun of the London School of Economics
suggests substituting thirsty crops such as oranges with more abstemious
olives and dates. Ideally, countries that are short of water would
concentrate on growing the most valuable cash crops, and use the proceeds to
import staples.

Agronomists are beginning to devise tools to help monitor the efficiency of
water use. Some have designed algorithms that use satellite data on surface
temperatures to calculate the rate at which plants are absorbing and
transpiring water. That allows governments and development agencies to
concentrate their efforts on the most prodigal areas.

But efficient use of water, cautions Pasquale Steduto of the United Nations?
Food and Agriculture Organisation, is just one step to better agricultural
yields. Even if farmers use the right amount of water they also need decent
seeds and enough fertiliser. In Africa in particular, these and other
factors such as pest control, storage and distribution are a bigger drag on
yields than a shortage of water.

Raising yields does not always involve greater water consumption, especially
when farms are inefficient. It would take little extra water to double
cereal output in many parts of Africa, Mr Molden argues. IWMI reckons that
some three-quarters of the extra food the world needs could be provided
simply by bringing yields in poor countries closer to those of rich ones.
That is more palatable than the puritanical alternative: giving up meat and
other thirsty products altogether.




------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:02:37 -0500
From: "Dan Conine" <dconine@bertramwireless.com>
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Livingontheland Digest, Vol 160, Issue
4
To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID:
<d65f79ed742d4d2cacb8ae221f134494@mail.bertramwireless.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

"Lawren Pulse" wrote:

"I like this thinking but what does 40% of the necessity of living mean?
How
do we get that #? I know we used to spend 25% of our paychecks on food in
the 50's but wondering how we get 40%? Thanks!"
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The 40% number is the amount of income spent on food in the 1920 era.
The 1950's are misleading because food was already being produced from
petroleum, and the food production had been industrialized during WWII to
quite an extent.

Dan


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