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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Running dry
  • Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2008 22:17:46 -0600


I agree -- surprise ;-) I see this as a gradual process, but it's already
under way. Those scientific "solutions" they keep coming up with just don't
take in the big picture, do they. But the water problems can't be separated
from the food industry which can't be separated from declining oil and an
imploding economy. We predicted this trend months ago before Wall Street woke
up to the bubble.

For a mainstream capitalist source like The Economist to promote less tillage
and more mulch, however, is significant. But we don't expect a pillar of high
finance to understand about relocalizing our economic life. As you say, Back
to picking tomatoes for afternoon market.....


paul, tradingpost@lobo.net

"The ignorance of mainstream America only makes it easier for the well
informed to rise above the masses and make some serious changes for the
better. "
-- Mike Adams
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 9/19/2008 at 11:45 AM Lynn Montgomery wrote:

>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
>

>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.
>
>






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