Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[<pbunch@cox.net>]

The whole argument on using less meat and dairy is based on the assumption 
that we can do things to reduce human-induced impacts and our personal and 
societal footprints.  These arguments are put forth by people who have not 
given up hope and who believe that we need to work together to develop 
workable, just solutions. 

As Paul said their are ways to raise meat and milk that may be within a 
reasonable individual footprint, at least for rural residents with enough 
land.

Now, climbing up on my soap box...

Personally I don't think that a survivalist, rugged independence model has 
legs. Humans are quite good at getting together in a clear-cut crisis and 
doing whatever is necessary to get what they want or need. It may be that if 
one was located far enough away from urban or even town centers the 
independent model might work in a very sudden crash. It is very unlikely 
however that all technological support will come to a grinding halt 
overnight. Decline and decay is a lot like death from cancer, often slow and 
ugly.  A more likely situation is the formation of gangs or militias that use 
scarcity to profit. Some people have adequate leadership qualities to form 
and maintain need based organizations. Here in Colombia we have a lot of 
experience with how this kind of organization operates in rural settings. 
They are very effective and ruthless. They control territories and extort 
what they want. Resistance is generally met by making examples. If you doubt 
the human capacity for such organization and methodology in your own area 
just look to the inner cities. 

IMHO we will do ourselves a favor by finding social solutions which maintain 
the rule of law. This will require a major effort and some of the choices to 
be made are not attractive to everyone. If there is to be any hope here, 
impact reduction is required. The cities are not going away and they are not 
going to allow the rural areas to live in relative well-being while they 
suffer. The time to start finding workable solutions without throwing up ones 
hands and throwing in the towel is now. These solutions include but are not 
limited to: major impact reduction, development of a steady state economy, 
urban food growing (probably insufficient by itself), redistribution of some 
percentage of the urban population to the countryside, protection of soils 
and established ag lands, optimization of long-term agricultural production 
levels, equitable distribution of the food which is grown, voluntary 
reduction of material consumption, development of non-material means of 
flourishing.

I have no idea of the actual chances of success. Some here will say they are 
nil. However, sticking ones head in the sand and surviving the collapse of 
ones society appears to me to be a very low probability event. Some small 
percentage may survive but the kind of life they inherit is most likely to be 
unacceptable. It may well be that they will deserve what they get for 
abandoning the rest of their fellow human beings without a reasonable effort 
to solve the problems we all are responsible for having created.

The skills being developed by people on this list are going to be crucial to 
a viable future particularly n the "developed" countries. In the under 
developed countries there is at least a reasonable number of people who 
remember how to live outside the cities and who can teach others how to do 
so.  This list is a loose community and can make significant contributions. 
Strong communities are needed and IMHO will be the saving grace if one exists.

Phil Bunch
Medellin/Piedras Blancas, Colombia






---- Tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net> wrote: 
> 
> Thanks, John. Let's note first that what you (and others) do in Ireland 
> with your animals is nothing like the CAFOs in the U.S. You don't crowd 
> enormous herds in corporate feedlots and feed corporate corn to fatten for 
> slaughter for our consumption three meals a day seven days a week, and you 
> grow them for your own needs and do your own processing - no corporate 
> middlemen screwing it all up and selling us E.coli. And if we did the same 
> as you then we could just use meat European style, mainly bits here and 
> there to flavor dishes, needing only the meat and dairy produced locally 
> and saving millions of acres now in corn to grow food for people.
> 
> >Unfortunately it is clear to us that if people wanted to start doing the
> >same thing that it would be very difficult to do in troubled times. We
> >reccon it takes about two years run in time to do everything needed and at
> >the moment it may already be too late to start and solve all problems
> >before
> >TSHTF.
> 
> I'm afraid so. If people find it's too hard to start growing now, it'll be 
> impossible when things get worse. It takes some investment of time and 
> money and both will be in short supply if this "recession" deepens, and the 
> "recovery" cheerleaders keep lying to prop up the stock market and keep us 
> in debt with jobless claims still rising and wages dropping and safety net 
> programs being shredded by states in red ink.
> 
> Another point: rennet is a good lesson. Learning to grow and preserve and 
> process takes years. I know. People didn't pay attention when their 
> grandparents told tales of the Depression and how they got by. The 
> so-called "greatest generation" blew it big time and lost the skills and 
> knowledge to live simply and frugally. The younger generation must start 
> from scratch now. They will get blisters and backache. Get used to it.
> 
> But there I differ on TSHTF. It's my hope that the gradualists (like 
> Dimitri Orlov) are right, that we won't just wake up some fine morning to 
> find our world is out of fuel and the store shelves are empty. That there 
> will be time for many to relearn and redisccover what's been lost. 
> Otherwise I'm wasting my time maintaining this list. Yet it's totally 
> encouraging to see so many different people taking part, posting things of 
> concern, staying on topic and discussing intelligently (and yes, even 
> disagreeing with yours truly). That's what it takes to learn. We can't 
> figure it all out by ourselves, can we.
> 
> paul tradingpost@lobo.net
> ------------------------------------------
> 
> Many types of jobs will cease to exist: public relations executive, 
> marketing directors, et cetera. I think work will be very hands-on, and a 
> lot of it will revolve around food production.
>     -- James Howard Kunstler, 2003
> 
> How do you move from a system which has built in destruction of the planet 
> and built in devastation for local communities and local economies and 
> transition back to systems which formerly worked and new environmentally 
> sustainable systems? That’s the project of our time.
>  - Jerry Mander
> 
> When I speak of these two phases of systemic collapse, what I mean is that 
> we concern ourselves over whether the waitress will bring the food promptly 
> enough, but we omit to ask if there is any food to be brought.
> -- Jan Lundberg
> 
> 
> 
> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
> 
> On 6/21/2010 at 11:12 PM John D'hondt wrote:
> 
> >Tommy,
> >I really don't think the difference in carbon foot print between
> >vegetables,
> >grains, soy bean or dairy and meat is of the slightest importance. When
> >TSHTF large scale agriculture is going to stop, shops will go empty and
> >transport will slow down to a snail's crawl.
> >This means that most people will start to starve at that stage and that
> >anything that is edible will be eaten. Maybe there are a few of us capable
> >of producing food for more people than ourselves but none of us can feed
> >even the nearest small town for very long.
> >
> >We have a few things happening at the moment that could very well, each on
> >their own, mean the end of our species and every single day of the week I
> >get several mails to that effect. Taken all together I think mankind has
> >no
> >chance at all. Maybe a good thing too because we are not a good species to
> >have around in fragile space ship Earth.
> >
> >The hopeful detail though is that when our numbers go very low we might
> >just
> >pull of to come out as a better, improved species.
> >
> >And why should "we" not have access to meat and dairy. Without going into
> >details, I fully expect my family will have plentiful access to just that.
> >We milk two cows and five goats by hand, produce our own rennet. Make 3
> >two
> >kilo hard rounds of cheese per week, butter, kefir and soft cheese as much
> >as we want. What is most important is the knowledge of how to do things
> >and
> >we do have that.
> >Unfortunately it is clear to us that if people wanted to start doing the
> >same thing that it would be very difficult to do in troubled times. We
> >reccon it takes about two years run in time to do everything needed and at
> >the moment it may already be too late to start and solve all problems
> >before
> >TSHTF. It took us 5-6 years to solve the rennet problem for instance. The
> >amount of nonsense written about this subject is enormous and it simply
> >does
> >not work.
> >john
> >
> >> Does this study remain valid when/if Peak Oil, climate change, and
> >> economic collapse are factored into its assumptions?  Meat and dairy
> >> have a lot more of a carbon footprint than vegetables, especially from
> >> established beds, unless we're talking about homestead chickens/rabbits,
> >> etc.
> >>
> >> What the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is teaching us, too late, is
> >> that there is not a way to safely produce deepwater oil with current
> >> technology.  BP spends $1 billion/month cleaning up and trying to plug
> >> the well they let get away from them.  Ocean-going ships are no longer
> >> able to access Mississippi River grain export facilities.  After this
> >> thing ripples through Gulf state economies, the tens of millions of
> >> refugees will make the Katrina diaspora look insignificant.  Richard
> >> Heinberg today on Energy Bulletin.net says BP's mess may take down the
> >> US (and harm the British) economy
> >> http://www.energybulletin.net/node/53168.  Over time, Richard has been
> >> near 100% correct in his predictions.
> >>
> >> The only reason BP's drilling in mile (or more) deep water is because
> >> the easily gotten commercially viable shallow water and land deposits
> >> are gone, meaning cheap oil is gone, which is what Peak Oil always
> >> meant.  When oil goes over $80/barrel, the US economy staggers, and
> >> Michael Ruppert says we'll have $200/barrel by the end of this summer
> >> because BP is deepwater drilling's Three Mile Island.  Ruppert says he's
> >> right 80% of the time.
> >>
> >> What this seems to indicate, to me, is that we will be eating whatever
> >> the immediate twenty miles or so produces, and a significant portion of
> >> that will be what we can produce ourselves.  Keeping our diets healthy
> >> may become a challenge.
> >>
> >> It seems certain, however, that we will not have the access to meat and
> >> dairy that this study assumes.
> >>
> >> Smiles.
> >> Tommy
> >>
> >> On 6/20/10 1:47 PM, pbunch@cox.net wrote:
> >>> This Cornell study indicates that largely vegetarian diets with small
> >>> amounts of meat and dairy products may provide more effective land use
> >>> than vegan diets.
> >>>
> >>> http://tinyurl.com/332pxro
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