Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - [Livingontheland] The 4 Major Threats To industrialized Agriculture --

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] The 4 Major Threats To industrialized Agriculture --
  • Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2010 20:19:08 -0600


"The question to challenge policy makers today is this, "What kind of
system will we need when crude costs $300 per barrel? Since our current
industrial agriculture model is based upon cheap energy, this is his number
one concern. Fertilizers, pesticides, equipment manufacturing and operation,
all rely upon cheap fossil fuels. When the cost of fossil fuels goes up,
farming costs skyrocket. In Iowa, anhydrous ammonia went from $200 per ton to
more than $1,000 per ton almost overnight when energy prices peaked in 2008.
Farmers cannot operate profitably under such high input cost conditions."
~~~~~~~~~~

The 4 Major Threats To industrialized Agriculture --
Fred Kirschenmann Speaks
http://www.countercurrents.org/kalpa180910.htm
By Kalpa 18 September, 2010
Big Picture Agriculture

On September 3, 2010 I was fortunate to become acquainted with Fred
Kirschenmann, a visionary in the field of agriculture. He spoke at the
University of Colorado's "Local Foodshed Commons" conference which was
sponsored, in part, by Transition Colorado.

Who is Fred Kirschenmann?

Fred Kirschenmann considers himself to be a philosopher and a farmer, holding
a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Chicago. He was an organic
farming pioneer, who transformed his family farm in North Dakota to certified
organic back in 1980. The farm is a natural prairie livestock grazing system
that combines a nine-crop rotation of cereal grains, forages, and green
manure.

Kirschenmann is a Distinguished Fellow for the Leopold Center for Sustainable
Agriculture at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. He is President of Stone
Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, New York, also the
site of the renowned eat-local Blue Hill Café. He holds and has held numerous
other offices and appointments, including positions with the USDA, and in
academia as Dean of Curry College in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 1995, Kirschenmann was profiled in an award-winning video, “My Father's
Garden,” by Miranda Productions, Inc. A quote worth noting from the movie
producer is this..."Food cannot grow forever on a damaged earth, but Fred's
lesson is that we can bring health and beauty back into the Garden, if we are
willing to cooperate with nature's infinite intelligence. This wisdom holds
the secret to our children's future."

In 2010, Kirschenmann published a book, Cultivating an Ecological Conscience:
Essays from a Farmer Philosopher (Culture of the Land). To quote Michael
Pollan about the book, "Fred is one of the wisest, sanest, most practical,
and most trusted voices in the movement to reform the American food system."

His Organic Farm in North Dakota

When his dad became ill in 1976, Fred went back home and turned the operation
into a certified organic farm in 1980. This 3,500 acre farm is currently
being transitioned to a younger farmer, using the state owned bank of North
Dakota. This bank, formed in the populist/socialist days of the 1930's and
the only one of its kind in the nation, now has a policy offering loans to
beginning farmers at a rate of less than two percent annual. The program is
already having a positive impact. Fred says that he is planning ahead by
helping his follower get established to buy and takeover the farm for "when I
go off to meet with the microbes".

His list of the Largest Problems Facing Agriculture:

1-Energy constraints

The question to challenge policy makers today is this, "What kind of system
will we need when crude costs $300 per barrel? Since our current industrial
agriculture model is based upon cheap energy, this is his number one concern.
Fertilizers, pesticides, equipment manufacturing and operation, all rely upon
cheap fossil fuels. When the cost of fossil fuels goes up, farming costs
skyrocket. In Iowa, anhydrous ammonia went from $200 per ton to more than
$1,000 per ton almost overnight when energy prices peaked in 2008. Farmers
cannot operate profitably under such high input cost conditions. The Leopold
Center expects crude oil to cost $200 per barrel in 4-5 years and $400 in
5-10 years.

Increases in energy costs are also a factor in local food production. This is
a complex issue since a small farmer driving his produce fifty miles to his
nearest farmer's market can use relatively more energy than a full semi-truck
of produce driving half-way across this country.

2-Water Availability

We have been drawing down our water supplies at an unsustainable rate. We
have aggravated the water availability problem by ignoring soil health using
industrialized systems. There are four main areas on the planet which are
growing grain using rainfed agriculture. They are the central U.S., Brazil,
Argentina, and edges of China.

Often, the population density areas match these same rainfed agricultural
regions as displayed in the following map. [source]

The two main population centers, China and India are drawing down their water
quickly. China, which relies upon irrigation for 80 percent of its grain
production draws its aquifers down about ten feet per year and is drawing at
depths of 1,000 feet in some places. India depends upon irrigation for 60
percent of its grain production and is drawing down aquifers at twenty feet
per year to depths of 2,000 feet some places.

According to Kirschenmann, in the U.S., where 20 percent of our grain
production is dependent upon irrigation, we have depleted our Ogallala
aquifer by one-half since 1960. We are drawing it down at a rate 1.3 trillion
gallons faster than it can be replaced.

His water challenge is to use half as much water as we do now and refocus on
soil health so we farm in healthy soils which have the ability to retain
water.

3-Climate Change

The latest thinking is that changes in climate probably won't be gradual.
Local eating will not solve extreme weather events effects upon agricultural
production. To learn more, he encourages us to read the book, "The End of the
Long Summer: Why We Must Remake Our Civilization to Survive on a Volatile
Earth" by Dianne Dumanoski.

4-Ecological Degradation

Under this category he is concerned about the destruction of biodiversity,
especially of previously healthy soils. The Rodale Institute tested water
retention of soils according to content of organic matter and mulch and found
that healthy soils containing organic matter retain much greater volumes of
water. According to the Rodale Institute, soil containing 1% organic matter
absorbs 33 pounds of water and 5% retains 135 pounds of water. He compared
this to the irony of Monsanto wanting drought resistant seeds when the answer
is in the soil quality, which same soil has been destroyed through the system
embraced by Monsanto.

Kirschenmann referenced Dirt! The movie for learning more about soil.

Deborah Koons Garcia was present and joined him in a panel discussion about
her upcoming movie, Symphony of the Soil, which was previewed earlier during
"Eat Local" week here in Boulder.

Due to industrial agriculture systems, we have lost 75% of crop diversity
over one-hundred years, and we've lost 33% of our animal species. To learn
more, Kirschenmann recommends the book, "Where Our Food Comes From: Retracing
Nikolay Vavilov's Quest to End Famine" by Gary Paul Nabhan.

Also, he mentions population stress with the prediction of 9 billion people
by 2050, as well as the loss of human capital in farming in industrialized
areas which are now comprised of overwhelmingly aged farmers.
~~~~~

In the next part of the talk, Kirschenman listed his reasons for optimism.

The Good News:

1-We are in a food revolution.

The next generation sees the world differently. The older people alive today
wanted to control the world. The new generation wants to work with it.
Through his work at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in New
York, he sees the many great young people working there who want to grow real
food (not corn and soy). Seventy percent of them are now engaged in full time
agriculture.

The problem is in the system, not the desire of the people. He stated that
everyone now accepts the fact that government is dysfunctional so any change
will happen from a grass roots level and that is, indeed, happening in the
agriculture and food movement. He gave the positive example of people's
actions being that there are now two CSA's in Pennsylvania which have reached
annual sales of more than one million dollars in sales annually.

2-How Change Happens

He referenced the book, "Smart World: Breakthrough Creativity And the New
Science of Ideas" by Richard Ogle. When people are dissatisfied with the
current model, they embrace new ideas. The book uses the cubism style in art
style a historical example. The book discusses the science of networks and
new idea spaces. Ultimately, however, it's nature that rules, not humans, and
not technology.

3-There is a difference between hope, optimism, and pessimism.

"Neither optimists nor pessimists help. Optimists think everything will turn
out OK. Pessimists assume it won't. It's the hopeful people that we need."

4-The Concept of the Foodshed.

This concept didn't catch on until the food crisis of 2008. The foodshed is a
model like a watershed. Growing food has to be appropriate to its locality or
place. He referenced a Huffington Post article by Scott Stringer who wrote
about the New York City Foodshed economics.

As an example of the benefit of keeping the economics of government school
food spending local, Stringer suggested, "Just to give an example, twenty
percent of the annual budget for the city's $435 million school food programs
alone would mean an investment of more than $80 million in producers within
the New York City foodshed."

Feeding an area is the No. 1 priority in a foodshed. Exports and imports are
the second priority.

Also...

In regards to the recent Salmonella scare from mega-farm egg production and
beef E. coli breakouts, he cited the book Normal Accidents: Living with
High-Risk Technologies by Charles Perrow of Yale. Perrow says that accidents
happen but we need to organize systems so that accidents don't become
catastrophes.

When asked whether the world would be better off if everyone were vegetarian,
Kirschenmann answered that animals are an important part of a food production
system and he does not know of any ecological models without animals that
works as well. The waste of one species becomes the food for another. "We
need animals in the system. Vegetarians are good, though. We need grazers."

He sees the difficulty of the economic barrier of starting to farm by younger
people a big problem. "How does the younger generation start farming these
days? Iowa farmland now costs $5,000/acre. Add new equipment totaling one
million dollars. What would happen if a young person went to a banker and
said, 'I want to borrow three million dollars to start farming and I will
have no net income.' What will the banker say?"

Kirschenmann quoted his friend, Bill Heffernan, who says the slogan for
industrial agriculture should be "just eat it". Another quote he likes is by
Paul Thompson, who says our goal now is to "Produce as much as possible
regardless of cost."






  • [Livingontheland] The 4 Major Threats To industrialized Agriculture --, Tradingpost, 09/18/2010

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page