Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Approaching The Collapse: Don’t Panic, Go Organic, By Ronnie Cummins
http://carolynbaker.net/2011/08/25/approaching-the-collapse-dont-panic-go-organic-by-ronnie-cummins/

So-called “business as usual” is neither sustainable, nor even possible, for 
much longer. Out-of-control energy corporations, Wall Street, the Pentagon, 
agribusiness/biotech corporations, and indentured politicians have driven us 
to the brink. They tell us: don’t worry; trust the experts, things will soon 
return to “normal.” But reality and common sense tell a different story.

Extreme weather, crop failures, commodities speculation, land grabs, 
escalating prices, soil degradation, depleted aquifers, routine 
contamination, food-related disease, and mass hunger represent the “new norm” 
for food and farming. The global agricultural system, with the exception of 
the rapidly growing organic sector, rests upon a shaky foundation. Patented 
seeds, genetically engineered crops, expensive and destructive chemical and 
energy-intensive inputs, factory farms, monoculture production, eroding 
soils, unsustainable water use, taxpayer subsidies, and long-distance hauling 
and distribution, including massive imports that amount to 15% of the U.S. 
food supply amount to a recipe for disaster.

A “perfect storm” or “ultimate recession” as described by Lester Brown in his 
new book, World on the Edge, could develop at any time, precipitated by 
extreme weather and crop failures on a massive scale. A growing number of 
nations, including the oil giants and China, are now scrambling to secure 
overseas farmland to feed their domestic populations. World grocers and 
supermarkets, including the U.S., have, on the average, only a four-day 
supply of food on hand. An oil shock, global disease pandemic, prolonged 
drought in the American heartland, or nuclear meltdown could set off a global 
food panic. Supermarket shelves and grain silos would be stripped bare within 
a short period of time. Have you thought about this? Are you and those in 
your local community ready for this?

Peak Food, Peak Oil, Peak Water, Peak Soil

World grain reserves amount to less than 75 days of supply. Harvests of 
strategic food grains and cereals have basically leveled off or even 
decreased, with enormous amounts of acreage now providing fuel for cars 
instead of food for people. At the same time, affordable fossil fuel energy 
supplies have peaked (Peak Oil), with the world increasingly dependent on 
“extreme” oil and natural gas extraction (deep sea and Arctic drilling, tar 
sands, and fracking), accelerating the prices of petroleum-based farm inputs, 
as well as food distribution and processing costs. Billions of people in the 
Global South are now spending 50-70% of their household income on food 
(although in the U.S. it is only 11%). Hydrologists and agronomists warn that 
Peak Water is fast approaching, when the already limited availability of 
water from underground aquifers for crop irrigation exponentially decreases. 
Peak Soil is also fast approaching, with soil erosion and desertification 
already degrading 25% of the earth’s land. Peak Soil is directly related to 
unsustainable farming and forestry practices, including heavy pesticide use, 
chemical fertilizers, genetically engineered mono-crops, and non-sustainable 
grazing and clear-cutting.  Meanwhile global population numbers (in direct 
relation to poverty and lack of education for women) and demand for food 
(especially meat and animal products) are accelerating.

Of course, we could go on and on, citing the ever more disturbing information 
we read every day in the mainstream media and on the Internet. But the life 
or death question is: what are we going to do about it?

Crash-Resistant and Climate-Friendly: The Organic Revolution

Fortunately, over the past 40 years, a new generation of organic farmers and 
ranchers have proliferated, building upon the wisdom and practices of 
indigenous and traditional farmers over the past 10,000 years. A growing 
corps of organic farmers and gardeners are producing increasing amounts of 
healthy, nutritious foods without the use of chemical fertilizers, 
pesticides, genetically engineered seeds, or animal drugs. At the same time, 
these 21st Century organic stewards of the land are consuming far less (50% 
or more) fossil fuels and water. Study after study has demonstrated that 
organic small farms in the developing world out-produce chemical and 
genetically engineered farms by a factor of two to one; while in the 
industrialized nations, sustainable organic yields are comparable in “normal” 
weather to industrial farms; but far superior (up to 50-70% higher) in times 
of drought or torrential rain, the types of extreme weather that have become 
the “new norm.”  In other words, not only can organic farming feed the world, 
but it is in fact the only way that we are going to be able to feed the world 
in this 21st Century era of energy, water, and climate crisis.

The burning question then becomes how do we build up a stronger Movement that 
can promote and scale up organic, local and regional-based systems of food 
and farming (while complimentary green Movements do the same in the energy, 
housing, and transportation sectors)? How can we, as quickly as possible, 
build up a critical mass of organic farms, gardens, seed banks, farm schools, 
and distribution networks in all the local regions of North America and 
world? We don’t have room in this essay to go into all the details, but here 
are a few things that millions of us are already starting to do, that are 
moving us forward and preparing us for survival in the likely eventuality of 
economic collapse.

(1)    Step-up public education and consciousness-raising. We have now 
crossed a major threshold of raising public awareness: the majority of 
Americans say they prefer organic food, for a variety of health, 
environmental, and ethical reasons. After forty years of public education and 
campaigning, organic foods and products are the fastest growing items in 
America’s grocery carts. Thirty million households, comprising 75 million 
people, are now buying organic foods and other products on a regular basis. 
Fifty-six percent of U.S. consumers say they prefer organic foods, citing a 
wide variety of reasons that we and the Organic Movement have taught them. 
Millions of young people and urban residents are starting to learn organic 
farming and gardening techniques.

(2)    Step-up the campaign against industrial agriculture and genetic 
engineering. The more we educate people about the hazards of chemical and 
energy-intensive food and farming and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), 
the greater the demand for organic foods and products, and the greater the 
number of new organic farmers, young organic farm apprentices, and urban 
organic gardeners (now 12 million-strong). The Achilles heel or weakest link 
of industrial agriculture is truthful labeling: consumers right to know. If 
toxic pesticides, chemicals and genetically engineered ingredients are 
labeled, consumers will not buy them, retailers will not sell them, and 
farmers will not grow them. Even though Washington has fallen under the 
control of Monsanto and corporate agribusiness, we can still change public 
policies at the state and local level, with grassroots-powered ballot 
initiatives and state legislation. Even though we live in Monsanto Nation, we 
can still bring down Goliath.

(3)    Link up with other Movements, local to global. Reducing global poverty 
and war and stabilizing the climate go hand-in-hand. The best way to reduce 
global rural poverty, conflict, and war is through land reform and 
sustainable organic farming practices. With land reform and technical 
assistance, millions of organic farms in the Global South can develop and 
prosper, helping the world’s poorest people, especially women, to produce far 
more food with less or no fossil fuel or chemical inputs. This organic 
revolution will enable several billion peasants and rural villagers to rise 
up from poverty and reduce the unsustainable population growth that 
accompanies abject poverty. At the same time, one of the best ways to reduce 
fossil fuel use and naturally sequester climate-destabilizing greenhouse 
gases is to change our current land use practices, to go organic. For 10,000 
years indigenous people and traditional farmers fed the world with organic 
farming and animal husbandry practices. By converting the world’s 12 billion 
acres of farmland and pasture land back to organic soil management we will be 
creating, instead of destroying, soil fertility, as well as restoring the 
soil food web’s amazing ability to permanently sequester enormous amounts of 
climate destabilizing CO2 through increased plant photosynthesis. With 
organic soil management spreading across the world’s 12 billion acres of 
farmland and pastureland, and a global mobilization to replant the 10 billion 
acres of forest that industry and agribusiness have destroyed, we can 
literally reverse global warming, bringing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 
back down to a safe level of 350 parts per million from the current dangerous 
level of 390 ppm.

The hour is late, but there is still time to prepare ourselves and our 
communities before the economy collapses. Educate yourself and get active. 
Start to make preparations for an end to “business as usual.” Step up your 
efforts. Help link the issues and different constituencies in the body 
politic. Don’t panic. Go organic.

Ronnie Cummins is the National Director of the Organic Consumers Association.