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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Global Food Supply Near the Breaking Point

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  • From: Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>
  • To: permaculture list <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Global Food Supply Near the Breaking Point
  • Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 10:19:36 -0700

On 5/18/06 9:46 AM, "jamie" <souscayrous@wanadoo.fr> wrote:

> farming naturally (using hand tools) is 50-100 times more energy
> efficient than modern mechanized agriculture. The end of oil is the end of
> oil but it is not the end of food.

Jamie,

Natural Farming/Hazelip/permaculture techniques could probably feed 6-9
billion. But I can't imagine that happening in time. Right now, billions are
fed by industrial mega-farms using huge tractors, etc, etc. All that fossil
fuel would need to be replaced by human labor. To convert those billions of
acres into natural farms means moving hundreds of millions of people out of
the world's cities and onto the land, redistributing most of the
privately-owned corporate land on the planet, building a hundred million new
houses for all of those new farmers, and so forth. I am not optimistic about
getting that done in a generation or two. It's a lovely, lovely dream that I
earnestly hope for instead of the Malthusian nightmare. But I fear it will
remain a dream, regardless of how many of us here hold it in our minds and
work toward it with our hands.

Toby
www.patternliteracy.com








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