permaculture

["Forest Garden" <forestgarden@gvtc.com>]

Hi Jerome,

I am keenly aware the conclusions are not optimistic as I live here and am
committed to my community.  You stated

> .. I am wondering how real (the conclusions written about) are, as it
seems to me that they are
> not really taking into account the adaptability of humans and the
> power of community. If we look at the Cuba example, when peak oil
> (due to the loss of Soviet oil) suddenly fell upon the island in
> 1990, people not only survived, but thrived

First of all, yes, there is an incredable amount of ingenuity in humans, but
the facts of the basic resources available still remain.  We chose the
bio-intensive method for our basic analysis of what food could be grown
because it is one of the highest efficiency methods for sustainable food
producing known.  Perhaps you could get some more gain out of another method
or some really interesing ways to grow food, but you absoluely have to have
some area, oranic matter, experience, seeds, and water - in addition to a
lot of creativity, hard work, and community connectedness.  Each of the
million or so people needs to eat about 2000 calories a day.  The analysis I
presented shows the facts of what resources are here in our area.  And yes,
it is sobering.

The second response I have is towards your comments about the sucesses in
Cuba.  Yes, the Cuban story is quite impressive, and often brought up in
permaculture circles as an example.  But it is not very relevant to the
situation in the United States.  When the Soviet Union collapsed it cutoff
oil, fertilizer, and other petroleum products to not only Cuba, but also to
North Korea.  The example of what happened in North Korea is perhaps much
more relevant to the Untied States than Cuba.  By Castro's efforts, Cuba had
for decades in advance been converting land into owner cooperative
agriculutral farms.  Cuba's basic story was  going form conventional
agriculture to organic ag.  North Korea was much more like a developed
industiral country with large scale agriculture and highly dependant cities.
It is estimated that over 3 million people died in North Korea as the food
systems dependant on fossil feuls collapsed.

For a more detailed discussion on the two examples see the article "Drawing
Lessons From Experience; The Agricultural Crisis in Cuba and North Korea
Parts I and II" located at

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/111703_korea_cuba_1.html

By its nature, this topic is a very difficult to discuss.  And I would
sincerely appreciate comments after you've read the article.

At a personal level, my family has been working very, very hard for the past
three years to establish a small family farm to simply feed ourselves.  The
undertaking is massive with the amount of fossil feuls we have used so far,
and we are still a few years away from serious production.  As another
example, Lawrence recently explained what he did to get four acres into high
production.  The amount of fuel he used, and the energy he put into it
personally, was substantial.  In Central Texas, these kinds of inputs and
efforts cannot be replicated enough times over to support the current
population as we simply don't have the resources.  And if we try to go much
further out to find resources, we run into the needs of even bigger cities
like San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas.

It not a shortage of human ingenuity and community - its much more basic
than that.

Marjory














----- Original Message -----
From: "Jerome Rigot" <rigot.3@osu.edu>
To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, May 19, 2006 8:57 AM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Global Food Supply Near the Breaking Point


> Hi Marjory,
>
> Your conclusions are not very optimistic.
>
(check
> http://www.communitysolution.org/ for additional info and for the video).
>
> Havana is a large city, probably over 1 million people, and according
> to your conclusions, it should not have been able to sustain the
> people inhabiting the city. But they were sustained, and one way
> people were able to survive was by developing community gardens,
> square-foot gardens, container gardens, roofs gardens, etc... all
> over the city, creating a local urban agriculture and local urban economy.
>
> So, would this be impossible to happen in Texas?
>
> Jerome
>
> At 09:08 AM 5/19/2006, you wrote:
> >A small group here in Central Texas did some analysis on what would it
take
> >to grow enough food locally for the existing 1 million population that is
in
> >Travis County.  You know the 'lets all start a victory garden' scenario?
> >The Jeavons bio-intneisve method of food production was assumed along
with a
> >vegetarian diet.  From the bio-intensive method, 40 beds per person are
> >needed which amount to 4,000 sq.ft.  We assumed each household could
garden
> >800 sq.ft. at home (actually a bit optimistic and would require cutting
down
> >a lot of trees, but close to real), and all available park land, other
> >public lands, greenbelts, vacant land, and exisitng ag land was converted
to
> >bio-intensive gardens (not potlitically possible but the resources are
> >there).  Well, there wasn't enough land, so then it was scaled it down to
> >each person only having the 12 bio-intensive growing beds (in
bio-intensive
> >12 beds are for actively growing and the remining 28 are for compost and
> >fertility crops).  The assumption being that the compost crops could come
> >from somewhere else - that is not really very realixstic, but worth
looking
> >at.  We still had only about half of the acreage we would need.
> >
> >Then we looked at the other big requirements - compost, experience,
water,
> >and seeds.  In Austin, we actually compost the biosolids from public
waste
> >and make what is known as dillo-dirt.  We have several other large
> >composting companies in the area which produce large quantities of
compost.
> >The 'soils' in this area are typically rock, caliche, and clay - so
compost
> >is essential.  Adding together all of the commercial compost production,
and
> >some assumptions about exisitng home composters, we have less than 1% of
the
> >minimum required for the most resource consrving method of food
production
> >known.
> >
> >Central Texas is the meeting place of 5 very different bio-regions and
our
> >weather patterns reflect that diversity and are extremely challenging.
I've
> >spoken with many of the local farmers who produce for market and the
> >consensus is that it takes at least 10 years to be able to consistantly
> >bring to market - or to consistantly be able to provide for yourself.
(From
> >my limitied 3 years of working with to grow my own food I will testify to
> >every minute of the ten years being necessary.)  So there is the problem
of
> >a long apprenticship and a question of having enough experienced people
to
> >teach.
> >
> >Although we get approximately 34" of annual rainfall, it comes at
irregular
> >times.  The experience of those who are working towards complete off-grid
> >living have found that at least 35,000 gallons of storage are needed for
a
> >family of four (for thier drinking, hygene, and food production needs).
A
> >six month drought is common here.  Although people in the city may be
able
> >to rely on the public system for thier needs, this does demonstrate the
high
> >dependancy on that public system functioning properly for food
production.
> >
> >And finally seeds.  The conclusion we reached was that if the descent was
> >slow enough, then seed production could keep up with demand.  But a
sudden
> >increase in demand could wipe out available seeds in a very short time.
> >
> >We don't have any hard statistics on the locally grown food in our area,
but
> >from surveys of farmers markets, the consensus of what we know is it is
much
> >less than 0.1% of what is needed.  Overall, it will not be possible to
> >sustain the 1+ million people here.  It would take massive amount of
> >cooperative work and education to  provide a spartan, survival diet for a
> >redcuced population.  And, these efforts need to have been started years
> >ago.
> >
> >I believe this situation is very similar to most of the US and many of
the
> >'developed' countires of the world.  An unpleasant combination of too
many
> >people and too few resources, which even the immense creativity of
> >permaculture and other methods will not be able to offset.
> >
> >Marjory
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