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  • From: "Gene Monaco" <efmonaco@comcast.net>
  • To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Global Food Supply Near the Breaking Point
  • Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 21:56:51 -0400

There are mounds in southern Ohio and other areas in the eastern woodlands
(as well as other places) that are evidence of prehistoric cultures creating
cities. Quinn postulates that they just walked away from them (back to the
woods) because life there basically sucked.
I have theorized that transportation was the limiting factor. It just cost
too much to transport the food from the bleeding edges to the cultural
centers, so they collapsed. Until oil. Yet, I think advances in
transportation technology will continue making it less of a problem; and
that locally produced organics (as was said) will continue to increase,
offsetting the costs of oil. I also think that the transportation thing is
far worse in every other area than just agriculture. EVERYTHING comes in on
trucks, and most of it in ships from Asia returning empty through the Panama
Canal. Locally produced stuff of all forms is in order. I saw a political
cartoon that showed tomatoes in the supermarket at $20 a pound grown and
picked by union-waged American workers (related to the immigration thing,
which is a joke--trying to stop migrant workers from flowing to the work is
like trying to stop the birds from flying south--yet we persist--450 miles
of new fence in the southwest).
$75/barrel oil, $3/gal gas were unthinkable 10 years ago. With tomatoes at
$20 per pound, folks will go back to the small farms, or if you prefer,
horticultural sites (we love you Toby).
And for the Central Texas Jeavons model, 4,000 SF per head: Mollison always
mocked double digging and the like. To quote his (sometimes made-up)
statistics, one large tree has 17 acres of leaf area. Figure tree crops,
mixed horticulture, animals in the landscape, ponds, call it Permaculture if
you must, versus Jeavons-style gardens and vegetarianism (as religion), and
I'll bet the numbers come a lot closer to doable, even in Central Texas,
unless you can't stand the heat.

-Gene Monaco
in East Tennessee


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From: Marimike6@cs.com
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Global Food Supply Near the Breaking Point
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
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Mitch says:

"Oil shortages and fear of shortages will cause significant transportation
cost increases. At some point, some transportation services, including for
food,
will cut back or go out of business. I believe that, within our current
financial system, transportation and distribution will be affected sooner
and more
dramatically than agricultural production. Thus our supermarket system will
face dramatic change. It seems likely that farmers will, for a while, have
food
that can't get to market. Without an outlet for their products, and without
income, the farmers will have to cut back on production. Then what? Will our

financial system provide some interim methods?"

The supermarket shelves are stacked mostly with the products of corporately
owned factory farms, not products of small family farms. And even when the
primary producer is a small farmer, that person sells to a corporation. So I
think
we need not worry about a time when producers produce less due to market
economics. These people are not accustomed to taking a loss or going out of
business. The only thing that will happen is that food prices will increase.

There is opportunity in this for small farmers. As it becomes less feasible
to ship strawberries from California or grapes from Chile up to
Massachusetts,
small local farmers will be courted by the major distributors. It has been
my
observation here in NC that there is much pressure on the chains to stock
local produce, both from the farmers and from the customers. But there has
been
strong resistance because it's just too much trouble for them. That is
likely to
change in an environment of expensive imports relative to locally grown
goods.

In the extreme, if people return to eating the major portion of their diets
from sources within a hundred miles of their homes, northerners should
anticipate a return to a winter diet of beets, pickles, cabbage, turnips,
carrots and
potatos. No kiwis.

M. Elvin







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