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  • From: "Forest Garden" <forestgarden@gvtc.com>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Global Food Supply Near the Breaking Point
  • Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 18:33:01 -0500

Bob,

You wrote

> Sometime in the next year, we are supposed to figure out as part of
> the planning effots what's possible for the Houston area's 4 million

Who is organizing and sponsoring this project? Who's planning efforts is
this? City Gov't? State?

A small group here in Austin did some basic research on what it would take
to provide for the Austin area (approx 1.4 million). The primary limiting
factor was availability of organic matter (compost, mulch, soil). And this
is in a community with city sewage sludge composted (its called dillo dirt),
several large scale compost making companies, numerous commuity gardens, an
amazing array of organic gardening groups, a permaculture organization, and
much more. Yes, experience and many other concerns too. Organic matter waa
the primary limiting factor with less than 1% of what was needed being
available.

VERY sobering. I used to get deeply depressed thinking about it and I
understand why there is so much denial of the situation.

The research and discussion effort here was a group of concerned citizens.
No 'official' participation of interest.




----- Original Message -----
From: "rrandall1" <rrandall1@houston.rr.com>
To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 2:56 PM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Global Food Supply Near the Breaking Point


> Hi Jerome,
>
> I don't want to be too negative, but the excellent Cuba film you site
> says fairly clearly that Havana is producing maybe 50% of its food,
> with smaller towns at 80-90%.
>
> Sometime in the next year, we are supposed to to figure out as part of
> the planning effots what's possible for the Houston area's 4 million
> where we already have 150 or so community gardens and an infrastructure
> to teach gardening and orcharding for the 1% who want to learn. People
> are getting increasingly nervous about peak global food.
>
> I expect to look at reclaiming the streets and parking lots, and using
> tree trimmings for biomass since their 3-d biomass per hectare is far
> above the typical mulch crops. We may need to look at roofs and
> density. Ideas and informational resources are welcome.
>
> Bob Randall
>
>
> On Friday, May 19, 2006, at 08:57 AM, Jerome Rigot wrote:
>
> > Hi Marjory,
> >
> > Your conclusions are not very optimistic.
> >
> > But I am wondering how real they 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 (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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> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
> >
>
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