permaculture

["Scott Pittman" <scott@permaculture.org>]

While I enjoy Sep Holzer's current fame and advocacy I do think that a
passing acknowledgement to Masanobu Fukuoka, who also advocated burying
biomass to increase soil fertility, and the indigenous people of South
America, who developed terra prieta, a kind of midden composting should not
be forgotten.

Scott Pittman

"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. 
On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." 
~Arundhati Roy

-----Original Message-----
From: permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Stephen Sherman
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 8:09 PM
To: permaculture
Subject: Re: [permaculture] How to Feed 9 Billion People

On 11/22/2012 4:41 PM, paul wheaton wrote:
> <snip> In the meantime, a study has been completed that shows that 
> Sepp Holzer's techniques will feed 21 billion people without 
> irrigation or fertilizer. 

Not to diminish Sepp's work, but I think it is overly simplistic to 
extrapolate from current conditions and calculate something like this.

It isn't that I doubt the math, or that his methods are a great deal 
better than current practices. Rather I am concerned that with a 
tripling of the human population, there will be other effects on the 
environment which invalidate these calculations. How much cropland would 
be converted to urban or suburban use? How many other resources or 
conditions will be altered by the human population increase in ways 
which hurt the ability to produce food, regardless of the methods.

Keep in mind, nature is a negative feedback system. When something moves 
to excess (such as human population) "things" arise to reverse that 
excess. Just because we can't foresee all these "things" does not mean 
they aren't or won't be happening...
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