When will it be ALL GONE?

[suspectnumber961]

Monsanto and other big ag corps have our food under the gun?

Your money AND your life?

A Simple Fix for Farming | Cornucopia Institute


IT’S becoming clear that we can grow all the food we need, and profitably, with far fewer chemicals. And I’m not talking about imposing some utopian vision of small organic farms on the world. Conventional agriculture can shed much of its chemical use — if it wants to.

This was hammered home once again in what may be the most important agricultural study this year, although it has been largely ignored by the media, two of the leading science journals and even one of the study’s sponsors, the often hapless Department of Agriculture.

The study was done on land owned by Iowa State University called the Marsden Farm. On 22 acres of it, beginning in 2003, researchers set up three plots: one replicated the typical Midwestern cycle of planting corn one year and then soybeans the next, along with its routine mix of chemicals. On another, they planted a three-year cycle that included oats; the third plot added a four-year cycle and alfalfa. The longer rotations also integrated the raising of livestock, whose manure was used as fertilizer.

The results were stunning: The longer rotations produced better yields of both corn and soy, reduced the need for nitrogen fertilizer and herbicides by up to 88 percent, reduced the amounts of toxins in groundwater 200-fold and didn’t reduce profits by a single cent.

In short, there was only upside — and no downside at all — associated with the longer rotations. There was an increase in labor costs, but remember that profits were stable. So this is a matter of paying people for their knowledge and smart work instead of paying chemical companies for poisons. And it’s a high-stakes game; according to the Environmental Protection Agency, about five billion pounds of pesticides are used each year in the United States.

...

So big ag profits from ethanol which reduces mpg and drives up food costs worldwide causing political unstability...uses more energy than needed in producing food....poisons us unnecessarily with GMOs and pesticides? What's not to like?

Originally Posted by Allch Chcar

The cost of corn is minimal compared to processing and manufacturing costs. Remember that it's a raw input at a cost of pennies a pound($8 a bushel is 14 cents a pound of raw corn). Energy is the largest input next to manufacturing costs. I seem to recall a graph that said 40% of food costs were energy, which means fossil fuels.

I managed to find a mention of this on a recent Forbes article but a direct source might take a bit more work, if you're interested. Not the best source IMHO.
The Coming Food Crisis: Blame Ethanol? - Forbes


So it looks like 14% is raw commodities and 35% is energy.

[NeilBlanchard]

Why then are we investing ~1 barrel of energy for every 2 barrels of tar sands bitumen? That fact would seem to prove that we have passed peak oil.

Renewable energy will be available for about 5 BILLION years. We could have sustainable abundance for as long as the earth and the sun exist.

I know what I would choose.

[niky]

Crop rotation is already being preached. The hard part is getting many farmers to do it, because while output is stable, profit is most decidedly not, as prices and yields for each product will vary over time.

Most farmers will want to take shortcuts that promise the most yield and most profit from the least land in the shortest amount of time. Which means focusing on one crop or a simpler two crop rotation and using pesticides.

Just like many people will go the easy route and buy a big, gasoline-powered car to commute to a job twenty miles away instead of doing the logical thing and moving closer to work, commuting, biking, motorbiking or whatever.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

We are already in the middle of the biggest threat to humankind, and we are causing it - anthropogenic climate change.

I would argue that while "accidental" climate change may be detrimental to humankind, a far greater threat is intentional violence towards others in the form of war and terrorism.

All it takes is a single, well placed nuclear bomb to cause a greater impact to human life than the slow process of climate change.

The future will likely hold even scarier weapons such as nanobots.

Originally Posted by freebeard

So we can pump oil until the skies turn black. Should we?

Alternate energy sources will be adopted well before the "skies turn black". This is not a call to abandon conservation, but a call to abandon panic.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by suspectnumber961

[COLOR="Blue"]The results were stunning: The longer rotations produced better yields of both corn and soy, reduced the need for nitrogen fertilizer and herbicides by up to 88 percent, reduced the amounts of toxins in groundwater 200-fold and didn’t reduce profits by a single cent.

If this is true, then we need not fret about anything. Farmers will adopt the practices that net the greatest profits. If they can grow crops in a more natural way while maintaining profit, then the outcome is inevitable. I would imagine that as fossil fuel prices rise, pesticides and fertilizers will become more expensive, and natural practices will become more profitable.

[oil pan 4]

Not all farmers deal with live stock.
The longer cycles that involve adding live stock to the field cycle won't work for everyone.
I know some farmers are doing it around here, last year I saw cotten fields go to winter wheat (I think) then saw cattle on them in the fall and spring. Not sure what those fields are growing now.
If I can think of an excuse to go to tractor suppy after work I can see whats growing.

Originally Posted by freebeard

So we can pump oil until the skies turn black. Should we?

Oil burns fairly clean.

[suspectnumber961]

Oil-Soaked Saudi Arabia Sets Goal of 100% Renewable Energy | Care2 Causes

Saudi Arabia is one of the largest oil-producing countries in the world. Despite the fact that oil has been Saudi Arabia’s cash crop for decades, the country recently admitted that it does not represent the energy source of the future. EcoWatch reports that during last week’s Global Economic Symposium in Rio de Janeiro, Prince Turki Al Faisal Al Saud of Saudi Arabia said, “I would like to see Saudi Arabia using 100 percent renewable energy within my lifetime.” � (He’s 67, by the way, so we’re talking about years, not decades).

Wow. When the country from which America imports most of its oil announces that it wants an economy based on renewable energy, it should be a wake up call. Too bad the oil and coal industries have paid to stuff our ears full of cotton and handed out pro-fossil fuel propaganda like sleeping pills. We can’t hear the alarm bells that have jarred Saudi Arabia into action.

In fact, Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries in the Middle East are banking on the fact that Americans will maintain their oil addiction up until the very last possible second. “I see renewable energy sources helping to prolong our continued export of crude oil,”� Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, told The Wall Street Journal. This means that while his own country begins the shift to renewable energy for its own power needs, it will continue exporting to America and other oil-dependent countries, charging top dollar for ever barrel.

[user removed]

I would have to agree with the fact that oil is not the future energy source. Saudi Arabia has several advantages as well as some very serious disadvantages compared with the US. The most significant is their cost to just feed and provide water for their citizens. Their next energy source will be solar and they must get it right the first time. Then they need to develop agriculture to make their population self sufficient.

It's fairly easy for countries currently transitioning to advanced status from primitive status only a few generations ago to look at history and avoid the mistakes of those who pioneered the process. When they also have the additional "advantage" of not having to deal with election cycles and other burdens like "democracy" and maintain public support, then they can look ahead in 50 and 100 year cycles and plan accordingly, even to the point of controlling the growth and health of their populations.

What I think should be the current energy policy is to use our resources inside the US and keep our wealth at home (at least in that respect), because by they time they have been depleted we will have transitioned to other sources in a more cost effective manner.

Seldom do the pioneers in civilization development do it in the best possible methods. I think eventually we may even find that the US itself will need to rethink it's political system to remove the incentive to purchase elections with short term thinking.

regards
Mech

[niky]

The modern political system seems tailored to cater to the short-term solution. Long term planning is done best by those who know they're going to be in that chair a long time. Of course, in systems where one keeps power for life, there are insufficient mechanisms to remove the useless, stupid or downright corrupt.

Saudi Arabia is transitioning, doy, because their own seemingly endless oil reservoirs are running out. I recall a study a few years ago that pointed out that Saudis are starting to pump out more water than oil.

Add to that the fact that they are very mum on their oil reserves, and we know they're getting ready for the day when they no longer export oil. At that point, they'll need alternatives to keep their oil imports low.

Mind you, we're only talking about Saudi oil... which will probably not "run dry" (i.e.: become commercially unviable) at the same time every other oil source does.

[freebeard]

suspectnumber961 -- You put a lot of care into these posts. Are you mirroring writing you also post elsewhere? Is the Ecomodder forum a bigger soapbox than I realize?

Most importantly, do you do the BBcode manually or do you have scripts that do it or what?