clv101 wrote:Nice vid... I think it makes for sense to reduce the reliance on tractors, than to swap power source.
It's a familiar problem. Faced with a liquid fuels shortage, do we swap out the vehicle fleet for electric cars and carry on as before, or do we do away with 90% of the vehicles by not living 20 miles from our daily place of work, by not eating food and buying good produced hundreds or even thousands of miles away... I'd argue for reducing the mileage dramatically first, and then think about switching power source.
We already know farming is hopelessly energy inefficient - but fantastically labour efficient. Just under 1% of the workforce are involved in primary agriculture, 100 years ago it was more like 30%. We've optimised farming to be labour efficient, not energy efficient. Seems strange when we have a shortage of energy and a surplus of labour (unemployment!). I'd suggest the plan for the next decade or two should be to increase that 1% of the workforce to around 5%.
In the absence of legislation to force them to economically act in a particular way, It comes down to cost for the farmer. In other words, what makes the farmer the most money?
1) The cost of a tractor plus all of the maintenance costs, plus the cost of biofuels to power it, all set against the profit from a reduced acreage of crops/livestock due to some of it having to be set aside for biofuel production
or
2) The cost of employing a number of workers sufficient to replace the work of the tractor
I suspect that it will be more profitable for the farmer to use a tractor for a long time yet. The problem with that, though, is that what is most profitable for a farmer is not always equivalent to what is best for the population at large.
A good example of what I mean by that last sentence is the situation that has developed in recent years in India. In India, onions are a staple crop. However, it is now more profitable for big farmers in India to turn over their land to biofuel production which they then sell onto the international markets than it is to grow onions for local consumption. The major consequence of this is that onion production in India has significantly declined in recent years which, in turn, has sparked serious riots over their escalating price.
I hasten to add, I am not blaming farmers for this. They, like everyone else, are compelled to act in their best economic interests. If they don't, their competitors will and they will go out of business as a consequence. The only way the above is resolved is by changing the ground rules from above such that farmers interests and the interests of the population as a whole are forced to converge.
If we want to see a return to more labour intensive farming in order minimise the amount of land turned over to biofuel production to fuel our farming and, in turn, maximise the land available for food production as well as providing employment opportunities for our populations, it will only happen is it is legislatively enforced. It is unreasonable and therefore unrealistic to expect farmers to do this themselves as it would significantly economically disadvantage them against any of their competitors who chose not to take such a path.
