The merits of natural versus chemical fertilisers

[JohnB]

That's a nice list you have there but reading it I still can't picture a permaculture wheat field being any different then a chem Ag field except that there would be a lower yield.
Leaving the politics and morals aside draw me a picture of what a real farmer would do to grow a crop of wheat using Permaculture principles.

Maybe it's the wheat field that's the wrong solution, rather the method of growing it.

I couldn't draw you a picture of a permaculture based farm. My head is currently overloaded with a housing project and trying to start a social enterprise! I should be creating artwork for a display I'm doing on Saturday, and putting stuff together to show to architects and planning experts! And going to bed so I get up in time for a Permaculture Wales teleconference in the morning! It's not all about growing stuff .

[RenewableCandy]

You'd have smaller fields and alternate your grain with beans. Trees would border the fields to help stop the wind blowing any dry bare soil away. You'd still have powered vehicles but part of their job would be dredging the rivers or fetching seaweed, rock dust etc from nearer the coast. In the long run you'd have to do that anyway, or your soil would wear out.

[vtsnowedin]

That's a nice list you have there but reading it I still can't picture a permaculture wheat field being any different then a chem Ag field except that there would be a lower yield.
Leaving the politics and morals aside draw me a picture of what a real farmer would do to grow a crop of wheat using Permaculture principles.

Maybe it's the wheat field that's the wrong solution, rather the method of growing it.

I couldn't draw you a picture of a permaculture based farm. My head is currently overloaded with a housing project and trying to start a social enterprise! I should be creating artwork for a display I'm doing on Saturday, and putting stuff together to show to architects and planning experts! And going to bed so I get up in time for a Permaculture Wales teleconference in the morning! It's not all about growing stuff .

Well certainly, keep house and family together. Plenty of time to hash this over at our leisure.

[vtsnowedin]

You'd have smaller fields and alternate your grain with beans. Trees would border the fields to help stop the wind blowing any dry bare soil away. You'd still have powered vehicles but part of their job would be dredging the rivers or fetching seaweed, rock dust etc from nearer the coast. In the long run you'd have to do that anyway, or your soil would wear out.

Smaller? what ever for? And could you market that many beans? An organic source of natural gas I suppose. The tree borders sound just like what I see in place if I google earth the UK countryside but I don't know as you could get them to grow in the Texas-Montana wheat land as it is a bit dry there for that.
I'm a hundred percent with you on controlling erosion from both wind and water, it must be constantly attended to.
Good luck getting a permit to dredge a river even if the river and land both benefited. Now is rock dust from the coast limestone dust? How is that better then rock phosphate from Algeria?

[kenneal - lagger]

The trees form lanes in which the wheat is grown and the trees crop nuts as well. The beans will take the place of the meat and soya which we can no longer afford as the fertiliser costs are too high. The bean crop replaces the artificial nitrogen.

The rock dust is a volcanic rock and we won't be able to afford rock phosphate from anywhere as the Chinese will have bought it all up.

With the climate changing as is is, bringing more high intensity rain, people will be glad to see rivers dredged to allow for increased flows to prevent flooding.

You are assuming BAU VT. That might be the case in the US for a while longer than in the UK but with your level of debt sooner or later the bubble will burst and you will come crashing down from your pedestal. Once the Chinese have spent most of their dollars they will have no more use for the US and will pull the plug and no one will need the dollar any more, apart from yourselves, of course.

Once that happens you are just another indebted pauper like the rest of the formerly rich West and will have to watch as the Renminbi takes the place of the dollar as the must have currency. China will then be able to print all the money that it wants and live off the rest of the world as the US has done for the last thirty or so years. The US Dollar will follow the British, Spanish, Mayan, Roman and whatever other empires into the pages of a history book. The dollar empire won't have lasted as long as the others though.

[the_lyniezian]

At the same time, who is to say the current wave of Chinese success will last any longer than had the US in its heyday?

[emordnilap]

we could feed the world easily if we ate the grain directly rather then feeding livestock for meat. OK if we want to do that we are going to need pretty much the same amount of grain that we are growing today.

That bit doesn't make any sense.

[emordnilap]

Grain is a large part of the average diet.

That doesn't mean it's a good diet, it's just the one that makes most money for the fewest number of people. Windows is on most pcs, which makes it popular but it's still shite. MacDonalds is in every town...

Anyway, in that 'department' we eat rice once a week and have a sprinkling of quinoa, spelt, buckwheat and millet. But I wouldn't miss any of them that much (rice maybe) - as we already have an intensely varied diet.

[vtsnowedin]

The trees form lanes in which the wheat is grown and the trees crop nuts as well. The beans will take the place of the meat and soya which we can no longer afford as the fertiliser costs are too high. The bean crop replaces the artificial nitrogen.

The rock dust is a volcanic rock and we won't be able to afford rock phosphate from anywhere as the Chinese will have bought it all up.

With the climate changing as is is, bringing more high intensity rain, people will be glad to see rivers dredged to allow for increased flows to prevent flooding.

You are assuming BAU VT. That might be the case in the US for a while longer than in the UK but with your level of debt sooner or later the bubble will burst and you will come crashing down from your pedestal. Once the Chinese have spent most of their dollars they will have no more use for the US and will pull the plug and no one will need the dollar any more, apart from yourselves, of course.

Once that happens you are just another indebted pauper like the rest of the formerly rich West and will have to watch as the Renminbi takes the place of the dollar as the must have currency. China will then be able to print all the money that it wants and live off the rest of the world as the US has done for the last thirty or so years. The US Dollar will follow the British, Spanish, Mayan, Roman and whatever other empires into the pages of a history book. The dollar empire won't have lasted as long as the others though.

Ken nice job at leaving the politics and morals aside!! Why would you replace soya beans with another less productive legume?
If the Chinese won't sell us phosphate the US armed forces will just come and take it.
There are plenty of people who want rivers dredged but they are held back by wetlands protection laws that require a permit to even clean a man made ditch. That is no exaggeration, I have had to spend hours making out the forms for the permit application. Laws can change over time of course and I expect they will.
I expect BAU to end sometime this decade and in some ways already has. $4.00 gas is not usual. When the debt bubble bursts the USA will still have 400 million acres of arable land ,vast coal reserves, and some 6 million barrels a day of domestic oil production and enough natural gas to meet nitrogen fertilizer needs. I wouldn't count us out just yet and your own position is far from secure.

[vtsnowedin]

we could feed the world easily if we ate the grain directly rather then feeding livestock for meat. OK if we want to do that we are going to need pretty much the same amount of grain that we are growing today.

That bit doesn't make any sense.

For the sake of argument I was accepting the figures in Table D in the paper posted above. Now make up my mind are we eating soya and grain or are we eating meat and potatoes?
http://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/artic ... m-itself-2

[Little John]

we could feed the world easily if we ate the grain directly rather then feeding livestock for meat. OK if we want to do that we are going to need pretty much the same amount of grain that we are growing today.

That bit doesn't make any sense.

For the sake of argument I was accepting the figures in Table D in the paper posted above. Now make up my mind are we eating soya and grain or are we eating meat and potatoes?
http://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/artic ... m-itself-2

I don't think you understand the energy inputs and outputs, though I am happy to stand corrected.

For example, a large portion of the energy contained in a given cereal that is fed to a cow ends up as inedible bits of the cow and/or heat necessary to keep the cow alive that then escapes into the environment. If that same cereal is fed directly to a human, all of its embodied energy ends up inside the human, making for a massive energy saving overall. In short, there is a far higher EROEI on an acre's worth of wheat as there is on an acre's worth of beef.

If you don't believe me, go and look up the numbers on how much tonnage of beef can be raised from a closed system of a given average of land and how much tonnage of, say, potatoes can be raised from that same closed system of land. Then convert the tonnage of each food type into energy in the form of joules or, calories, if you prefer. The difference is massive and it relates directly to the energy that the cow needs for itself to say alive.

Indeed, if one wanted to raise the kind of protein and other nutrients that beef provides, one would be far better off raising something like locusts. They do not return the same calories per acreage as vegetation, but they are massively better than cows. They also have the added advantages of being able to eat just about anything. The way to raise them is in a sealed building. All they need is a bit of water and biomass chucking at them.

All we need to do now is to wait for times to get tough enough that people become desperate enough to start to look at alternatives.

[emordnilap]

Tens of billions of 'farmed' animals consume far more grain than 7 billion humans could ever need. And that still leaves the grains humans already consume.

[Little John]

Tens of billions of 'farmed' animals consume far more grain than 7 billion humans could ever need. And that still leaves the grains humans already consume.

Yes, of course they do.

And what key ingredient is required to be able to produce so much grain without which we would be able to produce but a fraction of the current yields?

[emordnilap]

Tens of billions of 'farmed' animals consume far more grain than 7 billion humans could ever need. And that still leaves the grains humans already consume.

Yes, of course they do.

And what key ingredient is required to be able to produce so much grain without which we would be able to produce but a fraction of the current yields?

Oooh, that's a toughie.

[RenewableCandy]

You'd have smaller fields and alternate your grain with beans. Trees would border the fields to help stop the wind blowing any dry bare soil away. You'd still have powered vehicles but part of their job would be dredging the rivers or fetching seaweed, rock dust etc from nearer the coast. In the long run you'd have to do that anyway, or your soil would wear out.

Smaller? what ever for?

Protection from wind and driving rain that would erode the soil.

And could you market that many beans?

They're beginning to do that here

The tree borders sound just like what I see in place if I google earth the UK countryside but I don't know as you could get them to grow in the Texas-Montana wheat land as it is a bit dry there for that.

They might have to plant scrub-type plants first, then plant trees later. Or even just use plastic fences first of all, to trap soil.

Good luck getting a permit to dredge a river even if the river and land both benefited.

I can imagine the river-dredging beginning to happen by stealth if a black market for soil fertility develops! How desperate everything else would be by then, though, who knows?

Now is rock dust from the coast limestone dust? How is that better then rock phosphate from Algeria?

It's just nearer