flood watch

[vtsnowedin]

and whittle things down to a simplistic dilemma of numbers I think you'd be missing bigger points.

A simplistic dilemma of numbers I like it. And yes I do like the numbers to add up to a satisfactory bottom line.
Let’s start with the number 7,000,000,000 and then multiply by daily calorie consumption.

[kenneal - lagger]

vt, the last post before yours ended with the word "globally". That includes countries that aren't the USA

A lot of the people who live there grow a lot of their own food. It is harvested and then eaten, without ever having been bought or sold, so it never shows up in GDP or suchlike figures.

Labour-wise this is not a very efficient process, but if your limiting factor is land are, it suddenly looks like a lot more of a goer.

Yes I'm aware of that, but with American Family owned farms producing that large a percentage of the worlds food this "Evil corporate big AG" mantra is quite exaggerated.
What parts of that report I have had time to read are often contradictory to other parts. In one place they state a goal of reducing the number of animals raised on farms. OK if you don't mind eating chicken feed instead of chicken mind you but in another they talk of adding manure to improve the soil. now if you get rid of the animals where is your manure coming from? In yet another place they are promoting close grazing a plot of land just prior to 'no till' planting a grain crop on it and counting the value of the feed grazed off in their profit accounting. Nothing wrong with that but again with what animals and where did they graze while the crop was growing?
Things like deep double digging sound great but really are no different then deep subsoil plowing done by tractor only much slower and more expensively done. Anything a man with shovel and hoe can do to the soil a tractor with the right implement can do as well and cheaper. Anything you want to add to the soil can be added by machine.
They pretend that modern mechanized farming does not already make use of available organic biomass as fertilizer and soil amendment when in fact farmers use all they can get. The same with erosion control and water management. Sure you can do it better then people that have been doing it for decades. NOT!

Did your report account for the vast numbers of people who grow and live on rice, sorghum, millet, manioc and other non grain products? Or they would do if the US and EU weren't dumping subsidised food into their countries and putting their farmers out of business. If US and EU farming is so efficient why are huge subsidies pumped into the agriculture of those nations?

Although it is not quite as efficient as using manure you can grow food using green manures so animals aren't essential and artificial fertilisers are even less efficient than green manures.

Mechanised farming is only cheaper if you have high wage levels and cheap tractors and fuel. If you can't afford a tractor, let alone the fuel to run it, it is not cheaper. Industrialised farming is the most efficient way of turning oil into food while gardening, which is what the majority of the world's farmers do, is the most efficient way of producing food from a given area of land. The output is about twice that of an industrialised farm.

Meanwhile this report says that industrialised farming has reached peak output and this one from the UN confirms that small scale organic farming is the way to feed the world.

It has been proved in the UK that one person can get all their vegetable requirements off a 3 metre by 3 metre plot (10 ft x 10 ft). No, that doesn't give you your protein or calories but the area to provide vegetable protein on top of that would be very much larger. The calories would depend on how you provided them and animal protein would need a fair bit more: up to ten times more for cattle, three times more for poultry and pigs and something in between for sheep.

[woodburner]

Mechanised farming is only cheaper if you have high wage levels and cheap tractors and fuel. If you can't afford a tractor, let alone the fuel to run it, it is not cheaper. Industrialised farming is the most efficient way of turning oil into food while gardening, which is what the majority of the world's farmers do, is the most efficient way of producing food from a given area of land. The output is about twice that of an industrialised farm.

Oops, Is this what you meant? If not you edit yours, and delete this one.

[peaceful_life]

and whittle things down to a simplistic dilemma of numbers I think you'd be missing bigger points.

A simplistic dilemma of numbers I like it. And yes I do like the numbers to add up to a satisfactory bottom line.
Let’s start with the number 7,000,000,000 and then multiply by daily calorie consumption.

It's the behavior.

[vtsnowedin]

[Although it is not quite as efficient as using manure you can grow food using green manures so animals aren't essential and artificial fertilisers are even less efficient than green manures.

Mechanized farming is only cheaper if you have high wage levels and cheap tractors and fuel. If you can't afford a tractor, let alone the fuel to run it, it is not cheaper. .

To add green manure to your land you have to plant the crop ,let it grow then plow it under. So you need a tractor for planting and plowing under plus you need to be able to spare that field for a growing season. Just the fallow time required reduces your marketable yield by a third to a half. All fine and good if you have plenty of land but with seven billion we are running out of spare fields.
As to your cost assertions. If you have productive land to work the crops will pay for the tractor and fuel as long as crop prices are not being artificially suppressed. That tractor planter combination in the first video is doing about $3500 worth of work per hour and all things considered including $275 per acre rent on the land is producing corn at a cost of $5.00 per bushel. You’re not going to do that cheaper or better with hand labor and green manure.

[RenewableCandy]

To add green manure to your land you have to plant the crop ,let it grow then plow it under. So you need a tractor

sorry that's quite funny. I mean, how many thousands of years ago was the concept of Green Manure invented?

And no I'm not sticking-up for corn either: it's even more over-rated than wheat.

Now oats and spuds, they're seriously under-rated...

[biffvernon]

and beans. http://hodmedods.co.uk/

[RenewableCandy]

Oh beans-and-peas just go without saying...

[vtsnowedin]

To add green manure to your land you have to plant the crop ,let it grow then plow it under. So you need a tractor

sorry that's quite funny. I mean, how many thousands of years ago was the concept of Green Manure invented?
.

In the interest of brevity I neglected to include the clause 'to accomplish the work in a timely and cost effective manner'. Of course you can green manure your garden allotment with a shovel but if you have several sections (a section is 640 acres or a square mile) in the corn belt that need to be planted within a week or two of optimum planting time you might want to employ other means.

[RenewableCandy]

This is all lovely stuff I'm sure but very probably isn't how the "70% of the world's food that never gets to market" is produced. My guess is that over 1/2 of that 70% is produced by hand. With shovels and the like, on sites of a matter of a few acres. Such sites, though now a total rarity in the USA, are common as muck in the world at large, and a good thing too when you consider ever-increasing food prices and unemployment.

The lovely little Plot, for example, in an area of about 100 m^2, has produced about 60 kg of food this year. That total will increase as I improve the soil and learn more stuff.

[vtsnowedin]

This is all lovely stuff I'm sure but very probably isn't how the "70% of the world's food that never gets to market" is produced. My guess is that over 1/2 of that 70% is produced by hand. With shovels and the like, on sites of a matter of a few acres. Such sites, though now a total rarity in the USA, are common as muck in the world at large, and a good thing too when you consider ever-increasing food prices and unemployment.

The lovely little Plot, for example, in an area of about 100 m^2, has produced about 60 kg of food this year. That total will increase as I improve the soil and learn more stuff.

But India farmers tired of being in the muck bought 350,000 tractors last year alone. Sadly only 25,000 of them were JD green built in Pune India but they will come around. JD is also making and selling micro irrigation systems to Indian farmers who need to manage dwindling water supplies better.
The Indian farmers are buying mostly 30 to 45 horsepower tractors which are much smaller then the American average but as they are making their first tractor purchase quite often and have small land holdings that is probably wise investment on their part.
60 Kilos/100 m^2? not bad for starters. Any spuds in the mix. They weigh up in a hurry and keep well into the winter.

[woodburner]

What does "winter" mean in India? Some places get cold enough,but much ofit stays hot(ish).

[Tarrel]

What does "winter" mean in India? Some places get cold enough,but much ofit stays hot(ish).

I think he was referring to RC's plot in Yorkshire.

[woodburner]

Are there many Indians in Yorkshire? No doubt they have their fair share of cowboys.

[peaceful_life]

This is all lovely stuff I'm sure but very probably isn't how the "70% of the world's food that never gets to market" is produced. My guess is that over 1/2 of that 70% is produced by hand. With shovels and the like, on sites of a matter of a few acres. Such sites, though now a total rarity in the USA, are common as muck in the world at large, and a good thing too when you consider ever-increasing food prices and unemployment.

The lovely little Plot, for example, in an area of about 100 m^2, has produced about 60 kg of food this year. That total will increase as I improve the soil and learn more stuff.

But India farmers tired of being in the muck bought 350,000 tractors last year alone. Sadly only 25,000 of them were JD green built in Pune India but they will come around. JD is also making and selling micro irrigation systems to Indian farmers who need to manage dwindling water supplies better.
The Indian farmers are buying mostly 30 to 45 horsepower tractors which are much smaller then the American average but as they are making their first tractor purchase quite often and have small land holdings that is probably wise investment on their part.
60 Kilos/100 m^2? not bad for starters. Any spuds in the mix. They weigh up in a hurry and keep well into the winter.

Diversity in those numbers.