in terms of markets creating the largest possible failure to allocate goods and services wisely, in a way that could have been better handled by a six year old with an abacus, that market failure prize would go to the gigantic economic disaster known as industrial agriculture.
In study after study in journals like Nature, organic agriculture yields the same or better than industrial agriculture. In trials traditional rice paddy cultivation methods outyielded industrial models. Why don't we know this? Because we've been lied to. We've been told that GMOs and Cargill are our only hope. But right now, 2 *billion* people on this planet (according to the UN) are living entirely off of small scale organic or largely organic polyculture - this methodology is feeding more people than lived on the planet for most of human history. And they are doing it on marginal land for the most part, having been pushed off the best land by export crops and industrial farming. What could they, what could we do if the best land in the world was used for feeding the people who lived on it?
The difference of course is that large scale farming maximises profits for the few. Organic farming is more labour intensive and therefore spreads profits more thinly amongst a greater number of people.
So those in power use industrial methods to stay in power. GMOs IMO are an attempt to help them retain that power in the face of diminishing returns from depleted soils. (Depleted by continual harvesting and removal of organic matter and the use of soluble fertilisers that are easily washed out of the soil.0
Thankfully there is a move back to sustainable methods. Tragically it still seems to be minor in nature and confined to allotmenteers, small scale farmers and enlightened individuals.
IMO these pockets of knowledge will become increasingly important in the future.
Sharon Astyk wrote:But right now, 2 *billion* people on this planet (according to the UN) are living entirely off of small scale organic or largely organic polyculture - this methodology is feeding more people than lived on the planet for most of human history. And they are doing it on marginal land for the most part, having been pushed off the best land by export crops and industrial farming. What could they, what could we do if the best land in the world was used for feeding the people who lived on it?
This is a very good point and illustrates that peak oil need not prevent the stable 9Bn population the predicted in the 2nd half of the century. The die off scenarios are not the logical result of fossil fuel depletion, they are the result of inaction in the face of fossil fuel depletion. If we respond and adapt to our new circumstances we can feed the world.
If we respond and adapt to our new circumstances we can feed the world
I wish I were so optimistic....
Sustainable organic systems are not quick fixes. Areas of land used for intensive farming will not yield much in the first years that they return to organic methods. Natural soil fertility will need time to be restored - time we will be unwilling or unable to give.
We are in overshoot. We are vunerable and I don't see the human population escaping the down turn in oil availability without major famines in parts of the world. I think our population can be maintained at current high levels due only to the massive energy injections provided by fossil fuels. If energy supplies are unsustainable then our population number is likewise unsustainable.
(Edit to sort quotes!)
Sally wrote:I think our population can be maintained at current high levels due only to the massive energy injections provided by fossil fuels. If energy supplies are unsustainable then our population number is likewise unsustainable.
For sure - it's no quick fix. But then again it doesn't have to be, it is certainly potentially possible to maintain agriculture's current fossil fuel subsidy way past peak as we gradually over a century, become more organic.
Remember peak oil does not equal no oil and potentially the remaining oil can be intelligently allocated to the important things. If there are to be major famines it'll be 'cos we didn't react in a smart enough way - not because physical depletion made it inevitable.
If there was a 10 mile wide asteroid heading our way, that would be an inevitable calamity but there are more variables in peak oil, the future isn?t set it stone.
clv101 wrote:potentially the remaining oil can be intelligently allocated to the important things. If there are to be major famines it'll be 'cos we didn't react in a smart enough way
That, I think, is the human quality preventing timely mitigation - collective stupidity
I think that here in the UK, the 'free market' has always been just a veneer over what is basically a centrally organised infrastructure system.
Take telecoms - now we have lots of 'phone companies all competing for our business, but it's still basically a single national network. In times of emergency, it will be very easy to revert to centralised control if necessary.
And maybe Miliband's new oil-depletion-protocol-in-disguise bill is simply Government re-asserting itself over the country's core industrial infrastructure.
Andy Hunt wrote:I think that here in the UK, the 'free market' has always been just a veneer over what is basically a centrally organised infrastructure system.
Is it any different elsewhere? "Free Market" is a euphemism for "old boys fund".
Andy Hunt wrote:Take telecoms - now we have lots of 'phone companies all competing for our business, but it's still basically a single national network. In times of emergency, it will be very easy to revert to centralised control if necessary.
Are you just talking about the BT fixed network of "last mile" copper? Well sure there isn't much competition in that area but then there isn't a whole lot of point in running more copper down a street that already got soom. However even that hasn't stopped Virgin (previously Telewest/NTL) building significant fixed access networks serving several million houses. On top of that you have to add five, yes FIVE mobile networks which are virtually completely separate (for now) with their own access network but also their own core and transmission networks. Sure they buy some links from BT and a handful of other providers but they are largely independent.
I would say there are 7 largely independent and highly competitive telecoms companies in the UK - a really dramatic structural shift from the British Telecom of old.
clv101 wrote:Are you just talking about the BT fixed network of "last mile" copper?
Yes I was - sorry, I should have made that clear. Certainly the mobile telecoms companies are all new and independent. But they have all been designed to be compatible with one another, so would be easily integrated I reckon in an emergency.
I suppose my point was just that it would be very easy to revert to centralised control should the 'free market' cease to be the best solution for the UK.
