What can we do to change the minds of decision makers and people in general to actually do something about preparing for the forthcoming economic/energy crises (the ones after this one!)?
vtsnowedin wrote:Nice rant Yaday.
So you would have us stop all industrial activity and mechanized agriculture? I suppose that would save the environment but for whom would you save it? Most if the seven billion now alive would starve without the use of technology. Is it not better to recycle a piece of metal then to go back to the mine and dig yet another hole in the ground to extract enough ore to feed the smelter or blast furnace?
sushil_yadav wrote:
Industrialization itself is the cause of 7 billion people.....If industrialization had not happened and man had continued with Agrarian Society, total world population would be less than 2 billion today.
Secondly, thousands of consumer goods and services being produced by Industrial Society are not food....Industrial Society has destroyed the environment for production of thousands of consumer goods and services.
Industrial Society has destroyed forests, rivers, oceans and atmosphere with Industrial Activity......Industrial Society has decimated millions of species with Industrial Activity.
Very soon man is going to get decimated/ wiped out because of environmental destruction and climate change.ery soon man is going to get decimated/ wiped out because of environmental destruction and climate change.
It might have been two billion but the seven billion are here now heading for nine billion. Lets deal with reality not should have beens. Man does not live on bread alone. you need clothing and shelter and the means to heat that shelter in colder climates. So you need some consumer goods. What good would a pile of grain be if you had no stone to grind it or a pot to cook it in.
I live in a forest next to a brook that joins a river that runs to the ocean and the air is clear. While not as pristine as they once were their destruction is far from complete.
Your last prediction of mans decimation may well be accurate as the prospect of a nine billion population and it's demands on the environment may well cross a point of no return despite any strategy that might actually be employed. [/quote]
vtsnowedin wrote:No not that particular one but I am familiar with the theme. I find I can't warm up to the prospect of living on a diet of oatmeal and tofu.
Oatmeal ad tofu? The point is that large, industrial scale agriculture uses more land to produce less food than small scale agriculture. This should not be at all surprising as the whole point of large scale agriculture is to maximise profit - not food production. Small scale farms are more concerned with producing food as they are directly feeding their communities.
vtsnowedin wrote:No not that particular one but I am familiar with the theme. I find I can't warm up to the prospect of living on a diet of oatmeal and tofu.
Oatmeal ad tofu? The point is that large, industrial scale agriculture uses more land to produce less food than small scale agriculture. This should not be at all surprising as the whole point of large scale agriculture is to maximise profit - not food production. Small scale farms are more concerned with producing food as they are directly feeding their communities.
And how, within the existing economic system, do small scale community farms establish themselves, both in terms of the raising of funds for initial purchase of land and then in terms of running those farms in such a way as to cover the overheads? I'm not being facetious here, CLV. These are genuine questions. I want to know how what you propose becomes more than a middle-class, transition-town game.
Within the existing economic system? Tricky. The existing economic system is the one that has produced agriculture that seeks to maximise profit rather than food production. Some folk get rich, some get fat, others starve to death.
We need to recognise that the planet can produce a sufficient, healthy and enjoyable diet for more than 7 billion people and then change the economic system so that it does so.
So the problem is not the farming methods per-se, but the ideological/economic system that promotes and facilitates it. In which case, how to you propose to change the cause and not the symptom of the problem.
However, in addition to the above, how do you explain the ecological collapse of just about every previous civilisation in human history that has risen and then fallen on the back of unsustainable farming practices. They weren't all rampant, FRB-driven, industrial civilisations were they and yet they still managed to F--k their environments up just that same.
clv101 wrote:
Oatmeal ad tofu? The point is that large, industrial scale agriculture uses more land to produce less food than small scale agriculture. This should not be at all surprising as the whole point of large scale agriculture is to maximise profit - not food production. Small scale farms are more concerned with producing food as they are directly feeding their communities.
I sincerely question the assertion that smaller farms produce more. For every square foot of land a small farm has in production there is other land taken up by access paths , roads and employee housing. The large farm in the US has fields that are a mile square with nothing between one field and the next but a barbed wire fence on two sides and an access road on the other two. Total yield measured by the square mile or whole county is much higher on the large farms and unit cost per bushel produced are much lower. If that were not true the small farms would never have gotten big to begin with.
The reality is that Industrial Agriculture is not feeding 7 billion people.
Industrial Society is overfeeding half of the population and underfeeding the remaining half.
Half of the population has grown obese because of overeating and the other half is starving because of the faulty marketing and distribution of food.
Industrial Agriculture is not giving food to people, it is giving poison to people.
Industrial Agriculture has poisoned agricultural fields and underground water with millions of tonnes of insecticides, pesticides and fertilizers.
Industrial Agriculture has destroyed billions of acres of forests with Industrial Farming of animals......Billions of acres of forests have been destroyed to provide grazing fields for billions of animals and to grow foodgrains that are fed to farm animals who are then slaughtered in Industrial Slaughter Houses and then consumed by people who then grow obese by eating meat and fish every day.
About 40% of packaged food goes waste in Industrial Society during storage, processing and transportation and because of unnecessary purchases and the nonsense of expiry dates.
The entire planet is littered with billions of tonnes of plastic packaging that is needed for transportation and marketing of packaged food in Industrial Society.
Industrial Society requires Transportation and Refrigeration Industry for storing and distributing food which has destroyed huge amounts of environment.
The reality is that Industrial Agriculture is not feeding 7 billion people.
Industrial Society is overfeeding half of the population and underfeeding the remaining half.
Half of the population has grown obese because of overeating and the other half is starving because of the faulty marketing and distribution of food.
Industrial Agriculture is not giving food to people, it is giving poison to people.
Industrial Agriculture has poisoned agricultural fields and underground water with millions of tonnes of insecticides, pesticides and fertilizers.
Industrial Agriculture has destroyed billions of acres of forests with Industrial Farming of animals......Billions of acres of forests have been destroyed to provide grazing fields for billions of animals and to grow foodgrains that are fed to farm animals who are then slaughtered in Industrial Slaughter Houses and then consumed by people who then grow obese by eating meat and fish every day.
About 40% of packaged food goes waste in Industrial Society during storage, processing and transportation and because of unnecessary purchases and the nonsense of expiry dates.
The entire planet is littered with billions of tonnes of plastic packaging that is needed for transportation and marketing of packaged food in Industrial Society.
Industrial Society requires Transportation and Refrigeration Industry for storing and distributing food which has destroyed huge amounts of environment.
.
Well you have come full circle back to your original rant. Are you going to continue the circle or add something new to the discussion?
vtsnowedin wrote:No not that particular one but I am familiar with the theme. I find I can't warm up to the prospect of living on a diet of oatmeal and tofu.
Oatmeal ad tofu? The point is that large, industrial scale agriculture uses more land to produce less food than small scale agriculture. This should not be at all surprising as the whole point of large scale agriculture is to maximise profit - not food production. Small scale farms are more concerned with producing food as they are directly feeding their communities.
And how, within the existing economic system, do small scale community farms establish themselves, both in terms of the raising of funds for initial purchase of land and then in terms of running those farms in such a way as to cover the overheads? I'm not being facetious here, CLV. These are genuine questions. I want to know how what you propose becomes more than a middle-class, transition-town game.
I'm not proposing anything - just making the point that, today, small scale agriculture is producing more food, from less land than large scale. The popular, and incorrect, assumption is that most food is produced by large industrial farms.
vtsnowedin wrote:I sincerely question the assertion that smaller farms produce more.
Did you not see the link biffvernon gave you?
vtsnowedin wrote:Total yield measured by the square mile or whole county is much higher on the large farms and unit cost per bushel produced are much lower. If that were not true the small farms would never have gotten big to begin with.
Your conflating two quite different issues; generating profit and growing food. Large industrial farms generate more profit, that's how they are able to grow larger. It doesn't follow that they produce more food though. Small farms are not as profitable, but do produce more food.
vtsnowedin wrote:I sincerely question the assertion that smaller farms produce more.
Did you not see the link biffvernon gave you?
vtsnowedin wrote:Total yield measured by the square mile or whole county is much higher on the large farms and unit cost per bushel produced are much lower. If that were not true the small farms would never have gotten big to begin with.
Your conflating two quite different issues; generating profit and growing food. Large industrial farms generate more profit, that's how they are able to grow larger. It doesn't follow that they produce more food though. Small farms are not as profitable, but do produce more food.
Can you unpack this by providing a practical example CLV? Not necessarily a real world one, but one where it can at least be logically shown to be the case.
