Thanks for this article Roger.

I'm so glad to see articles on CD almost daily about our food chains. People that are actually starting to grow their own food and taking charge of localizing and diversifying their food supply are the true revolutionaries of the world. Changing the food chain from the bottom up will make the whole military industrial complex, of which the industrial food chain is fully embeded, obsolete.

The farmers, gardeners and eaters in the rural valley that I live in are organizing to discuss and implement ways to restore our local food chain. 80 years ago 60% of the food produced here was exported, now much more than 60% is imported. Our aim is to restore the balance that was once so sustainable. Local inputs - local outputs, making the soil and people healthier with time.

The empowerment and inspiration that is derived from our group is palatable...

Global warming and climate change caused by fossil fuel burning for more than a century may have more to do with crop failures than anything else in our history. Most of the crops grown in the U.S. depend on rainfall, they are not and can not be irrigated, it would cost too much and there are not enough water resources. If we face a prolonged drought in our growing regions, we are in for a tough time.

"starting in 2010, reaching $180 a barrel in 2015 and $300 a barrel in 2020"

"U.S. Pump Prices to Hit $12 to $15 a Gallon in a few years"

4 part series- we are fucked....

http://energytechstocks.com/wp/?p=847

The real estate and construction industries have huge war chests that successfully defeat local efforts to preserve farm land. Individual action may be the ONLY hope.

The family farm may come back after all.

The problem is that Bushco, because of "terrorists" have new laws in place laws that allow the government to till under any home gardens that have disease or pests....LOL!

Really, the only gardens that don't have those are chemical and GMO gardens, the soil is dead. Its normal to have a few pests, bacteria or viruses and has been for millions of years, after all, those things are soil and air born.

Soon they will want us to Bleach the Earths soil White, stick a White cross in the center and pray to Monsanto, Chevron, ADM, Roundup(TM) etc.

andersdl:

You are bang on about it being harder and harder to grow and supply food locally and individual action is the only hope. These are huge topics of conversation amongst our group. Our consensus is work on self sustainability first then when you have surplus trade and barter.

The laws being implemented are in favor of large mega industrial farm operations. A big one that just came to be in our area is that meat cannot be slaughtered for profit without being done in a government inspected facility. This implications of this are huge. I don't even want to get into GMO and terminator seeds and developers convincing local governments to allow subdivision of agricultural reserved lands.

However, is a form of empowerment to be exploring ways of working within and if necessary around the systems that would destroy what's best for us. Local action spurred by individuals is better than just getting depressed and consigning defeat without trying to change the way we do things. Be sure that this is happening all over the world, change is being manifested...

After reading this depressing article, it's time to cut to the chase. Look, we can bullshit about "conserving" and going "solar" (solar uses a lot of coal for manufacturing). Or we can do what we failed to do 71 years ago. Stop calling people for legalizing hemp "pot smokers" and allow industrial hemp back into the market. Since hemp can replace petroleum all the way and does not require a single drop of petroleum to manufacture or produce, does not deplete the soil, cuts down on global warming, and can totally free us from depending on foreign oil, what the hell are we waiting for? Let's all be winners and fight to tear down the ban on hemp wall !

Thanks Roger and CD for putting out another good article connecting the dots about the imperative of relocalizing our food systems and reconnecting people with the places where we live. These steps are of utmost importance as we reorient ourselves in a more sustainable direction. I'm also glad to hear that other folks in other places are talking about how our communities will feed ourselves when oil becomes as expensive as it really ought to be. Last weekend I attended a community meeting about these very questions, and it was so inspiring to see and hear that there is much work to be done and that we're not alone in wanting to do it.

I'm still optimistic...or pessimistic...that we should have at least one more round of cheap(er) oil ahead of us, whenever the next U.S. recession or depression hits. People who lose their jobs don't drive as much. Dead businesses consume no energy. Sooner or later, China will have its first big recession, and that will also bring prices down.

Golddogs-relax, take a deep breath. I've used gm seeds for a decade or more and chemicals for many decades. My soil is alive with earthworms and good bacteria. My fields are full of myraid interesting insects in the summer; some good, some not. I see so much talk on this site of sterile, dead soil, etc. It's really quite ludicrous. Judicious use is key, everything in moderation.

greg r-sorry now is NOT the time to relax on this very important issue. so what if your soil isnt dead yet, it will be; do you really think people are 'judicious' enough to use these things in moderation. apparently you have never seen anyone addicted to drugs. They swear up and down that they dont have a problem that everything is ok. but take a closer look and you will see dark shallow circles under their eyes, and their bodies worn and deteriorated from the lack of sustenence, because they are just too busy getting high to eat and sleep right. So you have been lucky so far, it doesnt mean that your luck will continue. Read Rachel Carsons Silent Spring, and then come back to defend the use of petrochemical shit

federick-you are so right on about that, eventually the government will do a one-80 and make the "HEMP FOR VICTORY" 2. Call it 'we were wrong' please start to grow as much as you can farmers of america!!!

Footprint

What's your impact
on our spaceship?

What's your footprint on our home?

Where's your footprint on our living Gaia?
Is it soft?
a footpath to a garden….?
Or a searing film of rubber
on the pavement of desire.

What's your footprint on our living Gaia?
Will a soft wind erase it?
Or is your mark
the heap of hulks of worn out pleasure
from sea to poisoned sea.

Think of all the things you've used
Think of what it takes to make
the things you've used, discarded, and forgotten.

Is it style you strive for?
Do you have a pact with plunder?
Are you just another corporate number…
that bought the 'good life'
What's the half life of your plunder?

What's your impact? Don't you wonder?

The suburban layout with large 1/4 to 3/4 acre lots is ideal for home gardens. A good policy for that would be to halt the expansion of suburbia and start converting it to "home garden districts". Those who enjoy gardening would tend to live in suburbia but people won't have to tend their garden any more than they want to. Each suburban garden will be "co-tended" by the neighborhood "pro-gardener" who comes into the yard garden and picks up the slack, keeping some of the harvest in exchange. The surplus goes to the urban feeders.

The "home garden districts" are going to need local neighborhood craftsman and merchant shops, lots of them. The volume of big box retailers and industrial parks will shrink accordingly.

This article is silly. We can't solve these problems by growing our own food, we aren't all retired , and we don't all have land to play in. We need serious answers and serious questions. I have a question. The author cites an oil boss about the need for alternative forms of energy. Well, how many innovations have disappeared as the oil companies buy out the patents? Does chevron have some of these patents? Can they be trusted?

One innovation was the injection of small amounts of hydrogen into the cylinder to double mileage. This innovation disapeared after it was reported that 3 separate people were developing it to be ready in 6 months. That was 3 years ago and it is no longer talked about. What happened? I believe all 3 were bought out by the oil companies and they're sitting on it. What else are they sitting on?

This is a silly article. Growing food in your garden isn't the answer. Cute,yes,serious no. The answer can't be to live like people in the middle ages. Not everybody has time or a garden to play in. Please, this is serious stuff.

Google:

Effective Microorganisms

Terra Preta do Indio

Grow Biointensive .org

Lizard,

Although you think it may be 'cute' for people to try and grow their own food, if we as individuals and communities do not take back control of our own food supply then everything else is really irrelevant. 'Playing' in a garden may sound quaint and middle ages to you, but people who are doing something meaningful like reconnecting to the source of where our sustenance comes are making real change. Your attitude will do nothing to solve any of the myriad of problems people are constantly complaining about in the CD forums.

Greg R,
while I think anyone growing their own food is doing good, it's when we start really looking at sustaining the input side of food production locally (ie. no fertilizers or seeds from agri-giant/petrochemical corps) that meaningful change is being made.

I've said it once I'll say it again, localized food chains and people like permaculturists, gardeners and those that the author refers to are the true revolutionaries in these crazy times.

The math as spelled out by James Kuntzler in "The Long Emergency"

Pre-industrial age world population: 1 Billion

Current Population: 6.5 Billion

Post-oil era population: 1 Billion

Die off after Peak Oil: 5.5 Billion people.

No garden is going to help that.

I was listening to Rush Limbaugh and some dumbA*** was filling in.. and totally complaining about he Peak oil stuff and climate change in particular.

ALl these folks are calling in calling to drill in ANWR.. anywhere we can. DRILL DRILL DRILL...

the only sensible thing they DID say.. was that ethanol was a scam!... it is..

Yet then they would slam wind and solar..

I have gone to the Community Solution Peak OIl conferences for the past 3 years. They have a GREAT film HOW CUBA SURVIVED PEAK OIL.

Cuba is actually ahead of us on this curve.

I went to the store tonight in the face of the WORST STORM OF THE WINTER! Folks were freaked out.. and buying... get this... tons of Mountain dew... Bags of Doritos and other asst junk food! (oh.. and hair coloring).

I swear... ok.. YOU guys and go and hoard the doritos.. I am going to get the HEALTHY Food!

But it freaks me out that our communites are NOT set to really feed our local neighborhoods. We have a good Civic Garden center... and local community gardens... but it is going to take TONS more folks gardening. I think like 90% of Cuba are gardnerss.

I have a worm bin in my basement that I have been working on for 2 years now...and a regular compost bin ..

But I live in a nieghborhood that I fear that folks would steal food. I don't want to have that mentality.. but I would get pissed if MY food was stolen..

We need to have a plan...

I guess maybe if you grew lots of produce folks didn't know what to do with.. or liked.. you might be safe

"Does it taste like Doritos?"

lizard

There is a lot of land that has been lost. due to over development... but the remaining land will HAVE To be utilized. Front yards, back yards, playgrounds.. fields... Unfortunately... a lot of the land has pesticides and herbicides and lead and other junk... we need to heal the soil and it might take a while..

Raised beds can help.

But dismissing this as silly isn't helping.

I work.. I have have a garden out back. We all can grow food.. Indeed we MUST.. it is the best solution.. and it puts our own survival in our hands instead of waiting for FEMA to save us.

Do you want to rely on a bread line???

Gardening is the future!!!

http://www.communitysolution.org/

I have to admit that I think lizard has a point. We can't retreat to the stone age, not with all the people on the planet. We have to go forward, not back. Although what this article suggests we do isn't a bad idea, it's basically saying what Bush keeps on telling us, which is we're on our own, just like New Orleans was on its own when Katrina hit.

The government HAS to step in. Massive changes have to be made, and we can't do it ourselves by growing gardens in our back yards. We need wind power, solar power, hemp and algae-produced biodiesel, electric cars, an end to war, biogas and a whole battery of other things, none of which we can make come to pass on our own.

Bush and his buddies love articles like this. What they don't love are people organizing and forcing them to do what needs to be done.

ticonderoga,

what do you mean by going forward not back? Do you mean that we have evolved so highly that food doesn't matter anymore? Without food and clean water, your wind power, solar power, electric cars and all the rest will really be quite meaningless.

You propose waiting for the government to step in? You just keep waiting for that, and as you become hungry for either lack of food in the Walmart or it becomes too expensive to buy, you and lizard may reconsider how silly gardens are.

Gardening and farming and sustaining ourselves is a spiritual, political and revolutionary act.

Don't know how much a dream or reality this is but found this interesting watching the other day.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5738531568036565057

The Revitalization and Localization Movement has Begun!

Peddle to the Metal
As
Bush&co
Drives off a cliff.

Everything you know
They sowed already
What goes in comes out.
BU__! SH__! Goes in and
BU__! SH__! Comes out.

Withdraw your support and
It will stop faster.
It has failed you already,
On every level

The seed of destruction they planted.
The Terminator Gene takes effect.

Greed is evil and
All consuming.
Get in your life boats now
Or go down with the Titanic.

As
The Chimp
and
Dead Eye
Head for the exits!

It's your turn now.
Sink or swim?

Start over.
Begin anew.
The slate is clean.
Turn the page.

Land Ho!
All the possibilities exist

There's too much either/or in these discussions. Quit limiting yourselves. We need it all. We need small and large gardens. We need government to do a lot more. We need fertilizer. We don't necessarily need e-coli contaminated 'organic' fertilizer or fertilizers contaminated with heavy metals. But if you can't get good old fashioned chemical fertilizers, then potentially dangerous 'organic' fertilizers are ok if handled with some care. We need all the seeds we can get or create. They all have their good points and bad. Sure there's risks. And a meteor might fall on your house and kill you. So go live in a bomb-shelter.

I find it interesting that the threads pertaining to issues that we have little control over (politics, the election, crooks & thieves) garner many responses, yet those issues that we have direct control over, such as planting a garden (and by inference, paring down our lives and living more sustainably) receive the fewest number of responses.

Seems like nothing's changed: We'd rather bitch than take control of our lives.

Well, I'm all in favor of planting a garden (have for years) and expanding on the principle of taking a little self-sufficiency and doing more for myself. Will this change the world? Yes! It is the only thing that can. And if not...it still beats bitching.

Nobody, seems to touch on the real problem....there are just too damn many of us. How about we slow down on the breeding like rabbits? I am 62, way back in the 60's it was looking to me like there were 'enough' people on the planet, about half of which were not doing so well already. If one's ego does not require the 'legacy' thing, why dedicate one's life to making things worse. A rich and interesting life (a MUCH more interesting life) can be had by eliminating the resource drain of children. (resource drain for parents and the planet) Children would have eliminated my chance to have the fulfilling life I have so far been fortunate to have.

"Climate change and an increasing population could trigger a global food crisis in the next half century as countries struggle for fertile land to grow crops and rear animals, scientists warned yesterday.

To keep up with the growth in human population, more food will have to be produced worldwide over the next 50 years than has been during the past 10,000 years combined, the experts said."

This from the Guardian piece, cited above.

Will Rogers may have said it best: They're makin' more people, but they ain't makin' more dirt.

So, if the goal is to feed more people, where are they going to get the dirt to grow all the extra food? And at the same time, while they're feeding more people, they're enabling the propagation of even more people. Hard realities to face, but while we're in this feedback loop, we'll keep heading toward the abyss. A population collapse is imminent if we don't pay attention to the natural order of things.

A couple of natural laws:
1. Increase in available food = increase in people
2. That which cannot be sustained, won't.

Ergo: 1. Large-scale agribusiness farming is overpopulating this world, which is not sustainable; 2. We were much better off when we produced as much as we could individually and traded for what we couldn't as close to home as possible. This may be the model for the future, which is good because we won't have to re-invent the wheel we have plenty of examples.

Greg R,
Your point is well taken in terms of not limiting ourselves. We do need diversity, small and large, diversified crops. However, insisting that we should be sticking to the same industrial food chain that is built on massive monoculture systems and fossil fuel inputs is to hedge your bets on a failed system.

I agree as well, that the industrial organic model is inherently unstable since it generally copies the monoculture paradigm of industrial systems. All it is doing is changing the inputs of the industrial system without the "benefits" of all the safety nets(ie. antibiotics, toxic pesticides etc.) This is documented very well in the Omnivore's Dillema by Micheal Pollan.

Diversity is the key, and as long as the government keeps supporting large industrial monoculture food chains, then there isn't much hope coming from that direction.

Permaculture and similar systems are about building local food systems and communities around learning from and mimicking the diversity that is found in nature. Every part of the system has multiple functions and supports other parts of the system. The goal is to provide not only food, shelter and clothing, but to improve the environment from which those resources are being taken. This is not airy fairy wishful thinking, this is happening all over the world as people realize the current systems are failing us.

I guess the fact is, solutions aren't generally going to be found in the CD forums, the problems are more the focus here. Once you've identified the problems, it's time to do something about it. If one wants to make real change, and not let the sometimes overwhelming news presented here depress us, then positive solutions are out there to be found.

Barney99 -- You're right spot on. Nature thrives upon diversity, as little niches each provide such varied environments for different opportunities to evolve specialization.

Namaste

Okay, if I grow my own food so that it takes nearly-zero fossil fuel calories to feed me, then, that's great, I'm no longer a part of the problem. But how am I part of the solution? Of that additional 2.4 billion people, most of them will not have this option. Are big agri-business and governments going to altruistically distribute food according to the maxim?, "From each, according to his/her ability; to each, according to his /her need." In other words, how do you retool economic policy for sustainability instead of quarterly profits? 100,000 farmer suicides in India during the past decade because of retooled economics in favor of large corporate agriculture indicate the global trend is in the opposite direction. The greedy pigs at the top beleive in socioeconomic Darwinism. They don't care how many people suffer and die in disasters and other upheavals as long as they stay at the top.

This blog is dedicated to this subject: http://lawnstogardens.wordpress.com/about/

Watch the video, it's pretty funny

JohnR,
I think you answered your own question, if you are "no longer a part of the problem", that is the solution? If you can't change yourself, how are you going to change the system? "Be the change you want to see" (right Namaste?)

I'm not sure who these 2.4 billion people you refer to are, but whether they are the poor and disposesed or the so called affluent in rich countries up to their eyeballs in debt, then indeed it is the only option anyone may have.

There is also a movement in India led mostly by women, and documented very well by Vandana Shiva (a modern day hero by the way), about revitalizing local, diverse food production and economies. The is happening everywhere, it is a global movement with no head and no rules except of those that apply to the local environments.

These local movements will and are making the whole system you are so fearful of irrelevant from the ground up.

Also, the best playbook for solving this crisis can be found at www.alcoholcanbeagas.com

The big players are stealing the ideas from Dave Blume's book, including:

Using cattail marshes to filter municipal waste, while at the same time growing a renewable fuel source (LOTS of starch in Cat Tails!)

Using the byproducts of small scale alcohol production to grow businesses such as worm farming, talapia farms, etc.

I highly recommend his book!

Barney, I think growing your own food is a good idea. I think it would be a good thing for as many people as possible to do this.

However, I don't think it's going to solve all our problems, or even most of them. What will solve our problems, though, is if we can somehow get together and make the government understand that we want more than fresh fruits and vegetables, like fuel-efficient cars and an end to war and alternate energy sources and health care and so on.

Growing our own produce and giving up eating meat will certainly send a message to the food producers, though. So I guess it's not an either/or thing.

Now if we could all grow our own fuel and make our own electricity . . . .

So what does the The Advisory Board to the International Institute for Ecological Agriculture have to say about this? (They are listed below):

Daniel Claudio Martinez Carrera, Ph.D.
President Institute of Applied Neotropical Mycology
Editor, International Applied Mycology Magazine
Professor of Mycology, University of Mexico, Puebla Campus

William (Bill) C. Holmberg
Lt.Col. USMC (Ret.)
Chair, New Uses Council
Pushing Frontiers of the Biobased Economy

Héctor Sáez, Ph.D.
Environmental Program and Community Development and Applied Economics
University of Vermont

Jeannette Diaz-Veizades, Ph.D.
Co-Director, Harvest for Haiti
Executive Faculty, Saybrook Graduate School

Gar Smith
Editor Emeritus, Not Man Apart
Friends of the Earth

Ernest Callenbach
Author—Ecotopia & Ecotopia Emerging
Editor Emeritus, University of California Press

Bob Theis A.I.A.
Architect/ Permaculture Designer

Joe Jordan Ph.D.
Researcher/educator
NASA Ames Research Center

Noah Owusu-Takyi Ph.D.
President
Insitute of Tropical Agriculture-Ghana

Larry Korn
Editor/Translator
Author— One Straw Revolution

David Sutton Ph.D.
Ecological Biologist
President-The Antaeus Organization

Ryan Sarnataro
Treasurer/ ED emeritus
Ecologicial Farming Association

Felipe Montoya-Greenheck Ph.D.
Founder/Director —MILPA Foundation-Costa Rica

Daniel Robin
President Integrated Investments Intl.

Deborah Mytels
Outreach Director —Foundation for Global Community

They all agree:

1. Almost every country can become energy-independent. Anywhere that has sunlight and land can produce alcohol from plants. Brazil, the fifth largest country in the world imports no oil, since half its cars run on alcohol fuel made from sugarcane, grown on 1% of its land.

2. We can reverse global warming. Since alcohol is made from plants, its production takes carbon dioxide out of the air, sequestering it, with the result that it reverses the greenhouse effect (while potentially vastly improving the soil). Recent studies show that in a permaculturally designed mixed-crop alcohol fuel production system, the amount of greenhouse gases removed from the atmosphere by plants—and then exuded by plant roots into the soil as sugar—can be 13 times what is emitted by processing the crops and burning the alcohol in our cars.

3. We can revitalize the economy instead of suffering through Peak Oil. Oil is running out, and what we replace it with will make a big difference in our environment and economy. Alcohol fuel production and use is clean and environmentally sustainable, and will revitalize families, farms, towns, cities, industries, as well as the environment. A national switch to alcohol fuel would provide many millions of new permanent jobs.

4. No new technological breakthroughs are needed. We can make alcohol fuel out of what we have, where we are. Alcohol fuel can efficiently be made out of many things, from waste products like stale donuts, grass clippings, food processing waste-even ocean kelp. Many crops produce many times more alcohol per acre than corn, using arid, marshy, or even marginal land in addition to farmland. Just our lawn clippings could replace a third of the autofuel we get from the Mideast.

5. Unlike hydrogen fuel cells, we can easily use alcohol fuel in the vehicles we already own. Unmodified cars can run on 50% alcohol, and converting to 100% alcohol or flexible fueling (both alcohol and gas) costs only a few hundred dollars. Most auto companies already sell new dual-fuel vehicles.

6. Alcohol is a superior fuel to gasoline! It's 105 octane, burns much cooler with less vibration, is less flammable in case of accident, is 98% pollution-free, has lower evaporative emissions, and deposits no carbon in the engine or oil, resulting in a tripling of engine life. Specialized alcohol engines can get at least 22% better mileage than gasoline or diesel.

7. It's not just for gasoline cars. We can also easily use alcohol fuel to power diesel engines, trains, aircraft, small utility engines, generators to make electricity, heaters for our homes—and it can even be used to cook our food.

8. Alcohol has a proud history. Gasoline is a refinery's toxic waste; alcohol fuel is liquid sunshine. Henry Ford's early cars were all flex-fuel. It wasn't until gasoline magnate John D. Rockefeller funded Prohibition that alcohol fuel companies were driven out of business.

9. The byproducts of alcohol production are clean, instead of being oil refinery waste, and are worth more than the alcohol itself. In fact, they can make petrochemical fertilizers and herbicides obsolete. The alcohol production process concentrates and makes more digestible all protein and non-starch nutrients in the crop. It's so nutritious that when used as animal feed, it produces more meat or milk than the corn it comes from. That's right, fermentation of corn increases the food supply and lowers the cost of food.

10. Locally produced ethanol supercharges regional economies. Instead of fuel expenditures draining capital away to foreign bank accounts, each gallon of alcohol produces local income that gets recirculated many times. Every dollar of tax credit for alcohol generates up to $6 in new tax revenues from the increased local business.

11. Alcohol production brings many new small-scale business opportunities. There is huge potential for profitable local, integrated, small-scale businesses that produce alcohol and related byproducts, whereas when gas was cheap, alcohol plants had to be huge to make a profit.

12. Scale matters—most of the widely publicized potential problems with ethanol are a function of scale. Once production plants get beyond a certain size and are too far away from the crops that supply them, closing the ecological loop becomes problematic. Smaller-scale operations can more efficiently use a wide variety of crops than huge specialized one-crop plants, and diversification of crops would largely eliminate the problems of monoculture.

13. The byproducts of small-scale alcohol plants can be used in profitable, energy-efficient, and environmentally positive ways. For instance, spent mash (the liquid left over after distillation) contains all the nutrients the next fuel crop needs and can return it back to the soil if the fields are close to the operation. Big-scale plants, because they bring in crops from up to 45 miles away, can't do this, so they have to evaporate all the water and sell the resulting byproduct as low-price animal feed,which accounts for half the energy used in the plant.