>Mish, (or Keith?) It's clear which is which, unless your emailer doesn't do >'s, in which case I suggest you get another emailer.
>True perhaps, as far as sustainability and efficiency >are concerned, small farms are the best solution. >However, we have overpopulated this planet to such a >degree that there would never be enough land to >support our populations with only small, efficient >farms. Not true. The overpopulation problem is more realistically a marginalisation problem. There's plenty of room and resources for everyone and everything else too, except the greedy. Check it out - eco-footprinting's a not-bad place to start, it's developed a lot in recent years. Look at which societies exceed their due allotment and which don't, check the groups within those societies which exceed their due allotment and which don't. "Myth 3 - Too Many People. Reality: Birth rates are falling rapidly worldwide as remaining regions of the Third World begin the demographic transition -- when birth rates drop in response to an earlier decline in death rates. Although rapid population growth remains a serious concern in many countries, nowhere does population density explain hunger. For every Bangladesh, a densely populated and hungry country, we find a Nigeria, Brazil or Bolivia, where abundant food resources coexist with hunger. Costa Rica, with only half of Honduras' cropped acres per person, boasts a life expectancy -- one indicator of nutrition -- 11 years longer than that of Honduras and close to that of developed countries. Rapid population growth is not the root cause of hunger. Like hunger itself, it results from underlying inequities that deprive people, especially poor women, of economic opportunity and security. Rapid population growth and hunger are endemic to societies where land ownership, jobs, education, health care, and old age security are beyond the reach of most people. Those Third World societies with dramatically successful early and rapid reductions of population growth rates -- China, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Cuba and the Indian state of Kerala -- prove that the lives of the poor, especially poor women, must improve before they can choose to have fewer children." http://www.foodfirst.org/pubs/backgrdrs/1998/s98v5n3.html 12 Myths About Hunger There's a very large amount of evidence for that. "A smaller increase in production would suffice if its growth were accompanied by more equitable access to food. This could be achieved through redistribution - of food itself, of the means of producing it or of the purchasing power needed to buy it -- to those currently on the lower rungs of the food access ladder." Unfortunately, the experience of the past thirty years shows no significant decline in inequity of access among households in most countries." -- FAO http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/OIS/PRESS_NE/PRESSENG/2001/pren0169.htm "Overpopulation" is a symptom, just as poverty and hunger are symptoms, and the cause is an inequitable economic system. If overpopulation were a reality it would indeed be an intractable problem; if poverty and hunger existed, and increased as they do, because there just wasn't enough to go round, that too would be an intractable problem. But a dysfunctional economic system is not an intractable problem. That's why I said this: > > >So instead of Manning's problem of agriculture, we > > have instead the > > >problem of power, rather more convincing, IMO. > > > > > >Huxley said only angels can handle power > > responsibly but they're not > > >interested in the job, or something like that. Most > > people aren't. > > >=== message truncated === I don't believe that's an intractable problem either. It went on: >>"It's said that 'power corrupts', but actually it's more true that >>power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by >>other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as >>service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for >>which he is insatiable, implacable." (David Brin) >> >>Humans are just fine, nearly all of them. Their institutions are >>another matter. The story of history, the one vs the other. It's a >>story of steady progress, with constant setbacks. To go back to this: >True perhaps, as far as sustainability and efficiency >are concerned, small farms are the best solution. >However, we have overpopulated this planet to such a >degree that there would never be enough land to >support our populations with only small, efficient >farms. Your logic defeats me. Would there then be enough land to support our populations with only large, inefficient farms? I don't think you meant to say "small, inefficient farms" - either way, the first doesn't seem to make any sense, and the second's plain wrong: small farms are indeed much more efficient and productive than large farms, everywhere in the world, including the US. That is well documented. Your reading of the message you're responding to seems strangely patchy, if you even read it all. For instance, you miss one entire half of the picture, that of pastoralism, which is not yet extinct and counters just about everything you say. But maybe you just fitted it to your views and skipped the bits that didn't fit. You quote Robert: >"So if people developed agriculture as a means to >prevent starvation, >and if the four major cereal crops contribute to the >break down of soil >fertility, it seems very ironic that the strategy used >to ensure our >survival and domination as a species could contribute >to our downfall." robert luis rabello But Robert wasn't attesting to that, he was doubting it. There's not much of a case for the idea that people developed agriculture as a means to prevent starvation, certainly not if they were hunter-gatherers, the hunter-gatherer strategy is highly successful. Agriculture arose in fertile river valleys, with no such factor as a dry season to bring hunger and force long forays. There's no case for the idea that the four major cereal crops necessarily contribute to the breakdown of soil fertility - all the many successful traditional agricultures developed sustainable systems of which cereals production was (and is) an integral part: soil fertility was maintained or improved and preserved for perpetuity. Many of these techniques long predated the scientific "discoveries" of the 19th and 20th centuries. The disproof of this theory is so widespread that it's hard to imagine where one might get such an idea, other than from Lowdermilk, but Lowdermilk only looks at some of the failures of the past and doesn't particularly blame them on cereals so much as on poor technique. The famed Broadbalk trials at Rothamsted, though somewhat flawed, succeeded in continuously producing wheat from the same land without any inputs at all, no fertilizers, no rotations, and, especially, no livestock. (Where they "cheated" was in bringing in new seeds every year instead of using seeds from the previous harvest.) Rice crops in the East can do the same, for a great deal longer than Rothamsted's relatively brief existence. Of course the other place to pick up the idea that cereals wreck the soil is the massive failure of the present: industrial agriculture. >This is the exact same scenario that struck >former hunter-gathers in the ancient times. >Agriculture and domestication began as a means to >survive the dry times, Both the San and the Australian Aboriginals are highly successful hunter-gatherers, yet neither ever sees much of anything else but dry times. >So now we are living in one place, agriculture is >booming, food is plentiful. Clearly we have more time >on our hands. Arrives the metal age. Agriculture Hunter-gatherers generally have more leisure time than both agricultural societies and modern city-dwellers. >So now we are living in one place, agriculture is >booming, food is plentiful. Clearly we have more time >on our hands. Arrives the metal age. Agriculture >freed up time formerly spend hunting/gathering and >allowed for certain individuals to take power. Food >was power, as Manning suggested. Wealth was >accumulated as food. This accumulation was then able >to be distributed in payment for labor. You make the same mistake as Diamond/Manning - this fails to explain how such a division of wealth could arise. They grow food, food equals wealth and power... which suddenly some have and others don't. Who are these "certain individuals" who were somehow able to take power? How? The argument glibly gets turned back on itself: because of evil agriculture. This is central to the whole construction, but there's nothing there, and, with neither foundation nor skyhooks, the whole edifice collapses. Maybe Diamond and Manning just didn't see it, both seem to be working with rather a limited view of agricultural history, and of agricultural practice around the world through history, and indeed without much clue of how agriculture works. But it was a major point in my message, and your response simply ignores it. >Now, thanks >for accumulation of food wealth, those fortunate >enough did not have to work constantly for their own >survival, instead they had free time to think up other >ideas. This is how early technology began. Without >the need to focus on self-survival, invention was >possible. Metallurgy was invented, better methods for >food storage and processing were invented, etc. Um, how about all that hunter-gatherer leisure time? >I feel like I'm rewriting Jared Diamond's, GUNS, >GERMS, and STEEL. Anyone familiar? Guns, Germs, and >Steel were the downfall of early civilization, and >have continued to be same ever since agriculture >began. Agriculture was a Neolithic enterprise. Later Stone Age. Okay, never mind the confusion, but I'm afraid it's a very simplistic and narrow view of the rather various fates of early civilisations. I suggest Toynbee, or perhaps go back to the beginning and Mr Wells, who'll also give you a better grounding on the interesting transition from paleolithic to neolithic. Your conclusion: >Clearly our civilization, old and new, had taken on a >lifestyle directed solely in the direction of >self-destruction. Ironic, yes, but look around at the >world we are living in. Very true. :-) Only in the eye of the beholder. It's a fashionable view in some sectors of the rich, urbanised Western populations, also the ones that like to see humanity as a kind of cancer of the biosphere. It's nonsense, though, as with any nonsense, it's easy enough to select a bunch of facts and arrange them as "proof". Just as you've tried to do here. It's also a major cop-out - we humans are self-destructive (and generally destructive), it's just the way we are, no sense in trying to fight it or change anything... or in grasping the nettle that maybe we ourselves need to live less wastefully, tread more lightly upon the earth, find better, more sustainable, more equitable, ways of doing things. Nor the other nettle, that we continue our wasteful lifestyles at the huge expense of others who we can't even be bothered to know about. Nor yet another nettle, that the vast majority of humans are not self-destructive and do not live destructive lives and have a very different view of things, but our supine attitude and behaviour is helping to doom them anyway whether they agree or not. These privileged folks always say "Just look around at the world we're living in" to prove their point, but that's just what they fail to do, other than through the lens of selfish consumerist waste. Diamond's views fit in easily with all this, as do Manning's, whose views of agriculture are very similar to and perhaps derived from Diamond's: "The worst mistake in the history of the human race". What nonsense. Incomplete in both cases, large chunks missing. Wrench is far better - clear-sighted and positive. Best Keith >True perhaps, as far as sustainability and efficiency >are concerned, small farms are the best solution. >However, we have overpopulated this planet to such a >degree that there would never be enough land to >support our populations with only small, efficient >farms. This is the exact same scenario that struck >former hunter-gathers in the ancient times. >Agriculture and domestication began as a means to >survive the dry times, but just as we have seen in >earlier modern days, farming requires human power, so >more children were made. Then the dry period ends and >good times return. Now they have agriculture booming >as well as all the natural supplies they need. This >is when the accumulation of wealth begins. But, the >population is now larger, so domestication MUST >continue to support the community. > >Another result of agriculture was sedentism. Prior, >people owned only what they could carry as they led a >nomadic life. Now, they had farms, they had storage >containers, they had milling stones, all of which are >not easily transported from place to place. Also, >more often there are young children, which cannot >travel so much so constantly. Again, once we settled, >we doomed ourselves to agriculture. Hunting/gathering >only worked for small populations that had much >territory to roam. Now, being settled, the only >option was to grow what was needed, or, eat what was >able to be grown. > >So now we are living in one place, agriculture is >booming, food is plentiful. Clearly we have more time >on our hands. Arrives the metal age. Agriculture >freed up time formerly spend hunting/gathering and >allowed for certain individuals to take power. Food >was power, as Manning suggested. Wealth was >accumulated as food. This accumulation was then able >to be distributed in payment for labor. Now, thanks >for accumulation of food wealth, those fortunate >enough did not have to work constantly for their own >survival, instead they had free time to think up other >ideas. This is how early technology began. Without >the need to focus on self-survival, invention was >possible. Metallurgy was invented, better methods for >food storage and processing were invented, etc. > >Again, invention made life easier, but again, >furthered our inability to ever become mobile, in turn >further trapped us into a domestic lifestyle. > >I feel like I'm rewriting Jared Diamond's, GUNS, >GERMS, and STEEL. Anyone familiar? Guns, Germs, and >Steel were the downfall of early civilization, and >have continued to be same ever since agriculture >began. > >"So if people developed agriculture as a means to >prevent starvation, >and if the four major cereal crops contribute to the >break down of soil >fertility, it seems very ironic that the strategy used >to ensure our >survival and domination as a species could contribute >to our downfall." robert luis rabello > >Clearly our civilization, old and new, had taken on a >lifestyle directed solely in the direction of >self-destruction. Ironic, yes, but look around at the >world we are living in. Very true. > >Brian > > > > >--- Keith Addison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi Kirk > > > > Interesting one - I posted it before, but no harm in > > posting it > > again. There was some discussion on it: > > http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/BIOFUEL/31859/ > > > > A couple of weeks ago it came up at SANET, the > > SustAg list, with > > quite a lot more discussion, including some > > objections by Biofuel > > member Kim Travis, with which I agreed. I posted a > > response to the > > original post there, from Misha - sustainable food > > production and > > sustainable fuel/energy have a lot in common, quite > > a lot about both > > in my reply, so I'll post it again here: > > > > >Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 06:46:29 +0900 > > >To: Sustainable Agriculture Network Discussion > > Group > > ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > >From: Keith Addison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > >Subject: Re: The oil we eat > > > > > >Howdy Misha, and all > > > > > >And peace be unto you too. But hey, cheer up a bit > > - we haven't > > >quite managed to destroy exactly everything yet. > > "Abandon hope all > > >ye who enter here" is what it says on the gates of > > hell, and we > > >ain't there yet either. As David/the Dalai Lama > > said, optimism is > > >the only option, and not only that, it makes sense > > - could even be a > > >bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you get it > > right (an > > >optimistic view!). > > > > > >Anyway, as one poverty-level-income community > > activist to another, > > >yes, I saw the piece, and posted it at our Biofuel > > mailing list, > > >where it got itself discussed some, though not as > > much as I'd've > > >liked. Pleased to have it in our archives though, > > along with a few > > >others such. It's here: > > > > > >http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/31846/ > > >The Oil We Eat: Following the food chain back to > > Iraq > > > > > >Here's another one: > > > > > >Eating Fossil Fuels > > >by Dale Allen Pfeiffer > > > >http://idaho.indymedia.org/news/2004/01/6361_comment.php > > > > > >Another: > > > > > >Eating Oil - Food supply in a changing climate. > > >By Andy Jones > > >from Resurgence issue 216 > > >January / February 2003 > > >http://resurgence.gn.apc.org/issues/jones216.htm > > > > > >The Biofuel mailing list, by the way, run by > > Journey to Forever, is > > >rather wide-ranging. Biofuels as alternatives come > > with a context, > > >the full energy context, and it all gets examined > > there, by a very > > >international membership. > > > > > >Anyway, what did I say about it... I enjoyed > > Manning's piece, a good > > >read, but he didn't take it far enough, IMO. > > Indeed, industrialised > > >agriculture's extraction and "value"-adding "food > > system" is not > > >farming at all, and nothing about it is > > sustainable, not even its > > >perpetrators' bottom-lines. But where all these > > articles have been > > >weak is in failing to realise the potential of > > sustainable > > >agriculture, which after all is not just some > > idealistic > > >head-in-the-clouds theory, it's something millions > > of farmers > > >worldwide are doing, with millions more joining > > them all the time. > > >Organic farmers grow maize without the use of > > fossil-fuel inputs, > > >getting the same or better yields and better > > prices. And not > > >wrecking the place, no "externalities". Nothing > > special. Richard > > >Manning gets it more right than the others have > > done - at least he > > >realises there is such a thing as a sustainable way > > of doing it, but > > >not how far it goes. As Kim said, just about > > everything it says was > > >predicted decades ago by the pioneers of modern > > sustainable farming, > > >who also showed that none of it is at all > > necessary. > > > > > >But I don't agree with Manning's main thesis. The > > sentence you quote > > >struck me too: > > > > > >>Writes Manning: "[The rise of a]griculture was not > > so much about food > > >>as it was about the accumulation of wealth. It > > benefited some humans, > > >>and those people have been in charge ever since." > > > > > >I rather agree that "they" have been in charge ever > > since, but not > > >for that reason, and I don't think that's how it > > happened. Even if > > >it did happen that way, why did some benefit more > > than others? What > > >gave them the edge in the first place? > > > > > >G.T. Wrench, in his "Reconstruction by Way of the > > Soil", paints a > > >vivid picture of the tension between the nomadic > > pastoralists of the > > >plains and settled peasant farmers in the river > > valleys, the latter > > >following the law of return and the former abusing > > it, overriding > > >it, via overstocking. "In this character, indeed, > > they were like to > > >other kinds of speculators, many prominent at the > > present time." And > > >when they'd overgrazed the land, burnt all the > > trees and the > > >droughts came... "Then, with increasing numbers, > > they might > > >successfully make themselves masters of the land of > > settled farmers > > >and the food and wealth, which they had not the wit > > to get by their > > >own skill and toil. Hence they praised war, not as > > a means of > > >defence in the way in which a sturdy peasantry has > > so often > > >successfully defended itself and its soil, but as a > > means to mastery > > >and wealth. To them life was not only a struggle > > for existence, but > > >a will to power over their enemies, an assertion of > > the right of the > > >better-armed and of the more savage nature over > > what they regarded > > >as possible, and if possible legitimate, prey." > > > > > >This seems to me a better explanation of why some > > benefited from > > >agriculture more than others did. > > > > > >Conversely, peasant communities under threat of > > attack by brigands > > >and bandits if not hordes of marauding nomads might > > well have been > > >sturdy enough as Wrench says, but defending the > > community in an > > >emergency requires a different social structure > > from that suited to > > >cultivating a river valley: it needs a command > > structure, with > > >emergency powers. It's easy to imagine how such > > powers might > > >increasingly be to a commander's liking, until the > > day the battle is > > >won but peace fails to break out, and the command > > structure becomes > > >permanent, and enforced. > > > > > >There are many possible permutations of this > > picture, and they're > > >easy to find supporting references for. Toynbee, > > other historians, > > >see something similar. > > > > > >So instead of Manning's problem of agriculture, we > > have instead the > > >problem of power, rather more convincing, IMO. > > > > > >Huxley said only angels can handle power > > responsibly but they're not > > >interested in the job, or something like that. Most > > people aren't. > > >=== message truncated === Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! 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