The Oil Drum

Agree completely with Jeff's analysis. Stuart has an interesting start to a position, though there is still quite a way to go. And causality in this situation is most certainly highly multivariate, so simple explanations will not capture a full understanding of the data trends.

Certainly both large and small farms can exist in the future, as every nation may choose different ways to incentivize one over the other (or choose not to incentivize at all, though it would be hard to imagine such a situation in a high-consuming nation). So the answer may be that neither large agriculture nor small holdings will dominate the other overall.

Certainly the suburbanization that has been taking place in the last 50 years can contribute to the ability of those homeowners to respond to high food prices with home gardens; indeed, quite a bit of food can be produced in an intensive gardening approach on a 1/4 acre. See the this Chicago suburbanite who is growing 97 apples trees on his 1/4 acre lawn.

See Garden Girl explain Urban Sustainable Gardening in this video.

And raised beds provide many times the output in the same amount of space that traditional gardens do.

It's great to see people converting their properties to local food production. Certainly the skills and knowledge that these folks have developed will be increasingly important as the oil age peters out.

I have written the following policy paper on agricultural and related resources. Would like to "hear" your comments.

Policy Paper #7 – Energy, Agriculture, and Waste Issues
Mike Morin
katerimarie@netzero.net

Are they proceeding with tar sands removal and processing? Such would be unfortunate in "light" of the gluttony of our times and relative to future needs, and to other concerns of the "natural" environment, public health (such as water and air quality and availability), wildlife (which does not threaten domestic life), and recreation.

Similar concerns have of course been stated for coal, oil, natural gas, uranium, water, and other resources.

Among the many problems associated with the agricultural sector are those regarding runoff from manures, pesticides, herbicides, and of soil. It is my considered opinion that Americans could consume much less meat. Shifting agricultural practices towards less meat and dairy production and consumption would help assuage the non-human animal manure problem. Some may argue that such manure could be a valuable fertilizer source though I would argue that I would not want such a job. Less meat, dairy, and egg consumption would also be healthier for people and would allow more people to realize healthy diets.

Currently blood meal from slaughterhouses is a source of nitrogen fertilizer. Again, such as the other jobs in that sectors would be very unpleasant and should be highly compensated.

We need to put more resources into composting efforts and other practices and technologies associated with ecological food systems.

I have previously addressed in other forums the opportunity costs associated with cropping for tobacco, alcohol, soft drinks, sugar in lieu of food crops, ethanol, and biofuels.

Also, the active encouragement and support of more localized food systems (i.e. going toward self-sufficiency in all regions) would go a long way towards improving the quality of life in our communities. We need to put in place development control policies which stop once and for all the loss of productive farmland (and stop the sprawl that engenders and perpetuates energy intensive lifestyles) and work with growers and other farm workers to develop a production system in which they control the means of production and distribution (In such a scheme, I would consider people who work in distribution and transport a "farm" worker). Packaging should be minimized, advertising (in all sectors) eliminated and concurrently restaurant establishments should be scaled back considerably, if not minimized. Doing these things would greatly help the trash disposal problems that are with us now. Additionally, we need to actively support the reinstitution of source separation of wastes.

To the extent that sewer systems exist, humanure can and is captured. The production of algae for energy production may very well be an endeavor worthy of pursuit. Biosolids are a major problem and perhaps the construction of tankers and barges to haul and dump such to the deep ocean could mitigate this problem and create many high skilled jobs and community economic development and ownership opportunities.

However, like a national highway program (the so-called free freeways of the so-called free market system), the notion that these could be developed as a marketable products strikes me as absurd, but not nearly absurd as the plethora of extraneous and ill-conceived products that currently sit on shelves or the mountains of trash which plague our hinterlands.

Education is key to any hopes of success.