DrumBeat: July 26, 2008
Posted by Leanan on July 26, 2008 - 9:34am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Oil shock: Why This Run-Up Is Different
The two events, half a world apart, went largely unheralded.Early this month, Valero Energy in Texas got the unwelcome news that Mexico would be cutting supplies to one of the company's Gulf Coast refineries by up to 15 percent. Mexico's state-owned oil enterprise is one of Valero's main sources of crude, but oil output from Mexican fields, including the giant Cantarell field, is drying up. Mexican sales of crude oil to the United States have plunged to their lowest level in more than a dozen years.
The same week, India's Tata Motors announced it was expanding its plans to begin producing a new $2,500 "people's car" called the Nano in the fall. The company hopes that by making automobiles affordable for people in India and elsewhere, it could eventually sell 1 million of them a year.
'Peak oil' Facebook site fuels global discussion
EDMONTON - Jordan Schroder lives in a province with one of the richest supplies of oil in the world, but the Edmontonian is the driving force behind a Facebook group to raise awareness about the resource's scarcity.Schroder had been following the peak oil theory -- that production of oil will peak, then decline -- for several years before starting the common-interests Facebook group this January.
Since then, his "Have you heard about peak oil?" collective has ballooned to include members from virtually every continent.
Oil prices could drop if Iran concerns allayed: OPEC
ALGIERS (AFP) - The price of oil could drop to between 70 and 80 dollars a barrel if the dollar strengthens and concerns over Iran are reduced, OPEC chief Chakib Khelil said Saturday.
Liberals say Iraq is another Vietnam; conservatives say Barack Obama is Jimmy Carter redux. ABBA's a mega-hit and Elton John's going to be performing at Madison Square Garden. Had enough of these '70s flashbacks? Brace yourself for another: the return of the national speed limit, courtesy of one of the country's most venerable politicians.
How Free Trade Can Help Solve the Energy Crisis
The unprecedented escalation in oil and food prices is a clear and present danger to our economy and national security. The root cause of this crisis is our dependence on a single commodity, oil, for transportation -- we burn 145 billion gallons of gasoline a year. The only permanent solution is diversity in our fuel supply to ensure competition and choice in the marketplace.
THREE months ago, Premier Rodney MacDonald, while resisting calls to cut fuel taxes, landed on the hotseat for arguing that the best way to beat high gas prices was to take the bus or buy a fuel-efficient car.Nova Scotians did not take kindly to this suggestion – which, in fairness, did sound more like a directive when squeezed into headline shorthand. Angry readers made a number of valid points. Few can afford a hybrid. And many – especially in rural areas – have no access to public transportation. Meanwhile, bus service in the metropolitan areas could stand real improvement.
Birmingham engineering boss in despair at 86% power cost rise
A TINY Birmingham engineering firm faces an electricity bill rise of at least 86 per cent in a year as the energy crisis turns up the heat for thousands of small Midland firms.As the national furore over the dramatic increases in energy costs continues, many small Birmingham businesses on tight budgets face unprecedented rises.
Fuel shortage shutting down Baja gas stations
TIJUANA – Gasoline stations in this city and in Rosarito Beach are closing down for up to 24 hours because of a fuel shortage.
Nigerian military deploys gunboats in Niger Delta region
LAGOS (Xinhua) -- Nigeria's military has deployed gunboats in the oil-rich Delta State, following threats by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) to blow up the pipelines of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in the area, reported the Punch newspaper on Saturday.
Future of UK North Sea Oil, Gas Seen in Hands of Smaller Players
Small, independent oil and gas producers have begun to recognize the value in aging North Sea oil fields and could be key to unlocking an estimated 16 billion-25 billion barrels of oil equivalent lying unexploited in the U.K. Continental Shelf, industry analysts and participants say.
Can biofuels solve America's oil crunch?
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- A summer with budget-busting gasoline prices seems like the worst time to launch a cross-country road trip from California to Georgia, but this one is different: We're road-testing alternative fuel that might help reduce pollution and break the nation's reliance on foreign oil.
Nothing to Eat: review of Paul Roberts' "The End of Food"
Roberts’s worst-case scenario isn’t tomatoes devoid of taste. It’s a “perfect storm of sequential or even simultaneous food-related calamities.” Climate change and spiraling population growth have him wondering not just “whether we’ll be able to feed 9.5 billion people by 2070, but how long we can continue to meet the demands of the 6.5 billion alive today.”Roberts delivers a litany of terrors small and large: “Arable land is growing scarcer. Inputs like pesticides and synthetic nitrogen fertilizers are increasingly expensive. Soil degradation and erosion from hyperintensive farming are costing millions of acres of farmland a year. Water supplies are being rapidly depleted in parts of the world, even as the rising price of petroleum — the lifeblood of industrial agriculture — is calling into question the entire agribusiness model.”
Big Oil has more cash than it can use
Some of the country's biggest oil companies have a money problem. They've got too much of it.No tears, of course, will be shed for Big Oil, which often is cast as the heartless profiteer, sneering in delight as we motorists wince with every squeeze of the pump handle.
But the oil companies, too, are in a squeeze. Awash in cash, they're having a hard time spending it.
More than three-fourths of the world's untapped reserves are controlled by countries that either ban or restrict access to their reserves. In other words, the best drilling prospects are taken.
Limits on futures trading could boost gas prices, expert says
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Proposals to reign in wallet-draining gasoline prices by curbing speculation in oil markets would likely increase costs at the pump instead of trimming them, a University of Illinois economist says.Scott Irwin argues congressional efforts to curb trading by speculators is a “misguided witch hunt” that ignores the root of America’s energy problem – a finite global oil supply that has been stretched thin by surging demand in China, India and other developing countries.
South Africa: Analysts Doubt Gazprom's $250 Claim
RUSSIAN gas and oil monopoly Gazprom yesterday claimed it was inevitable oil prices would rise to $250 a barrel next year.But analysts in SA said there were already signs of the price softening in response to waning demand as consumers respond to spiralling fuel costs. They said the economy, already buffeted by a host of negative factors, would not sustain such a high price.
A recent drop in oil prices can be attributed primarily to futures traders focusing exclusively on the troubled U.S. economy and ignoring other factors, according to economists.Unfortunately for businesses and consumers looking for a break on gas prices, those same economists are not expecting the price freefall to last much longer.
At Ford, End of a Big-Vehicle Era Takes a Toll
The United States market for pickups and S.U.V.’s began collapsing in the spring when gas prices hit $4 a gallon, as consumers moved rapidly to buying small cars.So far this year, sales of large pickups are down 25 percent, and S.U.V.’s have fallen 32 percent, according to the trade journal Ward’s Automotive Reports.
But the impact is hurting automakers in more than just sales of new trucks.
“There are multiple second- and third-order impacts,” Mr. Johnson said. “We’re seeing it in lease residuals, we’re seeing it in loan losses, and we’re seeing an impact in the showroom, because people can’t get enough on their old cars to make it worthwhile to get into a new car.”
Nobody Loves a Three-Year-Old SUV
Auto executives just can't catch a break. Add to slumping sales and lofty gasoline prices a ticking time bomb in their auto leasing operations. During the past several years automakers from General Motors (GM) to Nissan Motor (NSANY) to BMW leased millions of cars and trucks. As those leases end, the companies have to take back the vehicles—many of them the gas-guzzling SUVs, pickups, and luxury models people don't want anymore. You know what that means: more pain as the automakers offload those vehicles at a loss.
'It feels like a sci-fi film' - accidents tarnish nuclear dream
French nuclear companies are hoping to play a central role in the government's plan to build a new generation of reactors. At home, however, the industry has been buffeted by a series of mishaps.
Mohamed ElBaradei: A Global Agency is Needed for the Energy Crisis
World leaders need to take action on the energy crisis that is taking shape before our eyes. Oil prices are soaring and it looks less and less likely that this is a bubble. The price of coal has doubled. Countries as far apart as South Africa and Tajikistan are plagued by power cuts and there have been riots in several nations because of disruptions to electricity. Rich states, no longer strangers to blackouts, are worried about security of energy supply. In the developing world, 1.6bn people - about a quarter of the human race - have no access to electricity.Fundamental changes are under way in the energy field the significance of which we have not yet fully grasped. Global demand for energy is rising fast as the population increases and developing countries undergo dramatic economic growth. The International Energy Agency says the world´s energy needs could be 50 per cent higher in 2030 than they are today. Yet the fossil fuels on which the world still depends are finite and far from environmentally friendly. Serious thought needs to be given now to creating viable alternatives. The need for co-ordinated political action on energy and related issues - climate change and poverty, to name but two - has never been more acute. Yet there is no global energy institution in which the countries of the world can agree on joint solutions to the potentially enormous problems we see emerging.
Iran says oil could reach $500 on dollar, politics
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's OPEC governor said world oil prices could reach as high as $500 per barrel in a few years' time if the dollar falls further and political tension worsens, an Iranian weekly said."If the dollar's value continues to decrease and if the political crisis becomes worse, the oil price would reach up to $500," Mohammad Ali Khatibi told Shahrvand-e Emrooz in an interview published on Saturday.
Oil's 2-week nosedive shows up at the pump
NEW YORK - Whether or not any bubble has burst, Americans now live in an economy where the prospect of a gallon of gas for less than $4 is cause for relief.That barrier may be broken as early as this weekend, as a two-week nosedive in crude prices begins to ripple out to gas stations nationwide.
High oil price to hit long-haul holiday demand
Long-haul leisure travel could be the big loser if the price of oil stays high and the UK economy turns down, warns the head of a major group of travel agencies.Advantage Travel Centres chief executive John McEwan said today: “I worry about long-haul travel. We are getting into the realms of it being unaffordable for a section of the market.
“The economic environment is putting pressure on middle income families and a lot of people are going to see a material reduction in their income.” McEwan was speaking at a Barclays travel briefing in London.
TNK-BP CEO 'summoned' by Russian prosecutors
MOSCOW (AFP) - The chief executive of the troubled British-Russian joint venture oil group TNK-BP, Robert Dudley, has been summoned to appear before Russian prosecutors Monday to explain alleged violations of labour laws, Interfax news agency reported Saturday.
It seems to me that we might be witnessing the severe wounding -- and likely downsizing -- of one of the major members of Big Oil. At the same time, we again are being given yet another demonstration that doing business in Russia is fraught with peril that just may not be worth the effort.
Oil Exports From Northern Iraq Rise Sharply
BAGHDAD — An American agency monitoring reconstruction in Iraq said Friday that oil exports through Iraq’s northern pipeline rose more than tenfold over the past year, citing a sharp drop in attacks on the pipeline and new infrastructure built to protect it.
In May, Venezuela and China announced a “preliminary agreement” to build a massive new refinery on Gaolin Island in the southern province of Guandong. They agreed to split the cost and ownership.Since then, U.S. oil experts and Latin America scholars have been debating the refinery deal, and a curious consensus has developed. Nobody seems to believe China will actually build it.
Do you want to know why Iran has a nuclear program?
We don’t know where on the peak oil curve Iran is right now, but even if they have not reached peak oil production yet, it is safe to assume that they will shortly. This means that Iran must begin to look for other sources of energy for its future, just like many other countries. At present, the primary choices available for power production are very limited. They are hydro, gas, coal and nuclear – with nuclear giving the biggest bang for the buck.
Massive Economic Disaster Seems Possible -- Will Survivalists Get the Last Laugh?
With multiple crises on the horizon, survivalist views don't seem as marginal as they did before.
The real cost of logging in the Boreal Forest
There's a calculation the Ontario government doesn't do when awarding a logging licence in the old growth Boreal Forest: It doesn't ask about the impact on global warming.In particular, it doesn't ask about the impact over the next 20 years. Given the galloping rate at which temperatures are increasing in the north, this omission is foolhardy at best; derelict at worst.
A new spiritual politics of limits
We live in a world of finite space and finite resource. Endless trajectories of growth are not realistic; and our own rising "oceans" of food and fuel prices are a stark reminder that scarcity is not someone else's problem in today's and tomorrow's world.
A word to the wise:
The key in growing food is to remember that, on a plant-based diet, you need calories and other nutrients, such as minerals. Vegetables, for the most part, will provide minerals and vitamins, but not many calories. Only fruit will provide a diet rich in calories. So, while vegetable gardens are a cool thing to have, they will not sustain you. Fruit, on the other hand, will sustain you, during its season. There are exceptions, of course, melons are grown in a vegetable garden, and they are a fruit with many calories, but what most people think of as food from a vegetable garden, lettuce, green beans, squash, cucumbers, etc., have few calories.
The point of this message is to plant fruit trees, now, since they often take five years or more to bear fruit. Plant a variety of trees so from month to month, or season to season, there will always be new, different fruit coming on as the current fruit starts to fade. If you live in the north, erect a greenhouse in which you can grow fruit trees.
rawguy
And how about nuts? (The food kind, not the Cornucopian kind, although I suppose one could make a case for using Cornucopians as a food source, but I digress)
Both.
And, if you can, learn how to graft and to prune. You can find out how from books, but it is better to take a class, if one is offered near you.
http://www.amazon.com/Western-Fruit-Horticultural-Publishers/dp/08958607...
http://www.biblio.com/details.php?dcx=29471339&aid=frg2
We got most of our trees from Sonoma Antique Apples, now called Trees of Antiquity.
http://www.treesofantiquity.com/ They UPS bare root trees in late winter and early spring. I thnk it's probably better to find sources with roughly the same climate as yours (is now?).
Rat
PS ...Sgage; thin the fruit. Leave only one every 4-6 inches.
Nuts are good; they're high in fat, and a healthy diet has small amounts of fat. Fat can be converted to calories, but it takes a lot more of the body's energy to make the conversion; therefore, fat isn't the preferred fuel (it's more for cell lubrication). Thus, the caloric EROI is not as good as fruits, but if that's all there is, they'll do in a pinch.
On the other hand, fruit sugar converts to muscle glycogen without much tax; it's a cleaner burning fuel.
rawguy
Nuts are also valuable for their protein content. This will help maintain muscle quality and mass in lieu of animal-based proteins that may become scarcer with increasingly costly energy.
Fat can be converted to calories, but it takes a lot more of the body's energy to make the conversion; therefore, fat isn't the preferred fuel (it's more for cell lubrication). Thus, the caloric EROI is not as good as fruits, but if that's all there is, they'll do in a pinch.
That sounds like seriously flawed reasoning, can you back up that statement with some factual material?
My reading suggests that fat is one of the critical factors in surviving on a subsistence diet. Many cultures, including the those on the Korean peninsula raised animals for fat production.
There is a lot of biochemistry to this, see the textbooks for details (e.g. Lehninger or Stryer). I don't have the exact efficiency numbers at my fingertips but they don't seem to be the main thing. Fat has a much higher energy content than carbohydrates and is the preferred long-term fuel for most body tissues. However, the brain runs on glucose only, and on some weird stuff called ketone bodies in case of starvation. This is a reason for trying to have a balanced diet that has both fat and carbohydrates. In addition to the above, carbohydrates can be mobilized quickly and some energy can be extracted from them in the absence of oxygen (e.g. overworked muscle), whereas fat can only be used in the presence of oxygen. On top of this, glucose/carbohydrates can be converted into fat easily, but not the other way round. All together, "fats burn in the flame of carbohydrates" as Stryer puts it on p. 478 of the third edition...
Lots of stuff here to contest. My own reading leads me to believe that a healthy diet is high in fat and protein and low in veggie carbs and totally void of sugars and refined carbs. The 'cell lubrication' thing really has me scratching my head.
Meat is premium food. If one has to be a veggie, nut protein is probably the best bet for the high protein in a healthy diet. Too much fructose, IMO, can be bad, since it is matabolized by the liver into fat. Fruits are probably good in moderation.
Read 'Good Calories, Bad Calories'
I've got a hazel nut tree, but I've also got a squirrel (was two but the cat got one). The existing mature orchard seems to have gone into a 2+ year cycle for some reason (maybe a weather problem) and birds (blackbirds in particular), insect and disease take their toll too. The most reliable producer I've found so far are the two mature walnut trees (although storing the nuts is problematic with the door mice, although the cat dispatched one yesterday).
Any good books on organic orchard keeping BTW?
Nature's great, but when you start competing with it for food, man does it fight back. Oh! And I lost a chestnut tree to the heat two years ago. That old Climate Change can deliver a knock-out blow any time. Whatever people do, diversify as much as is practical would be my tip. Resilience, resilience, resilience!
Fruit production pulls a lot of energy from the ground. You can get back to annual cycles if you thin the fruit set and if you fertilize correctly. Fruit trees need A LOT of lime and they need trace minerals.
On the other hand... alternating year production does limit the insect and virus load.
Thanks will. I've been trimming the grass back from the trees and applying a horse manure mulch, cleaning away the moss etc. The trees are mature and too big, as well as too many, to look after properly. Thining the fruit is not really an option, but the birds seem to be doing a pretty good job at it.
Interesting about the lime, is that to aid mineral release in the soil or for some other reason?
If I can get them back into regular production then it might be worth giving them more time and resources. I've been meaning to study up on them at some time, but it keeps ending up on the back burner.
Burgundy,
i think you live in France, no?
I do too; 6mo/12. In the Cevennes.
In France I've found the "back burner" provides a lot
of extra heat ..... many of my projects smolder there.
We have very old fruit trees which are apparently "fini".
They produce the hardest pears imaginable ....never ripen
tho they get loads of sun.
if you want to talk about Fr. i'm emailable
dadco (at) valley (dot) net
sydney
Be careful with the lime though. It is not appropriate for non-acid lands and should be used with parcimony after an analysis of the land is done. Too large additions release many minerals from the land in the short term but decreases your long term potential.
"Lime make the father rich and ruins the son" as the farmers say.
Hazelnuts- aka Filberts when i was a kid.
They need Boron (B) to set nuts consistently. Solubor is the product that i have but I have no idea the rate. Apply as a foliar application.
Boron is a funny element. The rates are usually in ppm (parts per million)and low(!) Too much is quickly toxic. Beware!
Good points. I just planted a new peach tree this year. I've now got 2 peaches, 2 apples (which are 15 years old and bear huge amounts of apples), blueberries, and raspberries. My established peach tree is completely encrusted with ripening peaches, and my apple trees are groaning under a full load of apples. Last year a couple of branches actually broke from the load.
I live in NH, USA, and for staple starch easy-to-grow caloric goodness, don't forget potatoes! I am expecting a great crop this Fall (I've already been stealing a few here and there...) They're Russet Burbanks, which mature later than some, but store well...
Actually, grains provide the most calories.
(Most nuts are fruits. Melons are fruit)
"We are all fruit"
From: "My big fat Greek Wedding"
Without getting into whether grains are good for you or not, it's difficult to grow sufficient quantity in a garden to provide much benefit. So, it's ok to talk about grains in the abstract, but growing them, harvesting, processing them is different from a vegetable garden or a fruit orchard.
Agreed, which is why I mentioned potatoes.
I agree that grains don't yield like potatoes but there are good reasons to grow them. I grow some winter wheat and quinoa. In the case of winter wheat, it provides a good rotation crop. All the work is done in the fall and it provides a huge quantity of organic material. It's not that hard to harvest and I thresh mine using a Leaf Eater although Gene Logsdon has plans for a neat thresher in his book Small Grain Raising. I winnow it in the wind o top of one of our hills.
In the case of quinoa, I grow it because it has complete proteins so you don't have to do food combining like corn and beans. It's easy to grow, comes up quickly and matures rapidly. It's easy to thresh and I winnow it like my winter wheat.
One final advantage of grains is that they store well and without processing. My wife and I did snap beans for the freezer this morning. You have a hot water to blanch them and then an ice bath to cool them whereas grains can just be stuck in a paper bag.
Todd
Quinoa is fantastic stuff. Excellent texture and it couples well with many common spices. It is quite filling and digests slowly. It makes a good accompaniment for many dishes, especially as a rice substitute. OTOH, it is satisfying enough to serve as a small meal all by itself.
I highly recommend quinoa to any TOD'ers that have yet to experience it.
Thank you Todd for a technique I am definitely going to use!
Leaf Eater?
Burgundy,
A Leaf Eater is a brand name. It is essentially a weed whip in a plastic drum and is sold to shred leaves. Ours is about 18" in diameter and about as high. I set it over a 30 gallon trash can lined with a plastic trash bag.
I made one modification to the Leaf Eater, the slots were too far apart to get good threshing action so I cut out the opening adjustment channel . I can now close the opening down to about 1/8th of an inch and this works pretty well. Every now and then I'll open the slots all the up and push any accumulated stuff into the bag.
Todd
Hillbillies had little money in the Depression but they had a great grain: Hickory Cane Corn. This white corn grows well on poor soil and has large kernels that are good for hominy, corn meal, parching and moonshine. Often the kernels had to be used for food and the cobs were used to make 'corn sqeezins' for income.
If by "corn sqeezins" you mean moonshine whiskey you are simply wrong. You cannot make whiskey from corn cobs. The alcohol comes from the fermentation of the starch in the corn kernels. Cobs are almost pure cellulose and cannot be fermented into ethanol alcohol. Though there is a process can turn cellulose into alcohol it involves a lot more than simple fermentation and was never used to make moonshine.
Ron Patterson
Right you are Ron. My bad memory
I just asked my hillbilly friend how his father and grandfather did it. After the corn was harvested they ran the stalks thru a wringer and fermented that juice. Also, he said 'sqeezins' were for personal use. The hogs got the cobs.
I agree that fruit trees are great--one good component in a resilient food production scheme, and something than many current suburban homeowners can do now to help provide for food in tough times.
I disagree with you on the value of vegetables other than fruit trees. Various tubers represent the most calories per square foot possible. Corn, beans, millet, amaranth, quinoa, and peas are also excellent means of growing calories and nutrients beyond just fruit trees, and have the distinct advantage of being much more scalable than fruit trees (produce calories the first year).
People should also consider animals in their food production schemes. Animals are not always appropriate, and I realize that some people have various objections to eating animal products, but in many situations they should be included. While animals require more calorie input than they provide to humans as output, they provide multiple benefits: ability to effectively concentrate calories that can't be efficiently consumed directly by humans, ability to produce fertilizer for soil quality, ability to effectively convert low protein/fat inputs into high protein/fat outputs, and (in some cases) the ability to offer resiliency of yields when other circumstances cause crop failures/reduced yields elsewhere.
If you're trying to maximize calories from a 500 square foot garden, then you probably shouldn't include animals, but you also shouldn't include fruit trees. If, however, you're trying to set up a system that will provide resilient yields of calories and nutrients without such a space constraint, then your system should include a diverse selection of fruit trees, nut trees, beans & grains, cruciferous vegetables, carbon crops for composting, animals (chickens, squab, bees, sheep, etc. depending on circumstances), etc.
Jeff,
I have to disagree with most people keeping animals - I have no problem with people eating animals.
1. You have to feed them. Unless people can buy feed and/or hay at the feed store, they are going to be out of luck. For example, a fully confined chicken will eat a bushel of grain a year. But let's say they can free range 6 months a year. That's still 1/2 bushel of grain each.
But let's go further and assume the family plans to eat a chicken a week along with eggs. Just feeding the chickens you eat equals 25 bushels of grain. Our family being smart decides to grow corn. Realistically, they will probably only get 40 bushels of corn an acre. Therefore, they will have to have about 1/2 acre devoted to grain for the chickens.
But, there's more. You can't feed chickens whole grain corn, it has to be ground. So, now or family needs to buy a grain grinder. Oh yes, they also should be prepared to grow some soybeans so they can make a high protein laying mash.
2. People need to know something about animal husbandry. I don't know how many questions I've seen on other forums asking basic questions about raising chickens. It gets far more complex as people move up in animal size. Take cows: now I realize many people aren't going to have a cow. But, if they do, they'd better know about pulling calves, mastitus, etc.
3. People who plan on eating large animals also have to know how to preserve the meat. Granted, some can be shared with others but they are still going to have to do something with the excess meat.
How many people have enough canning jars much less a pressure canner? (Well, we do along with a lot of other food preservation stuff.) Perhaps, they plan on freezing the meat. I have somewhat over 40cuft of freezer space which sounds like a lot until you think in cow-sized portions.
I would argue that people should stick to a vegan diet unless they want to invest a lot of time and energy learning appropriate skill sets.
Todd
Todd-
I agree that, in many situations, it's not a good idea to keep animals in the traditional sense (chickens, pigs, goats, etc.). If you have more space than you can garden intensively, then chickens (especially for eggs) may be a wise decision IF you can sustain them on forrage. In parts of the country, this is not difficult--say if you already have a half acre of mixed orchard in Oregon, you can support a small flock on forage alone with a little planning. Other places, the feed requiremet may make it a poor choice. I agree with you on large animals--pigs, sheep, goats, cattle all require more knowledge than most people (me included) have to raise efficiently.
I think one area that people should consider animals is in a more unconventional sense. Dovecotes (for squab), beekeeping, vermiculture, or a bat box (no meat, but lots of fertilizer) might be very wise choices depending on circumstances. For the space constrained, it might not be a wise choice, but I think it's something worth considering for each unique set of conditions...
Jeff,
One reason I mentioned what I did is that I moderated a homemaking/homesteading sub-forum of a forum with quite a lot members for a few years. What I saw time and again were people not taking the time to: 1)Develop necessary skill sets. 2)Taking the time to gather readily available information. 3)Testing and experimenting before jumping in with both feet.
One good example was that people invariably asked what varieties of veggies others were growing; their belief being that if variety X is good for someone else, it will be good for them. I would post that they should do variety testing to determine what worked for them. I would note that, among other variety trials, I had tried well over 50 varieties of tomatoes over a period of years before selecting the three that we now grow. Further, as I noted above, I grow some winter wheat. What I didn't say is that I have spent the last nine years developing my own strain. How many people will actually do something like this? My guess is few.
One thing people need to keep in mind when they think about producing some of their own food; a good rule of thumb is that an individual needs one quart of veggies and one quart of fruit each day. Assuming a six month growing season and that veggies and fruit can be purchased for half the year, this means they have to preserve 180 quarts of veggies and 180 quarts of fruit each year. To put this into perspective, here are some canning yields: apples -48#-16 to 20 quarts, peaches-1 bushel-18 to 24 quarts, tomatoes-1 bushel-20 quarts, snap beans-1 bushel-15 to 20 quarts, potatoes-25#-3 to 5 quarts, sweet potatoes-1 bushel-18 to 22 quarts. BTW, these are from the Farm Journal's Freezing & Canning Cookbook, 1978. I highly recommend this book.
Todd
Some time back there was 'open range'. In fact in my teen years driving down into the Ozark Mtns there was still some open range areas. Coming around a gravel road curve one might run up on cows grazing alongside the shoulders. Or maybe it was just someones calves got loose but as I recall
they said that back in the more rural counties that open range was still part of life.
That said...the way to do open range (for the future let's say) is to put a cow bell on your stock. Pick the most tame cow/mule or horse. Bell that one and the rest will always be in earshot of it.
Follow the bell tinkling to find your stock. Or lead the belled animal into your feed lot, tie it up and leave the gate open. Next morning your stock are there in the lot.
Lots of 'mast' used to fall in the woods and the animals would thrive on it. Most of that is gone now since the good nut trees have been harvested long ago however they can still browse somewhat. You also
earmarked your stock to be able to tell them from your neighbors.
Of course all this supposes that after the dieoff that people can become more neighborly than now.
I used to have to bring the milk cows home if they didn't come up at milking time and no one was there to call them that they would recognize. The cows and horses/mules would learn to recognize their owners calls and come running.
Long about milking time I could hear folks all around calling their cows. One can also call hogs. Or send the dogs after them.
So back then everyone would fence their gardens. Here many let stock run on river islands as well. Or kept small pens for them down where they used to work them daily, like in the bottoms.
Airdale
Airdale
don't get me wrong... i always see the negative first...
if one can run a 40cu ft freezer... seems there wouldn't be such scarcity of food requiring one to be 100% food independent...
if food is so scarce that one needs to be fully self sufficient... my guess is the surrounding infrastructure would also be so devoid as to make 40cuft freezers impossible...
then you get into protecting it...
now... i love this discussion... unfortunately i live in a semi-urban area... SE Fla... in a condo... and have been bugging the condo board to stop buying palm trees and plant banana trees... and anything else that favors this clime... we have the space and the water system already...
so i'll glean what i can... there are 4-6 million in population in the immediate area who live either in multi-family or lots too small for any plantings to be of any value... and unless everyone started doing it... we got plenty on no-gooders who'd just come over and take it...
Many, many palms are ideal for Florida's climate. SE Florida should be pretty close to that of Bangkok, where I live. I have about 60 varieties of palm around my house, most just love the water. It's rainy season now and they are just taking off.
Bananas are fine too, but for condo landscaping much more difficult to maintain. My bananas are also taking off and there is nothing wrong with them.
There are a lot of tropical fruit trees that can do well in a landscaped environment; mangos, oranges, etc.
But condo landscaping is probably not the ideal environment for fruit cultivation. You would have to agree on how to harvest and share. Otherwise people tend to pick things too early because they are afraid if they wait until they are ready, someone else will.