<Presidential Energy Debate Fact Check #1: Is Offshore Drilling the Answer? The Oil Drum DrumBeat: October 10, 2008>

87 comments on Peak phosphorus: Quoted reserves vs. production history

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Pitt the Elder on October 9, 2008 - 2:22pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I am aware that organic farming most probably can't sustain the production rates that "modern" agricultural practices can achieve.

Actually, that doesn't seem to be true. Peer-reviewed results indicate that organic farming can sustain production rates as high as current farming methods:

"The study compared a conventional farm that used recommended fertilizer and pesticide applications with an organic animal-based farm (where manure was applied) and an organic legume-based farm (that used a three-year rotation of hairy vetch/corn and rye/soybeans and wheat). The two organic systems received no chemical fertilizers or pesticides.
...
"First and foremost, we found that corn and soybean yields were the same across the three systems,"....the soil on the organic farms steadily improved in organic matter, moisture, microbial activity and other soil quality indicators."

Modern intensive farming isn't done because it's the best way; it's done because it's the cheapest way.

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bikerboyOR on October 9, 2008 - 2:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Modern intensive farming isn't done because it's the best way; it's done because it's the cheapest way.

There is some question about that as well. A fair number of people have suggested that seed producers make more money under the intensive farming model than they can under other models, and since they pretty much have a monopoly on telling farmers when and how to plant, they act on that monopoly to maximize their profits (at the expense of affordability.)

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puhkawn on October 9, 2008 - 4:24pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Sorry, but that doesn't make much sense to me. Seed producers need farmers as much as farmers need them. Your comment doesn't even fit some crops. For example, rice and sugar cane. No "seed producers" own the sugar cane varies currently grown in Louisiana. The same goes for most of the rice grown in Louisiana, too. Just who are these "fair number of people" and where have they said this?
Finally my observation is that the farmers are usually the driving force behind plant breeders. It is the farmer that tells the plant breeder he needs a variety that he can start harvesting a week earlier, one that sets its fruit higher to make it easier to harvest, and so on. I know this because I used to serve on a committee that allowed plant breeders and researchers to interact with farmers.

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airdale on October 9, 2008 - 8:10pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Don't know about rice and cane in Louisana but here in the vast midwest where most of the grains(corn,soybeans and wheat) your exposition is just not the way it is.

A bag of seed corn now runs in the neighborhood of $200 and depending on 'population' will seed about 2 and 1/2 acres. GMO can be even higher. The farmer is not in control...The seed companies are ..even to the extend of spying on farmers and taking them to court.

Read a few farmer forums and you will soon see the disdain that most farmers hold for the big Ag seed companies. They pretty much get whipsawed.

Airdale

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Anti_Elvis on October 9, 2008 - 5:43pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Do some research into Monsanto. I'd say more but I'm afraid they'd sue me. ;-)

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puhkawn on October 9, 2008 - 3:19pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

"Modern intensive farming isn't done because it's the best way; it's done because it's the cheapest way."

Good observation. Not only is modern intensive farming "cheap" it provides tons of cheap food.

Check out the chart at:

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/10/blog-post.html

It is the most economical way for a handful of people to feed thousands cheaply.

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erichacker on October 9, 2008 - 4:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

It is the most economical way for a handful of people to feed thousands cheaply.

Provided that the massive amounts of energy input required is also very cheap. In Ecological Economical terms, it is very expensive to use modern intensive farming.

Ooopps. Now I've gotten on topic for a peak oil board. :)

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LarryCO on October 9, 2008 - 6:22pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Whoever is giving these guys - points is a moron.

Modern farming is done the way it is done because its the way the Ag corporations can make the most money. Since they control what is taught at land grant schools, this is what county extension agents tell farmers to do.

Farmers aren't stupid though. You will see changes as oil prices go up.

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whitis on October 11, 2008 - 1:23am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Modern intensive farming does not produce higher yields (if you know what you are doing) and whether it is cheaper is highly debatable.

The Rodale Institute has been doing side by side comparisons of organic and non-organic farming for decades. Yields are just as good.

Modern practices are optimized for corporate cash extraction. Farmers get only a tiny portion of the cost we pay for food and they turn that over to other corporations for inefficient inputs. Mechanized agriculture does lower the cost (and is sustainable - very little biofuel is need to run tractors) but things like fertilizer and pesticide use actually cost the farmer a lot of money.
The large amount of materials that has to be shipped around, extracted, etc. also increase the true cost. We also subsidize farming which lowers the apparent cost of food without lowering the actual cost; and we export subsidized food destabilizing the farming practices in other countries (look what we did to Jamaica, for example) at US taxpayer expense. There are other externalized costs like pollution.
I haven't seen an really good true accounting of the costs of food production by different means but it is very unlikely that it will favor our current wasteful practices. And rising energy costs affect the non-sustainable practices.

Farmers are tricked by propaganda compaigns into using practices that favor the petrochemical and genetic engineering corporations and then the soil is trashed and the beneficial insects and other natural pest controls are destroyed and if they try to switch back they have a transition period where it is worse. Only a tiny portion of agricultural research goes to legitimate farming practices. And the companies that make money off our farmers make sure they see the subset of studies that favor them. Advertising, in disguise, is substituted for education.

Organic food costs more because there is a high demand and perceived value and less competition, moderately higher labor costs (but lower insurance), not relying on subsidies, organic inputs harder to come by, greater transport costs to specialty markets, smaller farms with higher fixed costs, certification costs, cost of adhering to strict standards, smaller markets with higher markup, lack of externalized costs, and farmers need some incentive to take the risk of transition.

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D.Benton_Smith on October 12, 2008 - 1:11pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hi Whitis,

I wish it was kosher to bump the 'points' score of your comment to about 1000, because you absolutely NAILED it.

Thanks to the wonders of modern communication the use of intensive propaganda campaigns is now standard operating procedure for big projects like the so-called "green revolution," and the sad fact is that really good liars can fool all the people some of the time.

A pretty good piece of advice is to proactively search for hype, and rejoice when it is found, because it is valuable evidence, an unerring tell-tale, the "softening-up barrage" that precedes an invasion.

In the case you describe the invasion was of our farmland. It once belonged to and supported myriad families with healthy food, with enough left over to support small towns and cities. Now it is owned by corporations and the financial sector, and produces industrio-crops of dubious nutritive quality. Oh let's just say it; the bastards are slowly poisoning us.

It's worse than a pity. It is a crime of genocidal proportion.

The hype proclaims that mechanized chemical farming has been an unparalleled success, when in truth it is a lethal disaster.

The plain truth is that we can feed ourselves, all six billion of us, if we are willing to get dirty and sweat a little bit (okay, sweat a lot.) But, thanks to an incessant avalanche of propaganda such noble activity has been stigmatized to the point that the vast majority of people would actually be ashamed to personally grow the food that they eat.

Compost animal manure? Butcher a cow? Gut a fish? Oh, dear!

We are not ashamed of breathing or drinking, but we have bought into the lie that toiling in the soil is humiliating.

Today is October 12, pretty late in the season one might say, especially for this latitude, but my organic garden is still producing copiously. In fact to prove it to myself I just popped outside and harvested a quick breakfast of broccoli, tomatoes, sweet green peppers, lemon cucumber and kale, with a little cilantro and basil to jazz it up.

I live in the tiny hamlet of Hamburg, Illinois, right at the water's edge of the Mississippi river (yeah, we got flooded this June, including my garden, but that's another story.)

The garden is raised beds, totalling 144 s.f. (13.3 s.m.) and provides all the veggies our family of three can eat. It took two weeks of hard work to set up, two hours a day to water and weed at first, and now a half hour per day to maintain. I would have had storables (peas, beans and corn) but the flood got 'em. Next year that won't happen because I've raised those beds another three feet (using recycled sand bags from the levy... what a cheapskate I am!)I used ZERO chemical fertilizers, pesticides or powered equipment.

Now the point of this is not to brag up my garden. It's to remind folks that anyone south of Minneapolis with a couple hundred square feet of open space could do the same thing... if they weren't ashamed to do so. Northward of there you'll need a little more space, and some simple form of green housing with some of the plants.

So what do I need Archer Daniel Midlands for anyhow? Cheerios, Twinkies, Micky D's french fries and bio-diesel?

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drillo on October 9, 2008 - 6:30pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Agreed. The only drawback I know that partly more land is needed for the same output.
And it may need more (wo)manpower (what not necessarily is a disadvantage).

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87 comments on Peak phosphorus: Quoted reserves vs. production history

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