Powercube(s agriculture and energy) - OSE Europe

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Date: Fri, 04 May 2012 09:55:06 -0600
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Subject: Re: [OSE-Europe] Re: Powercube(s agriculture and energy)
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To state my perspective.

AGRICULTURE

Our current agriculture has a large focus upon large scale energy (and 
often water) hungry industrialised mono crop systems.  The development 
of these methods and the information and debates around the suitability 
and alternatives to this system are highly influenced by very powerful 
actors that profit highly from, and have vested interest in, maintaining 
this system.

We use a very small number of plants, considering the number of edible 
plants in the world, to provide the bulk of our food.  Almost all our 
food comes from annual plants, which requires regular working of the 
soil and is often destructive of soil structure. Many of us also eat a 
lot of meat, which is generally produced using highly questionable 
methods - ie most beef in England, and I suspect elsewhere in Europe, is 
fed (at least during the winter), largely on milled soy beans, which are 
mainly produced in Latin America using highly destructive methods of 
agriculture.

Industrial systems of agriculture are often damaging to-

The land - through irresponsible farming techniques (aiming for top 
financial returns) soil is degraded (soil only fed with chemicals, 
gradually loses structure and the countless living organisms that give 
the soil vitality) or lost (through erosion).  Countless acres of good 
land have been and continue to be lost due to short term interest.  This 
land degradation sees a constant pressure for opening up new lands for 
agriculture and is a significant driver to the massive illegal forest 
clearances that are occurring across the globe

The environment - As well as damage to the soil much damage is done to 
waterways (ecosystems ruined by agricultural chemicals, particularly 
nitrates, washed from the land, much higher risks of flooding due to 
lack of water retention on land farmed using industrialised methods ), 
wildlife (habitat destruction), air pollution (from the fuel burnt to 
farm and, often, needlessly transport the products.)

Communities - industrialised monoculture agriculture methods favour 
large scale operations often with few, low paid jobs (often seasonal).  
Many rural villages have been left deserted or the houses have become 
the weekend retreats for rich city dwellers.  Big businesses make large 
profits from our current food production (agro industrial companies) and 
distribution (supermarkets) systems.  These gains are made with huge 
costs to other small economic actors based within our communities (where 
have all the small grocery shops gone??).

Economies - looking at the real economy (beyond the marker that 
supposedly represents it, money) and the interlinked nature of all parts 
of it, our 'free' market led system of industrialised agriculture 
favours large operations, by companies  (often with 'absentee' owners - 
eg. pension funds, financial investors) who have little understanding 
(or care?) of the land, the people who work the land or of food quality, 
just for quick financial returns.  The resilience of this model is 
highly questionable.  The current system sees significant, largely 
invisible, subsidies and workers who receive extremely low wages.

Seed/plant and livestockdiversity - A relatively small number of plant 
varieties and animal breeds are considered suitable for our industrial 
agriculture and food distribution systems.    Due to the concentration 
of use of these plants, and at times legislative pressure, numerous 
plant varieties have been lost or become difficult to obtain.  The 
destruction of ecosystems, often due to clearance from industrialised 
agriculture has also seen loss of genetic diversity.

I just got these on the first page of a web search for information that 
offered an alternative perspective to the one most often presented  -

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55924
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/13/world-hunger-small-scale-agriculture
http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/Issue/pn33/pn33p23.htm
http://www.population-growth-migration.info/essays/woodwardorganic.html

Even within our current distorted economic system and with the high UK 
land prices small scale sustainable farming can be 'economically viable' -
http://ecologicalland.coop/projects-small-successful

Just yesterday I was reading a book called 'Tree Crops' written in 1950 
which detailed the massive soil destruction in the USA due to 
industrialised agricultural methods (huge amounts of soil being washed 
away leaving highly fertile land barren, within years) and proposed 
development of tree crops to help counter this destruction.  The author 
had worked on this for some time, travelled the world to see 
agricultural systems that used trees and seen (surprisingly quick) 
interesting developments from small actors (often private individuals).  
He despaired at the lack of interest from government in supporting or 
working upon the development of such ideas and the difficulty in 
persuading others to try out new methods of agriculture.  Sadly it 
appears that not much has changed since this book was written.

Regarding Mikes comment "And without energy for farm machinery 
agriculture will need all the workforce of the population, leaving no 
time to produce something besides needed food."  I dont think this is 
true.  It wasnt true before the adoption of the tractor and we now have 
a far greater understanding of plants and soil. I've visited a community 
where the people had access to land without the necessity to pay rent or 
service the loans necessary to purchase land.  With very very simple 
tools, and at times not best practice for soil, water and weed 
management, or much thought to alternative crop choice and combinations, 
the people managed to produce more than enough food for their families 
working less than 4 hours a day.  This left plenty of time for other 
activities -  other production for market, leisure, and cultural 
activities etc. etc.

ENERGY

Our societies have largely developed with an assumption of continuous 
'cheap' energy.  Its hard to understand, and picture, exactly how much 
we use and what is necessary to obtain this energy.  I think much of 
this energy is expended unnecessarily and that we can still live 
comfortably using far less energy than we do today.

The term 'modern comforts' will mean different things to different 
people.  I guess I live in an unusual 'modern' way, that many would not 
consider comfortable, but I do.  Likewise I would not be comfortable 
living in a way that many people would consider 'comfortable'.  I guess 
that studies of world happiness bear some relevance to the question of 
comfort (can you be comfortable but not happy?).   The energy hungry 
consumerist lifestyle of 'developed' nations clearly does not lead to 
happiness.

MY CONCLUSIONS

Bearing all this in mind what systems and tools should we be exploring 
and developing.  How much energy do we really need to use?  For what?  
Can we do things differently and use less, yet receive a satisfactory 
outcome??  I think we can but that it will take huge shifts in the way 
we organise ourselves (eg. replacing our housing and agricultural system 
with less energy intensive and more resilient alternatives) and for many 
it will require time for them to adapt to the differences.

I think that a more sustainable and resilient agriculture system would 
not depend so heavily on the large machines that are used today - the 
larger machines are a product and promoter of the logic of industrial 
monoculture agriculture.  Smaller machines are likely to be more 
appropriate in many situations.  In Colemans classic book 'New Organic 
Grower' her details the methods he uses for effective food growing.  He 
clearly thoroughly enjoys his work and experimenting with different 
methods.  He shows how it is possible for an individual to grow using 
novel methods and tools.  The only powered tool he advocates using is a 
walk behind tractor - these use small engines.  This tractor is used 
reasonably infrequently.  Just looking for a link and found this - which 
states he now uses a compact loader tractor - I've got an old edition of 
the book)
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/1442944-post181.html

" Coleman found the optimum to be about 2.5 acres per grower - enough to 
produce quality vegetables for 100 people."
http://s.coop/kn3o

I quite like the concept of power cubes.  The fact that a number of 
machines can share one engine (or possibly a store of energy - 
batteries) that can be easily transferred or replaced by an alternative 
offers a number of benefits.  It is not necessary to have an engine 
fixed to each machine - machines that may often sit unused.

I think that it is possible to design a power cube system that uses 
larger power cubes that can be wheeled, or carried (by LifeTRAC), from 
one machine to another.

http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/File:Modular_Power_Cubes-small.jpg

It would involve some thought to facilitate mounting the power cubes to 
vehicles - the lifetrac could have a cradle that lifts a larger power 
cube up from the ground.

While developing the idea for power cubes with wheels with powered drive 
I began to think that with big chunky wheels, what you would have, would 
be approaching a walk behind tractor.  Some walk behind tractors have a 
range of tools that can be fitted - some have PTOs (power take offs) for 
powering other machinery.
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