Re: [Monbiot] Digest for monbiot-discuss@googlegroups.com - 4 Messages in 1 T...

[TIMC...@aol.com]

 

 

In a message dated 12/12/2011 04:17:50 GMT Standard Time, roger....@gmail.com writes:

After all, the horse is the ultimate "solar powered tractor"!

 

Hi Roger,

the unfortunate truth is that it's probably just as easy to grow Canola for biodiesel on the proportion of land you'd be using to feed the horses.

One of the big drawbacks with horse power is it's need to be fed all the time, even when doing nothing useful.

Can you imagine the investment required to equip all the current agric holdings with ploughs and horses?

That's about 50 horses and ploughs to replace each current setup; one man, horse and plough used to cover about an acre per day.

Sorry!

Tim

[Roger Priddle]

Tim, I agree with you - that's the classic definition of an acre.  However, the horse is an "all purpose multi-tool", capable of far more and more varied tasks than a tractor, and it doesn't require the whole infrastructure of an industrial economy to make one!  

And while it might take 50 teams or more for some of the huge farms we currently have, I'm not sure that it did historically, and I'm not at all sure that those huge agribusinesses are either possible or desirable in a post-oil age.  We've learned a lot over that last few decades, mostly that our ancestors had developed some techniques that were reliable and efficient, and that we dumped them when cheap oil make efficiency too expensive.

Note I'm not saying that you can't grow cheap chicken, wheat, beef, whatever as long as you have oil - my local grocery store sells ground beef for about $1.99/pound (sorry if you live with different unit...)  OTOH, my local organic, sustainable farmer sells the same product (who am I kidding, it's NOT the same) for about $4.50/pound. 

It's not that oil didn't make life easier and cheaper, especially in those areas where we didn't count all the costs, it's simply the fact that continued reliance on oil is not an option.  It's finite, it will run out eventually, and dismissing that fact means dismissing any concerns about future generations.  

Maybe not us, and maybe not our children or grandchildren, but eventually.

I think I read that, given full accounting, biodiesel actually consumes more calories than it creates.  And Round-up Ready Canola is one of those problematic GM foods I'd really prefer not to eat. 

Plus Canola, before it was rebranded, was called Rape for a reason.  Prairie land rental contracts still ban sowing "rape onto rape stubble" because of the toll it takes on the soil.  Without synthetic, oil-based fertilizers, crops like that are simply not an option.

Fortunately, the horse can eat on marginal land and from non-marketable products.

Roger 

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[PAdam...@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/12/2011 12:42:17 GMT Standard Time, roger....@gmail.com writes:

Note I'm not saying that you can't grow cheap chicken, wheat, beef, whatever as long as you have oil - my local grocery store sells ground beef for about $1.99/pound (sorry if you live with different unit...)  OTOH, my local organic, sustainable farmer sells the same product (who am I kidding, it's NOT the same) for about $4.50/pound. 

It's not that oil didn't make life easier and cheaper, especially in those areas where we didn't count all the costs, it's simply the fact that continued reliance on oil is not an option.  It's finite, it will run out eventually, and dismissing that fact means dismissing any concerns about future generations.  

One of the first caualties of the end of cheap oil will be cheap meat and cheap food in general. Already happening.

 

Another thing thats already happening is a huge revival of interest in veg growing, backyard chickens, allotments etc. This is probably connected to the rapid rise in the price of land recently. Land was a standard £2000 an acre until around 2005 (the year of peak oil?), but standard farmland is now £5000. Small blocks of land with good access and interesting features, such as woods and wildlife are now up to £10,000 around here (SW England). House prices and development land are still around 2005 values by comparison.

 

Patrick