Back to the start.......

I can't believe this made me cry.
It holds a very powerful message.
I am very tired so that is my excuse for the tears. []

Except of course that going back to the start wont be able to feed the number of people that now need to be fed on this planet!!

But it would. The difference between small scale farm production figures and industrial agriculture is not that large, and we currently produce more than enough food on the planet for the population expected in 2050, so there is plenty of slack in the system to allow for downscaling. We just don't use what we produce wisely or evenly.

Internationally there is evidence that small farms are more productive. A quick Google search brings up these links:

sustainable-farming.blogspot.co.nz/2009/...rm-productivity.html
www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=...ilL_Mrb7y0h5sMIiB5jA

Internationally there is evidence that small farms are more productive. A quick Google search brings up these links:

sustainable-farming.blogspot.co.nz/2009/...rm-productivity.html
www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=...ilL_Mrb7y0h5sMIiB5jA

Hawkspur;428479 wrote: We just don't use what we produce wisely or evenly.

That's it, isn't it. Very well put.

I've seen this short before, a while back, but thanks for the reminder. It's a good one, and the Willie Nelson version of the tune really enhances the visuals.

Great video with a simple but important message

Incidentally Chipotle is a Mexican food restaurant chain that uses suppliers such as Polyface Farms (Joel Salatin) who farm quality sustainable produce, then prepare the food with care and respect.

I agree

There are more than enough resources on the planet to feed ourselves, and to live sustainably and in harmony with nature.

The problem occurs when you have huge tracts of land which are mono-crops, utterly drenched in chemicals (Roundup) and unable to produce natural crops anymore. Animals raised in Depolorable conditions, raised on unnatural foods, and then fed to our children...

Where did we go wrong?

And more importantly - what can we do to turn things around?

why when talking about trying to feed the increasing population (and all the associated problems...water climate change, pollution) is no one brave enough (except the Chinese) to suggest limiting population growth.

kindajojo;428563 wrote: why when talking about trying to feed the increasing population (and all the associated problems...water climate change, pollution) is no one brave enough (except the Chinese) to suggest limiting population growth.

All too true. We are by far the dominant species on Earth and we are making a hell of a mess of the place. Either we get serious about limiting our population growth or nature will do it for us!

Thanks Kindajojo, I typed out a post along those line but did not want to be the one to open a prospective [] ...... can of worms.

I do believe that some day, sooner rather than later, there will have to be some sort of control of the population.

So much more I could say but here is not the place. Off I go before someone shoots at me................

Well I reckon that many of the world's problems can be put down to one thing. Greed. If you look at all the resources that we have on this earth, I believe there is sufficient to ensure that everyone has what they need to survive - but we're either not willing to share, or people want to make astronomical profits, or they just want to control things. Whichever way you look at it, it boils down to simple greed.
Cheers, Mich.

There's this book:

Farmers of Forty Centuries
Permanent Organic Farming in China, Korea, and Japan
By F. H. King

it compares 'modern' agricultural methods with how it was done for centuries, but also the way our comsumption of food has changed - it's abit of a heavy read, but it really encouraged me to continue in our way of smallfarming. It's not just the quantity and quality - how are the big producers going to supply "them townies" with food once the fuel sources are depleted?

spoook;428585 wrote: Thanks Kindajojo, I typed out a post along those line but did not want to be the one to open a prospective [] ...... can of worms.

I do believe that some day, sooner rather than later, there will have to be some sort of control of the population.

So much more I could say but here is not the place. Off I go before someone shoots at me................

I for one would be interested in your thoughts on the problems we are facing, it is something that has to be faced, no good us burying our heads in the sand and hoping someone will come up with a solution, food production will drop, you only have to look at a graph of the last 70years as oil production rose so did productivity and population.

Just take one statistic, on average it takes 1 ton of oil to produce a quarter ton of wheat, that ratio hasn't changed in 50 years. Fuel for tractors, irrigation, fertilizers and distribution all depend on oil.

The world isn't running out of oil but the (Energy returned on energy invested) EROEI is falling, 100 to 1 in the 1930 to now around 20 to 1 and in about 15 years that might have dropped to 5 to 1 or less and that's to low for a modern society to function, why else have the financial markets started to disintegrate, they are based on growth.

If I Remember my 6th Form Geography correctly (it was a longggg time ago) the best answer to global population growth may well be the continued development of "third world" countries.

I seem to recall that there was an established relationship between a country's economic development and its population growth, whereas the more developed the country the slower the growth to the point that some european countries were experiencing negative population growth based on the ratio of births to deaths.

In fact didn't I read somewhere that even in NZ our growth in population is primarily through immigration? Does anyone know either way? I'd be curious to find out.