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Heinberg interview: Why Peak Oil & Pollution Mandate a New Farming Paradigm
Acres U.S.A.
Richard Heinberg is more than a spokesman for the vision that sees beyond the age of oil. His home is the lecture platform, the classroom, the deep-think tank. He is a son of northern Missouri (now CAFO hog country) from an industrial farm supply family – his father was a quality control chemist, for which reason Richard discovered firsthand much of the bad science that now has the upper hand in agriculture.
Intellectually, he rejected farming as an industrial procedure, and for the last 20 years has used his pen like a stiletto to nail fact and conclusion to the market wall. His last eight years have been devoted to writing when not teaching at New College of California, Santa Rosa.
In the questions and answers that follow, Richard Heinberg concludes that too many farmers have disappeared since World War II, and the nation has been consistently short of independent growers. This shortage will be exacerbated as oil to service the overindustrialized world continues to falter.
ACRES U.S.A. According to the biblical book of Joel, old men dream dreams and young men see visions. Are we looking at dreams or at visions in what you recently presented at the annual E.F. Schumacher lecture?
RICHARD HEINBERG. It’s probably more in the category of visions. It’s pretty clear what the world needs in terms of future agriculture and future food production. Whether we’ll actually get there is quite a different question, because right now we’re on exactly the wrong track. We’re going to have to make a pretty dramatic change in our agricultural priorities if we’re going to arrive at anything like a sustainable system that will actually feed future generations. What I’ve tried to do is lay out a vision of what’s possible.
ACRES U.S.A. What is possible?
HEINBERG. Using the knowledge that we’ve built up over the last several decades about organic farming, about small-scale food production using techniques such as permaculture and bio-intensive and so on, I think it’s possible for us to produce food in a way that doesn’t destroy topsoil, in a way that preserves fresh water and that feeds as many people as we have in the world today. But it’s going to require a lot more people doing the work of producing the food, because truly sustainable agriculture is a much more labor-intensive process.
(March 2007 issue)
Acres U.S.A. (“A Voice for Eco-Agriculture”) has been covering sustainable agriculture for more than 35 years. Unlike many other publications, it addresses farmers and farm-related professions rather than gardeners.
Hat tip: Darryl Parker
UPDATE Apr 9: Enthusiastic comments from Sharon Astyk
-BA
Oil, climate change threaten food supply: B.C. report
Randy Shore, Vancouver Sun
Climate change and rising oil prices are a threat to B.C.’s ability to feed itself in the future, scientists and planners say.
B.C. farmers produce only 48 per cent of the meat, dairy, fruit and vegetables that we consume, according to a report prepared by the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture. The report, titled B.C.’s Food Self-Reliance, says that the area of farmland with access to irrigation in B.C. would have to increase by nearly 50 per cent by 2025 to provide a healthy diet for all British Columbians.
Maintaining our current level of food self-reliance in 2025 would require a 30-per-cent increase in agricultural production, the report says.
…The agricultural industry’s reliance on fossil fuels for irrigation, processing, harvesting, refrigeration, transport and the production of fertilizer means that as the world’s oil supply wanes and fuel prices spike, we should not expect to be eating Chilean grapes and Mexican lettuce in a few years time, according to Vancouver architect and planner Rick Balfour. Balfour, who obtained the ministry report through Freedom of Information legislation, envisions a near-future in which virtually everything we eat will have to be produced locally.
Balfour, who served as chairman of the Vancouver Planning Commission until last week, has organized “war games” sessions for planning and futurist conferences in which people try to work out how societies and economies reorganize as a result of oil price shock. The “re-ruralization” of the suburbs — tearing up low-density neighbourhoods to grow crops — is a typical scenario, he said.
…Within seven to 10 years fuel prices are going to spike dramatically, Balfour said. Peak oil theory predicts a massive rise in oil prices as oil production reaches maximum outputs and production begins to fall. Scientists and planners predict that a painful reorganization of the global economy will follow the peak and subsequent decline in oil production.
(2 April 2007)
For a Greener Garden
Karen Springen, Newsweek
All gardens may look green, but some are greener than others. Truly green, or organic, gardens are free of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and filled with native plants that need minimal amounts of extra water. They’re good for the environment, and they’re safe for kids and pets to play in. Planting one is simpler-and cheaper-than you might think. Some earth-friendly tips:
Native plants…
Water …
Composting …
Mulch …
Herbicides [avoid them]…
Pollinators and bugs…
(9 April 2007)
The ideas are not new to green-minded gardeners, but it is refreshing to see them in Newsweek. Another example of how ideas that seemed outlandish a few years ago now become the common wisdom. -BA
What’s happening to the bees
Moises Velasquez-Manoff, Christian Science Monitor
Suddenly, the bees farmers and growers rely on are vanishing. Researchers are scrambling to find out why.
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…The cause of the die-offs has yet to be determined. Its effect on the food supply may be significant. Longer-term, it may also force a rethinking of some agricultural practices including our heavy reliance on human-managed bees for pollination.
Scientists call it “colony collapse disorder” (CCD). First reported in Florida last fall, the problem has since spread to 24 states. Commercial beekeepers are reporting losses of between 50 and 90 percent, an unprecedented amount even for an industry accustomed to die-offs.
Many worry that what’s shaping up to be a honeybee catastrophe will disrupt the food supply. While staple crops like wheat and corn are pollinated by wind, some 90 cultivated flowering crops – from almonds and apples to cranberries and watermelons – rely heavily on honeybees trucked in for pollinization. Honeybees pollinate every third bite of food ingested by Americans, says a Cornell study. Bees help generate some $14 billion in produce.
Research is only beginning and hard data is still lacking, but beekeepers suspect everything from a new virus or parasite to pesticides and genetically modified crops.
(4 April 2007)
