Food & agriculture – Aug 26

National Geographic on Our Good Earth: The future rests on the soil beneath our feet
Let them eat rats
Food, fuel and water crises converging
Tackling the global fertilizer crisis (Bangladesh)
TVA fertilizer technology used worldwide — but few new products since 1970s

Slow Food Nation to release healthy food & agriculture declaration

“We, the undersigned, believe that a healthy food system is necessary to meet the urgent challenges of our time,” begins the final draft of the Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture. Initiated by Roots of Change and half a year in the drafting, it will be released August 29 at Slow Food Nation (SFN) at San Francisco’s City Hall.

Peak phosphorus: Quoted reserves vs. production history

A hypothesis is presented whereby phosphorus is considered in two broad forms: “easy” which is able to be mined quickly, but already peaked in 1990, and “hard” which has large remaining reserves and is yet to peak, but cannot be mined as quickly. … Ultimately we must develop a recyclable phosphorus supply if humans are to continue living on this planet.

Food & agriculture – Aug 22

A modest proposal for sustainable eating (Slow Food)
Saudi Arabia: Feeding its own people more cheaply
Food price rises push 14m to the brink of starvation
Charles’s fantasy farming won’t feed Africa’s poor
6 ways mushrooms can save the world
Costs spiral for cigar-leaf farms

Oxen power for family farms

We read in the Bible of war-horses; of horses drawing chariots. But we never find an allusion to horses employed in the tillage of the land; for which by their gentleness, by the nature of the food which they require, by their great docility, oxen seem to have been formed by nature.

Holiday in UK shows Peak Oil decline is well on its way

Ex-pat Steve holidays in England, only to find signs of the effects of peak oil everywhere. Over the period of two weeks a number of newspaper articles confirm that the perfect post-peak storm is brewing in this land, once a proud net exporter of oil.