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How Big Should A Small Farm Be?
John Ikerd, speech transcript
Back in the 1960s, I had an opportunity to work with a genuine “giant.” His name was Henry Hite. I worked with merchandizing and sales promotion for Wilson & Co., meat packers, and Henry was one of the “gimmicks” we used to lure people to supermarkets to buy our bacon and hams.
Henry billed himself as being eight feet, two inches tall – although the Guinness Book of World Records lists him at something like seven feet, nine-and-a-half inches. Henry admitted to me that he wasn’t actually eight-foot-two, but he said he was at least two inches taller than some other fellow who claimed to be eight-foot-even. Regardless, Henry Hite was a tall fellow – a genuine “giant.”
Even more impressive, Henry was in his mid-forties at the time and he lived into his early sixties. Most “giants” die young – few even survive their thirties. Henry was lucky. All of his abnormal growth came during his teenage years and by age nineteen he had stopped growing. Most “giants” keep right on growing, until their body becomes so large its vital organs can no longer support its bulk and they die. In the case of giants, the biological process that naturally limits the size of the human body fails to function.
Apparently, each of us has a “normal” size, beyond which our health begins to decline, and a maximum size, beyond which we get sick and die. Henry wasn’t particularly healthy, at least partially due to his size, but he had quit growing before he grew too big to live. Henry’s case was notable because he pushed the limits of size and survived.
So what does the size of Henry Hite have to do with the right size for a small farm? Henry, like you and me, was a living being – a living biological organism. And, all living organisms have a “right size,” or at least a “right size range.” Some elephants are bigger than others and some mice are smaller than others, but the “right size” for all elephants obviously is much larger than the “right size” for a mouse. If a mouse were as big as an elephant, it couldn’t survive by doing the things that mice do, and if an elephant were as small as a mouse, it couldn’t survive by doing the things that elephants do.
But equally important, a mouse could never live to grow nearly as large as an elephant and an elephant couldn’t survive without becoming much larger than a mouse. In nature – in the “grand order of things” – living things have evolved over time so their size now fits their purpose and function within nature. Living things are naturally the right size to do what they need to do. And, a farm is a living thing.
A farm is a living organism – in many respects, like the body of a plant or an animal. A farm is a complex “organization” made up of biological organisms within the soil, of plants and animals above the soil, and of the farmer, who cares for the farm and lives from the farm. The health of the farm is dependent upon the health of its various elements, or “organs,” but also, upon the health of the relationships among the various organs that make up the living organism or farm as a whole.
And, as with all other living organisms, each farm has a “healthy size,” beyond which its health begins to decline, and a “maximum size,” beyond which it will “become sick and die.” …
(1 November 2002)
Paper presented at the National Small Farm Today Conference and Trade Show, Columbia, MO, Sponsored by Small Farm Today Magazine, Clark, MO, November 1, 2002. John Ikerd is Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO – USA. Recommended by Pops at peakoil.com (Energy, Economics and Entropy thread).
Prof. Ikerd’s website has many essays and a book online.
-BA
Old world order
We need a modern way to recreate religion’s respect for the earth
Karen Armstrong, The Guardian
…In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of the damage we are inflicting upon the planet, at both the public and private levels. Recycling, for example, which 10 years ago was regarded as an expensive, eccentric pursuit, is now commonly enforced by most local authorities.
But there seems little point in punctiliously recycling our wine bottles and waste paper, while as a society and as individuals we continue to burn fossil fuels with impunity. And if the United States, the principal polluter, refuses to control its emissions, anything anyone else does is doomed to failure.
Many people prefer to deny that there is a problem because the implications are too alarming; it is easier to concentrate on “clean and green” concerns that do not challenge our way of life. But would we seriously be prepared to give up our cars and aeroplane travel? If the danger became more acute, would governments have to impose a ban on activities and appliances that we now take for granted? And how would this cohere with democracy and our much vaunted freedom?
In order to prevent further damage to their environment, the Chinese were for centuries prepared to give up their favourite pursuits and submit to constraints that most of us would find intolerable. We too may have to make sacrifices and this would require some kind of spiritual reformation. By this I do not mean that everybody should join a church or submit to an orthodox doctrinal position – quite the contrary. But it may become necessary to create within ourselves a readiness to subordinate our personal comfort, convenience and prosperity to the common good – an attitude that is at odds with much of the current ethos.
It is neither possible nor desirable to recover the old holistic world-view in its entirety, but we could try to cultivate its underlying attitudes. First would be the awareness that everyone, without exception, was in the same boat: to destroy or maim the part endangered the whole. Second, there were no fantasies of omniscience or omnipotence: everyone was equally vulnerable. Third was the sense that everyone was responsible for the cosmos, and had to do his or her bit. Fourth, the natural world was not simply a resource but was revered as sacred. Finally, there was the conviction that human behaviour could affect the environment for good or ill, and that a society that did not respect the natural rhythms of the cosmos could not survive.
This insight was not abandoned but redefined in the later, more ethically based traditions. Jains cultivated an attitude of friendship towards all beings and took care not to trample on the tiniest insect; Buddhists were exhorted to extend their love and benevolence to every single creature on the face of the earth; and the Chinese continued to urge people to conform to the way. The first chapter of Genesis may have commanded humans to “subdue” the earth, but it also insisted that every single one of God’s creations was valuable and blessed.
The ubiquity and persistence of this attitude of committed concern for the well-being of the earth suggests that it once came naturally to humanity. It used to be essential to the way we related to the world but it has clearly become problematic in the technologically driven economy of modernity. It is no use hoping for the best or waiting until “they” have discovered a cleaner form of energy. In the ancient world, assiduous religious ritual and ethical practice helped people to cultivate their respect for the holiness of the earth. If we want to save our planet, we must find a modern way to do the same.
(10 September 2005)
Karen Armstrong is the author of A History of God and other books on religious subjects.
Building green always made sense — now it’s beginning to pay off
Valerie Fahey, San Francisco Chronicle
Building green — even remodeling green — has come a long way from being just an expensive novelty.
The added cost of using sustainable materials and design is starting to pay for itself within a few years, not the decade that has been the rule of thumb in the past.
Because petroleum-based products are not green, the trend can only speed up as the price of oil skyrockets.
“Everyone supports sustainable development to preserve natural resources, but the question has always been the cost,” said Matt Anderson of Oakland’s Foresight Analytics, a real estate research group. …
(11 September 2005)
Longish article with some useful information on particular (West-US) property developments and building products.-LJ
Scientists explore getting more out of lighting
Malcolm Ritter, Associated Press via Seattle Times
NEW YORK — Scientists have been taking a closer look at the lighting in our homes, offices and vehicles, and they’re seeing potential for a way to improve health and a new means of electronic communication.
None of this will happen tomorrow. But if you want a glimpse of where the field might be heading, listen to some experts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., an academic home for lighting research.
Start with engineer E. Fred Schubert talking about a new era of “smart” light sources.
“We are looking at lighting systems that provide more than lighting,” he says. He’s talking about light-emitting diodes, or LEDs.
(12 September 2005)
Greenhouse emissions reduced by biodiesel
Patrick Hoge, SF Chronicle
Berkeley reduced greenhouse gas emissions in the city by 14 percent during the past two years with conservation measures that included running cars on vegetable oil, city officials said Monday.
The dramatic drop in carbon emissions apparently puts Berkeley at the forefront of a handful of cities that are legally committing themselves to reducing the pollution that many scientists have blamed for global warming.
“Berkeley’s groundbreaking efforts to be a model environmental city are beginning to show dramatic results,” said Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates.
The city calculated that its carbon emissions in 2004 were 2,066 metric tons less than its baseline number. To get equivalent air-quality benefits, the city would have had to plant 52,000 trees or remove 450 cars from the road, Bates said.
The greatest cut in greenhouse gases, 47 percent, came from city vehicles — particularly as a result of the use of biodiesel fuel but also through use of electric, natural gas and hybrid electric-gasoline powered vehicles.
(13 September 2005)
Suddenly, Those Solar Panels Don’t Look So 1970’s
Tim Gray, NY Times
AS prices for coal, natural gas and oil have soared, solar power has been getting perhaps its most serious look from investors since President Jimmy Carter pulled on a cardigan and asked Americans to damp their furnaces. The new interest means that the handful of domestic solar stocks has been surging, too.
Over the last year, the shares of Evergreen Solar, DayStar Technologies, Energy Conversion Devices and Spire – all small domestic companies that make equipment for converting solar power into electricity – have more than doubled in price. In August, Cypress Semiconductor said it would try to raise as much as $100 million in an initial public offering for its SunPower subsidiary.
“The solar market is projected to grow 35 percent a year for the next three to five years,” said Walter V. Nasdeo, managing director of Ardour Capital, an investment bank in New York that specializes in energy companies. “As these technologies get better, we’re seeing things being developed like solar panels integrated into roofing tiles. That way, they don’t look like a science project hanging on your roof.”
Back in the days of President Carter’s cardigan, the country was mired in an energy crisis, with an oil embargo and long lines at gas stations. Today, tumult in oil-producing places like the Middle East and Venezuela is roiling markets. Strong demand for electricity has contributed to increases in the prices of coal and natural gas. And Hurricane Katrina, of course, has worsened the situation. Yet these dire developments have been a boon for companies that make devices such as silicon wafers and rooftop panels that convert solar energy.
…Roger G. Little, Spire’s chairman and chief executive, says he sees the Chicago venture as a harbinger of Spire’s future; he aims to increase panel production over the next two years.
That would return Spire to its roots. The company started in 1969; early on, it concentrated on solar power conversion. It diversified into biomedical equipment and electronics after energy crisis of the late 1970’s abated and enthusiasm for solar power cooled. “The market tanked,” Mr. Little recalled. Even so, he remained confident.
“I’ve always believed that solar is a freight train that can’t be stopped,” he said. “It started small, but the compound annual growth rate for the last 10 years has been 20 percent. This year, there’s a $10 billion worldwide market for systems.”
(11 September 2005)
