The Future of Agriculture and the Importance of Developing Our Skills and Knowledge Base

[FarmI]

Yep, which will further compound the effects of global warming and the extremes of weather events we are being warned about.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

If you'd said 4 or 6 or 9.2, it would've turned into a different kind of discussion. I was just curious.

[David Hare-Scott]

Are you talking about smaller animals here or cattle? If cattle I have problems with this paragraph.

Also the inefficiency in land use and water consumption of taking vegetable calories and feeding them to animals (which you eat) instead of eating them yourself is quite clear. I don't mean to say we could eat grass but the same land and water will feed more people if turned to vegetable food production instead of pasture.

Having said that I would much prefer to remain an omnivore. I hope it doesn't get to the point where meat becomes a luxury but it's possible. In the dark-ages meat was a luxury, the commoners (that's me and I assume you) only ate meat on feast days and holy days.

David

[enigma]

Charlie wrote in news: [e-mail]:

being a typical lazy American, i'm training an ox team. those hand plows are too much work ;) for anyone contemplating a small homestead, look at Irish Dexter cattle. meat, milk *and* draft, in a small package (around 300 pounds). nice temperment, & easy keepers too.

lee

[enigma]

"JoeSpareBedroom" wrote in news:YirKi.17636$ [e-mail]:

well, i have one biological child, but we hope to eventually adopt several more. i'm interested in taking on family groups of kids, which, it seems, many adoptive parents are not. i think breaking up kids from their siblings is pretty unkind. so if i ever say i have 6 or 9.2 kids, do i have to also explain that i acquired them by other than biology? lee

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Well, it does matter. I'm not a fanatical believer in the zero population growth idea, but there is a difference between building 5 kids of your own, vs building 2 and adopting 3. By adopting, you haven't added any to the population. And, with regard to food & water supply issues, population growth is certainly a factor.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Fine, but what about latté?

[enigma]

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in news:fddidj$g8n$ [e-mail]:

not all land is suitable for vegetable production. cattle/sheep/goats can thrive on land too hilly or rocky to be useful for food production. i take it you are not familiar with the Northeast of the US? we have plenty of water, but not a huge amount of decent flat land suitable for food crop production. there's a reason old Yankees were dairy farmers & shephrds.

if you stop looking at 'meat' as being only high maintainance modern beef breeds (or dairy being only Holsteins), you will see that it should be possible to continue your omnivore habit fairly well. lee

[enigma]

"JoeSpareBedroom" wrote in news:LJtKi.17643$ [e-mail]:

i'm looking into a greenhouse so i can grow coffee... gotta have that to make latté. i think i'll need to grow cocoa too. so if i put a 2nd greenhouse out in Savannah (NY), can you keep an eye on the coffee there? ;) seriously though, i'm not a huge fan of straight roasted chicory. what other locally growable coffee substitutes are there? we've got brewing beer & cider down, but i'll need more flatish land to grow grain. the hops grow like crazy here, plus we have several non-hop plants for preserving beers (creeping charlie, for example). there's a dammed pond on our property that is rumored in the town history to be the first local grain mill. the flow is restricted currently by a Fish & Game dam upstream, but that is currently failing... lee

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Is the dam on anyone's list for removal? There's been a movement afoot for a while to eliminate dams whose purpose has evaporated over the years.

[enigma]

"JoeSpareBedroom" wrote in news:X2vKi.17647$ [e-mail]:

mine? no, because the state doesn't know it exists (and i'm not going to press the issue so that they find out). the F&G dam was not in good shape before the flooding this past spring, & that certainly didn't improve anything. i will see F&G tomorrow and ask about that dam. it really doesn't serve much purpose, except to slightly (about 2') artificially raise the water level in a spring fed pond. i suspect the reason F&G has control over that dam & section of stream is more for access to the pond for stocking efforts. of course, if they don't do some work on it, i strongly suspect the road is going to go away in the next flood... the under road culvert can't take that much water going through. we had 8" over the road, along with the culvert's load. it washed a cement block i left on my dam over 300 feet downstream... there was too much water coming in for me to get the drain at the bottom of the dam open, but i suspect that's a good thing really. there was no damage to my dam at all (it's earth & rock, at least 200 years old). lee

[<someone]

Before we run out of oil and/or are affected by the prices cause due to high oil one has to consider the reason why resources are going higher and US buying power lower. This is one of the first major problems that will be experienced by Americans and rest of the world secondly. This main problem is devaluation of US dollar. As a reserve currency most goods are priced in US dollar so looking at oil at $80USD doesn't mean that oil went up that much in other currencies -ex. Canada, Euroland. As this seems to be done by design America will suffer first and most likely drag the rest of the world down with it.

It's totally true that everyone should have survival skills which has been lost by majority in the of developed nations but the times aren't tough yet and there is still time to get ready. The first major crises will most likely be the currency crises which is starting to unfold, and this is what can trigger everything else. At this time the first thing people should do is get out of debt. Review your mortgage contracts and make sure there is no clause anywhere where banks can call in their loans at any time. As a loss of possesisions would be a first major hit to the household which would put such ones very much dependent on the government. Internet is still freely available and one can learn lots about practically everything imagenable so it would be a good idea to learn some survival skills which include growing food, surviving without power or heat. Possibly having backup plan for water source or how to treat the water to make it drinkable. Also other articles haven't mantioned fishing - another food source that can be utilized. Good times have lasted for a long time and many in developed nations forgot how to work hard to stay alive and most can't remember the last real hard times - in US that would be some 80 years ago.

What will trigger the hard times it's hard to say for sure but anyone looking can see there is something bad in the air. Will this be just another end of world empire or something bigger only time will tell. Let's not forget Mat 24:21

[FarmI]

Since you have divorced what I wrote from the context of the article on which I was commenting and have also snipped any mention of small animals, then clearly I'm writing about cattle.

To put it back in context. The author of the article assumed that all cattle are fed on grain. You and I boht know that is not the case although it may be the case for most of the time in the US (although God knows why given the falvour of grain fed beef).

It IS possible in limited circumstances most of which don't apply across the breadth of drought ravaged Australia where animals will be able to forage and survive where a vegetaive food would shrivel to a crisp. The animals won't in general be prime killing stock for frying/grilling but they will certainly be edible in casserole/stew form. I suspect you must live in a water rich area to write what you did.

Haven't you been to a butchers recently? It's already getting to that level.

In

Yep. You got my point there.

[Charlie]

Agreed.

I agree.

Grass fed beef, slow to maturity, is some of the best I have eaten, along with bison, which is available locally for us. Harvesting and storing winter feed is certaily doable, on a limited scale, though work it is. Most of the time here, snow cover is not total through the winter.

Also, depending upon your location, deer, elk, etc. are there for the harvesting, at least for now. I used to hunt, and eat whitetail deer. Still eat some every year, as the boys both hunt and I always help them butcher. I haven't killed for about ten years, but am able and prepared to do so.

Same for all sorts of wild meat here in the u$.....fish, frogs, squirrel, rabbit, wildfowl, upland game and some critters that I have eaten years ago, such as raccon and some that I haven't been hungry enough to try yet, such as possum. Depends upon your locale. Have I read that 'roo is eaten in your country? Should be plenty of them to go 'round!

Rabbits are simple to raise, and the old idea of having individual hutches, breeding boxes, etc., is not necessary. We've raised rabbits in a shed with straw bale shelters, free to roam about the shed, and they did great and gave us a great harvest.

I've been raising only heirloom garden produce for ten years and saving seeds. This is *essential* if we want to survive a downturn. Absolutely essential. I continually recommend heirlooms to people.

I try and maintain a selection that produces in dry climates and in normally moist years. COvering bases. People alos need to research what the native peoples rased before modern methods took over......such as in the u$, where Native Americans raised much maize, beans. and squashes, all good storage items.

I agree, but the overview and the exhortation to thik about doing for oneself when the tide turns is the true value of the article.

Maybe, just maybe, some of us will make it. Hope it doesn't go all Mad Max on us.

Care Charlie

[Billy]

Let's see. Gouged by the oil companies (record profits). Consolidation and subsidizing of food production (Cargill, Archer Daniel Midlands, Dow). Historic foreign debt and a total American debt of $161,287 per man, woman and child. Information, mostly controlled by 10 corporations, that is manufactured to generate consent (Iraq had no-thing to do with

9/11 or WMDs).

Debtor countries required to follow strict rules to repay debt, reduction of social programs for health and safety, repression of trade unions, and as in Chile and Argentina, martial law.

We have done it to others and the chickens are coming home to roost.

Who you going to believe? Your President and his gang or your own lying eyes?

Wake up!

[Charlie]

Uhhhh........Billy, it's me.....Charlie....like the choir, ya know.

Boss: You got your mind right, Luke? Luke: Yeah. I got it right. I got it right, boss

Get some rest, my friend.

Charlie

[David Hare-Scott]

OK then how does reducing stock over winter relate to raising beef? What proportion of your stock go to market at less than 12 months? I don't see what you are getting at.

OK

My comments were not restricted to Australia and there are many places here and overseas where a crop could replace pasture.

Are you claiming that if things get tough as in our doomsday scenario we will be able to go right on eating as much meat as we do now? This paragraph and your later comments suggest that you will answer no. In which case we agree.

Not to the level where it's feast days only.

Once again we seem to be coming to agreement.

David

[FarmI]

Sorry, I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person, but what you have written is wrong. Fuel has gone up world wide and that price hike is about the scarcity of the resource (as China and India boom) and not about America suffering first.

America has VERY low fuel prices at the pump in comparison to the rest of the world, where taxes and surcharges are massively higher than in the US. The US is only now catching up with what has been happening in the rest of the world for decades.

[FarmI]

I knew that :-)).

Remember, I was commenting on the article - this is not about the age at which we sell our beasts.

The author of the article wrote that the best thing (and I'm paraphasing so you see what I'm on about) post oil would be to be a veggie because "vegetable production requires far less land than animal production. Even the pasture land for a cow is about one hectare, and more land is needed to produce hay, grain, and other foods for that animal." and "of animals is not easy" and "The third problem is that of cost: animals get sick, animals need to be fed, animals need to be enclosed, and the bills add up quickly. Finally, vegetable food requires less labor than animal food to produce; less labor, in turn, means more time to spend on other things"

Basically most of that is rot and/or assumes that animals are fed on grain/hay or 'other foods'.

If we were immediately tossed into a post oil world, I'd keep our cattle. They are easy to raise (unlike his thoughts on that - occasionally one will meet its maker through natural causes but that is seldom). They can be raised purely on grass because we don't like in a climate where they have to be put in a barn and fed over winter (thus no need to grow food for them) and they'd be a good thing to own where syntheic products like vinyl and plastic is no longer available. And sometimes they'd also be 'meat' but really they'd be too useful to just be 'meat'.

My real quibble with the article was that the guy seemd to have a very limited view of what would happen in a post oil world. He, and many other people, don't seem to know where event he most basic things that would make life worth living (like soap and light) would come from in such a scenario. I've always been fascinated by how people lived pre electricity and pre oil. I think the worst thing would be getting proper clothing.

Yes it could BUT most countries these days are becoming less and less capable of supporting themsleves in food production. Oz is still one of the lucky ones but if we keep going the way we are with appallingly cheap imports then it won't be long before we are in the same boat as much of the rest of the world.

Yep we do agree on the fact that there will be reduced meat eating. But if we had rabbits then that would be a different thing altogether. I still remember pre battery hen days when chook was a feast day food and I was born and raised on a poultry farm.

:-)) Yeah but it's heading there.

Yep.

[FarmI]

Yes it is eaten but I have never mastered the art of cooking it and don't want to do so. It is a very low fat meat and as you would know, marbling in meat makes it tender. I'd rather eat less top quality beef than try to eat any of the roos round here, or buy roo.

And are delicious! Also have good fibre if one chooses the right breeds.

That is why I was so surprised that it wasn't mentioned in the article. I'd hate to see what hybrids would produce when/if the manure hits the fan - might be OK for the first year at a pinch, but then knowing about the need for distances between crops and true to type seeds would be vital.

Ummmmm. I don't think I ever want to eat anything the Aboriginal people ate except honey from native bees. Roo doesn't appeal to me so snake and lizard is right off the agenda. Hunter gatherer lifestyle would not be my first preference for native peoples food.

Yes it is. I'm always amused when I read posts from the boys (and I do mean boys) in the survivalist ngs. I always think to myself that they probably don't own a handkerchief between them and the thought of owning a metal buket would never cross their collectivley small minds. It all about who has the biggest and best weapon.

I dunno. Mel Gibson in his younger days was very easy on the eyes. With my luck, I'd only come across the mutants.

I read a very interesting article today about the predictions for Global warming.

It wasn't online but I have looked up a cite which may possibly interest you.

In brief, the article says that climate scientists agree that a raise in temperatures should be confined to a max of 2 degrees but most scientists had now recognised that this figure was already beyond what could be achieved - more likely a rise of 3 degrees or more was most likely. Even a

1 degree rise would result in loss of a third of fresh water from the earth's surface and Australia's Barrier Reef was doomed to die. A rise of 2 degrees would result in Greenland losing its ice and thus raising sea levels and more heat waves in Europe where the 2003 heat wave cost 35K lives and loss of production in the order of $12B. A 3 degree increase would result in carbon sequestration that currenly happens in the soil would be thrown into reverse and carbon dioxide would be released into the air. 2-3 degrees would result in loss of most of the Amazon rainforest and so it went on......