Large scale permaculture

Demonstrate that you can feed half the population of Australia on 150 square miles of land.

There is no "my scenario". We feed the populations of those cities now. The methods used may offend your sensibilities but they work. You are the one proposing pie in the sky without running the numbers and showing that they can work.

Reply to
J. Clarke
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Whether they are "great for the planet" or not is irrelevant. It can be argued that 6 billion humans are not good for the planet. So what would you do about either?

Reply to
J. Clarke

I fear that is not possible, David. Speaking truth to power has, in my experience, little effect, and history bears this out, as witnessed by various prophets, seers, visionaries, and other illuminated and schmart folks who were ignored by the rich and famous and powerful.

It is alos interesting that John prophesied so long ago about a world situation that is taking on an amazing resemblance to what he said.

The challenge and the attempt are noble, and required, but I also fear we are simply pissin' in the wind. Yet try we must, while maintaining a watchful posture to sidestep what we are able.

I hope I am wrong, but like farml, I too despair of humanity most times.

Charlie

Reply to
Charlie

The irony of the situation is that so many of these cities are being swelled by displaced farmers and those once dependant upon the land.

Charlie

Reply to
Charlie

Current economic dogma says you must have growth around 3% per year for a healthy economy. Nobody knows how to do it with much less without having unacceptable unemployment. Thus the current model condemns us to be constantly expanding: population, energy use, mineral use, land use, must all grow indefinitely. Except that obviously in the real world they cannot.

Political systems around the world that reward short term popularity and punish long term planning don't help.

David

Reply to
David Hare-Scott

Did that. He sums up some of the problems quite well. Thanks.

Politics

That time will come although I'm not convinced that we are there just yet.

Reply to
FarmI

So do I (when I'm not feeling particularly negative), but I would be surprised if we don't get another major pestilence of some sort.

At least 3 of those horsemen are already raging through the world in Iraq, Africa and each winter as Flu carts off a huge number of people. I can't quite see why the fourth wouldn't raise it's ugly head in due time too, but I do agree with the sentiment that we shouldn't wish for it.

Reply to
FarmI

Nice try. Please insert another quarter to play again.

You really think so? There are will always be psycopaths and narcissists in the wings waiting to exert control over the masses.

Twas ever thus.

Charlie

Reply to
Charlie

whatever john?

for the records i haven't proposed anything i have merely help to raise the wareness that as supposedly (some of us maybe?) intelligent human beings we need to grasp the matter now as the changes needed in our cities and suburban planning are going to take some time to implement.

but i guess for now your square and comfort zone are well in place.

On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 22:03:35 -0400, "J. Clarke" snipped With peace and brightest of blessings,

len & bev

-- "Be Content With What You Have And May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In A World That You May Not Understand."

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Reply to
len gardener

So you don't have a proposal, you just want to "raise the wareness"? Why not instead work toward finding a solution that will work and then proving that it will work? But no, you'd rather just "raise the wareness" because that doesn't actually require any _effort_ on your part.

Reply to
J. Clarke

Heh. Sorry friend. I figgered giving you a nip was safer, and would be tolerated better than nipping someone else, like my Lovey fer instance. ;-)

Yeah, bit of a downcycle today. You know the routine. I have found that contained within the major fluctuations there are some minor ones as well. Kinda sucks sometimes. Been feeling the need for a couple days, but have resisted, as at this time I am well aware of where this would lead. What I need is to be able to go wallow in the soil and get the back of me neck redded and wear myself out physically. Days on end of cloudy rainy weather, this time of year, are not good for me. And they are calling for three more with snow on two of them. But I'll be alright, just gotta wait it out sometimes.

Heh heh, gotta remember which way to face when fertilizing. :-)

But you must keep in mind, the Egyptian world did go, as the world only extended to the limits of their knowledge. So it was for other societys. Unfortunately we have finally become viral and spread worldwide, so it only stands to reason, since the house of cards is now a global house of cards, for all intents and purposes of economics and dependencies, that a collapse will be of epic proportions. Collapses of yesteryear were of epic proportion to those who collapsed.

And it is intersesting that much of the turmoil, given our global dependency upon oil, is centered in one of large oil producing areas of the world,which by coincidence is also home to several of the worlds warring religions, and which coincidentlay id rumored to be the cradle of civilization.

But, having said this, I realize that for the most part, our knowledge, though worldwide and extending a very tiny way into space, is limited and we make our prophesies and predictions based upon this limited knowledge. All comes down to we really don't know shit from shinola.

The prophets of old may have been inspired (I do believe that some of us have seen with other eyes and things didn't appear the same ever after), but it is now not hard to see and project into the future the results of our actions. Destruction of resources and warring and food insufficiency on regional scales have simply gone global and a contraction is coming. Logistics bears this out.

But, as you say, perhaps the generations that make it, will have dreams that don't involve control and such and make a better go of it. SO, I quess our task is to try and ensure that some knowledge and some of the good ideals and dreams get passed on to the next generations. I'm doing my damndest to see to this.

As far as predictions of the end and God destroying us, God needn't lift a finger to end this. We are doing quite well ourselves and I am confident we shall succeed in our endeavour. We have freewill to do as we choose.

See above.

Actually, a little sunshine has helped considerably, though I'm still feelin' a little frosty. Maybe catch ya' later, maybe not til the morning, but I'm quite sure though that many of the good folk round these here parts are hopin' for much later. ;-)

Charlie

Reply to
Charlie

You've got it. Store what you eat and eat what you store, so goes the saying. You are right about the whole wheat flour, but wheat berries store nigh onto forever, done up right. Who the hell cares what it looks like. Heh, we did the y2k routine. It was a damn good education and we now have many items that could prove to be necessary. Hmmm, reminds me, time to go thru the medical kit and update items. It's prudent to buy in bulk and there are many who believe in having a years worth of food in storage.

Here are a couple of really helpful things and good solid info to have. The water reatment faq could prove invaluable. I've printed them out and they are with all the other "manuals" etc.

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recently popped open a bucket of cornmeal on it's tenth anniversary of entering into storage. Smelled and tasted just fine. Been stored at a constant 50-60 F.

As far as the CO2 tank, I would think you would need a *very* slooow release so as to percolate thru the density. Feed your CO2 or nitrogen or dry ice from the bottom, as you no doubt realize. And fer cryin' out loud, don't do it in a small space. Ventilation. And if you use dry ice, I used a chunk about the size of a small fist, busted up, on the bottom, dumped in the goodies and set the lid on loosely and give it overnight to do it's thing, and then hammer home the lid without having disturbed the container. If you want double insurance, toss in O2 absorbers right before sealing.

I also tossed in the bottom of each container a goodly sized packet of silica gel fer the heck of it.

Have any questions, ask. I've been thru this thoroughly.

Charlie

Reply to
Charlie

Those would work, anything food grade that is airtight. I use three and five gallon plastic buckets with gasketed lids. They are available a lot of places and can be scrounged from food joints etc. Hardware stores often have them, but they may not be food grade, but the addition of a foodgrade bag liner would suffice.

yeppers.

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is one place.

Also saw this place and the price is good.

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here, this looks like perhaps the best to me. They also have mylar bags.
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I found these three, I found this article that listed all them. Damn, I'm good.

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Got the first of the plastic sheets onto the pepper garden today. Our

Skeeters.....grrr. The dragonflies, bats and swallows give us nearly

100% control. We are fortunate.
Reply to
Charlie

Forgot to add, I've also used gallon and smaller glass jars with good seals. Canning jars/lids, gallon pickle jars. These can be scrounged as well as buckets.

Reply to
Charlie

Len I seem to have missed this post somehow and gone on to reply to you further down the thread - maybe I have a propagation problem, I swear I couldn't see this yesterday.

Anyway I find much good sense in what you say here. I recall fondly the market gardens embedded in or close to the city and it does make sense in a world where transport costs are set to rise hugely. But how to stop or even reverse the trend of turning such areas into housing?

David

Reply to
David Hare-Scott

Please spare me the attitude. I will take it that you feel strongly about this and so get a bit carried away sometimes but I would rather hear from you in a civil way about your passion.

Are you seriously suggesting that the roofs and balconies of large urban buildings are a suitable place to grow food? Have you ever tried to grow anything in that situation? The wind and heat (and added heat island effects) make your water consumption huge and anything tender gets burned.

I see in your quote that the author claims this happened in the Cuban situation. I don't have the book. I don't know what the city buildings of Cuba are like or how they managed this, I will take your word that it happened at least on some scale.

I doubt that roof/balcony gardens in the big cities of my acquaintance (Sydney, Melbourne) are ever going to produce more than a supplement to the diets of the inhabitants and that would be at a great cost of materials. These cities are looking at permanent water restrictions and great increases in the cost of water. Squandering tap water in this way is pointless. Roof water is insignificant in high rise due to the high ratio of people to roof area.

You seem to be assuming there will be a great catastrophe and that drastic measures will be required to survive. My original question was about whether permaculture was a suitable replacement for broadacre farming, I am more interested trying to find ways of not having a catastrophe.

I did read it. Convince me that it translates to other situations.

How would it be applicable to a medium sized low density city like Melbourne?

How would it be applicable to a huge high density city like Tokyo?

You make it sound so easy. I would like to see numbers.

I am no sort of American. The references to Melbourne and the Aussie 1/4 acre block and the poverty of Australian soils was not there to confuse. But let's leave nationality out of it.

It's in that ring area about 1 1/2 hours from the city centre that so much good land is getting turned into housing estates. I agree with you and Len that there is a problem there. I don't see how to fix it though, do you?

This is the third shot you have taken, what's it for?

How did we go from agrarian economies to the present? By huge increases in specialisation and efficiency. Sadly broadacre farming has serious unwanted side effects and demands inputs that are going to be much more expensive or not available in future. I mention efficiency because it must be a factor in any system of sustainable growing that replaces the broadacre farming. In a future of very limited resources where the per capita consumption of resources will have to be reduced in countries like yours and mine how can we countenance inefficiency?

David

Reply to
David Hare-Scott

On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:41:18 +1000, "David Hare-Scott" wrote: snipped

g'day david,

some here think that this is my idea totally? but that is so they can protect their comfort zones at this time. i responded to your post, and along with what mollesin and holmgren also say we need change and as you poijnted out it needs to start at some point or the change will be harder and harder to do.

it took around 40 or 50 years for us to be taken to where we are now so it could easily take that long to turn around. so it is no good anyone exposing the hind quarters with their head in a bucket of sand, you know what happens while your behind is exposed hey?

this will take a drive from the whole community, but alas once we say never then never it will be. there is a lot more food could be grown at home than what there currently is so even there, there is no effort going on.

but anyway unless something new comes along this will be my last response as i see it i'm only a messenger, the problem is already occuring.

we need farmers with insight who can see that even without the permaculture label (which is about all you can realy say) they need to be very much more sustainable, and the farmers won't budge until pressure comes from the community.

every time i see tv shows of england i see this monolithic castles and edifaces with vast areas of well kept lawn and pretty gardens, yet i'm sure like here there are people in those communities that are short on food, so waht if you have to walk along paths between productive vege' gardens or fruit trees to get to the building.

food does not grow overnight it takes time for all crops to mature.

take care mate.

With peace and brightest of blessings,

len & bev

-- "Be Content With What You Have And May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In A World That You May Not Understand."

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Reply to
len gardener

you might be over-focussing on roof growing, here, david :-)

sydney & melbourne have a lot of land space in people's yards. while back yard (and balcony!!) fruit & veg growing seems insignificant, it's not really (particularly when you consider how common it was once and (i dearly hope) will be again. have you seen any of the designs (e.g. clive blazey's) for food gardens in the ordinary smallish yard? it's actually fairly impressive. considering that farming itself (on farms) isn't going away any time soon, i can't see that there'd be too many problems anyway, but certainly cities like sydney & melbourne would be fully capable of most (although not all) householders growing a surprising quantity of fruit & veg _if they wanted to_.

added to that, another of c. blazey's "things" is substituting food plants for ornamentals (food plants being handily ornamental as well, nice that). a tiny yard (such as i had myself in sydney, various locations) with some ornamentals can be refigured to a tiny yard full of food plants. i doubt that such a yard could meet all the householders' needs, but you need to consider how much they _could_ produce. as more people make such changes, we will know more. it's endless really - small town near here has a strip where the street trees are fruit trees (possibly planted by householders, i don't know). people are thinking of new ways to make gardening more vertical, to handle small spaces. etc. i have lived nearby to food-oriented gardens in the burbs of canberra! hence that is why i believe they're more common than we think, and are entirely practical too. anyone could do it.

i think the poster's point is that cuba actually had that catastrophe, but they turned it around. in a crisis, people are galvanised. until such a crisis, well, they're not, & until then tend not to think about the problem, even. this is actually a problem, because things like "loss of agricultural land" or even "climate change" don't really affect anyone in (say) sydney at this time. they cannot conceive what the problem might be. yet, we all know that in an unforseen severe crisis, you could starve the population out within a week (although it actually takes longer than a week to starve to death, of course - say 3 or 4). there's no food storage there beyond 3 or 4 _days_, it would be (relatively) easy (for an Organisation of Baddies) to block the roads so nobody could go in or out. really!

now, i doubt that will ever happen of course, but equally i doubt the populace even realises how vulnerable they potentially are. the cuban situation was apparently national, so therefore a bit more easily solved by the populace as a whole. gardening is entirely empowering, for quite obvious reasons. what a high-density mega-city could or would do i don't know, & i must admit it's really not my problem, so i don't have any intention of devoting more thought to that.

get the developers on the run! seriously, in nsw it is looking like developers' days of doing whatever the hell they like are going to be, of necessity, numbered. not a bad thing, that.

no, because the industrial revolution happened!

"huge increases in specialisation and efficiency" really only occurred in the way that (i assume) you are thinking of, post ww2. hello, herbicides!

Sadly broadacre farming has serious unwanted

it's also not AT ALL efficient in the way (i assume) you are thinking of. for example, backyard veggie gardens are massively more water-efficient than a broadacre veggie farm & more able to supply their own inputs. small farms are more efficient than big ones. sheer magnitude does not equal something being genuinely efficient - it brings a certain economy of scale, but in every other way is less efficient - even growth and plant health is not so good, because it's monocultural, so you don't get the returns per square metre that you would on a small, mixed farm. so yes, the cost of inputs is inefficient as well, and the undesirable outputs impinge seriously on any genuine "efficiency". someone told me recently (no idea how true it is, but it doesn't sound "wrong" to me based on my observations) that with broadacre farming, you only expect to make 6% over your inputs (ie. make $106 dollars for every $100 spent) which doesn't count the eventual cost of damaging outputs. by any measure, that is wildly inefficient & is going to have to change rapidly.

I mention efficiency because it must be a factor in

we can't countenance it now, yet we do :-)

solutions would include: smaller, more mixed farms. farms focussing on growing crops or livestock which work in the conditions that exist, not to continue trying to alter conditions when it can't be done. the populace growing more of its own food (whether that means in one's own yard, or buying locally, as directly as possible). further reducing the import sector (which actually is quite small at the moment in terms of food, thankfully - to not allow this to increase whatsoever, and actively work on reducing it to near-zero). active governmental preservation of agricultural land (including putting their foot down re expanding cities even more). proper support for farmers - rather than bailing them out of disaster after disaster, to aid in remaking the farming sector a bit & utilising knowledge which is there, so that people are getting good outcomes for all, rather than struggling on as is, inefficiently & in some cases disastrously. to educate the public (this isn't going to happen this week - as i said the govt wants you to buy a cabbage, not to grow one. most governments need their heads read on this matter - they are simply _wrong_.) there are lots of things to be done, it's a question of will, not of possibility.

two other things i was told recently by different people, neither of which i have checked, but include as discussion points perhaps - firstly, that john macarthur's obsession with sheep put the mockers on other peoples' ideas for farming more suitable livestock. secondly, that a chicken farmer needs (iirc) 20,000 birds to be considered a primary producer. (20,000!!! i consider 20 birds to be primary production! ;-) clearly, there's a bit of re-thinking that needs to be done. re-thinking is good. kylie

Reply to
0tterbot

we know that the current model doesn't help - it's getting the beancounters & other bottom-feeders to accept that is the problem. the first world govt to actively remake the situation is going to be everyone's hero.

of course, most govts that have a great idea are invaded by the u.s. & crushed for the next 50 years ;-) kylie

Reply to
0tterbot

Hey, you need to update! We are now on the Hundred Year Plan. Our Repugnican candidate, John McCentury is talking a hundred years in Iraq. Got Oil!

Foo, we yanks, gonna grab it all. All for us and none for others.

Fuck me, hurry and put us out of our misery and save yerselves.

Charlie

"All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind."

Adam Smith

Reply to
Charlie

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