Post-Peak-Oil food production

[GliderGuider]

Agriculture is likely to be hit hard by oil and NG depletion. I'm refining my expectations of this dependency, and have a couple of thoughts for consideration.

First, I think agriculture will be affected differently across three categories of countries.

The first category is the developed nations like the USA and Western Europe (essentially the OECD). Their agriculture will take a hit but it won't be immediately crippling because they have so much discretionary energy consumption that could be redirected to the agricultural sector.

The second category is the countries at the very bottom of the scale, such as most African nations. Their agriculture isn't nearly as dependent on fossil energy inputs as ours, and is much less of a Green Revolution monoculture industry. They may not take a devastating hit - they should still be able to provide similar levels of food as they do today (though that's still not enough).

It's in the third category that the impact of oil depletion will be devastating. That category includes the "partially industrialized" countries like India, China and Pakistan. Their agriculture has largely transitioned to the western "Green Revolution" model, and as a result is as heavily dependent on oil as ours. Unfortunately, their economies don't have the discretionary slack that North American or European ones do. When oil depletion hits them it will directly affect agricultural productivity as there is no sector of the economy whose oil, NG or other energy could be easily reallocated to food production. Of course in those countries the effects of soil and water degradation as well as pollution (especially in China) will exacerbate the problem.

The second thought is about net exports.

A theory of rapid decline in oil exports has been promoted by Jeffrey Brown (aka westexas) on The Oil Drum. The theory postulates that as an exporting country's oil production declines and its internal demand rises, its net exports will fall faster than its gross decline in production.

It occurs to me that this same pattern will be seen with food exports as well as with oil. This is because food production is heavily supported by oil, as well as being vulnerable to declining soil fertility, depleting fresh water and increasing Climate Chaos, not to mention competition for acreage with fuel crops. All these effects will be happening in the same time frame, and their interactions will virtually guarantee a drop in gross food production. Populations will continue to rise in the short term before the overall dieoff takes hold, and there also will be preferential immigration to food producing regions. These effects will drive up domestic demand for food in producing nations, and reduce the food they have available for export. This effect is likely to hit food importing nations like Japan extremely hard.

Paul Chefurka

[undergroundpanther]

1. we put

more oil on the depleted soil to make food able to grow, than we put in all the cars.

Plowing ruins topsoil,and factory farming depletes it.For example
We get big strawberries artifically ripened in hothouses that rot soon after you get them home,
that taste like nothing because the soil is devoid of nutrients.

We might be obese because food is depleted of nutrients ,we eat more because the oil made into fertilizer is not helping to feed the plants that feed us like it was years ago because the soil is depleted that bad.

If peak oil affects cars, that will be the least of our problems,it will effect food production and I can tell a difference in food already I began noticing it was different in the early 90's.

more links on this topic
http://www.energybulletin.net/24319.html
http://peakfood.co.uk/
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
Things you can do to prepare and help
http://www.3k88.com/
http://www.siafu.ca/story/42
How to use a planting stick.I got one, my father gave me, and I know how to use it.
http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1088692540
http://www.ihdi.uky.edu/kygrow/starting%20seeds.htm
seedballs /restoring topsoil
http://www.pathtofreedom.com/pathproject/gardening/seedballs.shtml
http://watershed.org/news/fall_92/topsoil.html

I hate lawns get rid of it make it a maintenance free garden.Unless like me some asshole put chemlawn all over it.
http://www.relocalize.net/node/5889
http://www.eartheasy.com/grow_lawn_alternatives.htm
Seed savers
http://www.seedsavers.org/
http://www.halcyon.com/tmend/exchanges.htm

[amandabeech]

26. Nitrogen fertilizer is almost always made with natural gas, not oil.

We don't have that much more natgas left in n. America, and we now import a lot of it from places like Saudi Arabia.

However, nitrogen fertilizer can be made with just about any energy source and water. We'll always have a little of it, but I think that we'll have to go back to crop rotation and animal waste recycling. And that may include human wastes.

Also, we will run out of phosphorus, which we will somehow try to import from Morocco.

[razzleberry]

2. this is crap. coal can replace oil.

people never heard of steam tractors?

[GliderGuider]

5. So everything is going to be just peachy then?

Business as usual world-wide, no shortfalls anywhere?

[razzleberry]

11. I never wrote that things will be peachy

people will take matters into there own hands

consider a farm tractor, at some point,
a tractor fueled with solid fuel becomes economic,
you have to hire someone to shovel

same for ships, rail

at some point,
third world electric generators fueled by oil,
become uneconomic

Sanators fly commercial insted of private jet
SUVs in the US get 10 mpg instead of 5

etc, etc

[undergroundpanther]

13. And

as the economy tanks and oil is scarce that tractor will sit and rust. Use a planting stick it requires no fuel to run it but your body.It runs for FREE,and it keeps your topsoil alive.
Didn't you ever study the dustbowl?

Plow and you get a dustbowl,
http://www.ccccok.org/museum/dustbowl.html
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/machines_05.html




Planting stick,no dustbowl
http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1088692540
http://www.exapta.com/knowledge/guide_seeding.html

[amandabeech]

27. Actually, there will probably be coal to diesel plants before you

see regular tractors powered with coal. Threshers, yes. Tractors, no. Actually replacements of existing heavy equipment is very energy intensive itself. It would be less energy intensive to convert the coal to diesel.

Same with diesel locomotives. They may be replaced by electric, but many will keep on going with coal-to-diesel. It may also be possible to modify the diesel-electric locomotives to accept a catenary electrical feed like a streetcar. Even without a possible electrical feed, modern diesel-electric locomotives are much, much more fuel efficient than the best steam locomotives powered with coal to the point that diesel will be made to serve all locomotives in service.

Also Canadian tar sands and Venezuelan heavy converts much better to diesel than to gasoline. As a regular theoildrum reader, I am of the opinion that very heavy grades of petroleum and bitumen will be around much longer than will lighter grades that can easily be made into gasoline for personal transport.

[undergroundpanther]

7. tractors??WTF

Ripping up more clay soil isn't gonna help the soil be nutrient rich. Plants grow really shitty or not at all without nutrients.
We need to feed the topsoil. We feed the topsoil with oil based fertilizer,but it ain't gonna help it with coal.Besides coal is hazardous to dig and if oil is gone what what will power the machines to get the MASSIVE amount of coal required to try to sustain a big huge factory farm conglomerate?
If you want to avoid all this stress yank up that useless turf in your yard if you have one and use it to grow food.. share it or sell it.Enrich your yard by using compost. You can learn to make compost and by using a planting stick you do not ruin the topsoil.And you can learn how to can and store foods without refrigeration you know ancient tech, it served us well before refrigerators. Root cellars, drying, etc.And you can share the knowledge base with your neighbors.That way at least y'all won't starve when the shit hits the fan. and..Learn to find wild foods.People assume plants are weeds or poison because they don't know what to look for.So become and educated forager. I must have eaten over 100 bucks worth of wild blackberries raspberries,mulberries and cherries for free this year (not counting the wild vegetable plants.)..Because I know how to forage.Being poor as dirt and sick of eating the crap you can afford gets old fast So I forage poverty created the necessity,and I eat well during the spring/summer/fall months just by walking along roadsides in fields woods foraging..

[eppur_se_muova]

25. CO2-producing coal?That's a solution? Not for long. nt

[YankeyMCC]

3. This is something most people have no idea about

When I tell people how much fossil fuels we put directly into growing food they usually just don't believe me no matter what I say.

[undergroundpanther]

9. Denial and ignorance

got us in this mess and denial and ignorance will kill us off too.

People are so invested in the way it is done now they can't imagine any other way to do it and this is because our society is engineered to be stupid this way. But once the truth hits home,the times will be difficult to face so better learn to deal without early rather than cram during a food crisis stuff like how to grow food,raise food or hunt,seed save, forage, hunt, and store food you have safely.And no oil means you better devise a better cheaper way and learn to heat your home and cook too. Things like solar cookers fire pits ancient tech learn it now or be sorry when you go to the supermarket and it is closed.
One thing my father was an abusive asshole but he made sure I knew ancient tech.I thank him for that.

[losthills]

4. "Peak Oil" will be good for agriculture.

Just as it will be good for everything else in society. Dumping massive amounts of poison on our soil and on our food to get higher yields per acre has never been good for anyone except the agri-business corporatocracy.

Peak oil will usher in an era of advanced organic farming and entrepreneurial urban gardening that will be better for our health and the health of our planet.

The sooner we get the oil out of our food, the better...

[GliderGuider]

6. Those huge yields have been good for "people", not just agribusiness.

Why do you think we can feed 6.6 billion people, even with the level of production and distribution disparity that exists? 7 to 10 calories of fossil fuel energy in every calorie of food...

[undergroundpanther]

10. there

is no lost calories foraging.. This is why I got a weedy yard I can eat those "weeds".
http://www.consciouschoice.com/2006/04/foodlead0604.html

BTW pokeweed picked young no taller than 5 inches(in march/early April in Maryland)DO NOT pick poke taller than 5 inches high ,because as it grows bigger it becomes poisonous!!) Young Poke pare boiled 2 times make kickass greens add a little cider vinegar and Yooow.Even more delicious combined with dandilion leaves taken before the plant seeds is well yum! My yard has a big ass poke patch and poke grows like crazy it's prolific and dandilions are welcome here,Chemlawn does not effect these weeds .So what if the neighbors might think I am lazy about lawn maintenance, I think they are stupid..go figure..The poke berries can be used as ink or dye,Most people do not know how useful weeds are.My yard is full of critters.Owls rabbits squirrels and they do not run away,as I walk past.I even got a hawk in my big pine tree and tons of songbirds,I put out food for all in my yard. One persons garden of food and critter brothers and sisters is to the civilized, an eyesore.Civilization has made us stupid and made us forget how to survive without civilization.It is all has been engineered over generations to facilitate social control over us.

[YankeyMCC]

12. Organic and sustainable farms have been shown to be More productive

but the transition is difficult and a farm switching over will face loss of productivity until a sustainable, diverse farm ecology is created. So you're right to question how we'll feed everyone, particularly in a transition state but it should be possible to feed billions using sustainable practices but it also would require a foundational shift in global society, shifting back to relying on local and seasonal resources, maybe not solely local and seasonal but danm near. And that is the rub really, so I guess I'm saying yeah you're right it's unlikely we'll be able to feed everyone because that shift will take a major trauma to get everyone to make, but small, sustainable, local farms can be Very productive.

Here's one study:
ftp://ftp.fao.org/paia/organicag/ofs/OFS-2007-5.pdf

"18. Yields: Productivity in organic production systems is management specific. Studies suggest
that switching to organic management commonly results in yield reduction in perennial crops (up to
50 percent) and during the conversion period for high external input systems in areas with favourable
crop growth conditions (up to 40 percent). But in regions with medium growth conditions and
moderate use of synthetic inputs, organic productivity is comparable to conventional systems (92
percent) and in subsistence agricultural systems, it results in increased yields up to 180 percent.
Overall, the world average organic yields are calculated to be 132 percent more than current food
production levels (Badgley, et al., 2006)."

I think I have more but don't have access to my references right now.

[undergroundpanther]

15. growing weeds

and foraging can supplement all the organic co ops and home gardens too.

The Earth has sustained billions before Animals eat too,and since we have killed off so many animals,the word population of humans if you think are taking their places,I mean before civilization how much was produced by the Earth(by some accounts it was incredible abundant,) And how much was consumed by every animal eating ? Yeah during the crash and transition,some people will die..But what will happen is more people on the same planet with less animals eating it too until it balances back.The planet is resilient,people too,But Civilization is not sustainable or resiliant.

[GliderGuider]

18. Do you really think foraging could provide food for any significant number of people?

Imagine the population of New York City descending on Central Park for a little hunting and gathering... It may be a viable mode for a few people, but as a solution for humanity, it's an utter non-starter.

On every new land mass that humans have colonized, the large indigenous fauna was extinct within a few thousand years. That was with human populations numbered in the hundreds of thousands, armed only with rocks and pointy sticks. What degree of ecological devastation do you think 6.6 billion hunter-gatherers could wreak? Especially with some of the the products of modern science at their disposal.

[undergroundpanther]

20. Cities will not be sustainable

the cities will be where death comes first, unless those people in cities get over their own baggage and bullshit,work together to feed each other and rip up the carless roads use every green space, including building roofs to grow food.

I don't know how city people can survive this.You can eat rats and pidgeons,they don't taste bad if you cook them correctly..and people are taking small patches of lawn making them gardens, But also the parks need to become co ops,

Honestly I don't know how they will make it.But they will have to work together and learn to care and share if they want a chance at survival.In Baltimore there are groups preparing for all this, turning vacant lots into gardens and stuff.There is a very strong anarchist community there and they are innovative ,help each other and have strong solidarity.They might be Baltimore's biggest hope..
In the 80's I taught a bunch of gutter punks how to forage for city weeds ,find mulberries,and to make a atlatl to catch and roast squab.(pidgeons)And in some anarchist groups what I taught them is being taught others even to this day much to my surprise.

[phantom power]

22. I think the future of cities may be more subtle than that.

There are some good arguments that cities aren't going away. Their relationship to the surrounding countryside will change. Megacities like NYC may survive if they are situated properly, e.g. near waterways, or other intrinsically good trade-centers.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=107879&mesg_id=107879

[undergroundpanther]

23. I agree

I was just doing a simplified what if, regardless people in cities and all over are gonna have to get more socially cohesive and willing to help each other .

[wordpix]

30. not necessarily. Suburbia has a lot of hardtop, too, & without oil/gas to run tractors,

suburban dwellers will have to adapt just like city dwellers.

I know how to grow a big garden/small field using a rototiller but doing it with horses and oxen is a lost art. Besides, most people don't even know what a tomato plant looks like, urban or suburban dweller.

[GliderGuider]

16. I agree.

It's not just the problem of recreating a diverse farm ecology that worries me, though. It's the scale of the endeavour and the fact that so much of the work will have to be done by human beings rather than machines. In places like Africa this will not be so much of a problem, as society is still largely organized around human-powered agriculture. We in the OECD would need to retrain an awful lot of stockbrokers, economists, automobile repairmen and soccer moms if we want to produce enough food under those circumstances.

The "transition state" (as you so delicately put it) will probably reduce the requirement for food quite substantially, though.

[YankeyMCC]

17. True, and

yeah that's a little cold of me I guess to use "Transition state" as a phrase. I certainly don't mean to gloss over how tragic coming times may be, I don't in my own mind, I truly fear that it will be my son and his peers that will be dealt the hardest blow by being the first generation to come of age in the 'crash' (perhaps that's a better phrase.

On edit: which is why we've been learning about foraging, how to live in the wild (but to be totally honest that's also because we enjoy being in the wild), and hopefully other useful skills, gardening, repair etc... But most importantly critical and clear thinking

[undergroundpanther]

19. would you prefer

I put it less delicately and call it what it is? A immanent big catastrophic "evolutionary bottleneck" /life form die off/ and the worse case ,human made and driven planetary suicide/murder? Whatever way you say it it's gonna hurt and be hard to face up to some want denial because the truth is that scary they might be the ones not making it. I probably won't, but I hate this world anyway, no loss here. But I am so glad I have no kids and never will.

[amandabeech]

28. There really isn't total "sustainability" unless you return everything

to the soil. That means the wastes of all animals that eat the food taken from the soil and all the dead bodies that have eaten that food.

Otherwise, you are always taking minerals, carbon and water out of the soil.

Organic and "sustainable" practices cut down on losses, but unless you're doing total recycling, you will have to replace the nutrients that you take from your land with something from somewhere else.

[snappyturtle]

8. K&R n/t

[Gregorian]

14. Meanwhile, the number of mouths increases every second.

Six billion. Seven billion. Eight billion...

[undergroundpanther]

21. and the old die and die

Add all the car accidents, addiction /overdose, sickness,suicide,etc.etc.
Mouths also die,and the dead have need no feeding,

Regarding population growth ,
I wish people would quit trying to seek eternal life or emotional soothing through having children and soothing their loneliness with kids,puffing their egos up through kids and denying other baggage through having children.

Think of the children not the ones you want or have from the parents perspective..but from the child born NOW look at the future you the parent will not be around to see,a kid you chose to birth trying to make it in a world of famine, hardship, death and suffering..because of..why? Because mommie and daddy had issues and didn't want to look at them.So they had a baby.

My god that's sick.It is cruel to bring a baby into this mess.

How is it possible to be so fundamentally selfish and yet be so transformed in your own perceptions and that of your culture into a paragon of unselfishness? How is it possible to believe your acts to be so virtuous when they are transparently motivated by the lowest form of self-interest?
http://www.punkrockacademy.com/stm/essay/selfishness.html

If people thinking of having kids would stop and think,get out of themselves and what they want,and took efforts to empathize with the not yet born,to realize what potential horrors these kids they have will face if things do not change in this world and fast.

Their children may very well grow up and be furious at what kind of world they got dumped into.Unspeakably and righteously angry at all the past generations of selfish parents that kept on denying what their selfishness was costing to this world .It will be severe the fury the next generations will have for all parents for making THEM foot the bill of their consuming and breeding without caring ,a legacy of a dead planet to try to fix,and the heavy price of generations of selfish short sighted parents having kids to ignore their insecurity and facilitate denial.I don't blame future generations for hating this generation if we are too busy denying reality to think of them and the life they will face if we do not change..

Child free is an option and sometimes not being a parent makes you a better person..a more radical and risk positive citizen.

The reason why many parents choose the path of self-sacrifice is because they want to take their focus away from themselves. If their lives are not going so well, or if they haven’t achieved what they hoped to achieve in their lives, they can forget about all those problems by directing their attentions to their own kids. To be more accurate, they are not self-sacrificing; they are self-denying. They are using their kids as an excuse to be in denial. And, I must say, it’s a great excuse because it sounds so noble to say, “My kids come first.” But, what the kids are getting in reality are parents who are in denial about their own shortcomings.

http://dyske.com/index.php?view_id=855

And adult shortcomings denied generation after generation by a self serving denial of parents using kids as a reality buffer/distraction from the unpleasant realities of civilization and the human condition.That denial is what got us all into this mess collectively.
Adults with no kids would be able to fight against the demands of bosses and the corruption easier if picketing and solidarity did not mean the kids might suffer,Would adults be bolder in fighting corruption with no children? Could more adults without kids make it easier for us all to hold the state's feet to the fire?

The threat of Losing a job or going to jail implies your kids would not have a parent to tend them. So parents are risk aversive on fighting social issues if it means job loss or jail or death..so kids in effect do make a significant amount of
adults less willing to risk for activism and social justice , less radical if it means possible risk to themselves.

That is why the political agenda of limiting contraception and choice is such an issue for the authoritarians,because they WANT as many adults as possible to be risk aversive,tied up with children so they won't fight the state or business or political tyrants because they gotta do what they gotta do to protect the kids they brought here..

And if Parents still cannot face the fact of their lives being the way they are, the dissatisfaction bad relationships,stress and the struggles are painful.Politics becomes far away and so does the destruction of the planet,and so fighting it in a radical risky way is not worth the risk,because of the children,Kids are a great distraction from the responsibilities of being a human being sharing a planet..Just look at the diapers in landfills they are a symbol to me of this selfish denial parents have and highlights the disconnect between their choice to have kids and how it effects the world we all need to share and keep clean to survive here, kid or no kid.

[Gregorian]

24. You only die once.

I was just out riding my bike, and had this thought. People can have three kids, but they can only die once. It's why the birth rate is so much greater than the death rate.


Man, do we see things the same way. I loved reading your post. For years I've said that breeding (and pardon me for calling it that) is comprised partly of greed.

I have spent so many years agonizing over this. It sounds like you have too.

I'm sure we could talk for hours on how it has affected us, and where it's going, and what it has done to the world.

I still want a population forum.

But more than anything I want a smaller world. Damn.

Peace. And respect.

[tom_paine]

29. I don't think you can write off the biological imperative to reproduce, so easily

Now you or I may not have it, but it exists.

It exists in every form of life, from the smallest microbes to the biggest Bushevik-Nazi, racing headlong towards extinction and dragging us down the drain with them.

It is what has driven life on Earth for four billion years, and to put that all down as the choice of parents running away from issues...welll seems to me to be (no offense) akin to the arguments put forth that homosexuals are that way by choice.

Maybe 20-30% environment, but 70-80% genetics, at least that's what science seems to be finding.

Well what part of reproduction does the the natural biological drive hardwired, likely, into the deepest and oldest parts of our brains, play in the "mothering instinct" or the "father's desire to pass his name/line down into history"?

30%? 50%? 80%?

Maybe those "instincts" and "desires" are just convenient hominid-rationalizations, the same way we always make them when we give in to our animal side and say things like "war is inevitable" (which it mght be...overcoming our animal natures may be too great, that's why we are going extinct).

Think about it.