alternatives in land use

[cory]

Bumping this awesome thread.

Btw where is FFZ's thread about his current process of changing over some of his land to sustainable use, its not in this thread?

And here is an article on the ins and outs of sustainable food/eating. http://www.outsideonline.com/2046606/eating-right-can-save-world It has a lot of stats in it and we all know stats are subject to interpretation so I'm looking forward to feedback on it. Posting it here is a good spot I think but it also discusses seafood, so it might be cool to start a more general The Official Sustainability Thread as it seems like in this day and age of more and more questions arising about how long we can sustain our ways of life in the face of increasing environmental issues, that this thread might be a good thing to have here in The House. But for now, this land use thread already has a strong footing so perhaps it will evolve into an overall sustainability thread.

 

[HolmenTree]

Excellent thread DMC and Jim, I just read the whole thing.
Myself being born and raised on a Saskatchewan mixed grain farm I can relate alot to what's said here.
Only thing that changed for me was leaving the family farm to my younger brothers and getting into logging at a ripe old age of 16. Been alot of changes to the way of farming since due to the development of machinery and markets.

 

[FireFighterZero]

A well fed man can have lots of problems, a hungry man has just one problem.

 

[Levi]

That's a damn good and true saying Jim.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I want lots of problems.

Don't wanna get bored....

 

[FireFighterZero]

It is really at the core of how I feel about the issues of sustainability and the environment. To my mind a solution to the problems either real or imagined that we are facing today that does not take into account the billions of people living on the earth today is, well, incomplete. I do not take part in the arguments about how there are too many people on the earth. Until they come up with a way to decide who lives and who dies, I am not going to participate. I can see already how that will go. Bye bye third world, you are not as important as us first world types. I cant square that.

Then I get pissed off about how the most well fed people on the planet shit all over the people who supply them with the ample and safe food supply that they need to be able to live in the cities and not toil half of their lives gathering up the food they need to support their families. We get into arguments about subsidies, production models, profit, protectionism, and so forth. Welfare for the farmers and whatnot.

Would farmers like to compete openly with the world markets? Sure. We are not allowed to, and even with the subsidies on the chopping block, we will not be allowed to compete. We can produce more for less than almost anyone, without cutting down the rain forests. Food is too important for the govt to not be involved, subsidies or not. Govt control is NOT limited to subsidies.

Man oh man, I am jumping into the regenerative ag movement. I, we, are/am drowning in the current pool. Its survival at this point. The people bitch about big ag, well, they are the only ones that can survive now. So go ahead and bitch about subsidies, but quit bitching about big ag when the little guys are gone, they are getting out. They are good people who just wanted to farm and raise their families.

A man can have warm fuzzy feelings about the way people today see farming, but that man did not have to borrow money to make it.
Your article is good Cory, has some figures and facts I dont agree with, but pretty good.

Sorry for the rant, I had a bad dream last night and have been in the wine for a few hours. Actually feel pretty good right now!

 

[Steve Mack]

Btw where is FFZ's thread about his current process of changing over some of his land to sustainable use, its not in this thread?

I think you'll find it in your thread. https://www.masterblasterhome.com/s...fficial-Jimbo-Fire-Fighter-Zero-Thread/page10

 

[Chris E]

Humans are a virus upon this planet.

You have to wonder sometimes whether we were in fact aliens, why is it that every single other living thing is classified as part of "nature"

 

[cory]

I think you'll find it in your thread. https://www.masterblasterhome.com/s...fficial-Jimbo-Fire-Fighter-Zero-Thread/page10

Oh brother. Thanks, Steve. You ever look for things that are right under your nose and can't find em??

 

[DMc]

....It has a lot of stats in it and we all know stats are subject to interpretation so I'm looking forward to feedback on it....

Thanks for waking me up from my winter hibernating, Cory. It might be because this article brought out a large amount of grouchiness. Lots of misinformation "backed" by science, while mixing in truths, also "backed" by science.

This time of year I spend large amounts of time in researching topics of interest. Purely for my own edification. Trust me, articles like this are not what I read. Everything you read will have a bias. The most difficult component in understanding what is real is not just understanding what was said but also why it was said.

One of the greatest failings in scientific research and the statistics from them is their singularity. Components isolated from the whole may give you a front page headline but it will not give you both sides of the story.

 

[cory]

Agreed that it is important to be able to discern bias. What kind of articles do you read rather than ones like this?

Do you tend to agree with the overall thrust of the article, which I would say was less meat consumption, more free range meat, organic farming, seafood from sustainable stocks, mussels, and eat local, all as a means for lower carbon/environmental footprint and greater sustainability?

 

[Levi]

You have to wonder sometimes whether we were in fact aliens, why is it that every single other living thing is classified as part of "nature"

Agreed. That always bothered me, if we're from the earth, than why are not we and our actions/creations considered "natural"?

 

[DMc]

.... What kind of articles do you read rather than ones like this?....Do you tend to agree with the overall thrust of the article,...

Cory, I read all kinds of stuff like how to tweak a low D whistle for better octave balance or checking out new arrivals in hunting glass and I will take 'um where I find um. But if it is on a question regarding any of the sciences I will do my best to read science papers on whichever question I want answered.

Trying to get accurate information can be a royal pain. Articles and papers with citations come across as "smart" but unless you actually read the citations you might be surprised at their lack of relevance. The new fad of meta research is even worse.

Do I agree with this guy's article? No, I do not. Everyone is looking for a simple answer and his was no different. Just a little diet tweak here and there and we can all sail happily into a clean future. I also believe the focus on "carbon footprint" is more about money and control than it is about cleaning our planet.

It is only man's arrogance that keeps him from accepting that he is part of this earth and the laws that govern it are not just suggestions. Without a fundamental change in the way we do things, I do not see a happy future. It has been, after all, our great advancements in science and understanding that have brought us to where we are, yet we expect that same thinking will somehow save us.

The biggest wall in front of us is a global acceptance that money management is more important than a healthy planet and a healthy people.

 

[cory]

You said a lot there, but in short, I think the author was saying thumbs up to organic farming which, among other things, helps save or add more soil. And, eat lower on the food chain. I strongly agree with both those points as a means to sustainability. Perhaps more science or annotations are needed to confirm the degree which the author claims these things would help the environment.

More and more we learn about the issues caused by current ways of living. The author writes of 'the deep tension that exists between the urgency of what we know and the inertia of how we live.' I would argue this is one of the biggest problems.

“If you look at the heavy-hitter list of global-scale changes that are human induced, how we feed ourselves is invariably near the top,” says Peter Tyedmers... who has been studying the world’s food systems for 15 years. “But the great thing about food is that we have choices, and we have the opportunity to effect change three times a day.”

 

[DMc]

....Perhaps more science or annotations are needed to confirm the degree which the author claims these things would help the environment...

Did you read any of the reports that he did list? I did and I would gladly exchange a pound of scientific papers for an ounce of truth.

It is not so much what we eat as much as how we choose to grow it and the fact that we think it is realistic to expect a never ending supply. Does anyone not know that the carbon cycle of the earth is neutral as long as it remains within its natural limits? We can live within those limits quite easily if we so choose. Our expectations of what can be sustained is distorted by false reassurances from people with no scruples. At what point does it become obvious that the world has a limit to what it can produce and that consumption beyond that point will have consequences.

 

[FireFighterZero]

The organic thing is a rub for me. Organic on its face sounds good, but in practice it is not much better than conventional farming.

Until the cover crop rotation gets implemented into the organic movement in a big way we are better off farming conventionally. I am not talking about about the truck garden your buddy owns, but large scale production. Moving from no-till conventional farming to organic farming with heavy tillage is not the way forward.

The current model states that if you can see dirt blowing off a field, it is TONS per acre of topsoil lost. Not to mention organic tillage is way worse for water erosion.

If you get a chance Dave, could you expand some of your thoughts on sustainability? Cory?

 

[cory]

I didn't until you mentioned it, then I clicked on them all. Unfortunatly it's way more than I can read.

Does anyone not know that the carbon cycle of the earth is neutral as long as it remains within its natural limits? We can live within those limits quite easily if we so choose. .

How would we do that in today's world.

 

[FireFighterZero]

Wall Street aint gonna let you do that.

 

[cory]

Jim, last we heard, I thought, you were making a significant jump into non conventional methods that you felt were going to help your wallet and the land in the long run. Now it sounds like that isn't the case?

 

[FireFighterZero]

Oh, yes that is still the case. Still charging ahead full speed. It will not be fully organic, we are still working on some details.

To explain my feelings on "conventional organic", I should explain that a huge percentage of organic crops are grown with heavy tillage. With no chemicals to manage weeds and residue, a lot of farmers rely on using a disc or cultivator to kill the weeds.

The idea now is that the use of herbicides is the lesser of two evils when compared to heavy tillage.

Let me be clear, neither are good choices for the soil, but with tillage you dont have residue, you have less microbial activity, less good fungi, you have greater soil erosion, and hotter soils.

Bare clean summer fallow is hungry, hot, thirsty, and blowing away.

The regenerative ag method can produce organic food. It takes the best aspects of both farming methods and combines them into one technique.

The only problem is how do you manage the land now? Cover crops need to be terminated or they will set seed and create a weed problem.

Some methods of terminating them are winter kill, mob grazing or conventional grazing, tillage, rolling/crimping, and herbicides.

The problem comes from the fact that there a HUGE swaths of land that right now have no infrastructure for livestock, so as it stands they cant graze them off. Rolling and crimping is an option for those that dont have livestock, but the current crimpers are only 16 feet wide. How is a farmer going to cover 5000 acres with that?

I am working with the NRCS to develop a 50 foot roller crimper, but its a ways off.

Winter kill works for covers grown in late summer and fall, but what about spring seeded covers? Actually, some covers do not winter kill well.

Tillage is an option, but it comes with all the bad aspects of tillage in a non-cover crop system.

Herbicides are an option, and with covers herbicide usage is minimized. You might only spray two or three times a year, rather than five or six. Thats a win in anyone's column. But not organic.

Even Gabe Brown uses some herbicides, which surprised me.

To my mind, grazing is the best method. By far. Huge swaths of land that were only used for cropping can now be used for livestock as well. Thats sustainable IMHO.

Rolling/crimping is second, and could be a tool for farmers with out the ability to graze, and would help with greatly lessened herbicide and fertilizer usage. That machine does not exist yet.

Dont misunderstand me, I am full buy in at this point. There are just some management hurdles to jump to make it work, and I have been thinking about them all winter!

 

[kevin bingham]

What do you mean no infastructure for livestock? Like water sources that don't erode banks? Or finising lots and slaughtering facilities etc.

 

[FireFighterZero]

Their are vast areas of land with no fences, electricity, or water sources. These lands lend themselves well to cropping, not livestock.

You cant just wish for these things, or ask a farmer why he is too stupid to not run livestock.

These things can be mitigated but the cost is very very high in some cases.

 

[gf beranek]

The issues of sustainability, for just reasons, have been raised through this generation. Now it is up to the next generation to solve the issues. Gods will be with it.

 

[DMc]

... Moving from no-till conventional farming to organic farming with heavy tillage is not the way forward....

I couldn't agree more, Jim. It is interesting that the use of tillage got a strong boost because of bad science. In the eighteenth-century an Englishman Jethro Tull and others promoted the erroneous notion that the carbon in plants came from organic particles in the soil that only entered through the roots. From there, Tull came up with the idea of pulverizing soil particles to make them more edible to the roots, and the practice of rototilling was born.

My thoughts on sustainability are quite simply to follow the format that has been proven to work for hundreds of thousands of years. Utilize all resources available, including common sense, without going into deficit. The world is a bountiful place and can be made more so by mimicking some of its systems.

The work that Gabe Brown has done and that you so wisely are going to try, are a great example of working within the system to produce more while at the same time creating a better, and healthier, plant, animal and soil. Did you know that the microbes and roots in the earth's crust sequester more carbon than all the forests and vegetation combined and that they can absorb more as imbalances occur. This is well known. It is also well known that tillage and fallow releases what was stored, not to mention all the other negative consequences to biological functions that soil performs, such as water storage and filtration.

There is a natural limit to what can be produced and not just in food either. We, the world, need to accept those limits.

 

[FireFighterZero]

I am excited about the fact that we can produce MORE with the same amount of land we have now, almost everyone can. We should be able to make a profit(dont tell Bernie)for once and make it possible for our kids to remain involved in farming.

More production, less cost, less chemicals, profit for once. Sounds good to me.

I have to ask Dave, what is the other alternative? They call it a population bomb, but who gets to decide what to do about it? I mean Mother Nature will take care of things eventually, drought, famine, war, plague and such. How do you define the limit on population?