When thinking about the future it is easy to forget our basic need for food and shelter. Food production used to occupy 90% of the work force. With the help of first coal and then oil, agriculture was radically transformed and mechanized. Today under 1% of the western population work as farmers. The biggest challenge for the future can easily be food production. Modern agriculture IS the use of fossil fuel - many good people are writing a lot about this already.My focus is technology and my interest is to see if there is some technology that can be of help in the future farming. One of most promising "technologies" I have come about is Permaculture. Its really nothing new, but modern communication and the possibility to send seed and plants across the world has made a new/old way of farming possible and more effective. Permaculture in its current form is not a silver bullet, it is still very labor intensive and heavy work. I have spend many hours talking about this with my eco farmer friends. There is 2 main issues in farming (there is many issues, but me being a techman sees the issues from a technological viewpoint).
- Heavy work (like ploughing, digging ditches)
- Repetitive work (like weeding, planting)
There is work going on in the area, but it clear that there is a long way to go before agro-robots is rolling around a field near you.
The challenge of a sustainable agriculture in a carbon starved future is the same as for the rest of society, but food is a basic need and needs special attention.
The degree of complexity that will be sustainable is also a major challenge. How much outside dependency can there be to rely on? Spare-parts? What will the trade value of produce be? How is a transition to be accomplished from city to the country-side? (be sure there is to be a transition). Another strange problem we could be facing is that the current system is "to" effective - meaning that "to" few can provide to much food and that this hampers the transition (back to farming) at the same time that those not working cant afford the food produced. This "problem of efficiency" can be seen today in the way China can manufacture nearly everything needed for the rest of the world. That this is not a sustainable way of organizing a society is becoming blatantly obvious - Term like; "The information society", "The service sector", "The new economy" is VOID. Trading is a 2 way transaction, just as the relation between city and country side is.
Why Permaculture then? The basic philosophy of Permaculture is "most food for least amount of work" but with a twist - Its "most food" for you living at the farm or close to the farm. Permaculture tries to have a huge biodiversity - not a kind of farming thats suited for export or the supermarket chain. A central power might not like Permaculture because its not suited for central control and taxation, but it has the promise of being a way of farming that frees up labor AT THE FARM, locally thereby making it possible to think about and make something else than food (eg. how to build your DIY electric car).
More about Permaculture in a cold climate.
Nice MACM!
ReplyDeleteHere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-till_farming you can read some about farming withouth ploughing, Ï am not sure about if no-plough is considered to be part of permaculture, but I would like to stress that there seems to be a low-tech solution to the problem: Dont do it.
Another example are the pasture land in the BBC-documentary A farm for the future (google videos). 100 yrs ago the grandfather started experimenting with different weeds and grasses to create the perfect pasture land, so that the cows wouldnt turn it all into a mud pit in fall. And he succeded, thereby eliminating both the plowing and the harvesting of pastur, the by far most ennergy intense work on thet farm.
This also shows the beneficies of having both livestock and crops on the same farm.
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Check out the film "How cuba survived peak oil"
ReplyDeleteReal postpeak scenario.