Amadeus Schmidt wrote:
> If the plant is well adapted to any area (like what I assume of walnut and
> almonds in california and apples and walnuts at home here) it is possible
> to use very little or no spraying. Organic production works.
Sometimes. Pests adapt too, and if we farmed organically we would need
far more land area in crops than we do now. Look at how much land has
been reclaimed by forest in the last century, that is the result of
modern agriculture and transport. We do not need any longer to farm
every inch of inferior lands as we did when everyone was organic by default.
> I know a lot of successfull farms which run very well without any chemical
> killers. There's a natural balance, and what the remaining "bad" insects eat
> mostly is less than what the pesticides would cost to buy.
Few, and the cost of their produce is always double or more than
modern farms.
>
> Then there's the problem of competition from various animals in
> "harvesting" the nuts/fruit/vegetables. You may have to chase away birds
> from cherries or use nets.
Which results in their deaths due to starvation and competition from
other animals. There is no free lunch in a natural ecosystem. If an
animal is pushed out of it's place, either it will die or another
animal will die in it's place when they compete for the food that is left.
> Usuall the "harvest competition" is small and easily tolerated.
No. Completely false. Losses are often 50% or more in natural organic
farming. They would be even higher if we made a serious attempt not to
kill animals. Even in my small city garden crows will often destroy a
complete crop, leaving only rotting waste for me. This can happen in
just a few days. They love my indian corn (one of my hobbies is
growing corn) and would eat it all if I didn't try to prevent it. Rats
eat my soybeans, again almost all unless I poison just before the
season. I know. I have years of experience at this.
>
> One of the first neolithic cultures (Linearband, 4000BC) used to have
> "fences" around their fields. Hedges of blackthorn. At the same time they
> kept game animals away
Doesn't keep mice and rats and crows and blackbirds and sparrows and
ants and aphids....
> Prevention is the right cure.
See my point above about competition.
>
> Up to the middle ages the ordinary cat was a very important answer of this.
By killing. Keeping a killer is morally equvalent to being a killer.
> So, the feeder cattle industry is the real tool how to increase the wheat
> production? What purpose for? I mean for the country?
To satisfy the formerly very numerous country voter. Politicians
peddled their votes on farm bills to buy the support of voters. The
intent is to raise and stabalize rural incomes, at the expense of
urban people. Grain farmers were numerous and politically powerful, so
they won tax money from the government. Animal farmers started using
grain in large amounts (some had always beeen used for horses and
dairy cows and for fattening) only after these programs caused vast
oversupply of grain. Essentially, the government pays grain farmers
extra, then sells back the surplus at reduced prices to the market. So
grain is both artificially raised in price, and lowered!
>
> Then the growth computation.
> A 70kg pig eats 36MJ plus 82g protein to gain 500g each day.
All the result of politicians buying votes with "cheap" food. Farmers
would not feed pure grain to pigs if not for the artificial prices of
grains. Pigs traditionally in Europe foraged nuts and roots in the
forests, or ate offal and gargage in the cities. Grain was never a
major food for pigs, or chickens, until the government stepped in.
> >There is NO SHORTAGE of food in the world, and there will not be in
> >the future.
>
> I'm afraid this optimistic view will not work out.
Agriculture experts are nearly unanimous that this is the case. The
only people who claim otherwise are those whose business involves
creating fear and profiting on it. Popular novelists, green
politicians and writers, vegetarian evangalist diet book authors and
the like. Food production has stepped up precisely in line with rising
population for all of history. If anything, the trend of recent
decades is for production to rise FASTER than population, though in
advanced nations land under cultivation is rapidly falling and
returning to forest. Given current scientific knowlege, even assuming
no improvements in techniques, there is no real fear that we will run
out of food.
My personal feeling is that we should reduce cultivation as far as we
can, intensify it as much as possible, in order to reduce the harmful
effects of farming on the remainder. One ag scientist figured out that
by using modern green house technology, and area the size of England
can produce food to feed all the people now on earth. That would leave
the rest for people and animals to live in the wild. All the best,
most productive lands that once supported the great herds of animals
are now being wasted to grow grain. Ecological wastelands.
The green/vegan idea that we should double or quadruple the area of
farmland and farm organically makes me sick. Mindless destructive
religious fanaticism.
I am sorry. This is getting way too long and off topic for the eating
list. As I said, it is a hot button topic for me. Anyone who is
interested and wants to comment/argue more can e-mail me. Thank you
for putting up with this.
(Interesting, your comment about the car. At least in the US, cars are
said to kill more deer than hunters every year. And far more smaller
animals. I wonder how many vegans give up driving?)
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