Category Archives: Agriculture

So you want to start a vertical farm?

Posted on July 26, 2019 by

Preface. Vertical farms sound even more impossible than rooftop farms, which at least can use free sunshine. And they use massive amounts of energy to heat, cool, ventilate, light, and so on, not a good direction to go given energy … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Agriculture | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Vanishing open spaces: population growth and sprawl in America

Posted on May 27, 2019 by

Before the fossil fuel age began, about 80 to 90% of people farmed to make a living. Since the end of the oil age will send us back to the past, farmland and farmers will once again comprise the greatest … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Overpopulation, Soil | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Book review of Dirt: the erosion of civilization

Posted on March 16, 2019 by

Preface. On average civilizations collapsed after 800 to 2,000 years because they’d destroyed their topsoil. Today, industrial agriculture is doing this far faster – in most of the United States half of the original topsoil is gone from the richest … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Agriculture, Peak Food, Soil | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

75% of Earth’s Land Areas Are Degraded. Environmental damage threatens 3.2 billion people.

Posted on December 1, 2018 by

  Preface. Yikes, by 2050 95% of Earth’s land could be degraded and reduce or even end food production, forcing hundreds of millions to migrate. Whatever you’ve read in the past about the State of the World, it’s gotten even … Continue reading →

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Would we be happier as hunter gatherers than farming?

Posted on July 13, 2018 by

[ Someone posted an article in facebook from the New Yorker titled “The case against civilization. Did our hunter-gatherer ancestors have it better?”  And the author’s answer is a resounding “yes” backed only by bullshit.  I was so annoyed I … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Agriculture, Human Nature | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Battling the Inland Sea, the history of why and how the levee system was built in California’s delta

Posted on July 7, 2018 by

[ When settlers first moved to farm the central valley, they found it was often flooded with water, not the “desert” people often claim California to be.  A vast swamp over 100 miles long of half a million acres of … Continue reading →

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U.S. farmers destroy future food production for centuries with modern farming methods

Posted on June 13, 2018 by

[ Below are excerpts from a devastating critique of current farming practices by the National research council. Here are some of the main points. “Most food is produced by farmers who rely on agriculture for their livelihood. …surveys repeatedly show … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Air, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, Groundwater, Limits To Growth, Peak Food, Pesticides, Soil, Water | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Mineral: Soil from Ugo Bardi’s “Extracted”

Posted on June 8, 2017 by

Preface. Ugo Bardi’s book on minerals covers a wide-ranging territory, including soil, which is a mineral.  In this section of the book he shows how humans have damaged the soil so much we have greatly overshot carrying capacity by lowering … Continue reading →

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Chemical industrial farming is unsustainable. Why poison ourselves when pesticides don’t save more of our crops than in the past?

Posted on March 16, 2017 by

Pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides destroy soil, ecosystems, and a third of the crop is still lost to pests, just as in the many millennia of farming before chemicals. Preface. This is a book review of Dyer’s “Chasing the Red Queen”, … Continue reading →

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After a collapse will people grow their own food or plunder others?

Posted on March 7, 2017 by

[ In this post Ugo Bardi looks at what will happen if society collapses and we have to suddenly go back to pre-industrial agriculture conditions.  A back to the land movement where people grow their own food may not happen. … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Peak Food, Phosphorus, Scientists, Soil, Ugo Bardi | Tagged , , | 6 Comments