Category Archives: Farming & Ranching

If you relocate to an area where crops can be grown with rainfall rather than irrigation, you may be able to buy food, but it would be good to plant fruit and nut trees, and grow whatever else you can in your yard, community garden, or renting half an acre from a nearby farm if it can be done.

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 Farming & Ranching | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Why we must get rid of pesticides

Posted on July 14, 2019 by

Preface. France is one of the few nations trying to use fewer pesticides. This is the direction we must go to prepare for the end of the fossil age, since pesticides are made out of finite petroleum. Also, we are running … Continue reading →

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Replacing diesel tractors with horses or oxen – what will that be like?

Posted on April 27, 2019 by

Preface. Since fossil fuels are finite, at some point increasing numbers of farmers with diesel vehicles and equipment will want to replace them with horses, which can do the work of six people.  Below is what  energy expert Vaclav Smil … Continue reading →

Posted in Farming & Ranching, Life Before Oil, Muscle Power, Peak Food, Vaclav Smil | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Using manure for fertilizer in the future – it won’t be easy

Posted on April 21, 2019 by

Preface. At John Jeavons Biointensive workshop back in 2003, I learned that phosphorous is limited and mostly being lost to oceans and other waterways after exiting sewage treatment plants.  He said it can be dangerous to use human manure without … Continue reading →

Posted in Life Before Oil, Soil, Waste, Water Pollution | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Book review of Wrigley’s “Energy and the English Industrial revolution”

Posted on April 12, 2019 by

Preface. I’ve made a strong case in my book “When trucks stop running” and this energyskeptic website that we will eventually return to wood and a 14th century lifestyle after fossil fuels are depleted. So if you’re curious about what … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Energy Books, Farming & Ranching, Life Before Oil, Limits To Growth | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

How horses changed native cultures after 1492

Posted on April 2, 2018 by

[ This is a very brief overview of Peter Mitchel’s “Horse Nations”.  As oil and other fossils decline, will we will almost certainly return to using more horse “muscle power” as we did in the past. Alice Friedemann   www.energyskeptic.com  author … Continue reading →

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Pigeon towers to cope with peak phosphate and natural gas fertilizer?

Posted on August 20, 2017 by

[ Natural gas based fertilizers intensified crop production per acre up to 5-fold, yet natural gas, like phosphate, is finite.  We are going to be forced to reinvent our fossil-based agriculture, why not start with pigeon towers? Beats going to … Continue reading →

Posted in Farming & Ranching, Peak Phosphorus | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Plant more prairies to save topsoil and prevent pollution runoff

Posted on May 5, 2017 by

[ A program to plant more prairies to enrich the soil, keep topsoil from blowing and washing away, and provide a bio-diverse habitat for hundreds of species is receiving little funding or farmer participation, even though it would save farmers … Continue reading →

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After collapse: plunder or feudalism?

Posted on March 7, 2017 by

  IWW poster “Pyramid of Capitalist System” (c. 1911), depicting an anti-capitalist perspective on statist/capitalist social structures Preface. In this post an anonymous author looks at what will happen if society collapses and we have to suddenly go back to … Continue reading →

Posted in Farming & Ranching, Peak Food, Peak Phosphorus, Soil, Where are the rich going | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

After the harvest – protecting food from rats, mold, insects, fire, and bacteria

Posted on January 28, 2017 by

Preface. It’s hard enough to protect crops before a harvest. In New South Wales, Australia a plague of millions of mice has multiplied after a bumper grain harvest and eating whatever they can find. Mice can produce 500 offspring a … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Books, Farming & Ranching, Peak Food | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments