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.

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

Restore wild bison

Posted on September 28, 2016 by

[ Native wild animals have the least impact on ecosystems. While cattle plod along in line with one another, bison dance their own unique steps across the landscape, and don’t develop deep rutted grooves that can erode soil like cattle … Continue reading →

Posted in Farming & Ranching | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Stop wasting food

Posted on June 5, 2015 by

[Clearly at the point when food rationing begins due to limited amounts of transportation oil, not wasting food will be important, and composting can expected to be the main way of disposal since garbage trucks will run less frequently. Below … Continue reading →

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Gardening – Grow Your Own Food

Posted on May 23, 2014 by

Best Home or small farm method I’ve taken many gardening and permaculture classes, but by far the best way to grow your own food is explained in John Jeavons’ book “How to grow more vegetables And Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains … Continue reading →

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Softer landing if we can keep the Combines going

Posted on April 4, 2014 by

Save it for the Combine August 24, 2010. Jason Bradford Excerpts from this article: The combine performs tasks that replace an enormous amount of labor in a reliable and timely fashion.  It cuts the stalks of seed crops, threshes the … Continue reading →

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Energy in the Food System uses 19% of all energy consumed in the USA. Pimentel 2008

Posted on April 4, 2014 by

Pimentel David, et. al. 2008.  Reducing Energy Inputs in the US Food System.  Human Ecology 36:459–471 [ Here are some excerpts from this paper. I don’t list many of the ideas in the article on how to do this though, … Continue reading →

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Grow Nut Trees in your backyard

Posted on April 4, 2014 by

Woody Agriculture – On the Road to a New Paradigm July 27, 2012.  Philip A. Rutter et. al. [snipped and some paraphrasing – do read the whole long article at the link above if you are interested in planting nut … Continue reading →

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How can you buy a farm when you’re competing with private equity?

Posted on March 1, 2014 by

Looks like it will be hard to buy a farm unless you’re wealth.  But in the crisis phase you don’t want to own a large farm anyhow… Half of U.S. Farmland Being Eyed by Private Equity February 19th, 2014.  By … Continue reading →

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Book Review of Grain Brain: Extraordinary claim not backed up by evidence

Posted on October 22, 2013 by

[ This is my book review of David Perlmutter’s (2013) Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar–Your Brain’s Silent Killers. And hey, if you want to believe in silly dietary notions despite all the peer-reviewed evidence, I … Continue reading →

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