Tag Archives: agriculture

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

[ 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

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Nitrogen fertilizer poses significant threats to humans and the environment

NRC. 2015. A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System. National Research Council, National Academies Press. 19 pages.   Nitrogen (N) is essential for agricultural productivity, but in its more reactive forms, it can pose significant threats to humans … Continue reading

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Mineral: Soil from Ugo Bardi’s “Extracted”

FIGURE 1. The state of soil health globally. 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 … Continue reading

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Plant more prairies to save topsoil and prevent pollution runoff

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

Pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides destroy soil and ecosystems. Yet a third of crops are 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”, and … Continue reading

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After collapse: plunder or feudalism?

  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

The effect of high energy prices on small business. U.S. House of Representatives, 2014

[ This hearing is about how the unaffordable prices of energy are affecting ordinary people.  Chairman Tipton at one point says that “I do not think that Americans truly realize the significant amount of energy that is necessary to be … Continue reading

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The Back to the Land Movement: why it failed and why we need to try again

[ This is my book review of “Back from the Land: how young Americans went to nature in the 1970s, and why they came back”.   Some succeeded, but most failed, and there are lessons to be learned from the previous … Continue reading

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Fruit and nut crops decline as climate change melts fog

Fimrite, P. May 22, 2014. As Central Valley fog disappears, fruit, nut crops decline. San Francisco Chronicle. California produces 95% of U.S. fruit and nut crops that depend on disappearing Tule fog. The soupy thick tule fog that regularly blanketed … Continue reading

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Promoting soil health in agriculture at U.S. House hearing 2014

Preface.  At last, many years after I first published “Peak soil: Why biofuels destroy ecosystems and civilizations” in 2007, Congress had a hearing to educate House members on why preserving topsoil is so essential for food production for future generations.  … Continue reading

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