ctindale, I'm still interested in your thoughts about if all this nasty stuff you don't like was banned. I asked before and you didn't answer,
"what do you propose here if all these herbicides were banned?" "I would predict global food production would crash. What is the outcome you foresee?"
We have a situation today where people are getting more and more removed from the reality of how food is produced. And as farmers now number 2% of the workforce and falling, green voters number 10% and growing. Years ago people had relos in the country, and visited often, but as the percentage of farmers get less and less, and time moves on, we now have most of the population living in cities and never ever setting foot on a farm.
You must realise how much organic farming depends on nutrient inputs from organic sources? This includes straw, and manure. Better still mix the both, add water, and stir it up and you get compost. It's magnificent stuff, as any keen city gardener or organic farmer will know. I put compost on my lawn, and nothing compares. Use this and you can grow anything. All this magnificent stuff only exists because there is billions of tonnes of grain produced today from high yielding industrial grain growing. And half of this grain is able to be fed to animals. And the waste product turns into the wonderfull organic fertilizer that the organic and permaculture food industries depends on. You must understand this surely?
Organic farming and permaculture exist in fine form alongside industrial oil based agriculture. But I don't believe they would survive independently, as where would the nutrient inputs come from? You only have to go back 150 years ago, when the world only had to feed a billion people, and the natural bird fertilizer deposits were running out. The world was rapidly reaching a population platue. To think we could go back 150 years and feed 7 billion is just crazy thinking, and you must realise that?
So, I'll ask again,
"what do you propose here if all these herbicides and chemical fertlizers were banned? What is the outcome you foresee?"
Do you think you would compromise? Surely there has to be some compromise? How do we implement a move back to small scale, permaculture type farms, that require massive labour input when everyone wants a job in the city in a service industry? We are talking 20% or more of the population moving back to farms. We are talking a total change in todays society.
And what about Africa and the Middle East and much of Asia? They already only survive on grain, meat and other food imports from western nations. At least the Middle East can supply us with oil, so we can grow the food, but what about Africa? What about them?
Or is John Constantines post spot on about societies elites, the big men sitting under trees and peasant rural workers and the rest he mentioned in that great post he wrote?
