Jan wrote:
Gambit37 wrote:I sometimes feel it would be better to become a farmer or something...
Me too. However, the modern "industrial" agriculture is more about mechanisation, chemisation, administration and subsidies. It's not that much about the earth itself and so on. I always wonder if, after the "western economies collapse" as you said, our farmers will (would) be able to produce anything. I guess that most of them no - you know, without their tractors, fertilisers, herbicides, computers, division of labour, F1 (generation one) seeds etc. most of them would actually be pretty lost, I think.
Well, there is some of that. But here's the deal. When you work 8 hours a day at something, you get REAAAALLY good at it. So I think this is true, that these farmers are really good at mechanisation, chemisation, administration, and subsidies.
However...
I have some neighbors who REAAALLY know how to grow stuff. The first year I was harvesting my hay, I was out there on my tractor watching the bailer pick up my little winrows of hay, listening to it pump the bales out the back ready for my boys to haul, and I was feeling pretty good about myself. But all I had to do was look over the fence at the field of my neighbor. His alfalfa was big and beautiful and much thicker than mine, his winrows were bigger and thicker and much straighter then mine, and his bales were huge and darker and dumped all in a perfectly aligned row for his hay hauler truck to pick up. All I could think was, "I'm SUCH a newb!" And I was. And I am.
Last year I grew my own potatoes. They're pretty easy to grow. And they're bigger and much more tasty than the ones I was used to buying in the store. But let me tell you, they were PUNY compared to the ones my neighbor two fields over grows. Now this guy really knows how to grow potatoes. He has been growing potatoes for decades. Heh. F1 Seeds? Maybe some crops, but not potatoes. You use last year's potatoes that were too small. You know what his main fertilizer is? Cow manure. He has a deal with the cattle rancher across the road. Anything HE doesn't use on his own hay fields can be used on the potato fields. I'm thinking even if economies collapse, my potato farmer neighbor will still be able to find plenty of cow poop. Maybe not enough to grow the semi-loads of potatoes he grows now, but anything he has a market for he'll find a way to grow. And you should see his wife's vegetable garden. My garden gets better every year, because I have no problem asking these guys for advice.
But that's not even the main point I'm going to make here. I have read some people's ideas of what it would be like if economies actually DID collapse. If fuel were not available and trucks quit running, they predict that transportation would come to a standstill. Store shelves would be empty within a couple of days, and people would be out of food within a week or so. Well, I'm not sure that's how things would happen at all. Economies have collapsed before. And what happened then?
People improvised, that's what. Gasoline is not the only thing that will combust. Not by a long shot. In war torn areas people modified their cars to run off what they could get. Methanol was a big one, but there have been cars that ran off coal. Or wood. Or rotten potatoes. Or chicken poop, for crying out loud. Oh yeah, you can make methane out of cow manure. It isn't even very hard. And it doesn't even seem to lessen its value as a fertilizer. I know where I could borrow an awful lot of cow manure. I don't think my neighbor would be without his tractor for very long.
The biggest problem around here would happen if the power went out. Most of the local farmers have converted their irrigation systems to sprinkler pivots. There are still some canals, and some fields are still floodable, and some more could be converted or converted back to flood irrigation. But there would be an awful lot that would have to find another answer. Maybe windmills on the pumps, but that would limit the pressure. There are very few useful crops that actually grow here without irrigation. But that's just here. Much of the world can grow lots of stuff without irrigation, so it's a local problem, however big it is.
I'm not a great believer in doomsday prophecies. I'm hoping the collapsing economies theory will not happen any time soon. But... if it does, I think farmers not being able to produce food would not be the biggest problem. Not even close.
(and lots of them)
(where is that monkey smiley when you need it?)
