How to Feed Ourselves Without Destroying the Environment

[Permieguy]

Hi everyone ... I used to post at Talk Rational, but their database died and it appears it won't come back ... so ... I need a new home ...

 

I am an Allan Savory disciple when it comes to environmental issues (see his TED Talk here https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change?language=en)

 

I was an Air Force pilot with an Electrical Engineering degree (because I like electronic gadgetry), then was in business until about 2013 ... at that point I took a 6 month internship with Greg Judy, a world famous Holistic (Allan Savory) rancher in my home state of Missouri.

 

Allan Savory disciples operate according to the following principle .... "Work WITH Nature, not against her." Allan is noted for observing how ecosystem health is enhanced by predators because the predators keep the large herbivores on the move and tightly bunched together which enhances the plant life. Many Holistic Ranchers all over the world are simulating the effect of predators with electric fencing and getting good results.

 

I myself have decided to simulate predators with a movable pen containing dairy goats (inspired by Joel Salatin's movable chicken pens) because I hate fencing of any kind for lots of reasons. I have been operating this system for about 5 weeks now and it is working well. The goats are happy and fat and milk production has increased from about 1 gallon per day (both goats) to about 1.5 per day while at the same time gradually eliminating grain from their diet. I've always been told by goat people that if you cut out grain, their milk production will drop - but this appears to be nothing but an old wive's tale. I am feeding them entirely with tree leaves and brush which exists on my 2 acres of woodland. Mainly I am pruning the trees and feeding them the leaves which they love. I am a member of a "Tree Hay" Facebook Group which has 225 member now and is seeking to revive the old art of "Woodland Agriculture" which was widespread all over Europe prior to Industrial Agriculture.

 

Anyway, I'm currently producing about 3000 food calories per day while enhancing my ecosystem in multiple ways. It won't be long before I'm producing perhaps double that number of calories and deriving 90% of my diet from my own food system which does not require any inputs from destructive Industrial Agriculture ... only requires a little bit of labor each day.

 

I have plans for continuing to develop this "Woodland Agricultural System" to a high degree and I want to incorporate this type of agriculture into my first "Sustainable Woodland Subdivision" in my neighboring county (Johnson County, Missouri) as soon as I am able.

 

I'm interested in discussion and feedback from scientists who also are interested in this sort of thing.

 

I did a series of 5 mini Youtube videos to show my system ... here's the first one ...

 

[EdEarl]

Welcome to SFN. You will find many rational people here, but we get our share of others who are often banned. I applaud your work with nature and farming. Thanks for your service.

 

How do we feed ourselves without destroying the environment?

 

Estimates are that a Big Mac requires around 2000 gallons of water to produce, which tends to say we should change our eating habits. Farms are being destroyed by lack of water all over the world as climate change warms the Earth, for example California, all around the Mediterranean, and elsewhere. As warming continues, I expect Siberia and Canada will become more productive; thus, farms should be able be moved northward.

 

On the other hand, glaciers are melting, which will change rivers significantly. Rivers that have been flowing uninterrupted for eons, sustained by melting of glaciers, will be dry except when it rains. In some cases dams may be able to contain enough water to assure flow throughout the year, but they are not without problems. To assure water for everyone will require significant changes in water infrastructure, and huge populations will be on the move. Hydroponic and aquaponic farming use substantially less water than traditional methods, so I think they will be an important part of future food production.

 

We have changed and are changing nature, but IMO we cannot destroy her. She will recover from our abuse, given a chance, whether we survive or not. Species are dieing at an alarming rate, and that trend will not stop soon. To stop it would require cultural engineering that cannot be done, for example, how do you stop people eating bush meat? It will require a catastrophe before people awaken and act, IMO. Although, there is a chance that equitable food distribution, feeding the world, might help the situation, it isn't a popular idea.

 

We face many challenges and the outcome is uncertain.

[Permieguy]

I would disagree that we cannot destroy her. It is my opinion, for example, that the Sahara desert is largely man made. One reason I hold this (non-mainstream) view is because of Paul Ehrlich (1970) ... http://www.amazon.com/Population-Resources-Environment-Issues-Ecology/dp/0716706806/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1464189220&sr=8-2&keywords=paul+ehrlich+anne+ehrlich ... He reportedly wrote ... "the vast Sahara desert itself is largely man-made, the result of overgrazing, faulty irrigation, deforestation, perhaps combined with a shift in the course of a jet stream." Quoted here ... https://books.google.com/books?id=r8l-DMj3XTgC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=sahara+desert+ehrlich&source=bl&ots=rmhfRlpuWE&sig=fybb7f8_7RMXeX6P45zD7fl5HEM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjpw82hwfXMAhVVSlIKHVO1ALIQ6AEIKDAC#v=onepage&q=sahara%20desert%20ehrlich&f=false ...

 

I'm ordering Ehrlich's book today to examine his arguments.

 

From my studies, it appears that TREES and TREED AREAS (woodland) is the last great refuge for mankind. We have one more chance in my opinion to get agriculture right ... or go extinct, along with many other species. I think our only hope is to "colonize woodland" with sustainable food production, then focusing on healing other land types - degrading cropland and pasture, for example.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Permieguy

[EdEarl]

Perhaps I should have said totally destroy. Yes, we have done major damage to Mother Nature. However, she has endured hellish and cryogenic events, including snowball Earth, the volcanism that created the Siberian Traps, a comet 10km across, and possibly a gamma ray blast from a supernova explosion, all of which caused mass extinctions, yet Nature survived.

[Robittybob1]

....

 

Anyway, I'm currently producing about 3000 food calories per day while enhancing my ecosystem in multiple ways. It won't be long before I'm producing perhaps double that number of calories and deriving 90% of my diet from my own food system which does not require any inputs from destructive Industrial Agriculture ... only requires a little bit of labor each day.

....

 

 

How many people will 3000 food calories fed per day?

[Endy0816]

How many people will 3000 food calories fed per day?

1.2

[Permieguy]

In my case, 1.0 because I'm a pretty active guy ... But this is just a starting point for me while working out the details of the system. My goal is to create sustainable animal-based food systems that any able-bodied man could work at 2 hours per day with no special equipment and produce 10 to 12,000 food calories per day ... That is, plenty to feed his family. With special equipment, food calorie output could probably increase many fold with few additional man-hours.

[Robittybob1]

In my case, 1.0 because I'm a pretty active guy ... But this is just a starting point for me while working out the details of the system. My goal is to create sustainable animal-based food systems that any able-bodied man could work at 2 hours per day with no special equipment and produce 10 to 12,000 food calories per day ... That is, plenty to feed his family. With special equipment, food calorie output could probably increase many fold with few additional man-hours.

I'm not knocking what you are doing, and I'm looking into Allan Savory's work as well.

What I could see was a lot of quite risky work. Presumably you have to cut branches off trees and then cut them with that machete.

A good wind could lift that goat tractor. Kneeling on damp ground to milk the goats. Will the really long grass be a fire risk in summer?

[Mordred]

Welcome to SFN. I have heard of the methodology of simulating predators to keep migrating herds bunched together. This practice has excellent results in renewing plant growth due to the manure enrichment.

 

Many farms could reap the beneficts from such a practice as more often than not those lands have a greater ability to support plant life as well as retain more water.

 

It's almost a shame that most farmlands don't rejuvenate their soil in a similar manner. It would in a sense be worth not growing crops for a few years and instead use the cattle etc rejuvenate that piece of land.

 

I recall someone mentioning that one person with a sizable herd, has persuaded several farms to use his livestock to help rejuvinate their lands but never got any details on cost vs gain for the cattle owner or farmer.

[Essay]

Welcome, and congratulations on being a critically important part of the future! What you describe sounds a lot like "convertible husbandry," which I first learned about from the book "Larding the Lean Earth." Soil is the key.

 

Don't forget the charcoal (biochar or charred organic matter). As Professor Eugene Kelly, head of the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences recently emphasized to me,

"Every soil, every soil, every soil, every soil, has some charcoal in it!" They should teach that--how in addition to sand, silt, clay, and organic matter--charred organic matter is a natural and normal ...and even beneficial part of any good soil:

 

....As recent research continues to show.

Biochar affects carbon composition and stability in soil: a combined spectroscopy-microscopy study

 

"The benefits of biochar application for carbon sequestration and soil productivity have been examined extensively over the last decade."

 

Good going and good luck!

~

[thatsneakyguy]

Hi everyone ... I used to post at Talk Rational, but their database died and it appears it won't come back ... so ... I need a new home ...

 

I am an Allan Savory disciple when it comes to environmental issues (see his TED Talk here https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change?language=en)

 

I was an Air Force pilot with an Electrical Engineering degree (because I like electronic gadgetry), then was in business until about 2013 ... at that point I took a 6 month internship with Greg Judy, a world famous Holistic (Allan Savory) rancher in my home state of Missouri.

 

Allan Savory disciples operate according to the following principle .... "Work WITH Nature, not against her." Allan is noted for observing how ecosystem health is enhanced by predators because the predators keep the large herbivores on the move and tightly bunched together which enhances the plant life. Many Holistic Ranchers all over the world are simulating the effect of predators with electric fencing and getting good results.

 

I myself have decided to simulate predators with a movable pen containing dairy goats (inspired by Joel Salatin's movable chicken pens) because I hate fencing of any kind for lots of reasons. I have been operating this system for about 5 weeks now and it is working well. The goats are happy and fat and milk production has increased from about 1 gallon per day (both goats) to about 1.5 per day while at the same time gradually eliminating grain from their diet. I've always been told by goat people that if you cut out grain, their milk production will drop - but this appears to be nothing but an old wive's tale. I am feeding them entirely with tree leaves and brush which exists on my 2 acres of woodland. Mainly I am pruning the trees and feeding them the leaves which they love. I am a member of a "Tree Hay" Facebook Group which has 225 member now and is seeking to revive the old art of "Woodland Agriculture" which was widespread all over Europe prior to Industrial Agriculture.

 

Anyway, I'm currently producing about 3000 food calories per day while enhancing my ecosystem in multiple ways. It won't be long before I'm producing perhaps double that number of calories and deriving 90% of my diet from my own food system which does not require any inputs from destructive Industrial Agriculture ... only requires a little bit of labor each day.

 

I have plans for continuing to develop this "Woodland Agricultural System" to a high degree and I want to incorporate this type of agriculture into my first "Sustainable Woodland Subdivision" in my neighboring county (Johnson County, Missouri) as soon as I am able.

 

I'm interested in discussion and feedback from scientists who also are interested in this sort of thing.

 

I did a series of 5 mini Youtube videos to show my system ... here's the first one ...

 

 

This sounds interesting.

 

Let's be friends.

[Permieguy]

Ok

[Robittybob1]

@Permieguy - In your video you mention "tree hay". Could you please tell us what is that and how do you make it and use it?

[Permieguy]

It is hay made from tree leaves instead of from grass. Goats in particular much prefer to eat tree leaves over grass so the idea is to feed them tree prunings during the growing season, then tree hay in the winter. The making of tree hay was widespread all over Europe for thousands of years prior to Industrial Agriculture and has been best studied by Shana Hansen of Maine in this country. She has an excellent intro video here http://www.mainefarmlink.org/archives/2241 and refers to quite a few academic papers on the topic ... There is now a "Tree Hay" Facebook group (225 members so far) that includes some professional arborists and it's very interesting. The branches earmarked for hay are piled up on brush piles in the woods to dry, then either bound up tightly and stored or just left until time to feed them in the winter. I'm new to the practice, but my understanding is that goats can get most of their winter needs met from fallen dry leaves, supplemented with some "tree hay" left in piles in the woods. More on this later if you're interested.

[Delta1212]

What's the total area of land you're using for this set up?

[Robittybob1]

What happens to the parts of the branches they don't eat?

[Permieguy]

Land area: I have 10 acres, but I'm restricting the experiment to my 2 acres of woodland.

 

Branches: the only thing they don't eat is the wood itself - they always strip off all the leaves. So I am daily stacking the stripped branches in piles at the edge of the woodlot. Looks very natural, makes nice rabbit habitat and serves as a drying rack for tree hay.

[Robittybob1]

Land area: I have 10 acres, but I'm restricting the experiment to my 2 acres of woodland.

 

Branches: the only thing they don't eat is the wood itself - they always strip off all the leaves. So I am daily stacking the stripped branches in piles at the edge of the woodlot. Looks very natural, makes nice rabbit habitat and serves as a drying rack for tree hay.

OK sounds like you'll be able to have rabbit with your goat milk cheeses one day.

Edited May 28, 2016 by Robittybob1

[Sensei]

I saw your video on YouTube where you are showing your solar panels.

What I would do is connect them to voltmeter, ampere meter,

place above them digital camera, in time lapse mode (f.e. make photo every 1 minute).

Send frames to computer, glue them together to movie, and check how it's changing over one whole day (with 30 FPS, 1 minute delay timelapse, 18h would be 36 seconds long)

 

Do you have some old satellite dish?

Its curvature could be used to make template.

Use f.e. paper put for a few seconds to water, and place on satellite dish, many pages of paper, until you have something looking like dish, but paper one.

Wait until its dry. It should be pretty solid (but not waterproof, so you could try painting it to protect it).

Place and glue on it broken to little pieces mirrors.

Then use it to concentrate Sun energy on your solar panels, and record timelapse video from whole day again, to compare difference.

If there will be significant improvement, prepare couple such "concentrators".

[All Five Oceans]

You have a lot of land to play with. If you do some experiment with bio fertilizers and natural pesticides you can grow more. You need to have a small lab to do all these.

[EdEarl]

A forgotten Space Age technology could change how we grow food is a TED talk on youtube about using microbes to grow food vertically that our population of 10B in 2050 will need to survive and thrive.

Edited September 9, 2016 by EdEarl

[Endy0816]

Can you elaborate?

[EdEarl]

Can you elaborate?

I can cite a bit more info from the talk.

 

Lisa Dyson rediscovered an idea developed by NASA in the 1960s for deep-space travel, using microbes that reproduce very quickly, hours rather than weeks. They harvested protein, oil and carbohydrates, which were processed into various synthetic foot products that taste similar to our current foods, such as wheat making bread and pasta, oil similar to citrus and palm oil for making foodstuff, soap, fragrances, and fuel. Food made in this manner is lower cost than traditional farming and removes CO₂ from the environment, while using very little land, allowing nature to recover.

 

Fast growth in containers make production 10,000 more effective than traditional farming land.

Edited September 9, 2016 by EdEarl

[Endy0816]

Looks like she's talking about utilizing waste as the inputs(for now), but as long as we're actually utilizing all the byproducts does sound good.

 

I always get a bit leery when I see methane production brought up in terms of being green. Are practical ways to turn methane into useful products now though, so the times are a changin'

[EdEarl]

She didn't mention methane, but it is one of the products produced by biology.