Yesterday's farm..what if it comes back?

Lotus-eater

RAS wrote: »

One step up from the old barrel at the street corner (which is what used to happen), I saw a design for a DIY urinal made out of a pop-bottle, halved, with the top inserted into a tube to carry the liquid to a container. It had been carved to provide a lower profile at the front.

I've always gone by a bucket and a watering can. I've seen ones like RAS said, made out of plastic bottles and they work well.

I don't think a hand chipper is practical, we need oil to get the extra power we need to do it.
Funnily enough I had the same thought some years ago and gave up on it for the reason above.

rhiwfield

choille, can remember a long time back when I was 7 and used to go scrumping in neighbours gardens, usually for apples. I can well believe that stealing will be one of the solutions seen by the "have-nots". Breeds suited to local conditions would be encouraged by a far sighted govt.... nuff said? I used to work for an organisation with links to Defra and noted how Defra seemed to have a large producer bias. In its food security papers it still looks at the big agro-producers as the answer to future problems..I dont think I fully agree. Its good to hear that your youngsters are being taught in the way they are, there's always hope.

RAS/Lotus Eater, ask and she shall receive . Mangle abandoned, pop bottle carved, now all to be done is to persuade OH..

ALIBOBSY

I vaguely remember a program where they showed a small scale plant on a farm where "poo" (not sure if it was animal or human) was turned into a fertilizer and energy to do it (plus extra) was produced by burning the methane that came off it.

Seemed a fab idea and I think it will be things like this that will sort things out in the future.
The world exsisted prior to widescale oil use and will carry on after. Humans adapt and move on, we may have to move to a more agricultural based society, but it would be no bad thing to have simple labouring jobs for many of those who have ended up on benefits due to factory work disappearing/going abroad.

I do think it is very dodgy that in Kenya land is used to grow food for us (which then has a huge carbon footprint) which we then throw away a third of, whilst people living nearby in Kenya are starving.

ali x

RAS

choille wrote: »

Too much jiggering about with genetics re live stock. I keep marginalised & rare breeds - they will die out if all crofts & small farms disappear. A lot of these rare breeds have survived because they are hardy & suited to their particular environment, but may not give 'high yields'..

The problem with most of the "modern" breeds is that they require a huge amount of input to convert to meat. The older breeds are often more thrifty - good do-ers my father's friends used to call them.

However older breeds can be susceptible to distortion.The Grazing Animal Project did an experiment grazing rare breeds on high pasture in summer and lowland pasture in winter with minimal supplements. Some animals got to a good kill weight but one or two of the same breed deteriorated so badly that they had to be taken in over winter. This suggested that chossing animal that conformed to breed guidelines did not always produce animals with the expect hardiness. The latter needs assessing and marketing at sale points.

choille wrote: »

Always better to try & grow something & to educate kiddies at a young age about where food comes from.

The comment of one presenters at the conference on Friday was that the thing that was frightening was the lack of knowledge of the teachers and parents - a whole missed generation who think food arrives vacumn packed.

Finally - how would EID impact on you, choille?

choille

Here many, 'normal' breeds would't survive - too harsh. Texels seem to be coming the norm in a lot of places - think they look like pigs in fleeces myself. But you can't keep them here, not on the west.

EID comes in next year - each year something else to make you want to give up really. The poor sheep are looking like punks as it is with all the ear tags.
Quite scary what is happening in Portugal, Spain - big buyers of livestock are banks & they are taking 11 months to pay out the producers/small farmers - forcing them to the wall.
They are trying to band together, but Europe is going down a scary route - making it nigh impossible to make any money if you have a small acreage of 'rough' ground, or any small amount of ground for that matter.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

rhiwfield wrote: »

I'd bet most people would have a darn good try at feeding their family and wondered to what lengths they would go to increase their personal food supply with fewer energy resources available.

Well, with only a tiny balcony to grow a few plants and no other way to supplement the family, I think I'd be competing with others to get to the wild resources (much like blackberries and mushrooming, where, as a rule, people with Range Rovers and an implacable belief in their rights take every last part of the food, leaving nothing for anyone else).

I think things would get more violent, and, at some point, the only choice left would be to poach and, whether you like it or not, that doesn't make me scum, it makes me determined to feed my children, whatever the risk.

Not what I want to be doing, however - it's just the future could be a much grimmer place.

Mind you, I could probably survive on my body fat for about a year and half without too many problems, so anything I get would go to the kids...

rhiwfield

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

I think things would get more violent, and, at some point, the only choice left would be to poach and, whether you like it or not, that doesn't make me scum, it makes me determined to feed my children, whatever the risk.

Not what I want to be doing, however - it's just the future could be a much grimmer place.

If communities have grouped together to produce food then I suspect they would defend that resource. Just as those without access to food would seek to take that resource. Not a pleasant scenario and you could see it being played across a global scale.

ceridwen

rhiwfield wrote: »

Lotus eater, thanks for the Cuba comment, I googled this LINK which was eye opening.

I mostly agree with your take on people's attitudes but think that, if Peak Oil can be demonstrated to have occurred, then there will be sufficient people to start making some difference.

Interesting that the Cuban response was substantially community based, and I've a feeling that our current farm ownership system would not survive a post oil crisis. Mind you neither would my weight problem! Another point from the article was how many people had to be trained to grow veg, that strikes home to me as there is little doubt that it takes time and experience to GYO consistently well .

Back to composting, love THIS site!

Thanks for that - have just added a link to that Humanure Handbook on my homepage blog - steadily acquiring a reasonable "collection" of online free books there now:D

ceridwen

RAS wrote: »

At the moment, I think they are too scared to really go fully public; on the current high meat, high dairy and non-seasonal diet it is said that the UK could feed 30m people. On a low meat/dairy seasonal diet the figure would double, not least because half our carbo-hydrate production is fed to livestock at the moment.

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Good points in your post all round - and I DO hope people are "making the connection" between the way (at this most optimistic estimate of everyone changing to low meat/dairy diet) that "double 30m" people is 60 million (ie fewer people than we have at present).

Thinks "no - you DONT want a 3rd child Elizabeth/Charmaine/Sharon/Tracey/etc - that would increase the population and we might not be able to feed everyone already here".

ceridwen

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

The world exsisted prior to widescale oil use and will carry on after. Humans adapt and move on, we may have to move to a more agricultural based society, but it would be no bad thing to have simple labouring jobs for many of those who have ended up on benefits due to factory work disappearing/going abroad.



ali x

...and that is actually one of the "plus" sides to this - ie that there will be more jobs available for unskilled people than there are currently. For some years now the number of jobs available for unskilled/less intellectually capable people has been declining drastically in our Society. People like this still need jobs - they have to have a decent way available to make a living on the one hand. On the other hand - its only reasonable to expect that everyone makes a reasonable contribution to Society. The way things are right at this moment is that one despairs of finding a job unless one is a well-qualified/well-trained professional - so where does everyone else get themselves a suitable job from?:eek:

The new "farming" jobs that will be available will be suitable for both those who would normally have chosen unskilled jobs on the one hand AND for those who expect/are capable of a bit more "skilled" type work (but even that is not available to the extent it used to be) on the other hand.

As someone who falls into the "capable/intelligent - but what could someone like that do even?" category - and who might be expected to do shopwork/barwork/be a cleaner if I lost my job - I am personally delighted at the thought of having a useful/interesting type of work that I WOULD consider doing available to me instead.

I think there would be a lot more "sense of purpose"/self-respect involved for people producing food they know other people will need and it will be valued (in a way that cherishes and respects the land at that) - than having to do whatever unskilled work Society currently provides or sit on the "dole".