RE: economy and tractors and real food (politics?) was: de...

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 1/29/04 12:32:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, katja@...

writes:

> if you had the option, would you pay more for meat

> that was not only pastured and grassfed, but which required only the

> minimum oil to produce? (since our labor would certainly be higher in that

> case)...

If I were rich I might consider it, but in the meantime I certainly wouldn't.

Why deliberately lower the efficiency of your production?

On the subject, I think you could,. with some animals, systemetize a version

of " factory " farming, although considerably more benign, and maximize

nutrition. For example, the nutrient value of a chicken or egg would probably

be

superior if you actually produced worms and/or eggs to feed the chickens, rather

than relying on them to forage, which would allow you to supply more calories

without feeding grain, and fermented chicken scraps ala Heidi's operation is

probably better than grass. So you could have a very systematic operation that

had superior nutritional value to a more abitrary free-ranging system.

Granted the chickens need a little room to move around and would be healthier

with

fresh air and some sunlight, so you certainly wouldn't want to imitate the

factory model entirely.

Chris

[Guest guest]

At 01:42 PM 1/29/2004, you wrote:

>If I were rich I might consider it, but in the meantime I certainly wouldn't.

> Why deliberately lower the efficiency of your production?

because in my world, there's more than just efficiency included in the cost

of goods. what's the point of being " mostly responsible " ? if i can be

efficient *and* have minimal impact with recycled/reused food oil, then

that's spiffy and that's obviously the best choice.

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 1/29/04 9:32:03 PM Eastern Standard Time, katja@...

writes:

> however,

> cutting and baling takes quite a bit of energy.

Tell me about it! Have you ever mowed your hayfield with a scythe?

Chris

[Guest guest]

That should put you in good shape in a hurry! ;-)

Judith Alta

-----Original Message-----

From: ChrisMasterjohn@... [mailto:ChrisMasterjohn@...]

Tell me about it! Have you ever mowed your hayfield with a scythe?

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 1/29/04 11:11:09 PM Eastern Standard Time, katja@...

writes:

> because in my world, there's more than just efficiency included in the cost

>

> of goods. what's the point of being " mostly responsible " ? if i can be

> efficient *and* have minimal impact with recycled/reused food oil, then

> that's spiffy and that's obviously the best choice.

For some reason I'd dissociated the two ideas-- one of not using oil, and the

other of using recycled food oil-- and thought you meant not using a tractor.

An absent-minded slip.

Well, if it's true that oil supplies are low, it's a worthwhile investment,

since when the technology becomes better and more accessible, and as supply of

oil tightens, the food oils would actually be *less* expensive. Barring that,

it doesn't seem to me like there is any convincing reason not to use oil.

How much would you expect the price to rise?

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 1/30/04 9:06:26 PM Eastern Standard Time,

Idol@... writes:

> Since production of food oils (as currently produced) requires fossil fuel

> oil, food oils won't necessarily become cheaper, even by comparison,

> particularly since yields are dropping even in the face of increasing

> fossil fuel inputs.

Isn't the issue with *reused* food oils? If not, isn't the whole thing

rather pointless?

Chris

[Guest guest]

Chris-

>Well, if it's true that oil supplies are low, it's a worthwhile investment,

>since when the technology becomes better and more accessible, and as

>supply of

>oil tightens, the food oils would actually be *less* expensive.

Since production of food oils (as currently produced) requires fossil fuel

oil, food oils won't necessarily become cheaper, even by comparison,

particularly since yields are dropping even in the face of increasing

fossil fuel inputs.

-

[Guest guest]

Chris-

> > Since production of food oils (as currently produced) requires fossil fuel

> > oil, food oils won't necessarily become cheaper, even by comparison,

> > particularly since yields are dropping even in the face of increasing

> > fossil fuel inputs.

>

>Isn't the issue with *reused* food oils? If not, isn't the whole thing

>rather pointless?

Uh, what issue?

If you're proposing using used vegetable oil for fuel, well, OK, except

wouldn't we be better off with never producing the vast majority of

vegetable oil that gets produced in the first place?

-

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 1/30/04 11:13:02 PM Eastern Standard Time,

Idol@... writes:

> >>Since production of food oils (as currently produced) requires fossil

> fuel

> >>oil, food oils won't necessarily become cheaper, even by comparison,

> >>particularly since yields are dropping even in the face of increasing

> >>fossil fuel inputs.

> >

> >Isn't the issue with *reused* food oils? If not, isn't the whole thing

> >rather pointless?

>

> Uh, what issue?

>

> If you're proposing using used vegetable oil for fuel, well, OK, except

> wouldn't we be better off with never producing the vast majority of

> vegetable oil that gets produced in the first place?

Only if the fossil fuel input is low enough to justify it, in which case it

seems to me you'd be wrong about what you said at the very top of this email.

If using vegetable oils is going to greatly magnify fossil fuel input, then it

seems that the shorter the fossil fuel supply will get, the more the supply

of magnified fossil fuel (i.e. food oil) would increase, and the cheaper it

would get *relative* to fossil fuels.

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 1/31/04 1:58:55 PM Eastern Standard Time,

Idol@... writes:

> food oils as currently produced are never going to be a viable

> " alternative "

> source of energy.

Then wouldn't replacing your tractor with one that ran on food oils have very

little in the way of ecological benefit?

> Without monoculture, food oils become effectively impossible

> to harvest.

If you can use *any* food oil to produce the fuel, and can mix them, you

could simply alternate rows of different high-oil seed-bearing plants, and

practice yearly rotation with some other crop.

Chris

[Guest guest]

Chris-

>Only if the fossil fuel input is low enough to justify it, in which case it

>seems to me you'd be wrong about what you said at the very top of this

>email.

>If using vegetable oils is going to greatly magnify fossil fuel input,

>then it

>seems that the shorter the fossil fuel supply will get, the more the supply

>of magnified fossil fuel (i.e. food oil) would increase, and the cheaper it

>would get *relative* to fossil fuels.

OK, I think I understand your misunderstanding. At least with current

methods of agriculture, the I/O calorie ratio is, IIRC, about 10:1. IOW,

it takes about 10 total calories of energy (and I believe that includes

oil-derived fertilizers, but I'm not positive) to yield 1 calorie of

food. I suppose there's some variance across food types, so perhaps some

oil crops will have a less-unfavorable ratio, but mass production

agriculture isn't an exothermic process, so food oils will never be a

particularly good source of energy. In fact, as the fossil fuel supply

dries up (and evidently we're hitting the very beginning of the natural gas

crunch now) the situation will inevitably worsen, because agricultural

yields are worsening even in the face of rising fossil fuel-derived

fertilizer inputs, so even if the energy input comes from alternative

sources (wind, solar, zero point, whatever), which would take years (and

most likely well more than a decade) to accomplish on a mass scale, food

oils as currently produced are never going to be a viable " alternative "

source of energy. As things stand, they're really just an interesting

curiosity, partly a way to recover energy from waste and partly a

boondoggle-in-waiting due to the fact that fossil fuel prices will shoot

through the roof fairly soon.

Now, obviously we can reverse the soil fertility problem, but that will be

a labor-intensive process and will require the abandonment of

monoculture. Without monoculture, food oils become effectively impossible

to harvest. Furthermore, it's questionable how much fertility could be

permanently removed from soil on an ongoing basis while maintaining

sustainability.

-

[Guest guest]

At 10:21 PM 1/30/2004, you wrote:

>Isn't the issue with *reused* food oils? If not, isn't the whole thing

>rather pointless?

indeed. there's no point at all in using new food oils. that's expensive in

addition to using petroleum.

but you can go to mcdonald's and " buy " their used fryolator oil - works

just fine, though your exhaust smells like french fries...

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 2/1/04 12:59:53 PM Eastern Standard Time,

Idol@... writes:

> First, that's still not going to enable you to harvest them with modern

> equipment (unless you're talking about just having vast fields of two

> different alternated crops, which isn't at all biodynamic, biointensive,

> etc.)

I perhaps don't know enough of how the modern machinery works, but what I'm

suggesting is you have a *row*, not a field, of, say, corn, then sunflowers,

then something else, etc... whatever the oils being used are. That's not

monoculture.

and second, in the end, SO WHAT? You're still draining the soil at

> an incredible rate, and if you remove fossil fuel inputs you're just going

> to have to replace them with other inputs, such as massive amounts of

> manure, which will be needed elsewhere for healthy food.

Hmm, I'm not sure. If you're growing it for the oil, the oil can go back

into the machinery, and the rest of the plant can be composted.

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 2/1/04 1:50:08 PM Eastern Standard Time,

Idol@... writes:

> if you have five different crops to a field, it's still practically

> monoculture from an environmental standpoint compared to the way

> sustainable systems and real ecologies work.

It's a vast improvement over real monoculture. The Chinese gov't did an

experiement where they started alternating just two different strains of rice in

the rice patties, and they cut the disease rate some enormous amount, like 60%

or so.

> >Hmm, I'm not sure. If you're growing it for the oil, the oil can go back

> >into the machinery, and the rest of the plant can be composted.

>

> The oil is where the vast majority of the consumed fertility is going to

> go, particularly if people optimize their crops for oil production.

Ok. What about the idea of farming soil using lithotrophic organisms to

break down rock, and maintaining the proper conditions to maximize their

activity?

Perhaps that has some merit?

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 2/1/04 2:13:28 PM Eastern Standard Time,

Idol@... writes:

> This seems completely unrelated to the issue of oil crops, but of course,

> that probably has a lot of merit.

How exciting. I assume other people thought of it long before me... is

anyone working on it?

But again, you're not going to get a

> properly functioning soil ecology in monoculture -- or in duoculture, or

> pentaculture.

Why? If you also practice rotation, it seems you're covering most of the

bases. Obviously there is more to good nutrition than that, but if you're

growing oil, all you care about is yield, so your only care is to sustain your

resources.

Chris

[Guest guest]

Chris-

>Then wouldn't replacing your tractor with one that ran on food oils have very

>little in the way of ecological benefit?

Probably it would have a negative ecological impact overall.

>If you can use *any* food oil to produce the fuel, and can mix them, you

>could simply alternate rows of different high-oil seed-bearing plants, and

>practice yearly rotation with some other crop.

First, that's still not going to enable you to harvest them with modern

equipment (unless you're talking about just having vast fields of two

different alternated crops, which isn't at all biodynamic, biointensive,

etc.) and second, in the end, SO WHAT? You're still draining the soil at

an incredible rate, and if you remove fossil fuel inputs you're just going

to have to replace them with other inputs, such as massive amounts of

manure, which will be needed elsewhere for healthy food.

-

[Guest guest]

Chris-

>I perhaps don't know enough of how the modern machinery works,

They're enormous, and generally (always?) they're designed for monoculture

-- row upon row upon row of the same exact thing, stretching as far as the

eye can see. You could design them for adjacent rows of different crops,

provided the rows were repeated exactly, but again, the machines are

enormous. They're not suitable for smaller plots, and on a mega-farm, even

if you have five different crops to a field, it's still practically

monoculture from an environmental standpoint compared to the way

sustainable systems and real ecologies work.

>Hmm, I'm not sure. If you're growing it for the oil, the oil can go back

>into the machinery, and the rest of the plant can be composted.

The oil is where the vast majority of the consumed fertility is going to

go, particularly if people optimize their crops for oil production.

-

[Guest guest]

Chris-

>It's a vast improvement over real monoculture.

Sure it's better, but it's just postponing the inevitable. It's still garbage.

> > The oil is where the vast majority of the consumed fertility is going to

> > go, particularly if people optimize their crops for oil production.

>

>Ok. What about the idea of farming soil using lithotrophic organisms to

>break down rock, and maintaining the proper conditions to maximize their

>activity?

> Perhaps that has some merit?

This seems completely unrelated to the issue of oil crops, but of course,

that probably has a lot of merit. But again, you're not going to get a

properly functioning soil ecology in monoculture -- or in duoculture, or

pentaculture.

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