economics
lulu98
UnsustainablevsSustainableFarmingPresentation1.pptxUnsustainable Industrialized Agriculture vs. Indigenous Permaculture and Urban Organic Farming Greta Thunberg full speech at UN Climate Change Conference to 1:46 only https://youtu.be/VFkQSGyeCWg
15th Annual Great Lakes Bioneers Detroit Conference October, 2019 University of Detroit-Mercy
Professor Bruce Ewen, Economics; also Assisting in the Diversity and Inclusion Program, WCCCD
This is Progress?
I don’t think so!
The Dust Bowl of the 1930’s:
A Human-Caused Environmental Disaster. Slaughter the Bison, Tear up the Buffalo Grass and Plant too much Wheat! Oh, My!
This is sustainable
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"Man (sic)…….. is not the master of nature. He must conform his actions to certain natural laws if he is to maintain his dominance over his environment. When he tries to circumvent the laws of nature, he usually destroys the natural environment that sustains him. And when his environment deteriorates rapidly, his civilization declines……
'How did civilized man despoil this favorable environment? He did it mainly by depleting or destroying the natural resources. He cut down or burned most of the usable timber from forested hillsides and valleys. He overgrazed and denuded the grasslands that fed his livestock. He killed most of the wildlife and much of the fish and other water life. He permitted erosion to rob his farmland of its productive topsoil. He allowed eroded soil to clog the streams and fill his reservoirs, irrigation canals, and harbors with silt. In many cases, he used and wasted most of the easily mined metals or other needed minerals. Then his civilization declined amidst the despoliation of his own creation or he moved to new land. There have been from ten to thirty different civilizations that have followed this road to ruin.’’
Tom Dale and Vernon Gill Carter, Topsoil and Civilization, (1955), as quoted in E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful, (1973), Chapter 7, “The Proper Use of Land.” Also, National Geographic's documentary “America Before Columbus” – the discussion of the despoliation of the environment in Europe that led to the necessity to find a “New World” to exploit.
Unsustainable Industrialized Agriculture vs. Indigenous Permaculture and Urban Organic Farming https://youtu.be/rEkc70ztOrc The Meatrix https://youtu.be/pXWD1zJ97d4 InDUSTrial Agriculture https://youtu.be/WhOrIUlrnPo What is Organic Farming https://youtu.be/FwaNH6khB0k The Three Sisters
Economies of scale?
The Dust Bowl 1930’s
Flooding in Wisconsin
Aquifers being drained
The Dust Bowl of the 1930’s
Economies of Scale?
The Meatrix was created and produced by Sustainable Table (www.sustainabletable.org) and Free Range Studios (www.freerangestudios.com).
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The Dust Bowl of the 1930’s: The Greatest Environmental Disaster in U.S. History
The Dust Bowl: Events and Implications. A video explaining some of the causes and implications of the Dust Bowl in the 1930’s. https://youtu.be/lK9FwLsXzoA Causes of the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s.
The Great Plains of the U.S. is “America’s Great Desert:” Plains of tall buffalo grass that evolved to withstand the most severe droughts and retain both the soil and the moisture in the soil. The millions of buffalo that roamed the range were also built for the most severe heat and cold – great thermo-regulators. Their meat is far leaner as well. They were the cultural and physical life-sustenance of Plains Indians. We killed bison off for their hides, forced indigenous people onto reservations, like the Bantustans of Apartheid South Africa. Then we opened up the land to wheat farmers. This recipe for disaster cooked the Great Plains. 75 million acres of land lost up to 6 inches of topsoil. And it still has not all been recovered. A human-made disaster. Timothy Egan, The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, 2006.
And it is happening again. Greed (and overproduction) never sleeps. And Mother Nature seems to be exacting her revenge for stealing the land from indigenous people.
Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink; and floods in the Midwest
70 percent of freshwater use goes for agriculture. Our industrialized agriculture system, subsidized by billions of dollars of taxpayer money, is unsustainable, and is draining our underground aquifers. Another 20 percent of freshwater use goes to industry. We are literally running dry, here in the U.S. and all over the globe. And industrial and farming careless disposal and waste overflows are polluting our rivers, lakes and streams, further reducing supplies of fresh water.
https://youtu.be/JyzvcrZIuf0 Stop at 1:01
https://youtu.be/XXFsS94HF08 Depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer National Science Foundation 2013 5:37 Stop at 1:45
Climate Change Outcome and its Impact on Farmers
Aquifers in jeopardy
Wisconsin
Why Are the Bees Dying? PBS Digital Studios 2015 The bee is more honored than other animals, not because she labors, but because she labors for others. - Saint John Chrysostom
https://youtu.be/rKQNx0av7eY Bees are absolutely essential to the pollination of plants, especially fruits, flowers and vegetables. They are disappearing, due to what has been labeled “Colony Collapse Disorder.”
A thorough, well researched and detailed documentary “Vanishing of the Bees” details the causes. The biggest factor is the use of pesticides (derived from nerve gas used in past wars) necessary because of our monoculture agriculture system. We have gone from spraying to the use of “systemic” pesticides, applied to the seed, which is infused into the crops themselves. The Bees’ nervous systems are disoriented, and they are unable to return to their hives.
Modern Industry, in Manufacturing, Mining, Milling and Agriculture Focuses on the “Success” of Economic Growth Through Economies of Scale – But is this Progress?
Henry Ford’s assembly lines, replacing skilled workers with automatic machine processes and unskilled, low-paid workers, having to speed up their repetitive motions to keep up with the ever-increasing speed of that line, resulted in a quantum leap in the numbers of Model T Fords turned out; lowering their cost, making them affordable to the masses, and multiplying the profits of the largest industrial complex in the world (FMC). At a cost of de-skilling and underpaying workers, alienation, unsafe workplaces, increases in unemployment due to overproduction-based mass layoffs and the displacement of skilled workers; and authoritarian, plantation-style factory management – Harry Bennet and the Ford Security Force, The Battle of the Overpass in 1937; The Rouge Plant Massacre in 1932.
Diego Rivera’s
Murals in the
Detroit Institute
of Arts
Modern Industry, in Manufacturing, Mining, Milling and Agriculture Focuses on the “Success” of Economic Growth Through Economies of Scale – But is this Progress?
A quantum leap in coal extraction in Kentucky, West Virginia, Wyoming and elsewhere is accomplished by massive bulldozers and other equipment ripping the top of mountains off to get at the coal seams. The sludge is dumped into the valleys where people live, resulting in mercury, zinc, lead, and other toxins in the ground water; and massive floods, due to the clear-cutting of trees on the mountain-top. And most of this coal is exported to other countries, as our economy is steadily transitioning to cleaner energy use.
Modern Industry, in Manufacturing, Mining, Milling and Agriculture Focuses on the “Success” of Economic Growth Through Economies of Scale – But is this Progress?
One-third of the acreage of the U.S. is planted to corn, most of it genetically modified, by massive tractors, and harvested by other large machinery. Over time, the yield per acre, supported by artificial petroleum- based fertilizer and pesticides that are derivatives of nerve gas, has zoomed to result in such a massive surplus, that $13-15 billion dollars per year of government welfare is necessary to supplement farm income that falls far below the cost of planting, harvesting that corn and other crops and delivering them to markets; with massive quantities of fossil fuel used to get it there. It takes 6-10 calories of energy to create one calorie of food this way. Ditto for rice, cotton, wheat and soy. In the 19th century the surplus of corn was solved by making corn whiskey (cheaper than coffee), resulting in a nation of alcoholics, Carrie Nation leading the revolt against saloons as destroyers of families, and Prohibition.
Unsustainable.
And not “fake news.”
This is progress?
https://youtu.be/SZimstmS40w Factory Farming Is Extremely Inefficient 2:11 Big Think
Doh!
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Modern Industry, in Manufacturing, Mining, Milling and Agriculture Focuses on the “Success” of Economic Growth Through Economies of Scale – But is this Progress?
Recessions and Depressions are a recurring part of our economy’s roller coaster business cycle history. And they start, generally, by the massive overproduction of new cars and trucks, collectively, linked by feeder industries, involving about 25 percent of all production in the U.S.
“When Detroit catches cold, the economy gets pneumonia,” due to the multiplier effect of auto mass layoffs, spreading to steel, parts suppliers, tire makers, and community retail jobs.
https://youtu.be/hwWGzQ_FUtQ The Decline: The Geography of a Recession by LaToya Egwuekwe, 2011.
Right now, G.M. has “benefited” from the U.A.W. strike. At its inception, there was a 99-day inventory of unsold G.M. vehicles, about twice the “acceptable” level. Production cuts due to the strike replaced potential mass layoffs. But the multiplier effects of this strike are having the same impact.
There were over $9 billion in inventories of unsold new cars and trucks sitting in storage lots all over the U.S. at the beginning of the “Great Recession.” Both Chrysler (now FCA) and G.M. were bailed out, $50 billion each, by the government, and Ford found private financing to allow it to survive. Several “Obama Stimulus Act” programs helped them unload most of these vehicles that were “gathering rust and dust.” “Cash for Clunkers” and sales tax income tax credits, for example. Overproduction of all products is the cultural mainstay of American management. For expected profit.
Modern Industry, in Manufacturing, Mining, Milling and Agriculture Focuses on the “Success” of Economic Growth Through Economies of Scale – But is this Progress?
Overproduction of all kinds of farm crops, especially wheat in the 1920’s, drove hundreds of thousands of farms into bankruptcy because of plunging prices, and was a significant factor leading to the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Farm price support programs, payments for land set aside from planting in the past, and just plain welfare checks telling farmers to “grow all you want, we’ll make up the difference” currently costs the government about $13 billion per year. And most of it goes to large, thousands-of-acres agribusinesses (factory farms) that account for the majority of food grown in this country.
And the largest, and richest, farms get the bulk of these welfare checks. It is UNSUSTAINABLE. https://youtu.be/W17abR314MU Katie Couric on subsidies to the wrong food 1:07 https://youtu.be/3w27OzQDX7Q Farm subsidies to non-farmers (to 1:34 only)
https://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=00000&statename=UnitedStates The United States Farm Subsidy Information (EWG) Environmental Working Group, using data from the USDA.
Modern Industry, in Manufacturing, Mining, Milling and Agriculture Focuses on the “Success” of Economic Growth Through Economies of Scale – But is this Progress?
The economic “calculus” tells us that “Bigger is Better,” that factory farming using “economies of scale” is the most efficient way to produce cheap food for the world. But most of this food is exported to wealthy countries, not where it is most needed. Food sent to poor countries, like Jamaica, put small farmers out of business, because subsidies allow U.S. firms to “dump” cheap food into the countries. And what that “cheap food” does not include is the “true,” but hidden, costs of production that economists call externalities:
Degradation of our air, water and soil due to the use of artificial nitrogen-based fertilizers; and insecticides that kill birds, bees, soil macro- and micro-nutrients, the natural enemies of food pests; and result in resistant super-weeds and pests.
(2) Damage to our health, “diabesity,” because of junk food made from surplus food; and antibiotic resistance.
(3) The billions of dollars of government subsidies (welfare) going mostly to factory farms because their over- production drives prices below costs of operation; much of this excess goes to waste. See slide 14.
(4) Climate Change exacerbated by CAFO’s (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) and the clear-cutting of the Amazon Rainforest for pasture and crop production.
(5) Exhaustion of our underground aquifers for inefficient irrigation techniques for dry-land farming, especially in the grain belt.
None of these costs are paid by the factory farms. They are paid by farmworkers, consumers, the communities around factory farms, and the government subsidizing health care for the most expensive health care system.
https://youtu.be/CKhviAbMXE0 Pesticides in Paradise: Hawaii's Health and Environment at Risk 3:32
https://youtu.be/CXZIiPxqMgY Fertilizer Runoff and Drinking Water (up to 1:22 only)
Industrial vs. Sustainable Family Farms Comparison
Industrial Operation
Overuse of antibiotics, used to promote growth and resist disease, leads to resistance.
Industrial facilities contribute to numerous environmental issues such as damage to air, water and soil.
Industrial operations use huge amounts of water for liquefying manure, flushing barns, drinking water for animals, and irrigating crops on dry land.
Intensive livestock production (CAFO’s) contributes large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.
Factory farms plant thousands of acres of one crop – corn, wheat, rice, cotton, soy – that leaves it vulnerable to pests, requiring more pesticides. Vulnerable to flooding also.
Factory farms plow with huge tractors that compact the soil and expose macro- and micro-nutrients in the soil to damage from exposure to the environment and increase soil erosion.
Factory farms spend enormous amounts of money on fuel to drive machinery, and to deliver their products hundreds of miles from their markets. The food is not fresh, and usually picked before ripe, and artificially ripened.
Sustainable Family Farm
Foods are produced without the use of pesticides, hormones, antibiotics and other hazardous inputs.
Sustainable farmers recognize the importance of protecting the natural environment and act as stewards of the land.
Sustainable farms protect water sources and conserve water.
Sustainable farms use efficient application of manure and crop rotation to minimize fuel consumption. Integrating livestock with food planting and allowing free-range methods keeps livestock healthier, happier and close to food sources.
Sustainable farms engage in crop rotation to replenish the soil, and inter-cropping similar to the three sisters method; planting trees (agroforestry) to hold the soil in, plant cover crops, and build biodiversity.
Sustainable farms minimize plowing, using no-till or reduced till methods, reducing erosion and improving soil health. It maintains the fertility of the soil (regenerative) and the health of the surrounding landscape for future generations.
Sustainable, locally grown food minimizes the use of fuel, and delivers fresher , healthier food to the customers.
Sustainable family farms have increased biodiversity and are welcome homes to pollinators and have a greatly reduced environmental impact because of minimizing the use of artificial nitrogen-based fertilizer and pesticides.
Source: Beyond Factory Farming (beyondfactoryfarming.org), Union of Concerned Scientists, “What is sustainable Agriculture?;” The Healthy Farm: A Vision for U.S. Agriculture.”
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Additional Problems with (Un)Conventional Industrialized Agriculture
“ Industry claims industrial methods are the only way to produce enough food to feed everyone. However, studies show efficient organic agriculture can achieve yields comparable to those produced by intensive industrial agriculture.” Source: Leu, Andre, 2013, “Scientific Studies Validate Sustainable Organic Agriculture,” Well Being Journal, January/February 2013 – as noted in Moyer, Ellen, Our Earth, Our Species, Ourselves, 2017, p. 74.
”Organic corn and soy yields outperformed industrial yields in thirty-year, side-by-side trials while emitting less greenhouse gases, using less energy and water, decreasing erosion and groundwater pollution, and enhancing soil quality and biological resources.” Moyer, Ibid, p. 80; Meyer, Nick, 2013, “UN Report Says Small-Scale Organic Farming Only Way to Feed the World.”
“As much as half of all the food produced in the world ends up being thrown away.” Moyer, Ibid, p. 75; Huffington Post UK, 2013, “Food Waste: Half of All Food Ends Up Thrown Away.”
“Livestock production requires vastly more water, land and energy than do plant foods and is a major cause of some the world’s most pressing environmental problems: climate change, land degradation, water pollution, biodiversity loss, and more.” Moyer, Ibid, p. 75; “Livestock a Major Threat to Environment,” FAO Newsroom.
Indigenous Permaculture Methods Used for Thousands of Years that Europeans Ignored
Three centuries ago, corn-farming Indians in New York State were outproducing European wheat farmers. Indians developed modern maize in the southern Mexico highlands more than 6 thousand years ago. Corn represents the triumph of Native American agriculture. It was domesticated thousands of years ago, was a staple of the American diet, and is now the largest crop in the world.
It was the outcome of sophisticated genetic engineering, “arguably man’s first, and perhaps his greatest, feat of genetic engineering……..somebody who did that today would get a Nobel Prize!” It makes 21st century scientists sound like pikers.
source: Charles C. Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. Statement about maize made by Nina V. Federoff, a geneticist at Penn State University in 2003 (page 218). Also, “America Before Columbus,” op. cit.
The lack of plows in the Americas actually helped maintain soil fertility.
A sophisticated permaculture was used to harvest the same plants year after year.
The salmon streams were carefully tended, even cleaned, and well-managed – more like farming and harvesting than hunting and gathering.
Forests were managed by clearing out dead trees and low-lying shrubs to minimize forest fires.
Sections of forests were cleared to make it easier to hunt animals, and to allow them to roam closer to communities where people lived. Some forests were kept in clusters to provide shade for elks in summer. The first white settlers in Ohio found woodlands that resembled English parks- they could drive carriages through the trees. And the bison roamed from New York to Georgia. They were imported to the East by Native Americans along a path of indigenous fire. Indians did not practice domestication of animals but managed them by a very sophisticated method of husbandry. Mann, Ibid.
Indigenous cropping was often sustainable, and since it did not deplete the soil, farmers did not need to create new fields by burning forest.
Just ponder the fact that the lungs of the world are being destroyed now by clear-cutting for livestock grazing and new cropland in the Amazon rainforest. Not by Indians.
Source: whyfiles.org/2012/farming-native-American-style/index.html “Farming, Native American Style; Charles C. Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. Statement about maize made by Nina V. Federoff, a geneticist at Penn State University in 2003 (page 218, Mann, op.cit. Forest management from Mann, op.cit. P. 282.
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Indigenous Permaculture Methods Used for Thousands of Years that Europeans Ignored
The most successful and most productive inter-crop success is the “three sisters” method, planting corn, beans and squash together. They are symbiotic. The corn provides a stalk for the beans to rise to the sun. The squash uses shade from the corn and beans and keeps weeds and pests away (with its broad leaves). The nitrogen in the soil used up by corn is replenished (regenerated) by the beans. And the three plants provide nutritional balance.
Maize lacks digestible niacin and the amino acids lysine and
tryptophan, necessary to make proteins.
Diets comprised mostly of maize results in protein deficiency
and pellagra.
Beans have both lysine and tryptophan, but not the amino acids
cysteine and methionine, that are provided by maize. So, both
corn and beans provide a nutritionally balanced meal.
Squash provides a whole array of vitamins.
Indian farmers grow maize in a “milpa,” a field in which is planted a dozen crops at once, including maize, avocados, multiple varieties of squash and bean, melon, tomatoes, chilis, sweet potato, jcama, amaranth and mucuna. They do not need to rotate crops because of the mutually beneficial nature of these crops; so, the milpa is the only method that is sustainable for long term use –thousands of years! This, my friends, is what permaculture is all about!
The milpa is, according to H. Garrison Wilkes, a maize researcher at the University of Massachusetts, “one of the most successful human inventions ever created.” Mann, op. cit.
Mann, op. cit., pp. 220, 221.
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So how can we eat healthier and support sustainable, organic farming?
“Sustainable agriculture is a way of growing or raising food, including animals, in an ecologically and ethically responsible manner using practices that protect the environment, safeguard human health, are humane to farm animals, and provide fair treatment to workers. Eating ’sustainably’ means eating food that is grown or raised according to these principles.” sustainabletable.org/271/food-personal health “Food and Personal Health”
Eating sustainably grown (or minimally processed) food, such as whole grains, legumes and fresh fruits and vegetables has benefits of lowered cholesterol levels, reduced risk of certain cancers, increased colon function, and increased intake of important nutrients and minerals. Eat eggs, meats and dairy products in moderation from pastured animals.
Fruits and vegetables that are in-season, harvested locally, closer to their natural ripeness, have more nutrients. Organically grown also means a higher level of bioflavonoids and antioxidants, and higher levels of vitamin C.
Meat from pastured animals (free range) has higher levels of omega 3s (an essential fatty acid important in brain function and heart health), vitamins A (important to vision, reproduction, and immune function) and E (an important antioxidant, critical to immune function and other metabolic processes) and other antioxidants. Grass fed beef is also lower in fat and has higher ratios of “good” cholesterol (HDL) versus “bad” cholesterol (LDL).
Modern industrial crops are bred for high-yield, ease of transport, and fast growth, rather than for nutrient content. As a result, macro-and micro-nutrients have declined in the overall food supply. There also have been deceases in protein, iron, calcium, riboflavin, ascorbic acid, zinc, selenium and other essential nutrients in many conventionally grown fruits, vegetables and grains.
Genetically modified organisms – use caution – As of 2011, 88 percent of U.S. corn, 94 percent of soybeans, and 90 percent of cotton grown in the U.S. is GMO. There is a lot of controversy in the scientific community as to the long-term safety for our health of GMO food. EAT ORGANIC. Use “Eat Well Guide” to find local and sustainable food. Ask your farmer about her food.
Remember – Organic, sustainable food costs more, but “you either pay now, or you pay later” – in medical bills and years of life.
Source: sustainabletable.org/271/food-personal health “Food and Personal Health”
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Urban Farming in Cuba and Detroit: Modern Day Examples of Local, Sustainable, Organic Farming https://youtu.be/XH4W8JIxsw0 Changes in Cuban Agriculture 4:36 https://youtu.be/8MsnXTMC1-E What Cuba Can Teach America about Organic Farming PBS NewsHour 2015 6:14 https://youtu.be/g7 TXDTngEi4 Keep Growing Detroit 1:50 https://youtu.be/PH6oWee5DcU America's First Sustainable Urban Agrihood 2:25 2017
Cuba
Detroit
All Hail the Squad!
https://youtu.be/zIN0heCLOd0 It’s Not Easy Being the Green New Deal
Climate Smart Agriculture in Action
More than a billion farmers and their families around the world are on the front line of climate change. Their lives and livelihoods are directly affected by its impacts, and they are also vital to implementing many of the solutions we need to help prevent it. “Climate-smart agriculture” describes agricultural practices which contribute to increasing farm productivity and incomes, building greater resilience, and minimizing agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions – all in an equitable and sustainable manner.
https://youtu.be/q7JnJ0oBa94 Climate Smart Agriculture Video
This Farm of the Future Uses No Soil and 95% Less Water
As urban populations continue to rise, innovators are looking beyond traditional farming as a way to feed everyone while having less impact on our land and water resources. Vertical farming is one solution that's been implemented around the world. Vertical farms produce crops in stacked layers, often in controlled environments such as those built by AeroFarms in Newark, New Jersey. AeroFarms grows a variety of leafy salad greens using a process called "aeroponics," which relies on air and mist. AeroFarms' crops are grown entirely indoors using a reusable cloth medium made from recycled plastics. In the absence of sun exposure, the company uses LED lights that expose plants to only certain types of spectrum. AeroFarms claims it uses 95% less water than a traditional farm thanks to its specially designed root misting system. And it is now building out a new 70,000 square foot facility in a former steel mill. Once completed, it's expected to grow 2 million pounds of greens per year, making it the largest indoor vertical farm in the world. Perhaps there is hope for the GM Hamtramck Assembly Plant and many other empty structures in Detroit.
Some other things to discuss if there is time
https://youtu.be/kZtmwWgIw0k The Green New Deal to 2:28 only
