Climate Change

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I don’t generally make links or comment on things I read but this article caught my eye and I think is quite relevant, at least to me. Climate Study

Climate change is the single most motivating factor in why I, over the last twenty years or more, have been making changes in how I garden and in what crops I plant. I have no idea about the people or organizations that did this study nor their credibility and can’t offer a guess at about the accuracy of their main topic about the eastward movement of drier conditions. Plus, I am still another 1000 miles east of what they describe as a new line of demarcation.

Still a couple of things in the article caught my eye and I thought I would quote and comment on them.

“…that as this drying trend continues, farms further east will need to combine and grow to survive. Farmers would need to adapt or use irrigation, or change crops.”

I don’t know about the need but farms in my area have combined and grown, fewer and larger. The old family farms of my childhood were gone a long time ago but now the few hundred-acre mono-culture farms have consolidated into thousands of acres. More alarming to me is the giant irrigation systems on wheels, completely non-existent thirty years ago, are everywhere now.

“According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the growth of farm size associated with consolidation leads to landscape simplification. This can lead to monocultures (fields of one plant species) replacing natural vegetation. Larger farms also require more fertilizers and pesticides.”

That is also true. Driving north toward Indianapolis or west toward Illinois I see giant spray machines in the fields, laying down clouds of I don’t know what, both on bare soil and on growing crops. In harvest season I see helicopters spraying a fog over soybeans and corn. I’m told they are killing the plants in order to make the entire crop dry down uniformly.

Even though these sites have been increasing for twenty years or more it is still alien to me. It never used to be that way and I don’t see any indication it will do anything other than intensify.

Sorry to ramble or rant and I recognize climate change is a taboo topic in many arenas so if someone wants to make this post disappear, I won’t mind.

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Combining to survive seems like the opposite of how to respond to the crisis. I don’t have anything to cite on this, but everything I’ve read says that the smaller the farm, the more it makes per acre.

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Yeah, I think diversification is almost always the smartest approach to deal with unpredictable challenges. We need more farmers, more farming approaches, more crops on a macro scale, and more crops on a micro scale. We need to lots of people trying lots of different things and sharing what works with each other. We need to start giving a little land to everyone who wants to try something, and give them free rein to experiment.

More community gardens, more neighborhood orchards, more free classes on how to farm or garden, more seed libraries, more creativity, more sharing. That’s how to successfully adapt to a climate that’s rapidly changing.

P.S. To be honest, Mark, I think climate change is anything but a taboo subject here. I think a lot of us got interested in landrace gardening specifically because it’s the best solution to the effects of our volatile climate shifts. As such, it’s highly relevant and likely to matter a great deal to most of us.

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I think this topic is very relevant. It certainly is a major factor in why I have chosen the landrace path. Like others, I think diversity and the resilience that can provide is a way out of the mess we’ve made of things so large, monoculture farms to me seem exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. Just my humble opinion.
As an aside, the spraying of legumes like soybeans with desiccant to force uniform ripening (glyphosate being the desiccant of choice) is one of the reasons I started growing my own dry beans! Potatoes too!

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Climate change is certainly one of the reasons I’m getting more interested in landrace gardening, plant breeding and adaptation, and permaculture.

As someone living in an area on that Reddit map that was in the “overlap” 20 years ago and is now solidly in the “arid”/drier area, things are definitely changing. My county is currently classified by the U.S. as being in Extreme to Exceptional drought; my specific location is solidly in the Extreme drought area. After the drier-than-expected experiences of the last couple of years, I just made the assumption that this is the new normal, and I started to adjust my expectations and practices to match.

At the same time that I’m seeing a lot of farmland immediately around us being developed into housing (ugh) I’m also seeing interesting changes in crop choices… just a few miles away there’s a farmer who’s worked cotton into their rotation, something my wheat-corn-and-soybeans-growing part of Kansas isn’t exactly known for. And I’m seeing a lot more center-pivot irrigation than I used to. Which, considering the state of our aquifers, is… troublesome. I expect I’ll definitely need to select for high drought tolerance and low external water input for any landrace I work with.

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It’s taboo because climats change is polarized. I know folk who want an eco dictatorship and other people who say it’s baloney just to take control of everything we do, a technocracy with CBDC global money and a social crédit system.
It’s a bit the same thing in the end.

Nature’s out of whack that’s for sure.

I firmly believe the solution will be to grow a huge amount of forests. Even if we manage to abolish carbon economy in the West, prices of oïl will go down. Enticing billions of folk in the global south to buy a moped if they cycle or a car if they moped… No way any of us greenminded folk is going to convince them otherwise. We’re going to burn all fossil fuel.

The only thing we can instantly apply is reforestation on a gigantic scale. And why not?
Forest cool, create shelter and food for animals and humans, forest block wind, forests create rain by cooling, forests build soil while blocking érosion, forest create wood for building houses and heat, forest create mycelia networks acting as sponges.
But we cut, cut and cut.
We have green electricity here in Europe. We buy American old growth forest, chopped to bits, and bring it here to burn in incinerators inviting all sorts of insects to take root killing our forests.

But that’s all depressing stuff. This man Willie Smits is showing a great way out of this mess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXWikNXiG2Q

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I think that’s great. But I also wonder that maybe building soil is an excellent move, both for acting as a carbon sink, and for making food growing sustainable and healthy.

And in general I think grass roots movements like our landrace projects will be very important for the coming food crisis. I really think we cannot rely on governments, which largely seem to be just as psychopathic as their corporate sponsors.

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That might be partially true, but I think it’s going to be western countries that are driving the emissions even then (maybe until fusion is viable). Even if oil is dirt cheap most of global south can’t afford it and many could afford only in modaration. And if solar and wind prizes go down, even just slightly better off in global south could go electric. Oil costs about 25 dollars per barrel to exract. If it goes below then it’s only oil reserves that could be used. Even they cost to refine that it might not be viable to make some products. All debends how fast and low wind and solar go. It might be similar paradigm shift as when oil and cars came. Almost overnight there wasn’t need for horses as there had been before.

Even if west goes electric we still continue to consume more each year. Tecnology has gotten cleaner for centuries, but emissions go up because it get’s cheaper to consume. I’d like to be optimistic like some others, but I think we see just the possible positives and ignore the negatives that are in the future. Like we might overestimate how cheap solar is in 10 years and underestimate how much cheaper prizes will drive use. I’m starting to think that we can’t/won’t do enough until we get fusion, and that might not be enough either. In 100 years there’s probably “enviromentally friendly” space travel and people try to keep clobal warming under 5C. Or other possibility is that everything goes so bad that there isn’t any other option than drastic measures. Either way, not looking very good.

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Justin. I believe all of that is true.
Jesse funny you sée cheap energy as the solution. My worst nightmare is the free energy people dream off. The damage we’d do would be exponentially worse.
Were i live in this beautifull hilly natural park. Farmers would have fifty meter high tractors, they would cut all the trees, destroy the hills, fill the lakes with débris, just pump réserves from deep in the ground 24/7and plant monocultural crops having robotdrones fertilise all plants and kill every insect.
It’s bad enough as is.

I’d like to argue we have free energy already, the sun, we have to learn to harvest it better by planting forests and capturing endlessly more CO2 from the skies.

Anyway, we’re not going to solve climate change on a whim, I’m happy to be part of a growing movement to reconnect to nature and work with her not against her.
Have a great day!

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There are definetely possible downsides, but I see that many things that are harmful would become obsolete. Monocultures are norm because it’s cheaper to run because of high energy costs, but if energy isn’t issue they could more easily be polycultures, even if they are big polycultures. Downsides of bad land use are already so visible that sooner or later there will be need for better practices. It’s a thing that doesn’t affect peoples lifestyle if energy is free so it wouldn’t have opposition. Now it affects prizes so much that people make choice based on that. But that’s still very far away and your prediction might come true before that with fossil fuels.

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There are some great projects out there to help inspire change and make you know that change is possible.

One of the largest scale ones I came across was John D. Liu’s documentary in 2012 on re-greening deserts..

Specially the Loess Plateau of which a lot of different documentaries have been made, this being only one selected at random.

and Here is one about a 2000 year old food forest found still existing in Morocco .

Jeoff Lawton who was in John D. Liu’s documentary went off to work on a smaller scale in the dead sea area of Jordan to create an example of re-greening the desert on a smaller scale..

He seems to like the desert projects as a challenge and study, here studying ground works / swale impacts in Arizona USA, possibly as one of the original sites he was working on was in the warm temperate region in New South Wales, Australia.

He sure seems to love his swales. :slight_smile:

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I really like the silvopasture idea. Putting some forage trees in with the pasture for food and shade for the grazing animals seems like a great idea.

I’m leaning towards doing Grocery Row Gardening for my vegetable beds at some point in the future. The sun here is so hot and bright, I see people buying shade cloth. That strikes me as silly! Sunlight is a valuable resource. If I need shade, it’s a perfect opportunity to plant trees!

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Another one is FMNR, farmer managed natural regeneration. In sole countries in Africa, colonialists had all trees cut down. Some pastorguy noticed locals still chopping off desperate regrowing shoots. The pastor wanted the locals to keep the strongest shoots growing but they weren’t having non of it. Until hunger struck and he forced them to try.
The trees grew immensely fast. Giving shade to barren lands, cutting wind, attracting birds and their fertilising droppings, cattle resting in the shade fertilising some more. Before long kids climbed the trees collecting and selling long forgotten fruits.
Big succes, the farmers started copying this method rapidly. The pastor realising no farmer will listen to a white guy coming from far away organised for farmers to travel the country and convince other farmers. FMNR was born.
The founder claims to have repeppered millions of square miles with trees in this way. He tries to do it elsewhere too.

https://fmnrhub.com.au/fmnr-manual/

This is a great example from India.
Villages competing against each other in a drought ridden area who can finish the best water retention plan.
They work together changing landscapes digging by hand!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDMnbeW3F8A

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to live the horrible lives we create for each other. We could live abundant meaningfull lives in peace forever if we relearn to cooperate again.

Look what Amish build in a day! Gigantic barn. Hundred or so young men raising a barn good for three generations or so, i’d say. To have that work i guess the owner would have to work a day for those workers. So if you charge a day travel with a horse as they do, that’s twohundred days for a gigantic barn. Or whatever it is. Anyway it’s a zillion times better than slaving thirty odd years to repay a mortgage for a piece of concrete shit in a poluted overcrowded stressed out crime ridden city hellhole… ‘Yeah but,but Amish bla bla’. ‘Congratulations with obtaining a mortgage’

Or am i completely out of my mind or something? Why dont we change this hell of a planet for the good?

barnraising

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I’m gonna make a quick suggestion. This is something I’ve been working on for a year, and I’ve found it makes a huge difference to my life.

Whenever I’m about to complain about something, I stop, and I ask myself, “How can I say this in a positive way instead?” It’s even better if I can make it a call to action. This is true even if the only person I’m talking to is myself.

So let’s do that with your very question.

Let’s change this messed-up planet and make it beautiful and healthy again! :smiley:

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