Ian Schindler is a mathematician originally from Los Angeles, now based in Toulouse (France). He has gradually moved his interests from pure mathematics to resource depletion and collapsology, and now he is interested in permaculture and holobionts.
By Ian Schindler
1. Control of pests through biodiversity. Thus no mono-cultures.
2. More labor as there are no mono-cultures so harvesting must be done with human labor.
3. Yields (for humans) are lower than with intensive farming but biomass is far greater than with intensive farming.
4. No (or very little) artificial fertilizers or pesticides are required.
1- LaCanne and Lundgren 2018, https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4428 found fewer pests on agroecological farms than on the surrounding pesticide using farms.
1- LaCanne and Lundgren 2018, https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4428 found fewer pests on agroecological farms than on the surrounding pesticide using farms.
2- The labor is much more intense the first few years. It is less monotonous than in intensive agriculture because there is no mono-cultures so it is less repetitive. It is perhaps more rewarding if one enjoys contact with wildlife.
3- The biggest difference between intensive agriculture and agroecology is between the ears. Different metrics are used to define success. The goal in agroecology is to design a food producing, self-sustaining system.
4- The cost structure is quite different from intensive agriculture. While intensive agriculture requires recurring high level investments, agroecology requires a high initial investment, but once the system starts self-sustaining, costs are very low.
Agroecology is essentially food production with the food kept in its holobiont. Globally about 50% of terrestrial biomass is below the surface of the soil. Of course there are plant roots, but according to Paul Stamets, about 1/3 of the carbon in the soil is contained in the mycelium of fungi. Fungi are particularly important in forests. Well informed practitioners of agroecology pay particular interest in the health of the soil. Note that in https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4428 the authors found profit was not correlated with yield, but it was correlated with soil quality. It can take several years to obtain high quality soil. The fastest way to improve the soil is to add animal excrement (herbivore excrement works the best). Plants help to improve the soil. Plants growing in poor soil will devote at least 1/4 of their photosynthesis to creating sugars excreted by their root systems to encourage bacterial and fungal growth.
Agroecology addresses the following problems:
1. Climate change.
2. Mitigating the effects of climate change.
3. Peak oil.
4. Peak soil (https://energyskeptic.com/2017/peaksoil/).
5. Peak water (http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/problem/135192 and
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6540/418).
6. Decreasing biodiversity
7. A declining agricultural population.
8. Public health.
9. World hunger
10. Water pollution.
1- At least 1/4 of all greenhouse gas emissions come from land use while all of transportation is less than 15% (see
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data and
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac018e). Switching to agroecology would transform land use from a source of CO2 emissions to a sink (see https://4p1000.org/).
2- Two of the primary characteristics of high quality soil are increased water capacity and resistance to erosion. High quality soil does not wash away in heavy rain and is more resilient to drought as it can store more water. Because the soil can absorb more water, flooding is reduced in the case of very heavy precipitation.
3- Agroecology is far less energy intensive than intensive agriculture. In the U.S., to produce 1.75 calories of food requires about 2 calories of energy inputs. If one looks at the entire food process (packaging, processing, storage, etc.) 14 calories are required for every calorie consumed. See
https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/food/us-food-system-factsheet
and also https://www.postcarbon.org/publications/the-future-is-rural/
4- Agroecology creates soil rather than destroying soil.
5- Water management is a key feature of agroecology. Ditches or swales are created to keep water from draining off the land. On slopes retaining walls are built so that water can soak into the ground. High quality soil reduces the need for irrigation. In many biomes, irrigation is not required.
6- Because holobionts are preserved, so is biodiversity.
7- The average age of a farmer, both in the U.S. and Europe is greater than 55 years. In France, a farmer commits suicide every day. Many young people who would like to farm, would like to apply agroecological techniques. Currently they have difficulty getting bank loans and finding land to begin
their activity. At the 2022 commencement ceremony at AgroParisTech (a prestigious French agronomy school) several students took the stage, complained that they had been trained to destroy the planet, and voiced their intention of practicing agroecology. A link to a video of the event (in French): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUOVOC2Kd50.
8- Food produced with agroecological methods is healthier. For example the milk from cows fed on grass contains a higher ratio of Omega 3 fatty acids to Omega 6 fatty acids than the milk from cows fed soy. See also https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54785505-inflamed and https://book.umanaidoomd.com/.
9- Agribusiness pushes yield as a metric to solve world hunger. However the food produced by intensive agriculture is too expensive for people in poor countries (where labor is cheap). In fact this high yield food is exported from poor to rich countries leaving poor local people hungry. See https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/agroecology-is-the-solution-to-world-hunger/.
10- Agroecology actually purifies water. See Dan Barber's talk linked to below.
Remarks:
Agroecology is essentially food production with the food kept in its holobiont. Globally about 50% of terrestrial biomass is below the surface of the soil. Of course there are plant roots, but according to Paul Stamets, about 1/3 of the carbon in the soil is contained in the mycelium of fungi. Fungi are particularly important in forests. Well informed practitioners of agroecology pay particular interest in the health of the soil. Note that in https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4428 the authors found profit was not correlated with yield, but it was correlated with soil quality. It can take several years to obtain high quality soil. The fastest way to improve the soil is to add animal excrement (herbivore excrement works the best). Plants help to improve the soil. Plants growing in poor soil will devote at least 1/4 of their photosynthesis to creating sugars excreted by their root systems to encourage bacterial and fungal growth.
Agroecology addresses the following problems:
1. Climate change.
2. Mitigating the effects of climate change.
3. Peak oil.
4. Peak soil (https://energyskeptic.com/2017/peaksoil/).
5. Peak water (http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/problem/135192 and
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6540/418).
6. Decreasing biodiversity
7. A declining agricultural population.
8. Public health.
9. World hunger
10. Water pollution.
1- At least 1/4 of all greenhouse gas emissions come from land use while all of transportation is less than 15% (see
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data and
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac018e). Switching to agroecology would transform land use from a source of CO2 emissions to a sink (see https://4p1000.org/).
2- Two of the primary characteristics of high quality soil are increased water capacity and resistance to erosion. High quality soil does not wash away in heavy rain and is more resilient to drought as it can store more water. Because the soil can absorb more water, flooding is reduced in the case of very heavy precipitation.
3- Agroecology is far less energy intensive than intensive agriculture. In the U.S., to produce 1.75 calories of food requires about 2 calories of energy inputs. If one looks at the entire food process (packaging, processing, storage, etc.) 14 calories are required for every calorie consumed. See
https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/food/us-food-system-factsheet
and also https://www.postcarbon.org/publications/the-future-is-rural/
4- Agroecology creates soil rather than destroying soil.
5- Water management is a key feature of agroecology. Ditches or swales are created to keep water from draining off the land. On slopes retaining walls are built so that water can soak into the ground. High quality soil reduces the need for irrigation. In many biomes, irrigation is not required.
6- Because holobionts are preserved, so is biodiversity.
7- The average age of a farmer, both in the U.S. and Europe is greater than 55 years. In France, a farmer commits suicide every day. Many young people who would like to farm, would like to apply agroecological techniques. Currently they have difficulty getting bank loans and finding land to begin
their activity. At the 2022 commencement ceremony at AgroParisTech (a prestigious French agronomy school) several students took the stage, complained that they had been trained to destroy the planet, and voiced their intention of practicing agroecology. A link to a video of the event (in French): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUOVOC2Kd50.
8- Food produced with agroecological methods is healthier. For example the milk from cows fed on grass contains a higher ratio of Omega 3 fatty acids to Omega 6 fatty acids than the milk from cows fed soy. See also https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54785505-inflamed and https://book.umanaidoomd.com/.
9- Agribusiness pushes yield as a metric to solve world hunger. However the food produced by intensive agriculture is too expensive for people in poor countries (where labor is cheap). In fact this high yield food is exported from poor to rich countries leaving poor local people hungry. See https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/agroecology-is-the-solution-to-world-hunger/.
10- Agroecology actually purifies water. See Dan Barber's talk linked to below.
Remarks:
1. Agroecology is a group effort. It requires many people per unit area. Currently woofers make up a large part of this effort: https://wwoof.net/.
2. Currently in France the profitable farms are either very large or very small (less than 2 hectares). The large farms are profitable because they receive the most subsidies from the European common agriculture policy. In (Kirsch, Kroll, and Trouvé 2017 http://journals.openedition.org/economierurale/5223) the authors found that subsidies were positively correlated with pesticide use per unit area. Small farms are profitable because they sell directly to consumers.
3. Solutions are not unique. Sepp Holzer (http://www.seppholzer.info/) never prunes fruit trees but at the garden of the workers fraternity the fruit trees are pruned intensively (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DVLlkToPuU).
4. Starting an agroecological project is not easy. It can take up to 7 years for the system to stabilize.
5. Agroecology is profitable after the first few years. See https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4428. There are many examples of successful farms practicing agroecology (see below).
6. Agroecology would require less land than industrial agriculture to feed the world. Much land used in agriculture today is used to grow grain to feed animals. It is a very inefficient system.
7. An efficient policy to encourage agroecology would be to pay farmers to sequester carbon.
Examples:
Examples:
1. Agroecology is a key element of permaculture. David Holmgren, one of the founders of permaculture, has been successfully practicing agroecology since the the mid 1970s: https://holmgren.com.au/.
2. Dan Barber's wonderful 19 minute Ted talk: "How I Fell in Love With a Fish",
https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_how_i_fell_in_love_with_a_fish.
https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_how_i_fell_in_love_with_a_fish.
3. Kirsten Dirksen's 55 minute documentary on the Kailash Ecovillage in Portland, Oregon which is a mature, urban permaculture design. These people are not farmers, but part of their rent is participating in their own food production. They demolished parking lots to grow food. Note that they compost their own excrement on site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCGXVk-cBVk.
4. Kirsten Dirksen's 53 minute documentary of a mature large agroecology farm in Wisconsin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRPP4Ilpxso
7. The Garden of the Worker's Fraternity in Moscou, Belgium grows with agroecology since 1969 (in French): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dNKG20-GrE
8. "The Biggest Little Farm" is an excellent documentary on the 80 hectare Apricot Lanes Farm (https://www.apricotlanefarms.com/) in Moorpark, California.
Hello Ugo and Ian,
ReplyDeleteLocal is our future. In a low-energy, low-material future, we will eat what grows well in our locality, and the earlier we get started, the better food we will eat. We have a unique opportunity now to access more species and varieties than ever.
I would like to add to the recommended reading:
* Small Farm Future (book and blog) by Chris Smaje in England
* The Future is Rural (report by Post Carbon Institute) by Jason Bradford
* Local is our Future (book and NGO) by Helena Norberg-Hodge
* Retrosuburbia (book and website) by David Holmgren
One important step to take already now is to militate against "free trade" in foodstuffs and free access to seed genetics. The multinational machine generates more profits by a small number of crops grown industrially, shipped all over the world. Ecological madness...
And just as important as growing food is cooking food. We try to train the next generation to cook delicious food with local fruits, nuts and vegetables. How can we get this into the school curricula?
Peace,
Goran
https://glennaalbrecht.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/becoming-a-sumbiovore-in-the-symbiocene/
ReplyDeleteVery interesting, Glenn. Would you like to join my discussion group on holobionts? In such case, write me at ugo.bardi(swishette)unifi.it
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