Agroecology could double agricultural production

Agriculture and soil. Pollution control, soil remediation, humus and new agricultural techniques.
User avatar
sen-no-sen
Econologue expert
Econologue expert
posts: 6856
Registration: 11/06/09, 13:08
Location: High Beaujolais.
x 749




by sen-no-sen » 21/09/13, 19:43

Did67 wrote:
AND to organize the exchanges.

But there are, of course, limits to this, especially the impact of transportation ...


In any case, it will be necessary to tackle transport, let alone maritime transport.
When we know that the 15 largest container containers in the world pollute more than the entire global car fleet!
0 x
"Engineering is sometimes about knowing when to stop" Charles De Gaulle.
raymon
Grand Econologue
Grand Econologue
posts: 901
Registration: 03/12/07, 19:21
Location: vaucluse
x 9




by raymon » 21/09/13, 20:00

to support this discussion a little bit, I advise you to watch a film or compare the results of chemical agriculture to organic farming:

the harvests of the future:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yu7Z9ARtkU

or we are talking about milpa in Mexico and push pull in Africa we can see that organic farming can be extremely productive.
0 x
User avatar
Did67
Moderator
Moderator
posts: 20362
Registration: 20/01/08, 16:34
Location: Alsace
x 8685




by Did67 » 21/09/13, 21:31

In this film, you will see the Wentz, which I mentioned above.

I have been to see on the spot. I prepared and supervised a visit by French technicians. It's extremely interesting. But the yields are not the 100 quintals / ha of chemical agriculture!

It is still extremely profitable because very little energy (direct seeding), little fertilizer and above all, the productoion under Demeter label is very well valued in short cirucit.

But it is an extensification [with a multitude of advantages to that !!! I do not dispute it]

Afterwards, in fact, the "revitalization" of exhausted systems can be spectacular.

But here too, we have to think a little and analyze: the traditional African systems were based on long fallow so that the land could rest and on "horizontal" transfers of fertility: the animals will graze in the bush and return to the land. enclosure in the evening, where they deposit their dung ...

These systems are now at the end of the roll: demographics mean that there is no longer "enough space". I did studies about fifteen years ago which showed that around 15/20 inhabitants per square kilometer, in a Sahelian climate (at a rainy season of 3 months / 9 months of dry season), the system was blocked ... A process of desertification began (desertification is not the advance of the desert, but the loss of fertility, soil instability and erosion, immigration ... even if the final phase may be the installation of desert areas].

So yes, there, today we have "drained" land which hardly produces anything anymore ... And agroforestry in particular, gives back resources. The "Faidherbia albida parks" [typical of Burkina Faso and the Zinder region in Niger] already allowed to "go up" to 40 habts / km².

So, without wanting to be too technical, I confirm that these systems can be revitalized by agroforestry and see their potentile double ...

Simply the overall situation needs to be qualified. The Wentz are surely infinitely more "green" or natural, but produce less (but better). Elsewhere, agroforestry can invigorate bloodless soils and double or triple the potential ... However, these innovations are not spreading like that! For a "beautiful example" filmed on TV, how many failures ???
0 x
Ahmed
Econologue expert
Econologue expert
posts: 12298
Registration: 25/02/08, 18:54
Location: Burgundy
x 2963




by Ahmed » 21/09/13, 22:11

I thank you, Did87, for your answer to my question: I suspected that this omission was only a shortcut. For many people, arable land is an original given that it results from a slow creative process in which the forest plays a preponderant (though not exclusive) role. The paradox is that agriculture has developed while fighting against a forest considered as antagonistic!

Agricultural systems have, as you note, relevance on a certain scale (probably like other productive systems *) and do not work when extrapolating or intensifying needs.

When you talk about the Irish famine, distrust, it's not about (as I already wrote in response to Bobfuck) of an agronomic problem but the result of a socio-political evolution.

* This explains the self-defeating process of today's widespread economic functioning. The purely accounting balance of these activities can appear very positive, on the other hand it is possible only by a furious extractivity which is its hidden side and which is, it, extremely negative, since suicidal.
0 x
"Please don't believe what I'm telling you."
Janic
Econologue expert
Econologue expert
posts: 19224
Registration: 29/10/10, 13:27
Location: bourgogne
x 3491




by Janic » 22/09/13, 08:02

sen no sen hello
In any case, it will be necessary to tackle transport, let alone maritime transport.
When we know that the 15 largest container containers in the world pollute more than the entire global car fleet!
you have to compare comparable things! What energy expenditure would it take to transport the same amount of freight by road, rail or air (assuming an existing network)?
0 x
User avatar
Did67
Moderator
Moderator
posts: 20362
Registration: 20/01/08, 16:34
Location: Alsace
x 8685




by Did67 » 22/09/13, 09:53

Ahmed wrote:
When you talk about the Irish famine, distrust, it's not about (as I already wrote in response to Bobfuck) of an agronomic problem but the result of a socio-political evolution.


Yes, again, I simplified.

And again, I think we will end up agreeing?

These are two things:

a) a demographico-agronomic problem, the ingredients of which are: population increase, staple food = potato; severe attack of mildew

b) a socio-political system not only not able to handle this, but that it arranges: to free poor owners, whose land is taken over by landlords ...

It is neither "only a)", nor "only b)", but "a) + b)"

I nevertheless think that there would have been an "agronomic crisis", which we could have managed better if there were not b) (so it would have existed, but not at all in historically famous proportions)
0 x
User avatar
Did67
Moderator
Moderator
posts: 20362
Registration: 20/01/08, 16:34
Location: Alsace
x 8685




by Did67 » 22/09/13, 10:00

Ahmed wrote:
* This explains the self-defeating process of today's widespread economic functioning. The purely accounting balance of these activities can appear very positive, on the other hand it is possible only by a furious extractivity which is its hidden side and which is, it, extremely negative, since suicidal.


I am one of those who think that the system is preparing for difficult days:

a) population growth
b) economic growth with food shifts: meat, processed products, obesity explodes in China ...
c) other uses of the land: concrete / bitumen and energy demand
d) free trade with the dismantling of security mechanisms: market regulation (there are hardly any more! Call the negotiations in Brussels around "guaranteed agricultural prices"), low stocks (an economy in just-in-time remember "mountains of butter" or powdered milk), speculation (in Chicago, agricultural products are sold which have not been produced and this determines the distribution of flour in Egypt or corn in Mexico!)

I do not see how this equation can not become explosive.

Let's admit that I'm pessimistic ... It happens to "old idiots" [term which I self-ratified on I don't know what thread]
0 x
raymon
Grand Econologue
Grand Econologue
posts: 901
Registration: 03/12/07, 19:21
Location: vaucluse
x 9




by raymon » 22/09/13, 11:10

I do not see how this equation can not become explosive.

Unless the ideas of decay, an individual and collective awareness develops a revolution in the positive sense occurs. It will be sooner or later.
Agroforestry or culture like milpa are part of the revolution, some ideas developed on this site and others are part of it too.
To return to the subject the important problem of agriculture is the ratio of carbon nitrogen, inputs and exports, in the milpa there is no external contribution of carbon genus brf but there is recovery of the air nitrogen by legumes (beans)
Indeed the 2 systems are interesting but are adapted to more or less populated areas.
0 x
User avatar
Did67
Moderator
Moderator
posts: 20362
Registration: 20/01/08, 16:34
Location: Alsace
x 8685




by Did67 » 22/09/13, 12:52

Here too, the major "agronomic revolution" was the introduction of legumes instead of the three-year fallow! (in the 18th century? I'm suddenly not sure - lazy to go back)

We forgot it with cheap energy (cheap nitrogen fertilizers), the specialization of the regions (here the cereal farming, there, the breeding ...)

But all the "European" systems are gradually coming back to that.

It can be done in a tangle, like milpa. Or in rotation. It changes absolutely nothing! 1/3 of the "leaf area" (energy capture) "occupied" by a legume under a corn or a legume every 3 years, that's almost kifkif. I say quaisment, because you can scratch a little, at the cost of work that cannot be mechanized ...

[I do this in my garden; in addition to the BRF, of which I make moderate use linked to the "waste" of pruning / felling my rabers and hedges, I put a lot on the clover of Alexandria]

Do not idealize the milpa: the report says nothing about the overall productivity of the system! How many "mouths" can we feed with 1 ha? What we can see is that the family is eating well. She undoubtedly sells a little to buy other non-produced products ... This remains a "relatively" autarkic model, inapplicable in our societies. Except "revolution" as mentioned above, I can hardly see 70% of the population returning to the earth (Pol Pot tried! - humor! Black - but humor!]

[in the same way, the film is shown on extensification among the Wentz, which we understand in 2 hours of discussion with the father or the son and 3 specific questions; but hey, the film didn't want to "rate"; it was a plea for a "possible other" and it cannot "confuse" by qualifying; sad law of the media! But let's take it as such]
0 x
User avatar
Did67
Moderator
Moderator
posts: 20362
Registration: 20/01/08, 16:34
Location: Alsace
x 8685




by Did67 » 22/09/13, 13:00

raymon wrote:
the important problem of agriculture is the ratio of carbon to nitrogen, inputs and exports.


Can I correct you a bit without getting drunk?

Le investigation report C / N is for composting! There, it is a question of balanced feeding of bacteria so that it bumps quickly and "heats" the heap, without flow of juice and without anaerobic fermentation generating methane (powerful greenhouse gas if it is not not collected).

Agriculture is cycles to talk about:

- nitrogen cycle, with inputs into the "field" system: fertilizers, compots, plant remains and nettles: plant samples (part exported from the field); the enrichment of a cycle impoverished by losses can be done by: a) fertilizer; b) horizontal transfers (BRF); c) legumes that capture nitrogen from the air and fix it

- carbon cycle: it is much simpler; the source = CO² from the air, available in quantity! Photosynthetic plants "type" in this reserve; when the biomass decomposes aerobically (compost, burns, digestion + respiration), CO² is released again; hence the argument that heating with biomass is CO² neutral; Ditto for "feeding" on biomass; at the end the CO² "borrowed from the air" is found in the form of CO² in the air! And when we burn wood, we use solar energy stored by plants. When we run too!

The C, in this story, is like batteries: alone or associated with the H in the biomass, it is "recharged" in energy; oxidized, in the form of CO² it is waste without energy; chlorophyll acts as a charger for these batteries!
0 x

Back to "Agriculture: problems and pollution, new techniques and solutions"

Who is online ?

Users browsing this forum : No registered users and 308 guests