Background Info (detailed in several places elsewhere on this blog)
1. Factory farming of crops and livestock is damaging soil, depleting water supplies, using too much energy, damaging our climate, eliminating small family farms, reducing necessary biodiversity, and polluting the ecosphere (which includes us).
2. Big Agriculture's Globalization of food production and distribution sounds good, and once in a blue moon even looks good; however, overall it's faltering and turning into a disaster.
3. Climate change, multiple-continent supply chains, geopolitical rivalries, war, energy shortages, financial sanctions, and the like are all making global production and distribution of food problematic.
4. One-third of the world's food already is grown on farms less than five acres each. Source: https://ourworldindata.org/smallholder-food-production
The Coming Positive Global Change
1. Whether we plan for it or not, various factors will drive humans to transition from Globalization to Localization (and Regionalization). All goods, including food, will be involved. A few places in the world already have made a start.
2. As much as possible: food will be grown locally and/or regionally; synthetic, petrochemical herbicides & insecticides will not be used; and big machinery will not be necessary. Here's how it's done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
3. If you don't believe this can be done in towns and cities, do a YouTube Search for "urban community gardens", or "urban farming", and you'll be amazed. In any case, it can be done just outside the city limits (if not smack-dab downtown).
4. Because of greatly shortened supply chains, much less need for petrochemicals, much less need for fuel-guzzling big machinery, and much less need for packaging & processing, this type of organic farming will GREATLY reduce global energy use. That's important because within about ten years, we'll be forced to cut way back on energy use. [See the Nate Hagens interviews on YouTube which deal with Energy Blindness, as well as those on Minerals Blindness. Simon Michaux and Tom Murphy also are good sources.]
5. Because it uses drip-irrigation in areas where such is required, it also will significantly reduce freshwater depletion. Currently, world agriculture uses 70% of all water fit for human consumption. The lion's share of that is gobbled up by Big Ag (Factory Farming), and for the most part, drip-irrigation is not used.
You may be thinking, hey, I'm not a farmer. Why should I care about any of this? I would answer, do you like to eat? 😊 If your community or county or State does not start planning for the coming changes in food availability and fresh water availability, then you will be a farmer...a subsistence farmer.
We all need to convince our local authorities to at least look into these matters. The probability is extremely high that relatively soon we'll be forced to become a low-energy-use society all around the globe. The metrics for such a scenario are all there. Localization will be a massive help, but to avoid chaos, planning for it must start ASAP.
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Not only my opinion. Be Well
