Orava Castle, north central Slovakia
All photographs copyright © Craig Mackintosh

Contrast and Change

I count it quite a privilege to be one of very few ‘Westerners’ to have been able to visit and observe the transition of former east-bloc countries – from shortly after their break-up from communism, through successive visits until today. It is now eighteen years since my first visit, and, in some places more than others, much has changed.

Looking back, I remember my initial trip to central Europe back in 1992 (then called the ‘East Bloc’). Entering Czechoslovakia from Germany was, to me, like leaving the earth and landing on the moon – except without the space travel in between to get one accustomed to the idea of where one was heading! The difference between the Europe I was familiar with, and the land I discovered immediately beyond the Czech border control, was like day and night. There was no gradual blending of the two civilisations – it was pure contrast.

Travelling on to the Slovak half of Czechoslovakia (or ‘Slovakia’ as of January 1, 1993, when Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech and Slovak Republics) brought a great deal of interest and discovery for me – it was, to a great extent, like travelling back in time. The vehicles, buildings – even colours – were old, and tired. There was only a few makes of vehicle – Czechoslovakian Skodas, Russian Ladas, and the notorious East German ‘Trabant’, made up the bulk of traffic. For heavy transport there were only the smaller blue (always blue!) Czechoslovakian LIAZ, Praga and Tatra trucks.

The east German trabant. Performance & Specifications: 650kg weight, 594cc
displacement, 2 stroke, 2 cylinders, 25bhp (19kW), 4-speed gearbox, front wheel
drive, 0 – 100kph in [an exhilarating] 21 seconds, top speed 112kph, ‘Duroplast’
body panels (plastic containing resin strengthened by wool or cotton). This blue
smoke spewing car became the poster child of liberation from communism as
thousands of people rushed into western Europe in them when the
wall fell in 1989.

Shops sold a very limited range of goods, often of poor quality, and food items were often out of date. Service was ‘blunt’ to say the least. Because in communism everything is owned by the state, and whether you work hard, or hardly at all, you would benefit little from your effort, there was no incentive to go beyond the call of duty. It was very difficult to lose your job, the customer was definitely not king, and there was certainly no ‘suggestion box’.

Today, these countries are a real mixed bag. I still see contrast, but now the contrast is found within these countries themselves. There has been a lot of change, and, as expected, some good and some not – depending on your perspective.

Paneláks in Slovakia – today these are inhabited by a large percentage of
the country’s middle class

While the socialist politicians in power had always been ardent communists before, now they were quick to denounce the ideology and embrace capitalism as if it had always been their secret love. When communism ended here, there were no guillotines in the streets, no revolution, no violence. The nations’ leaders simply changed hats and continued in their positions, trying to bumble their way forward, awkwardly, into a new world chasing the great American dream.

Rather than develop local infrastructure at a community level, western businesses struck all the right deals and rushed in en masse in a kind of wild west economic, gold rush free-for-all. Collectivisation has continued in a new form. Old communist style apartment buildings (Paneláks) now overlook large, modern Tesco trucks delivering goods to new supermarkets from enormous distribution centres that source goods at great energy expense from all corners of the globe. McDonalds serves their standard fare alongside many other outlets in large western-style food courts. Service is improving in places, particularly from young retailers – who never had to live with the feeling of being controlled, or now unlearn the attitude that gave.

The UK’s Tesco has greatest control over the market in Slovakia today

Young entrepreneurs drive Audis and BMWs out of car lots, and onto new motorways. Previously, even if you could afford a car, you had to put your name on a waiting list, and do exactly that – wait! Now, the western problem of traffic jams and queues has well and truly arrived as more and more people get mobile. In fact, villagers in some areas are so up in arms about the tremendous flow of large new trucks they’re threatening blockades.

The leap from forty-five years of communism to full-blown capitalism is one that takes time – but some of these countries have certainly made headway, and, like in western countries, the move to large centralised stores is coming at great cost. Britain’s Tesco, Austria’s Billa and Germany’s Lidl chains have staked their claim and have become the dominant forces on the big box store landscape. Like the the west, these large supermarkets destroy the small, local ‘butcher, baker, and candlestick-maker’. Many of the smaller stores I used to frequent, co-ops which sourced their goods locally, are today closed, or in a worse state than before communism fell. They cannot compete. The move to low-paid production-line staff with just a few ‘fat cats’ occurred in double-quick fashion, and, in this scenario, the fat cats live in foreign lands, so profits do not return to the nation as a whole, let alone the community.

Some people are “lovin’ it”, and some are left behind. Some are now prosperous, and some penniless. During communism everyone was guaranteed a job, but not opportunity. Now there is enormous potential, but great obstacles – obstacles largely created by the exasperating but all-pervasive belief that anything ‘western’ must be better. At the time of the breakup of communism, there were calls from a few sober-minded souls, from both the ‘East’ and the ‘West’, that these nations would do well to take a moment of pause and consider a ‘third way‘. But these voices, which now seem almost prophetic, were drowned out amid a jubilant party mood, as a weary citizenry sought to reach for the stars. Since then, secretive corporate/political collusion has ensured the powerful their desired economic wedge into this newly accessible territory.

Not yet being as ‘fully developed’ as, say, the US or UK capitalist system, the effects of the 2008/2009 recession arrived late to these areas. But now that it’s here people are feeling the pinch. With growing unemployment, and a migration back home of workers that went abroad, people are increasingly pondering their future and questioning the wisdom of post-communism decisions. Official figures state that 13 percent of Slovakia’s population is living with, to use their diplomatic term, “borderline poverty.” For those who are mathematically challenged – that’s one in every eight people. At the same time, I see western charities seeking donations from these countries barely able to deal with their own problems.

People who had lived healthy, low carbon, sustainable lives in villages scattered all over the country are now dying of old age, their skills dying with them – while their children have vanished to the cities or foreign countries like Germany, the UK or further afield in search of a ‘better life’, plugging into the money economy just in time to see it collapse. Families are, just like in the west, getting more and more fragmented, while large-scale monoculture farming moves into place instead.

An often-asked question in the west is “can capitalism have a conscience?” It is sure that communism didn’t – their disregard for the environment and human rights, for example, is notorious, and although all were meant to be equal, the communist-period joke that “some people are more equal than others” was definitely more than just humour. But, can these societies that have, despite their bleak circumstances, traditionally been made up of tightly knit and supportive extended families, retain their ‘wholesome charm’ while rushing headlong into this new economy?

Kings and Conquerors – Capitalism ‘Triumphs’ Where They Didn’t

It’s fascinating to me that where centuries of kings and conquerors failed, capitalism is making short work of unraveling these localised economies. This region has been inhabited by Slavic peoples for a millennia and a half, some say much longer. These were largely agricultural, peasant folk, working their land, their gardens and husbanding their animals in what was often a peaceful, culture rich existence.

Almost every Slovak valley and village had its own unique design of traditional
dress – often extremely intricate and exquisite (see detail below). Such
time consuming and beautiful, ’superfluous’, work is evidence that this culture’s
lifestyle went well beyond just menial endeavours. [Note: excuse the happy
face - I am respecting the model's wish not to be published online]

Over these many centuries different invaders have done their worst – including the Romans, the Huns (think Atilla), early Germanic tribes, the Tatars (Turks), the Mongols (Genghis Khan), the Ottoman Empire, the Austrian Habsburg monarchy, the Austria-Hungarian dual monarchy, and of course much of these periods were only interruptions of eras of Hungarian control and even forced Magyarisation, where the Slovak language was banned in churches and schools. (In an interesting twist, this linguistic conflict continues today.) Then came the short lived but highly repressive Nazi invasion and the subsequent ‘liberation’ into complete communist control.

Although at times through the centuries the Slavic inhabitants were slaughtered and their homes and lands taken by force, by and large the life of peasant folk continued despite the presence of these oppressors. The sun rose and set over their fields, seeds were sown and crops harvested, wool was spun or made into felt so clothes could be made, lumber grew and was turned into homes – regardless of who claimed ownership over their existence from distant cities.

Villagers work their gardens under the Tatry mountains

These people lived by their own ingenuity and from the resources that surrounded them. There are still plenty of signs of this way of life alive today, a glimpse of which we’ll catch below, but capitalism’s economic subjugation of the people has been effective in a way that armies and swords never were. Money has won over might. Where people before might defend their land and life from invading armies, now they voluntarily, eagerly, give them up. Physical labour and frugal living has now become a life to be shunned and discarded, rather than defended. The poisoned carrot offered by media-led capitalism lures people away from their traditional, community-oriented sustainable existence, towards a dream of leisure and wealth. But, as we’re seeing today, that dream is just that – a dream. The youth are now discovering they’ve left their village to chase a mirage – a journey that has left them wholly vulnerable and dependent on a system over which they have no control.

In the capital, Bratislava, in the southwest of Slovakia, is a small city of Paneláks called Petržalka, where up to 115,000 people live in what is the most densely packed residential district in Central Europe. While a legacy of communism, it is also a fitting example of the kind ‘western development’ we see elsewhere. As a high rise city, it effectively becomes a large scale work camp, where workers can be tightly packed in close proximity to industry, to service the corporate need for labour. Without land, residents are wholly dependent on the money economy. I fear for regions like this in coming years – when peak oil’s stranglehold on the economy becomes all to real, and the trucks supplying food to the scattered supermarkets fail to show, what will become of these people who’ve painted themselves into a fossil fuel dependent corner?

A Glimpse of Past Resilience

Their names have been changed to protect their true identities – but let me introduce a wonderful couple I met a few years ago. I found them in the north of Slovakia, and they were kind enough to let me photograph them.

Marge & Ted

Ted was 86 at the time, and Marge 80. They live a very simple, self-sufficient life, hidden away from modernity in a tiny village in the hills. Their knowledge of the outside world was somewhat indicated by their questioning how long it would take to drive to New Zealand.

Ted is from a large family – he had eleven siblings – and has been a shepherd and peasant farmer all of his life. Marge’s mother died prematurely, so her family was not so large. Ted and Marge bore three children themselves, one of whom died from cancer a few years ago at the age of forty-nine.

One of their sons is pictured here – he lives with Ted & Marge, along with his wife. They all work together, and appear to be very happy in their work and life.

I was privileged to see some of the activities they perform in their daily work. Amongst these was the manufacture of a smoked cheese they sell. Here you can see Ted removing the two halves of a mould the cheese is formed in:

The cheese is produced from two cows that are housed in a straw-strewn stall underneath their house. The cows are kept inside through the harsh winter and were due to be taken outside within a day of my visit.

It is worth noting that, generally, people on the streets of Slovakia are usually very reluctant to smile or greet you. Wave to a villager as you pass by and more often than not they’ll just stare. Communism bred a certain amount of hesitancy and suspicion amongst the populace. In fact, many lived nervous of being reported to the authorities for offences (whether real or manufactured), and learned to be careful in making acquaintances. But, in contrast to this, when someone in Slovakia opens their home to you, they well and truly make up for their street-side aloofness.

Marge was very ‘animated’, and immensely pleased with my visit. She mentioned other people and activities in the village, and suggested I also visit a man a few houses along. I decided to take her suggestion, and promised to return afterwards.

Stan

Meet Stan. Stan was 68 at the time, and, like most villagers, a jack of many trades. He worked in a factory for much of his life, but had many other activities outside of this labour. He is a blacksmith, carpenter, builder, and hunter, amongst others.

He has (again, like most villagers) built his own house and almost everything within it. Stan was eager to show me his Remington single-shot rifle – with which he has shot boar, deer, and much more (antlers, stuffed animals, and the frozen stares from animal heads covered his walls). Hunting was clearly his primary passion – even the bottle and shot glasses he produced for sharing his homemade plum brandy (slivovica) were adorned with pictures of his prey.

More like rocket fuel than a beverage – but one must be polite…

Stan took me out to see a large old loom he had housed in an outbuilding, with which his wife weaves carpets from offcut material sourced from nearby. The loom is over 120 years old, and “never breaks down, nor needs oiling,” he proclaimed.

Back at Marge and Ted’s house, I discover the floors have been swept, benches wiped, and her hair brushed. Hospitality is in full swing, and I find myself needing to be careful what I accept, for fear I may not be able to keep it down! Already at Stan’s I struggled to swallow some of the stringy highly salted cheese that is popular in this region.

Ted offered a hearty cup of “Zincica” (there are accents needed on these letters I cannot provide with this keyboard!). This beverage is the result of boiling the thin milk that remains after producing cheese, until the Zincica (Zin-cheat-sa) floats to the top and is scooped off – ready to enjoy!

I left as Ted, Marge, and her son prepared to plant potatoes that afternoon. Marge’s son readied the plough for this purpose.

Marge gave me the warmest hug as I departed. I felt like I was from another planet entirely – but she made me feel right at home.

I am always humbled and impressed by people that can live apart from the hugely unsustainable society most of us don’t know how to escape. Even many well intentioned, and brave, ‘alternative’ individuals that attempt to live as these people do, find it virtually impossible to do so. Ted, Marge, Stan, and their families – with their fruit trees, their gardens, chickens, food preserving and root cellars – all learned innumerable skills from their parents that are now being discarded by a new generation who do not realise their value. But, as the vulnerabilities of our house-of-cards globalised economic system become obvious, some, even amongst the young, are starting to see value again in the accumulated wisdom of the past. Permaculture certainly has a lot to offer these people in fine tuning their traditional methods for increased efficiency and productivity.

These countries are changing – of that there is no doubt. As someone that’s lived mostly in western societies – I can’t help but wish they could learn from our mistakes, and not be too quick to discard their past completely. It seems with their new freedom there is much to gain, but perhaps also much that could get lost.

In September 1973 I caught ‘flu. My wife said to me, with callous indifference to my misery, “Stop lying there looking sorry for yourself. Why don’t you solve the energy crisis?” – Professor Salter, in the University of Edinburgh Bulletin, Volume 11, Number 2, 1974

Some, including Professor Salter, believe he just may have – although, the eventual outcome of his research and experimentation was somewhat shrouded in mystery….

Miniature Salter’s Duck in test tank

His invention, Salter’s Edinburgh Duck, continues to be the machine against which all others are measured. In small scale controlled tests, the Duck’s curved cam-like body can stop 90% of wave motion and can convert 90% of that to electricity. While it continues to represent the most efficient use of available material and wave resources, the machine has never gone to sea, primarily because its complex hydraulic system is not well suited to incremental implementation, and the costs and risks of a full-scale test would be high….

According to sworn testimony before the House of Parliament, The UK Wave Energy program was shut down on March 19, 1982, in a closed meeting, the details of which remain secret. The members of the meeting were recruited largely from the nuclear and fossil fuels industries, and the wave programme manager, Clive Grove-Palmer, was excluded.

An analysis of Salter’s Duck resulted in a miscalculation of the estimated cost of energy production by a factor of 10, an error which was only recently identified. Some wave power advocates believe that this error, combined with a general lack of enthusiasm for renewable energy in the 1980s (after oil prices fell), hindered the advancement of wave power technology. – Wikipedia

Some even go as far to say that Salter’s Duck was a very inconvenient solution that was intentionally killed by nuclear lobbyists.

Harnessing the combined forces of wind, the earth’s spin, and the
moon’s gravitational pull

Waves are not short on power. In fact, the sheer potency of the ocean is a serious issue for engineers. How do you build something that can withstand the constant wear and tear of the enormous weight of ocean surges? And, once you have that figured, add in extra fortification for stormy conditions, and top it off with protection against the incredibly corrosive effects of salt.

The outcome was that many regarded such technology as prohibitively expensive. Even prototypes, if they were to offer a half-decent impression of what the real thing could do, were pricey enough to discourage a rush in investment.

But, as we all know, oil prices only fell so far – and have since turned around to rush right back at us again. Renewable energy options are back on the table, and some believe wave power is one of the soundest environmental options – at least for those nations with an accommodating coastline (most of the best sites are on the western coastlines of continents and islands between the 40′ and 60′ latitudes, above and below the equator).

Some perceived pros and cons:

Pros:

• If properly located, more consistent power source than wind or solar
• Cheap to maintain
• A potentially highly efficient wave-to-electricity conversion ratio
• The sheer force/density of water compared to wind equates to far fewer generators being required compared with wind turbines
• Low negative impact on ecosystems
• Visually inconspicuous

Cons:

• High initial startup costs
• Must be able to withstand very rough weather
• Needs a suitable site, where waves are consistently strong
• Difficulty to transfer energy back to land

Today there are several kinds of Ocean Power devices either in use, in construction, or being experimented with. Although the Salter’s Duck design is regarded as having the highest power conversion ratio, other designs have their own benefits. Where local geographic features allow, some designs have been successfully integrated into cliffs and shorelines, removing the problem of electricity transfer back to land – and providing better maintenance access.

Here are a few examples of different kinds of Ocean Power designs:

Limpet (Land Installed Marine Powered Energy Transformer): A third of the energy requirements of the Isle of Islay, off the western coast of Scotland, are powered from one of these guys. Power is generated as waves enter the open cavity, concentrating and forcing air through a chamber on the top (or rear depending on the design) of the installation. The forced air turns a turbine, which turns a generator.

You can see how it works here:

Pelamis: This long, hinged tube (about 160 metres long) is appropriately named after the Pelamis sea-snake. As it bobs up and down in the waves, the hinges bend and pump hydraulic fluid which drives generators.

Scottish engineers built the Pelamis wave farm in Portugal, and it was announced last year that a much bigger farm will be built in Scottish waters. The completion date should be 2011. Learn more about the Pelamis here.

A report on the Pelamis off the coast of Oporto, Portugal – the world’s first wave farm implementation:

And here’s another variation for good measure:

Mighty Whale: This monster device is the latest incarnation of a long line of experimentation in ocean power technologies in Japan. A Mighty Whale prototype, complete with painted mouth and eyes, was launched in Japan in 1998, and has been the subject of open sea tests since. More info here and here.

As in every area of power generation, whether coal-fired, nuclear, wind or solar – energy storage issues are still a thorn in the energy industry’s side. Being able to feed Ocean Power into established power grids, with its generally more consistent generation, has the potential to supply a significant percentage of energy needs – for those countries with appropriate westerly facing shorelines (e.g. west coasts of Scotland, northern Canada, the U.S. northwest and northeast seaboards, southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand in particular).

There are also other potential applications for Ocean Power installations, in addition to generating electricity, like the generation of hydrogen for vehicles, or water desalination.

Back in the ’80s government and industry in the UK, apparently, stalled progress in ocean power development. Today, competitive industry influences with their long established relationships, including Solar and Wind industries, will still seek to gain contracts in the place of the lesser known ocean power technologies – but, it’s also certain that the tide is turning. Professor Salter may not have fulfilled his wife’s request to solve the world’s energy crisis, but his work was certainly more than just a drop in the ocean.

In combination with a much needed reduction in consumption levels, such technologies could help some countries mitigate energy shocks as we head into an era of energy descent.

A few of several different Ocean Power designs

There are new designs for wave power systems coming out all the time. The clip below is an example of such:

It’s clear that the world is heading into an extremely interesting new decade. While the world’s insatiable demand for energy shows no sign of slowing in its exponential curve upwards, it’s clear that in the not-too-distant future supply issues are going to become acute. These two clashing parameters promise to take us into an economic ride of almost biblical proportions. If we think the energy price spikes of 2008 and the subsequent recession of 2009 have been a tough time, brace yourselves – there’s much more to come yet….

Whilst wholly late in arriving, at least now we’re seeing these serious issues being increasingly focused on in the mainstream media. Governments, however, are still exceedingly slow to apply the precautionary principle – largely choosing to cherry pick the most optimistic forecasts so they can leave the hard decisions to whoever lands the miserable task of taking on the next term in office. The irony is that even their most optimistic forecasts provide a time frame for transition that still leaves us needing to make serious haste if we’re to avoid major social upheaval, and yet we’re still doing little to nothing. And, when we examine the more conservative and realistic estimates out there, we see we’re now put in the unenviable position of trying to minimise the worst aspects of that upheaval, as it will be impossible to avoid major difficulties entirely.

One thing that is often overlooked when we think of the necessary transition is the energy it takes to make that transition. Building new infrastructure to accommodate renewable technologies like wind, wave and solar power takes copious amounts of fossil fuels – from production of components through to transport, installation and maintenance. When fuel prices skyrocket once more, and skyrocket they will, the rollout of ‘green’ technologies will thus also become more difficult and price-prohibitive. We can really get caught between a rock and a hard place, and this is exactly why getting proactive about transition right now is imperative. The old saying, ‘a stitch in time, saves nine’, has never had such urgency of meaning.

The people at BeyondZeroEmissions.org are giving some thought to a rapid energy descent, specifically in regards to Australia’s electricity production. As a result they’ve just released their Zero Carbon Australia report – an attempt to produce a blueprint for making a ten year transition to 100% renewable electricity. The full report isn’t out yet, but the six page executive summary is worth a peek:

Yes We Can! – Zero Emissions Electricity by 2020

For immediate release, 17 February 2010

Zero emissions electricity by 2020 – affordable, sensible, do-able

• See how – 6 page preview executive summary is available now for download:

  http://media.beyondzeroemissions.org/preview-exec-sum14.pdf

• The full report will be available for distribution and download by mid year.

Beyond Zero Emissions’ cutting-edge Zero Carbon Australia 2020 (ZCA2020) Stationary Energy Plan is a detailed, costed blueprint demonstrating how Australia can reach zero emissions electricity by 2020 using proven, existing, commercialised technology.

Whilst not all the solutions proposed may be perfect (the only truly clean energy I know of is the result of photosynthesis), they’re a whole lot more appealing and practical than any government policy directions I’ve seen to date. Material like this needs to be examined, discussed and improved on in the halls of power today – unless they have something more pressing to do that is….

With oil running out, and biofuels not being the answer, perhaps humans should grow and trade their food closer to home.

Perhaps we suffer from collectively traumatised amygdalas.

It was about this time, that we heard Bill Mollison speak on Permaculture, with zones, to encourage a design plan that integrates the environment, plants and people with a vision of possibilities.

Vegetable and herb gardens were started and fruit trees were planted. Poultry, dairy goats, pigs and milking cows were added. Derrick being very gifted with skills of building fences, sheds, and as ‘a fix-it man’ was able to do many and varied tasks on the farm. Derrick, being a butcher by trade, was also able to turn the animals into cuts of meat for the freezer, mince into sausages, meat into smoked hams.

A nursery area was started to provide our own plants for the farm. Soon, people started asking us for various herbs and edible plants and the nursery grew like ‘topsy’.

I found plants so fascinating and loved to read about them and learn as much as I could. Collecting edibles was fun and resourceful for the farm and the nursery. Today our large range of culinary and medicinal herbs, spices, fruits, rare edibles, and seed varieties are sought by people from near and far. Postal orders placed by people for plants and seeds, keeps the family very busy. Derrick, now retired, is still the handy-man. Angela and her husband David, assisted by their daughter Aleisha, now run the farm.

For many years the Farm held regular, free guided farm tours, when I’d would show people around explaining the many useful plants that people could grow in their gardens. These Farm Walks were very popular and large groups of people would assemble to learn.

At the end of one afternoon farm walk, an elderly man was most enthused by the many edible plants, but said, he would never be able to remember all the information. He suggested that I write a book. Many other people over the years echoed the same suggestion.

But, where to find the time, to write a book? However, the concept was often in my thoughts, and I made notes and collected information, and recorded my own and other people’s experiences of benefits to their health with herbs. Herbs can play such a valuable role in health and this is what I wanted to enthuse people to see, and to use their herbs regularly.

Then in 2001 I started to write, and in June 2003 the book was born: “How can I use herbs in my daily life?” which covers over 500 herbs (see this DVD also). The response to the Herb Book from all over the world has been overwhelming, with readers saying they use their herbs more and report wonderful benefits to health. People have told me that they use the Herb Book as a constant reference, and also share the information with others and this is what herbal folklore is all about – passing it on.

Good health is precious. Every person needs to work at maintaining health, therefore, we need to learn all we can about how the body functions, nutrients required, digestion and assimilation, the many benefits of herbs, and the value of food with living enzymes.

As I became more aware of the value of enzymes and living food, I started to see that little things like ‘sprouts’ could have a big impact on health, as they provide a high degree of vitality and rejuvenation to the body. People who were reading the Herb Book were interested in knowing more about wheat grass and sprouts, which I had mentioned in the book. I showed them how I grew sprouts, particularly fenugreek, which is my favourite sprout. It was from that interest, the book “How can I grow and use sprouts as living food?” came to be written (see this DVD also).

Sprouts have so many valuable attributes: high protein and nutrient content, fibre and essential fatty acids, and they are rich in antioxidants and living enzymes. Sprouts are ‘super foods’ and are something every person can grow right in their kitchen at very minimal cost.

Many readers of the sprout book have said that this book should be in every home. The book is easy to read, and it is easy to put the simple steps into practice. I encourage every home to grow sprouts regularly, and get the many benefits of sprouts as living food.

In 2007 I was led to write once more, resulting in "How can I be prepared with Self-sufficiency and Survival Foods?" Many people have said that this book is very timely with the present financial situation.

Just why did I come to write a book centered on this topic? For many years I taught herb courses, covering many edible plants, and included a segment on the importance of self-sufficiency and survival for possible hard times.

During one class, when I asked, “If shops closed tomorrow, how much food do you have to feed your family?”

One woman replied, “Maybe enough for one week.” This made me think how dependent the majority of people are on farmers, trucking companies and shops to provide their daily food. People often expressed that I should put information on self-sufficiency into a book. Then, in 2007, my son Ricky rang from Adelaide, while doing a course on alternative energies.

Ricky said, “Mum, when are you going to write that book on self-sufficiency and survival? There will be a big demand for it.”

His words gave me the nudge to get writing! During 2008 I sensed a real urgency to put this information together. This is not only my perception of what is happening in Australia and world-wide, but everyone is feeling and experiencing the pressure, as everything they purchase has risen in price, dramatically.

The AIM of this book is to share with people the importance of being as self-sufficient as one is able, with the likelihood of very difficult times ahead. We all need to rethink our current wasteful habits and consider the best use of our natural resources and renewable energies. It is time for us all to take action to: reduce, recycle, repair and reuse items, over again.

This book is written for people who have relied upon shops for everything and so that people who already grow some food in their backyard will be spurred on to be even more self-reliant.

After a half-century of forming new states from former colonies and from the breakup of the Soviet Union, the international community is today focusing on the disintegration of states. The term “failing state” has entered our working vocabulary only during the last decade or so, but these countries are now an integral part of the international political landscape. In the past, governments have been concerned by the concentration of too much power in one state, as in Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union. But today it is failing states that provide the greatest threat to global order and stability.

States fail when national governments lose control of part or all of their territory and can no longer ensure the personal security of their people. When governments lose their monopoly on power, the rule of law begins to disintegrate. When they can no longer provide basic services such as education, health care, and food security, they lose their legitimacy. A government in this position may no longer be able to collect enough revenue to finance effective governance. Societies can become so fragmented that they lack the cohesion to make decisions.

Failing states often degenerate into civil war as opposing groups vie for power. Conflicts can easily spread to neighboring countries, as when the genocide in Rwanda spilled over into the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where an ongoing civil conflict has claimed more than 5 million lives since 1998. The vast majority of these deaths in the Congo are nonviolent, most of them due to hunger, respiratory illnesses, diarrhea, and other diseases as millions have been driven from their homes. Within the Sudan, the killings in Darfur quickly spread into Chad.

Failing states can also provide possible training grounds for international terrorist groups, as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen, or as a base for pirates, as in Somalia. They may become sources of drugs, as in Myanmar (formerly Burma) or Afghanistan, which accounted for 92 percent of the world’s opium supply in 2008, much of which is made into heroin. Because they lack functioning health care services, weakened states can become a source of infectious disease, as Nigeria and Pakistan have for polio, derailing efforts to eradicate this dreaded disease.

Among the most conspicuous indications of state failure is a breakdown in law and order and a related loss of personal security. In Haiti, kidnappings for ransom of local people lucky enough to be among the 30 percent of the labor force that is employed are commonplace. In Afghanistan the local warlords, not the central government, control the country outside of Kabul. Somalia, which now exists only on maps, is ruled by tribal leaders, each claiming a piece of what was once a country. In Mexico, drug cartels are taking over, signaling the prospect of a failed state on the U.S. border.

The most systematic ongoing effort to analyze failed and failing states is published annually in each July/August issue of Foreign Policy magazine. This analysis ranks countries according to “their vulnerability to violent internal conflict and societal deterioration.” Based on 12 social, economic, political, and military indicators, it puts Somalia at the top of the list of failed states for 2008, followed by Zimbabwe, Sudan, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Three oil-exporting countries are among the top 20 failed states—Sudan, Iraq, and Nigeria. Pakistan, number 10 on the list, is the only failing state with a nuclear arsenal. North Korea, number 17, is developing a nuclear capability.

Scores for each of the 12 indicators, ranging from 1 to 10, are aggregated into a single country indicator: the Failed States Index. A score of 120, the maximum, means that a society is failing totally by every measure. In the first Foreign Policy listing, based on data for 2004, just 7 countries had scores of 100 or more. By 2008 it was 14—doubling in four years. This short trend is far from definitive, but higher scores for countries at the top and the doubling of countries with scores of 100 or higher suggest that state failure is both spreading and deepening.

Ranking on the Failed States Index is closely linked with key demographic and environmental indicators. Of the top 20 failed states, 17 have rapid rates of population growth, several of them expanding at close to 3 percent a year or 20-fold per century. In 5 of these 17 countries, women have on average more than six children each. In all but 6 of the top 20 failed states, at least 40 percent of the population is under 15, a demographic statistic that often signals future political instability. Young men, lacking employment opportunities, often become disaffected, making them ready recruits for insurgency movements.

In many of the countries with several decades of rapid population growth, governments are suffering from demographic fatigue, unable to cope with the steady shrinkage in cropland and freshwater supplies per person or to build schools fast enough for the swelling ranks of children.

Sudan is a classic case of a country caught in the demographic trap. It has developed far enough economically and socially to reduce mortality, but not far enough to quickly reduce fertility. As a result, women on average have four children and the population of 41 million is growing by over 2,000 per day. Under this pressure, Sudan—like scores of other countries—is breaking down.

All but 3 of the 20 countries that lead the list of failing states are caught in this demographic trap. Realistically, they probably cannot break out of it on their own. They will need outside help—and not just a scattering of aid projects but systemic assistance in rebuilding—or the political situation will simply continue to deteriorate.

Among the top 20 countries on the failing state list, all but a few are losing the race between food production and population growth. Close to half of these states depend on a food lifeline from the World Food Programme. Food shortages can put intense pressures on governments. In many countries the social order began showing signs of stress in 2007 in the face of soaring food prices and spreading hunger. Food riots and unrest continued in 2008 in dozens of countries, from tortilla riots in Mexico to breadline fights in Egypt. In Haiti, soaring food prices helped bring down the government.

Another characteristic of failing states is a deterioration of infrastructure—roads and power, water, and sewage systems. Care for natural systems is also neglected as people struggle to survive. Forests, grasslands, and croplands deteriorate, generating a downward economic spiral. A drying up of foreign investment and a resultant rise in unemployment are also part of the decline syndrome.

Countries like Haiti and Afghanistan are surviving because they are on international life-support systems. Economic assistance, including food lifelines, is helping to sustain them. But there is not enough assistance to overcome the reinforcing trends of deterioration they are experiencing and replace them with the demographic and political stability need to sustain economic progress.

In an age of increasing globalization, the functioning of the global system depends on a cooperative network of functioning nation states. When governments lose their capacity to govern, they can no longer collect taxes, much less be responsible for their international debts. More failing states means more bad debt. Efforts to control international terrorism depend on cooperation among functioning nation states, and these efforts weaken as more states fail.

As the number of failing states grows, dealing with international crises becomes more difficult. Actions that may be relatively simple in a healthy world order, such as maintaining monetary stability or controlling an infectious disease outbreak, could become difficult or impossible in a world with numerous disintegrating states. Even maintaining international flows of raw materials could become a challenge. At some point, spreading political instability could disrupt global economic progress, suggesting that we need to address the causes of state failure with a heightened sense of urgency.

Further Reading:

• The Peasants Are Revolting
• Rich Nations Buying Up Land in Poor Countries at Escalating Rate

by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom

The only question that counts is the one that the Chilcot inquiry won’t address: was the war with Iraq illegal? If the answer is yes, everything changes. The war is no longer a political matter, but a criminal one, and those who commissioned it should be committed for trial for what the Nuremberg Tribunal called “the supreme international crime”(1): the crime of aggression.

But there’s a problem with official inquiries in the United Kingdom: the government appoints their members and sets their terms of reference. It’s the equivalent of a criminal suspect being allowed to choose what the charges should be, who should judge his case and who should sit on the jury. As a senior judge told the Guardian in November, “Looking into the legality of the war is the last thing the government wants. And actually, it’s the last thing the opposition wants either because they voted for the war. There simply is not the political pressure to explore the question of legality – they have not asked because they don’t want the answer.”(2)

Others have explored it, however. Two weeks ago a Dutch inquiry, led by a former supreme court judge, found that the invasion had “no sound mandate in international law”(3). Last month the former law lord, Lord Steyn, said that “in the absence of a second UN resolution authorising invasion, it was illegal.”(4) In November Lord Bingham, the former lord chief justice, stated that, without the blessing of the UN, the Iraq war was “a serious violation of international law and the rule of law.”(5)

Under the UN Charter, two conditions must be met before a war can legally be waged(6). The parties to a dispute must first “seek a solution by negotiation” (Article 33). They can take up arms without an explicit mandate from the UN Security Council only “if an armed attack occurs against [them]” (Article 51). Neither of these conditions applied. The US and UK governments rejected Iraq’s attempts to negotiate(7). At one point the US State Department even announced that it would “go into thwart mode” to prevent the Iraqis from resuming talks on weapons inspection(8). Iraq had launched no armed attack against either nation.

We also know that the UK government was aware that the war it intended to launch was illegal. In March 2002, the Cabinet Office explained that “a legal justification for invasion would be needed. Subject to Law Officers’ advice, none currently exists.”(9) In July 2002, Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, told the prime minister that there were only “three possible legal bases” for launching a war: “self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC [Security Council] authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case.”(10) Bush and Blair later failed to obtain Security Council authorisation.

As the resignation letter on the eve of the war from Elizabeth Wilmshurst, then deputy legal advisor to the Foreign Office, revealed, her office had “consistently” advised that an invasion would be unlawful without a new UN resolution. She explained that “an unlawful use of force on such a scale amounts to the crime of aggression”(11). Both Wilmshurst and her former boss, Sir Michael Wood, will testify before the Chilcot Inquiry today (Tuesday). Expect fireworks.

Without legal justification, the war with Iraq was an act of mass murder: those who died were unlawfully killed by the people who commissioned it. Crimes of aggression (also known as crimes against peace) are defined by the Nuremberg Principles as “planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties”(12). They have been recognised in international law since 1945. The Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC) and which was ratified by Blair’s government in 2001(13), provides for the Court to “exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression”, once it has decided how the crime should be defined and prosecuted(14).

There are two problems. The first is that neither the government nor the opposition has any interest in pursuing these crimes, for the obvious reason that in doing so they would expose themselves to prosecution. The second is that the required legal mechanisms don’t yet exist. The governments which ratified the Rome Statute have been filibustering furiously to delay the point at which the crime can be prosecuted by the ICC: after eight years of discussions, the necessary provision still hasn’t been adopted.

Some countries, mostly in eastern Europe and central Asia, have incorporated the crime of aggression into their own laws(15), though it is not yet clear which of them would be willing to try a foreign national for acts committed abroad. In the UK, where it remains illegal to wear an offensive T-shirt, you cannot yet be prosecuted for mass murder commissioned overseas.

All those who believe in justice should campaign for their governments to stop messing about and allow the International Criminal Court to start prosecuting the crime of aggression. We should also press for its adoption into national law. But I believe that the people of this nation, who re-elected a government which had launched an illegal war, have a duty to do more than that. We must show that we have not, as Blair requested, “moved on” from Iraq, that we are not prepared to allow his crime to remain unpunished, or to allow future leaders to believe that they can safely repeat it.

But how? As I found when I tried to apprehend John Bolton, one of the architects of the war in George Bush’s government, at the Hay festival in 2008(16), and as Peter Tatchell found when he tried to detain Robert Mugabe(17), nothing focuses attention on these issues more than an attempted citizen’s arrest. In October I mooted the idea of a bounty to which the public could contribute, payable to anyone who tried to arrest Tony Blair if he became president of the EU(18). He didn’t of course, but I asked those who had pledged money whether we should go ahead anyway. The response was overwhelmingly positive.

So today I am launching a website, www.arrestblair.org, whose purpose is to raise money as a reward for people attempting a peaceful citizen’s arrest of the former prime minister. I have put up the first £100, and I encourage you to match it. Anyone meeting the rules I’ve laid down will be entitled to one quarter of the total pot: the bounties will remain available for as long as Blair lives. The higher the reward, the greater the number of people who are likely to try.

At this stage the arrests will be largely symbolic, though they are likely to have great political resonance. But I hope that as pressure builds up and the crime of aggression is adopted by the courts, these attempts will help to press governments to prosecute. There must be no hiding place for those who have committed crimes against peace. No civilised country can allow mass murderers to move on.

References:

1. http://books.google.com/books…
2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/nov/23/chilcot-inquiry-iraq-war
3. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/12/iraq-invasion-violated-interational-law-dutch-inquiry-finds
4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/dec/01/iraq-inquiry-interim-finding-illegal-law-lord
5. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/18/iraq-us-foreign-policy
6. http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/index.shtml
7. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2003/11/11/dreamers-and-idiots/
8. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2002/10/08/thwart-mode/
9. http://downingstreetmemo.com/iraqoptions.html
10. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article387374.ece
11. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4377605.stm
12. http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/full/390
13. http://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=XVIII-10&chapter=18&lang=en
14. Article 5.2, http://www.icc-cpi.int/NR/rdonlyres/EA9AEFF7-5752-4F84-BE94-0A655EB30E16/0/Rome_Statute_English.pdf
15. Astrid Reisinger Coracini, 2010. National Legislation on Individual Responsibility for Conduct Amounting to Aggression, in: Roberto Bellelli (ed.), International Criminal Justice. Lessons Learned and the Challenges Ahead (forthcoming).
16. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/06/03/justice-undone/
17. http://www.petertatchell.net/direct%20action/mugabe.htm
18. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/10/26/arresting-blair/

The 107 million tons of grain that went to U.S. ethanol distilleries in 2009 was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels. More than a quarter of the total U.S. grain crop was turned into ethanol to fuel cars last year. With 200 ethanol distilleries in the country set up to transform food into fuel, the amount of grain processed has tripled since 2004.

The United States looms large in the world food economy: it is far and away the world’s leading grain exporter, exporting more than Argentina, Australia, Canada, and Russia combined. In a globalized food economy, increased demand for food to fuel American vehicles puts additional pressure on world food supplies.

From an agricultural vantage point, the automotive hunger for crop-based fuels is insatiable. The Earth Policy Institute has noted that even if the entire U.S. grain crop were converted to ethanol (leaving no domestic crop to make bread, rice, pasta, or feed the animals from which we get meat, milk, and eggs), it would satisfy at most 18 percent of U.S. automotive fuel needs.

When the growing demand for corn for ethanol helped to push world grain prices to record highs between late 2006 and 2008, people in low-income grain-importing countries were hit the hardest. The unprecedented spike in food prices drove up the number of hungry people in the world to over 1 billion for the first time in 2009. Though the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression has recently brought food prices down from their peak, they still remain well above their long-term average levels.

The amount of grain needed to fill the tank of an SUV with ethanol just once can feed one person for an entire year. The average income of the owners of the world’s 940 million automobiles is at least ten times larger than that of the world’s 2 billion hungriest people. In the competition between cars and hungry people for the world’s harvest, the car is destined to win.

Continuing to divert more food to fuel, as is now mandated by the U.S. federal government in its Renewable Fuel Standard, will likely only reinforce the disturbing rise in hunger. By subsidizing the production of ethanol, now to the tune of some $6 billion each year, U.S. taxpayers are in effect subsidizing rising food bills at home and around the world.

Have a watch, and let us know your thoughts.

Most permaculturists are quite familiar with the peak oil scenario we’re now in. Permaculture and peak oil concepts are intimately linked. Indeed, it was the OPEC-induced oil shocks of the early 1970s that gave birth to the movement in the first place. Unfortunately our politicians and economists – specialists that they are – are failing to see the big picture. Rather than seeking to build stability and resiliency into economies, their focus is still, stubbornly, on ‘restoring economic growth’. Studies have shown that even with a World War II type mobilisation, it would take decades to transition western society away from oil, if you want to do so without major social upheaval and suffering. Yet, even this late in the day, there is an almost complete failure on the part of our leaders to see the consequences of what will happen if they achieve their economic growth ambitions – that being an increasing demand for a declining resource, bringing another surge in oil prices, and thus cycling us back, and deeper, into recession again. With crop failures on the increase worldwide, I anticipate food shortages to be even more acute this time around than they were in 2008.

Further Reading:

• Heading for a Perpetual Recession
• World Energy Outlook 2009 Report Released, as Senior IEA Employees Blow Whistle
• Staring at the Future from the Top of the Slippery Slide
• Can We Feed Ourselves in a Post Peak Oil World?
• In the Transition to Self-sufficiency, Suburban Food Gardens Have a Role to Play
• In Transition: The Movie

Not long ago I was standing in a bookshop, minding my own business, when a book title leapt out in front of me. The book was "History’s Worst Decisions and the People Who Made Them". It documents the sorry tales of dozens of people throughout history who, with the best of intentions, made some fascinatingly terrible choices.

I scanned the book’s contents page, purposefully, looking for a specific name – that of the recently deceased, Iowa born agronomist, Norman Borlaug. I failed to find him amongst all the unfortunates chosen for inclusion, but then I really didn’t expect to. My lack of surprise was not because I didn’t think he was deserving – I would likely have put him at top of the list myself – but because, in general, the human race is largely ignorant of the grave implications of his work. This ignorance is made glaringly obvious when you consider he is widely celebrated as one of the greatest benefactors of the human race. He even received a Nobel Peace Prize, amongst several other awards, for his disaster of a contribution to mankind.

Mr. Borlaug is father of the very inappropriately named ‘Green Revolution’ – the post World War II industrialisation of agriculture. He is credited with saving millions of people from starvation after World War II. And, credit where credit is due – he probably did. He hybridised seed strains to develop high yield varieties, which in and of itself might not have been such a bad thing. But Borlaug’s work didn’t stop there. The outcome was the creation of a colour-by-numbers, fossil fuel-, chemical- and irrigation-dependent approach to agriculture that saw large scale monocrops become the system of choice worldwide and gave birth to the ‘get big or get out’ agricultural policies of the 1970s. The resulting reductionist bid to deal with, and capitalise on, all the symptoms of this unnatural shift then gave birth to that ultimate method of social control and profiteering – genetic engineering.

The industrialisation of our food supply means that our current production is extremely oil intensive. It has been calculated that, on average, it takes ten calories of fossil fuels to produce one calorie of food in our current setup. Some food has an even more ridiculous ratio – like corn-fed feedlot beef which consumes about 55 fossil fuel calories to one calorie of meat. We are effectively eating oil.

This is of course an insane state of affairs. As oil production wanes this puts us in an extremely vulnerable position. If our current system remains unchanged, we face acute food shortages in the near future, and that’s without even taking into account the major crop failures we’re getting now as a result of climate change. It is precisely why in 2008, when oil prices tripled in a matter of months, people began to riot worldwide as they got priced out of the ability to eat. The recession has somewhat alleviated this problem, but it won’t be long before crisis strikes again and becomes a permanent condition for humanity.

Big Agribusiness not only uses a disproportional amount of oil, they also empty our soils of life and organic matter (primarily carbon) – destroying the natural soil fertility that would make their fertiliser-in-a-bottle products obsolete and thus also making agriculture the largest contributor to climate change. Same goes for water. Agriculture, as implemented today, is by far the largest consumer and contaminator of water of all industries. Its runoff is also responsible for large and growing ocean dead zones in coastal areas around the world. It is also the biggest driver of deforestation and the main culprit for the mass extinctions and biodiversity loss currently underway.

Not only did the Green Revolution make our entire food system wholly dependent on finite resources, and make it function in such a way that it undermines them all, it also shifted demographics (his work has fueled a population boom whilst transitioning much of the world’s population off the land, where they could have been small scale stewards of it, into city dwellings) to such an extent that we may well see widespread starvation as peak oil issues become more pronounced, and widespread revolution and bloodshed if we can’t find a way to peacefully re-ruralise the world so we can get back to a sustainable footing.

In short: we’ve been subsidising our food supply over the last sixty years by stealing energy, soil, water and health from the future. But, now, the future is here. In saving millions, Borlaug could well have consigned many more millions, or even billions, of us to death. He has left us with quite a legacy – the enormous challenge of having to find a way to rapidly but peacefully reverse his life’s work.

If you read any economic, financial, or political analysis for 2010 that doesn’t mention the food shortage looming next year [2010], throw it in the trash, as it is worthless. There is overwhelming, undeniable evidence that the world will run out of food [in 2010]…. – 2010 Food Crisis for Dummies

The food crisis he’s talking about is not constrained to just the two-thirds world countries…

Thanks Norman. We know you meant well…. Pity you couldn’t have hung around long enough to see it all play out.

Beginning a Detour Around Catastrophe?

In light of these realities, I like to find hope where I can. Realising the implications of the thoughts above, some local initiatives are looking at ways to reduce this outright vulnerability. And now, finally, at least on the surface, it looks like the UK government may be beginning to take this issue a little more seriously as well.

Plans to boost food production in Britain and reduce its impact on the environment have been unveiled.

The government’s 20-year food strategy includes making land available for people to grow their own food and more healthy cooking courses.

… The Tories said ministers "belatedly" recognised the need for food security after a decade of declining production.

Environment Secretary Mr Benn unveiled the government’s Food 2030 plan at the Oxford Farming Conference and said a rising population and climate change meant food could not be taken for granted.

… The government also wants less food waste, more food bought in season to reduce environmental impact and to encourage people to buy sustainably-farmed food. – BBC

There are some excellent signals in the Food 2030 report – like a push for more land for communities to grow their own food on, and training thousands more teachers and students in how to grow their own (the ‘Growing Schools‘ program). I really wish I could end this article right here – on this positive note. Unfortunately I can’t. Industry lobbyists are clearly working behind the scenes to ensure this crisis will not only maintain their current level of profits, but also increase them.

The food strategy, set to be launched on Tuesday by Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, will encourage consumers to throw less food away and to adopt leaner and healthier diets. It will promote higher crop yields, urge food producers to reduce the impact they have on the environment, and recommend a move towards accepting GM crops in order to create a "sustainable and secure food system for 2030". – Telegraph

GM crops for more security? How, exactly, does that work in light of this, this, this, this and this? And how can the words ‘GM crops’ and ‘healthier diets’ coexist in the same paragraph? (See this, this and this for example.)

Furthermore:

… the report will pledge that the UK will keep lobbying to create a more liberalised global food market. – Telegraph

A "more liberalised global food market" will bring profits to a few commodity brokers, but will also continue dismantling the food economy in ‘developing’ countries – whilst we have the deluded belief we’re helping ‘the poor’ to raise their standard of living to something resembling ours (a dangerous ambition). It will continue to pit low wage workers in these countries against local farmers in the North, undercutting and disincentivising them. In both the South and the North, we need more farmers – millions more – not less.

The campaign group Sustain said the report avoided tough issues…. "The government’s food vision is hardly worthy of the name. The document proposes a series of minor tweaks to our fundamentally unsustainable food system."- Guardian

Borlaug’s ’strategy’ was to keep perservering down the Road of Vulnerability, perpetually and furiously trying to stay one step ahead of all the problems the industrial system creates – fossil fuel consumption, soil and water loss and contamination, plant disease and pest attack, etc. This culminates in the need to forever tweak plant characteristics through chemicals and genetic engineering.

Defenders of the green revolution, such as Borlaug, place their hopes on the promise of a never-ending cycle of innovation. We’ll keep redesigning plants into organisms that yield ever greater bounty, while consuming fewer nutrients, staying one step ahead of the grim reaper, for as long as necessary. Science will save us.

But what if scientists poured as much energy into studying how to improve organic farming methods as they did into recombinant DNA? The authors of "Organic agriculture and the global food supply" believe that current organic farming yields could be greatly increased, if we knew more about how to build ecologically balanced agricultural systems. But such research hasn’t been the priority of either academia or government. It’s time for that to change. It’s time to show organic farmers the money. – Salon.com

Biodiverse systems are proven to be more productive. A progressive, staged reversion to small scale polycultures will restore soil, water, personal and even climate health – making risky genetic engineering redundant. Such a reversion is a win-win-win situation.

What will stop such a reversion happening is the perceived need to persevere with a profit and competition-based economy and a lack of education in genuinely holistic agricultural, biological science. Industry will fight us every step of the way. The perversion of the market system is that, up until a tipping point that leads to complete social collapse at least, the greater the suffering the more profit there is to make. These companies are incentivised to ensure their products are continually required. (The corporate dissatisfaction with Michelle Obama’s organic garden is a case in point.) Hence my continual cry that we need to change society at a wholly foundational level. The ‘free’ market economy, even if it were truly free, would not enable us to buy our way out of this mess.

The longer we avoid the need to decentralise and relocalise our food systems, the greater the crisis. While we study options for systemic change, duplicating landshare initiatives like this is a great way to get started at a grass roots level, and Michael Pollan’s one and a half hour presentation below begins to tackle the political policy changes we need to push for to get things moving in the right direction.

The good news is there is a growing food revolution. We just need to ensure our politicians allow it to flourish and don’t give in to the greenwashing demands of Big Agribusiness. The ‘Food 2030′ announcement risks leading the world’s citizenry to assume something tangible is actually being done to address this painfully sharp edge of the biggest convergence of crises in human history, when it really is just a little medicine mixed with a large dose of placebo.

One way or another, we’re beginning to see the end of the industrial agriculture era. Our task is ensuring it gets replaced as rapidly and painlessly as possible with relocalised, resilient systems.

What do you think? Are we facing crisis? If so, what should we be doing about it?

Michael Pollan: Deep Agriculture
Duration: 1:26:14
Click on ‘Watch Full Program’ link at bottom right of video screen