🚀 go-pugleaf

R.E. Byers wrote:
>
> ... some statements about spectacular improvements in agricultural yield
> demonstrated by a colleague in China ...

followed by:
>
> Has anyone out there actually working with agriculture or studied the
> history of rice cultivation in China?  I didn't think so.  I have yet to
> meet a prophet of doom who has any real experience running a farm or
> conducting a real, experiment or empirical study in ecology.
>
Last weekend I attended a talk by John Jeavons, a leader at Ecology Action,
an organization dedicated to figuring out how to squeeze the most agicultural
production out of the least land possible, with as few external inputs as
possible.  They have plenty of experience putting these ideas to work all
over the world, and appear to have a solid understanding of soil and plant
ecology behind their work.

These people are well aware of the posibilities of tripling farm output with
the proper techniques, yet this talk sounded the strongest alarm I have yet
heard about our ability to feed ourselves in the very short term future, even
if many of their techniques are adopted.

So yes, there are people out there getting their hands dirty in agricultural
research who are extremely worried about the combined effects of population
increase and depletion of agricultural soils.  We would do well to listen
to what they have to say about changes in both agriculture and food
consumtion that will be needed to feed even a "controlled" population.

Mr. Byers labels these people "prophets of doom" yet in a later post says
what he expects will happen is that we will mutilate each other in resource
battles before we get a chance to starve to death (based on a careful
study of sociological literature we must asume, given his passion for
scientifically based conclusions).  I'm sorry, but I must cast my lot
with the "prophets of doom", who at least allow a vision of hope if we
are willing to change.

Paul Conklin
psconk@acpub.duke.edu