A Korean war veteran related a story to me one day about how he had obtained a head of cabbage while serving in Korea. One day as his squad was going through the country-side on patrol, they came across a farmer who was selling or rather bartering cabbage heads. This veteran wanted one, so he and the farmer began to negotiate. The farmer motioned toward his mouth like he was smoking a cigarette and then, held up 3 fingers. The veteran gave the man 3 cigarettes upon which the farmer promptly broke one in half and gave it back to the vet, along with one head of cabbage. The head of cabbage had cost 2 ½ cigarettes in barter.
It seems foreign to us today living in a land of such agricultural wealth that something like this could occur, but it is happening all over the world due to resource shortages related to droughts, floods, war, famine, and other reasons. These same processes could easily happen in the U.S. and have. A good example is the 1995 Texas drought, along with the 1930s-dust bowl. So, it may be prudent that you learn about nutrition on a larger scale. Thus, this article will build more of the foundation of knowledge before we delve into the actual components of what is needed for planting, etc.
Additionally, thinking about needed daily calories for yourself as a bodybuilder or other fitness buff is entirely different than thinking about them on a larger scale for multiple people, families, or even a community, especially over a longer period or, when trying to supplement your supermarket conquests. We will now continue the discussion that was begun in part 1.
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Comparison of large and small-scale agricultural systems used in various countries throughout the world indicates that current large-scale production methods used in the United States, Canada, and most developed countries work well if the landholder can afford the cost of high technology, labor, and scarce capital. The expanding world population and dwindling resources only serve to make this problem more complex. Likewise, the poor farmer in developing nations, does not have access to such a system, which is why I worked on it for so long – until it was successful where, as I mentioned, it is successfully operating in more than 12 Latin and South American countries.
Internationally, especially in developing countries, small-scale, labor intensive, and capital scarce agriculture is practiced by about one billion farmers-it is how many survive. Why? Because unlike those in the U.S., the economy and jobs in these countries is dismal and we now seem to see a flattening of these issues around the world where once prosperous communities and people are struggling to survive for a variety of reasons.
It is estimated that 65 percent of the world; s farmers operate less” than 5 hectares and 35 percent less than one hectare of land-one hectare is 2.5 acres. Small-scale agriculture in developing countries is generally considered to be ten hectares or less. Why? Because these small farms have been a mainstay in supporting people around the globe. Reflecting on U.S. history, small farms used to be everywhere, but today these farms are almost non-existent either due to lack of money or they have been regulated out of business and replaced by large, mono-culture farms owned by corporations. Nutritional values of many foods have decreased as a result, but that is another story.
Think about having your own garden and enlarging it to support 5 or more people – that’s what’s been going on for eons of time. Thus, small landholders need to produce or to have access to “a high-quality food supply without expending large amounts of capital to procure needed nutritional requirements for the family. And, if we had another dust-bowl in the U.S., which is looking increasingly likely – the ongoing-decade-long drought in California serves as a constant reminder, you and your entire community could be facing the same consequences and problems as many of the worlds small farmers. For the past 50 years, doubts became widespread about the ability of poor agrarian nations to feed themselves in the future and about the capacity of developed nations to fill the food deficits. Now, this has been born out in countries like Somalia, Niger, Syria, and many others for various reasons.
As early as the mid-1960s, a rapid increase in food aid needs to developing nations and the ability of the U.S. to meet those needs was projected and we have witnessed this. Today, more than 130 countries obtain food from the U.S. Midwest Corn Belt. When this prediction was made, the average distance from food to table was 10-50 miles; that distance today is more than 1,500 miles in the U.S.
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World food needs were projected to exceed the productive capacity of the U. S. before 1985 and they have. Brazil, China, Japan, Russia, and other countries also now struggle to feed the world’s population of over 7 billion. Thus, improvements in agricultural technology have postponed, but not eliminated, the- fulfillment of this prediction. Current agricultural production and population growth trends suggest a vital need to modify existing technological systems used in developing countries and to inject into underdeveloped countries an agricultural system that is both easily understood and readily grasped by the local, often uneducated farmer of any given area. But now, the threat is even more real as individuals within developed countries, potentially in the U.S. and Europe, can face the same situation. All that would be required is a large natural hazard such as the San Andreas going off, which could affect an already weak job market and economy to cause dire circumstances for an individual, family, or larger group.
What I’m talking about for you, is a system to grown a better garden that is larger, more effective, and more efficient with better quality foodstuffs than you can obtain in the local supermarket. The successful system must be labor intensive, low cost, and at a technological level that can be readily transferred from one area to another and one group/individual to another. Another requisite is that each locale has environmental conditions adaptable to the technological level of the agricultural system to be transferred.
You may be thinking now about the logistics of this process thus, let’s set up a scenario. The stock market has fallen and jobs are almost non-existent; resources at the store now only arrive once per week so that there is a huge wait for supplies of any kind, including food. This would be like the depression of the 1930s but far worse due to integrated financial systems and vastly increased populations. Therefore, while some scientists and individuals are aware of the hazards of agriculture and the problems of adapting small-scale systems for undeveloped countries or small groups, most are generally concerned with either production, consumption, or economics, but seldom all three simultaneously. Likewise, most do not approach the situation with a simple or realistic enough model to effectively solve the problems discussed above.
Given the current water-food-energy situations in every country, research in such a system as I will lay out for you has become a pressing priority. Depending on your individual circumstances, it must be met with decisive action to help curb potential food and or nutrition production deficits. Additionally, agriculture requiring large inputs of energy will produce expensive food giving little relief to an already deficient budget of the needy and the diets of these same people will continue to be made up of the cheapest and most easily accessible food, whether nutritious or not. This will be of concern should one find themselves in the circumstances like those described above.
One thing that you need to also be aware of before we move onto part 3 is that those who have particularly limited land resources will need to generally, multiple-crop your land, especially if you have limited scale, i.e., square feet of growing area. This will help to minimize the risk of a single crop and to assure a stable supply of income (even if through bartering as in the opening statement) and nutrition. There is sometimes the choice of multiple or continuous cropping. The International Rice Research Institute found that one acre continuously cropped can produce calories for 29 people and protein for 53 by appropriate crop sequencing and inter-planting. This assumes a tropical climate. If you lived in a more temperate climate such as Colorado, Kansas, etc., the number would be about ¼ that amount. The system I’ll be showing you has also confirmed this.
One thing to understand is that if you were forced to grow only a garden, without access to food supplies from the store due to a natural disaster or other hazard is that production of calories or protein is not enough. The integration of crops and small animals is essential to close the food gap and limit dependence.
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A major advantage of this integrated system would be the critical contribution that can be made to help others. Also, current economic conditions dictate that in addition to producing crops and animal products, the small-scale agricultural should generate capital into the system to maintain an acceptable economic standard. This would be especially true in the advent of a steep market drop or collapse, which has recently been predicted by global economists as early as April 2018.
Depending on how large-scale you wish to be with your garden, three questions must be answered for any technological change or change scale for a given system. These include:
a) How are scale and structure determined?
b) How are resources valued in your system and what influence does this valuation have? and
c) What requirements does available technology or lack of it impose on your system?
Based on these conditions, one must also ask:
d) Which kind of system would be most beneficial?
So, before we get into part 3 next time, I’d like you to think about a-d and try to determine beforehand the answers to these questions.
Given the circumstances, you may be required at some near-future point, to make a significant contribution to agriculture for yourself, family, or others. The ability to utilize land and capital intensively due to multiple cropping, continuous cropping, inter-planting, and other agricultural practices will help you develop a system for yourself to have the best nutritious food or to help others such as the under-served in inner cities utilizing community garden space. However, the problems of complicated systems, technology transfer, economic considerations, and the provision of high-quality food for small-scale farming systems remain.
The system that will be shown in part 3 is based on some basic concepts of nutrition and economics. It seeks to advance some of the major priorities in the development of small scale-personal systems by seeking to provide:
a) A balanced diet of high quality food,
b) Employment for you and your family,
c) Economic input back into the system, and
d) A geographically adaptable system which can be planned for almost any area.
Thus, you can observe that this goes far beyond the number of calories you need and diet for a bodybuilding competition or athletic event. However, understanding the concept completely will make you an expert nutritionist. Until next time for part 3.
