NPR...

Here in Iowa I see farms turned into strip malls every year and I see fields not farmed every year that sit empty because the farmers kids decided to become history majors instead of taking over the family farm and the parents can’t do it all without help.

BTW they grow a crap ton of corn and soybeans here in Iowa. They sell a bunch to mexico.

 

My grandfather was a farmer. My Dad grew up farming with him. When my Dad was graduating high school , he said he wanted to work and take over the farm when his Dad decided to retire. My grandmother said no, that he was going to a college that farming was not going to be a good living later on. So he went to a tech school and got hired on out of school with Duke Power company . I guess he did better , but I'd have rather been raised on the farm myself.
I guess my grandmother seen the writing on the wall with the big government and farming.

 

While in college working a masters degree in Ag Engineering in the early 1970's I was involved in introducing the new high yield wheat and rice. In 1950 the world population was about 2.5 billion, in 2020 it will be about 7.5 billion. We had starvation in both cases, but the safety net is getting ever smaller. We got rid of the small farmers, moved them to the factories and slums of the world, replaced the traditional crops with new ones with a much higher yield, but that require massive inputs of fertilizer, chemicals, and energy to grow and timely harvesting and processing by industrial ag machinery to be utilized. e If we did have to go back to the old production patterns, several billion people will have to die. Not saying that technology won't keep solving the problems of feeding the world, but the ability to do so and for the resources to be available to distribute the products to the poor of the world gets to be more difficult. War, crop diseases, economic collapse, running out of inputs such as energy or chemicals or water, climate change, increasing population, and any of a host of other problems could lead to the collapse. The situation with the real world has indicated that starvation does not mean the military still doesn't exist or nuclear weapons. Could get very dicy.

 

Sorry I didn't see this sooner. There is NO MORE land in Brazil for farming. If you are talking about clearing the rain forests there could be catastrophic results for all of us, and the soil there will not support more than subsistence farming for a short while. We need to be planting more trees. We need to stop urban sprawl. People need to be more conscientious about making more babies that they can't afford to feed now. A global virgin field pandemic could spread through any city with an airport or a highway. Even if our behavior is not contributing to global climate change , we as a species do not have the right to pollute indiscriminately and at will. The Bible says God gave man dominion over the earth, I think stewardship is a better translation. Yeah I listen to NPR Science Friday at 1300 cst, Don't agree with everything they say, interesting none the less.

 

I always miss Paul Harvey, told it how it was, didn't sugar coat it, and it was fun to listen to! Bonus was I didn't get a blood pressure spike when listening!

 

We have issues here in our country. Due to the Ogallala Aquifer declining there has been a rise in no-till crop farmers. That is helping but still, with the lack of moisture out here, things are quite dry. Chances are high that other countries will be running out of water first but if Americans do not learn to conserve, we will also.

 

Old, old school may become the new school of ag production

Terra preta owes its characteristic black color to its weathered charcoal content, and was made by adding a mixture of charcoal, bone, and manure to the otherwise relatively infertile Amazonian soil. A product of indigenous soil management and slash-and-char agriculture, the charcoal is very stable and remains in the soil for thousands of years, binding and retaining minerals and nutrients.

Terra preta soils are of pre-Columbian nature and were created by humans between 450 BCE and 950 CE.[10][11] The soil's depth can reach 2 meters (6.6 ft). Thousands of years after its creation, it has been reported to regenerate itself at the rate of 1 centimeter (0.39 in) per year by the local farmers and caboclos in Brazil's Amazonian basin, who seek it for use and for sale as valuable potting soil.

Amazon's mysterious black earth earth: Soil found along region riverbanks; Rich in nutrients, stores more carbon | BioEnergy Lists: Biochar Mailing Lists

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/01/searching-amazons-hidden-civilizations (intresting article)

Earthmovers of the Amazon

 

One major issue in the States is the lack of well controlled Burns for soil enrichment the natural way! Obviously, it needs to be very closely controlled, but the right people correctly trained, and the right equipment can really make a difference! To my knowledge, only OryGun and Washington allow such burns, and one has only to look at the size and quantity of crops produced this way to see just how effective it is! OryGun is KING of several crops, in part because of this practice!

 

@UncleMorgan "South Africa will probably be the next Zimbabwe. Many whites have already left, and many are leaving every year. Most are taking their white-collar skills with them--including the skills that maintain the infrastructure."
This is true. Recently, I went up to Canada to see a doctor I noticed his accent was a bit strange so I said a few words to him in Dutch (spent 6 years in Netherlands long ago and remember almost nothing but at one time my grasp of the language was quite good) and it turned out he was from South Africa and recently immigrated.

@chelloveck I don't watch Fox & Friends or Alex Jones mainly because like @RightHand "Partisanship in reporting disgusts me and quasi-political..." This was my first time listening to NPR since I returned stateside but I did enjoy this Science program. It seemed non-political and gave what they considered to be facts so...yeah, it was good. I do admit to reading Fox News as it is one of the few I can stomach but I keep a watchful eye on it also.

@3M-TA3 "I don't remember how many times I've been told we will run out of enough food, water, energy, you name it to support the population in the next (usually) ten years."
Actually, this immediately went through my mind and I strongly wonder if indeed I was given the facts in such a way as to give my support to ensure Africa is turned into a breadbasket - meaning - money given to start farms (land, water drilling, seeds, training, machinery, etc.). I have a sneaking suspicion this very well could have been the purpose. I am all for teaching a man to fish as oppose to giving him fish but it seems we are constantly in the giving mode and leery if this is just another means to get money to help African countries that appear never to improve no matter how much we give/help. And, quite frankly, you cannot blame me or other taxpayers for feeling this way.

@Marvin L. Steinhagen "There is NO MORE land in Brazil for farming. If you are talking about clearing the rain forests there could be catastrophic results for all of us..."
Oh yes! That was made very clear in the broadcast. Brazil would have to clear more of the Amazon which no one wants to see them do so I believe in that fact they are definitely correct. However, I wonder about "no more farming land available" in the USA? I am not sure that is completely accurate.

 

Once upon a time there was a country called Rhodesia that indeed was the breadbasket of Africa. Rhodesia fell to Socialism and became Zimbabwe. When the economic disaster that always follows Socialism (or Communism) happened the government blamed Whites and started confiscating ranches and farms owned by whites and gave them to black Zimbabweans. Any of the whites not smart enough to flee were retired to their graves.

The farms were now owned and run by people without the training and skills and further had no incentive to produce more than they consumed. Now it's the 5h!7hole of all 5h!tholes and any of them would gladly to to a place like Venezuela. No idea what Zimbabwe will tell its citizens who is to blame after they have hunted down and killed the last white within their borders.

I fear South Africa is going down the same path. We need to understand that whites do not have the monopoly on racism.

 

I spent my summers out of school at my grandparents house , 5 hours away , working the farm , gardens , picking veggies , shucking corn, snapping and shelling beans , feeding cows , feedin and dressing the hogs and chickens. And on the fun days , heading to the creek for fishing , learned to clean a fish , and a turtle , that's a job , almost as bad as a hog , almost the same way to. And Paul Harvey was pretty much a daily occurrence at lunchtime , eating sammiches and listening to Mr. Harvey on the radio. Even at that young age , his words were well said and hit home , and made my small brain think about what he was really saying. I get on YouTube every now and then and listen to him. Close my eyes and listen and I'm almost 10 years old again.

 

Gramps had an Old Bake-a-lite AM radio in the kitchen on the counter and we would listen to Paul Harvey every morning at breakfast! From the time I can first remember any thing, Paul was on the radio every morning. I still have that radio all these 48 years later, it's still set to that same AM radio station, and I plug it in and listen to the hum of the tubes warming up and then what ever "show" comes on! Paul's son was doing his Dads show for a number of years, but I have not heard it in many years! I sure do miss that, Paul had that voice and speech that was enjoyable to listen to no matter the topic, and you always felt like you learned something, and were current with all the world events that you needed to know!

 

Future wars will not be over oil. They will be over fresh water (which is required for food).

 

I absolutely believe this! And, historically, there is precedent and examples to support this belief. Without water it won't matter how much food we have...

 

There was a Back ground "news story" that was floating around a few years ago, about the border between Northern India, China and Tibet! One only had to do a little digging to see this was fake news, but was it really? Just below the surface you find a sliver of truth to that set of fake news stories, and it got me thinking. the U.S. has an awful lot of water tied up in large reservoirs for use in farming and Hydro power, but how much of that water would be available should SHTF ? And worse, with out regulation, much of it would be lost! We do get a lot of weather that brings water with it, but with out a means to contain large quantities post SHTF, then what? THIS effects every one not on their own well, or with a non community supply!

 

We do down here to keep the undergrowth down as well as ticks,chiggers and mosquitoes.
Edit: The sugar cane fields are also burned every fall in south La.

 

Yep. With the Libtards, along with the indians, in Oregon set on taking out every dam in the state there will be NO water left backed up in the state.

 

I listen to NPR every AM while mucking stalls. It just seems so appropriate.

A few thoughts about over-population:

-Allowing 12 sq ft per person, 12 billion of us could all tread water at the same time in L.Superior. There's plenty of space .

-70% of the planet's surface is covered with water. There's plenty of water. Using the technology of reverse osmosis, Israel has not only solved its own fresh water problem, but produces excess for sale at competitive prices to the rest of the dry MidEast. Calif. could be doing this also but silly, politically motivated "environmental regs" drive the cost too high.

-We produce plenty of food and yields could increase considerably using only low tech solutions. Africa could double its production if more farmers would simply sow in rows instead of broadcasting seed as in ancient times. US production would increase by 25% if all farms were properly drain tiled. (Check my statements on your own time. Search sites like AgWeb.) Prior to WWII, all farming was "organic," and we produced 50 bu of corn per ac. Today a farmer who doesn't get 175bu/ac is probably embarrassed.

-Americans will deposit refuse in land fills 100ft deep and covering 1000 sq miles over the next CENTURY (total US area 19,000,000sq mi)..... We lose 1500 sq miles of farm land EACH YEAR to the bulldozer for development.

-The population density of Manhattan is 71,000 people per sq mi. Those who live there like it that way, I guess. I live where it's 5/sq mile. I think it's too crowded.