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Old 09-04-2008, 01:44 AM posted to aus.gardens,rec.gardens.edible
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Default Large scale permaculture

"len gardener" wrote in message
as humasn we need to get aways from the broadacre export farmer
mentality, the cost to habitat destruction is huge, and it also
impacts on our weather ie.,. reducing our chances of rain in the
droughts that are part of earths cycle. the b/a farmers here decimate
vast aeas of habitat on somewaht merginal ground, and after around 7
+- years they simply move on and leave the newly created desert behind
there is no requirement as there is with mining to rehabilitate the
area as they further encroach.


Any cites to support that claim of moving on after 7 years? I've not seen
any such suggestion anywhere even though I do know that Queensland has a
reputation for being full of knuckledraggers.

our farmers need to be in our communities where on small holdings
maybe up to 40 acres +- they produce in season staples for those
communities and supplied from farmer to consumer no middle man, the
farmer then gets to share the common wealth of his community, instead
of the way they now do it through a series of middle men who onsell
not so fresh food at prices people can barely afford and not
representative of what the farmers meager offering was.


Unfortunately that thought now lives with the Ark.

The best land near the cities has all gone under revolting McMansions and
people actually choose those things over living in high rises or older
smaller houses.

My Grandfather used to run a market garden in Botany in NSW. Every time I
drive anywhere near Sydney Airport, I think of those market gardens and how
fertile that land would have been given what is growing in the area round
there now. Mind you if it had come down the line of inheritance, my bloody
cousin would also have sold it off to developers as he has done with the
farm that he inherited as the eldest male. So poof, there goes a farm of 5
generations on land that was first selected and cleared by the first
ancestor who came to this country. No sentiment for the fact that it was
the only farm left in the district which was still entire and as selected
and which was the only one still in original hands after 150 years. And
because he likes money. And he really IS a good farmer.

like that adelaide hills thing that land should basically be returned
to habitat is has always been very marginal land (why do people think
the farmers walked away from it after they ahd milked it for waht they
could?), anyone living there should alocate enough land use for their
own personnal food needs, as any commercial venture sooner or later is
driven by the need for more and more turn over.

people can grow enough of the non staples their family needs in a very
small space, we had this type of system back in the late 40's and into
the 50's+, fresh in season food was affordable for all families, and
the food miles was very low so another positive factor, the farmer
casme around a couple or so times a week selling fresh produce, or we
went to the farm. eggs were right there as fresh as the day from the
farm, and fresh unadulterated milk was delivered intoi 1 gallon
stainless billy at our front door not sure may have been each second
day?? homes should be modest enough and land sufficient enough for
families to grow some of their own.


Have you looked over the back fences in your area? What you say is all fine
in theory, but I know from living in the country where there is lots of
land, and even in the drought we still had enough water to grow veggies
round here, how few people actually grow anything edible. Not even a herb
patch!

They'll go and spend 2 bucks buying a plastic packed bunch of miserable
coriander rather than spending a few minutes putting in a few seeds and
doing a bit of watering now and then. A whole seasons worht of coriander
could be had for the 2 bucks they spend, but they'd rather buy it than put
in a small effort.

And if you've taken notice of some of the questions that appear here time
and time again, it is obvious how out of touch with the soil most people
are, and this is supposed to be a gardening group!

No-one with even a modicum of observational skills and who has grubbed about
in soil for more than a few years would use a raft of chemicals on plants or
would fail to understand the importance of insects in having a balance in
the garden. But the basic questions keep coming... "how do I kill....",
"how do I improve...." I often wonder whether people have heard of the
library/google or know the role of the earthworm, or understand the most
simple things about the soil, like microflora etc.

Most people seem to see their garden environment as a place that they treat
like they are doing some form of extension of their home decorating. " A
row of Mop Top Robonia and on the other side some standard roses" type
thinking. That is all quite nice to achieve, but first principles of soil
and it's management and how everything else relies on it seems to be almost
an afterthought.

You and I both know that plants and gardens aren't home decorating, but we
actually grub in the soil. Too many people seem to get wacky ideas from
those ghastly TV/magazines on gardens rather than getting out there and
learning by doing. And there really is no better teacher than time and
experience.

so to me the permaculture sustainable farmer is the one who is moving
closer to his consumers, not lauding themselves growing stuff on
denuded dry habitat land.


Given that people now have to live in that denuded dry habitat land (and
increasinlgy will have to do so in the future) I see no problem with trying
to learn to use it and rehabilitate it.

mollison uses those asian communities in asia where the farmer is a
neighbour and produces all the staples for that neighbourhood, makes a
lot of sense and no good putting it in the too hard basket because if
the oil crisis is as bad as what is indicated then our broadacre
farmers are going to have huge problems getting their produce to
market at an affordable profit making price.


They already DO have that problem. But given that consumers don't bloody
care how many food miles their food has done, just so long as they can eat
what they want, when they want, it is consumers who will get hit time and
time again till they get a bit smarter and start to shop smarter. I cannot
believe that any Australian would buy oranges produced in California, but
the shops are full of them and they sell. I won't buy them but I
certainklys ee many shoppers who will buy them without even checking the
little sticky label on them.

need to think outside the square, the answers will come and the sooner
the better.


No it won't. It will just continue with consumers telling the government to
DO something. They are too lazy to do anything themselves like dig a veggie
patch or even grow a few herbs. I despair of humanity. A good dose of
plague might not be such a bad thing.



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Old 09-04-2008, 01:47 AM posted to aus.gardens,rec.gardens.edible
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"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...

I agree about the mindset. But we are embedded in a largely free
enterprise
society in which you have to be commercially viable to keep going.
Mollison's
philosophy is such that he would remake much of society, its values and
motives not merely how we get our food.


but wouldn't most of us, if we could? :-) in reality of course, societies
remake themselves as they go (seeing as how benign dictators are so very
thin on the ground ;-)

Although he does give a nod to
"legality, people, culture, trade and commerce" as a component in creating
a
design. So perhaps he does accept that commerce and making a dollar is
not
altogether evil. The question is how do you do it in a society whose
agriculture is based on permaculture?


well, i'm fabulously iffy about permaculture - not because of the
permaculture itself, which is fine, but because of all the dippy twits who
do everything badly & then walk away because it hasn't worked. also, it's
quite a quiet movement (like organics in general, biodynamics, etc) so i
believe you would find there's a great deal more going on than you
immediately realise. and yes, making a dollar isn't inherently evil
whatsoever. most of us cannot (for example) make shoes - we need money for
that. true self-sufficiency by one person or family is impossible. it
becomes possible within communities, though. permaculture farms most likely
just carry on in obscurity, we don't know that they are there, really, even
if we buy their products we can't see the farm & probably don't think about
it much.

I know of small scale operations where on a few acres a family is growing
enough to mainly feed themselves and sell some to make a dollar to buy
what
they cannot grow. This makes that family very happy, they have the
ability to
live in the way that they see it is proper to live.


see, i believe that sort of thing is really much more common than we think.
much of it can't be measured via "market forces" & other foolishness, so
it's not. things that can't be measured via capitalist economics tends not
to be counted statistically, so we cannot officially "know" about them.
(sigh).

However Mollison puts forward the idea that permaculture could/should
replace
broadacre farming altogether. This leads me to a problem. I cannot see
how
every family can have a few acres nor the will/ability to farm it. I
cannot
see how we can get away from at least some specialists who use their skill
to
get food from the land efficiently on a scale that permits the feeding of
the
non-farmers who produce other things. In the long run the choice is to do
it
sustainably or to starve when we have mined out the soil. So what replaces
broadacre?

\
truthfully, i'm not sure anything does "replace" it. you'll have noticed
that broadacre farming is changing itself, though. like you said, the
choices are rapidly becoming to either do it sustainably, or starve. perhaps
movements such as the permaculture movement have an obligation to cease
being slightly obscure & to get out there more, i'm not sure; but when you
consider things such as how mainstream organics has become (despite how
quiet it is), how the most ossified farming brains are coming to use nature
belts & windbreaks & things like that as part of their practice, i suppose
that broadacre (for grains, etc) will carry on, just a bit differently than
in the past.

you are dead right in that not everyone can have a bit of land, & truthfully
i doubt that everyone should (imagine if everyone had to travel the
distances many countryfolk do! it would be unsustainable). yet things such
as the current tendency for completely mainstream gardening magazines &
newspaper columns to encourage people to grow what they can in their yards
or balconies, etc, is a taste of where this is all going (in my hopelessly
optimistic view). sadly, the pace of progressive change can be positively
glacial, it seems to me.

one last tiny rant: one thing i would love to see, which i can't see
happening yet (but is probably going to have to happen very soon) is that
governments need to put their foot down re overconsumption. according to
statistics (tee hee) something like a third of westerners have an
anti-consumerist mentality & tend not to participate in rabid consumption.
governments think this is Bad & want people to consume until they drop (then
consume something else to get them back up again). the day that govts get
the brainwave that overconsumption itself is what is bad, things are going
to change very much for the better, for everyone, because they have the
power to legislate and we do not. in the meantime it is up to individuals to
buy local, to limit consumption of stuff they don't need, etc; but people
who do so find a lot of support with like minds (of which there are actually
many).

all these things are interrelated. thank you for reading my rant! :-)
kylie


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Old 09-04-2008, 01:50 AM posted to aus.gardens,rec.gardens.edible
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Default Large scale permaculture

"len gardener" wrote in message
On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 14:41:57 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:
snipped
How do you make this system work for Los Angeles or Mexico City or
Bombay? If the largest city you've seen is Sydney you don't really
understand the problem.

--

maybe john just maybe it is you who have no understanding of "the
problem"??

once you take the liberty to pidgeon hole what is current then you
take away any thinking outside the square.

all tall buildings have rooves?

there are balconies?

most cities have large parklands?

melbourne is noted for it's culturaly diversified gardens shared by
occupants who live in medium to high rise tennaments.

and back in the 40's and 50's over here what produce the market
farmers had left they took into the general market situated in the
city proper where all could access it by various public transport, now
the markets are so situated it is a hectic drive to even attempt to
get there.

and people lived in suburbs and business was in the city.

and in your scenerio or the current scenerio food is going to become
very very expensive to buy i the cities, and much can happen to stop
the harvest or the harvest being distributed, you may be affluent
enough right now? but very many aren't and everyone could be in their
shoes at any time.

in the US of A some of the so called fresh food can be in transit for
up to 2 weeks from what i have read at various times?

i never said it was going to be easy, but when do we start? when it is
way too late maybe?


Well "the when it's too late" scenario seemed to be what got the Cubans
working on the problem so I wouldn't be surprised if it takes the same thing
to get the first world doing the same thing. In Australia, given our
problems, I don't think it will be too long before we are faced with the
need to "do something" but for the US, I think it will take longer. There
are many Americans who still don't believe in climate cahnage but I don't
think there would be many Australians who don't believe in it. Till there
is a shift in attitude in the majority of the popultion, no change happens
as there is no pressure to do so.


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Old 09-04-2008, 02:25 AM posted to aus.gardens,rec.gardens.edible
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Default Large scale permaculture

J. Clarke wrote:


How do you make this system work for Los Angeles or Mexico City or
Bombay? If the largest city you've seen is Sydney you don't really
understand the problem.


Who cares. Megatropoliss are not that great for the planet anyway and
there is really no modern reason for them.

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Old 09-04-2008, 03:39 AM posted to aus.gardens,rec.gardens.edible
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In article
,
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:

"len gardener" wrote in message
On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 14:41:57 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:
snipped
How do you make this system work for Los Angeles or Mexico City or
Bombay? If the largest city you've seen is Sydney you don't really
understand the problem.

--

maybe john just maybe it is you who have no understanding of "the
problem"??

once you take the liberty to pidgeon hole what is current then you
take away any thinking outside the square.

all tall buildings have rooves?

there are balconies?

most cities have large parklands?

melbourne is noted for it's culturaly diversified gardens shared by
occupants who live in medium to high rise tennaments.

and back in the 40's and 50's over here what produce the market
farmers had left they took into the general market situated in the
city proper where all could access it by various public transport, now
the markets are so situated it is a hectic drive to even attempt to
get there.

and people lived in suburbs and business was in the city.

and in your scenerio or the current scenerio food is going to become
very very expensive to buy i the cities, and much can happen to stop
the harvest or the harvest being distributed, you may be affluent
enough right now? but very many aren't and everyone could be in their
shoes at any time.

in the US of A some of the so called fresh food can be in transit for
up to 2 weeks from what i have read at various times?

i never said it was going to be easy, but when do we start? when it is
way too late maybe?


Well "the when it's too late" scenario seemed to be what got the Cubans
working on the problem so I wouldn't be surprised if it takes the same thing
to get the first world doing the same thing. In Australia, given our
problems, I don't think it will be too long before we are faced with the
need to "do something" but for the US, I think it will take longer. There
are many Americans who still don't believe in climate cahnage but I don't
think there would be many Australians who don't believe in it. Till there
is a shift in attitude in the majority of the popultion, no change happens
as there is no pressure to do so.


Take a look at http://www.adn.com/matsu/story/365375.html/ . Politics
stymied the truth about global warming in America because the
corporations will have to spend money to ameliorate their carbon
emissions. The result was that the corporate line was paid for in
Congress and sponsored by that right-wing nut case, Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch's Fox News is the only news cast in America where faithfully
watching it, will leave you more ignorant than if you had done
nothing.The corporations are on board now, more or less, like New
Orleans, I think now they see it as an opportunity.

If you read the "uh-oh thread", it might occur to you that a perfect
storm is brewing. Some countries are starting to withhold export crops,
in order to feed their own citizens. That will never happen in America.
Others, like Australia, have had crop problems (drought) and have no
export crop. Other countries are having food riots.

In any event, whether it was the bio-fuel scam, a conspiracy by the oil
companies, or the government encouragement you own your own home at any
cost, the American economy is set to tank. Asian banks don't want our
money anymore. Our top 1% will get more stinking rich while the rest of
us get acquainted with the way the rest of the world lives. Problem is
that crazed American consumers was the market of choice for most of the
world.

No society will escape the personal need to grow more food. Not just for
sensory satisfaction, but for survival.
--

Billy

Impeach Pelosi, Bush & Cheney to the Hague
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/


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Old 09-04-2008, 03:45 AM posted to aus.gardens,rec.gardens.edible
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"len gardener" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 14:41:57 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:
snipped
How do you make this system work for Los Angeles or Mexico City or
Bombay? If the largest city you've seen is Sydney you don't really
understand the problem.

--

maybe john just maybe it is you who have no understanding of "the
problem"??


Len I agree with your sentiments that we need to change our way of thinking
but it will take more than that.

once you take the liberty to pidgeon hole what is current then you
take away any thinking outside the square.

all tall buildings have rooves?

there are balconies?


Very harsh environments for growing, with much effort you could get some
boutique crops but not enough to really matter. It would be very inefficient.


most cities have large parklands?


Yes but the people need them. Sure strolling through a nice vege garden is
relaxing but what of those who want to play sport etc?

melbourne is noted for it's culturaly diversified gardens shared by
occupants who live in medium to high rise tennaments.


Melbourne is quite low density compared to the mega cities. The Aussie 1/4
acre block is very uncommon in many places. We have no experience of what
really high density housing is like.

and back in the 40's and 50's over here what produce the market
farmers had left they took into the general market situated in the
city proper where all could access it by various public transport, now
the markets are so situated it is a hectic drive to even attempt to
get there.


And those market gardens have been swallowed up by housing developments that
can hardly be torn down now. The population is 3 times what it was then. The
institutions and organisation of 60 years ago will not serve for the next 60.

and people lived in suburbs and business was in the city.

and in your scenerio or the current scenerio food is going to become
very very expensive to buy i the cities, and much can happen to stop
the harvest or the harvest being distributed, you may be affluent
enough right now? but very many aren't and everyone could be in their
shoes at any time.

in the US of A some of the so called fresh food can be in transit for
up to 2 weeks from what i have read at various times?

i never said it was going to be easy, but when do we start? when it is
way too late maybe?

outside the square and the comfort zone.
With peace and brightest of blessings,


I support your philosophy that major change in how we deal with the world is
essential. And backyard and inner city growing plots would certainly be a
step in the right direction. But this will never be more than a minor part of
the calories required to feed a big city.

Look at the people who are doing this on a small scale (ie one or a few
families). They need acres to do it. Evan if yields could be increased many
times (doubtful, especially in Oz) those acres just aren't available in or
near big cities, nor are the numbers of skilled people prepared to lovingly
tend them.

It is this very problem of the efficiency of scale that made me ask the
question in the first place.

David


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Old 09-04-2008, 03:46 AM posted to aus.gardens,rec.gardens.edible
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"Terryc" wrote in message
...
J. Clarke wrote:


How do you make this system work for Los Angeles or Mexico City or
Bombay? If the largest city you've seen is Sydney you don't really
understand the problem.


Who cares. Megatropoliss are not that great for the planet anyway and
there is really no modern reason for them.


How do we prevent them forming? How do take down the ones that are there?

David


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Old 09-04-2008, 04:00 AM posted to aus.gardens,rec.gardens.edible
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"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message
...

need to think outside the square, the answers will come and the sooner
the better.


No it won't. It will just continue with consumers telling the government to
DO something. They are too lazy to do anything themselves like dig a veggie
patch or even grow a few herbs. I despair of humanity. A good dose of
plague might not be such a bad thing.



Well it would rip right through those mega cities. A nice virulent avian flu
that is human transmitted would do the trick, coming soon to your
neighbourhood? I hope not.

There is absolutely no doubt that in the end climate change, overpopulation,
land degradation, water pollution, peak oil and daytime soap operas WILL be
dealt with. The challenge is to do it without allowing the four horsemen to
cause untold misery to billions along the way.

David



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Old 09-04-2008, 04:03 AM posted to aus.gardens,rec.gardens.edible
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len gardener wrote:
On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 14:41:57 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:
snipped
How do you make this system work for Los Angeles or Mexico City or
Bombay? If the largest city you've seen is Sydney you don't really
understand the problem.

--

maybe john just maybe it is you who have no understanding of "the
problem"??

once you take the liberty to pidgeon hole what is current then you
take away any thinking outside the square.

all tall buildings have rooves?

there are balconies?

most cities have large parklands?

melbourne is noted for it's culturaly diversified gardens shared by
occupants who live in medium to high rise tennaments.

and back in the 40's and 50's over here what produce the market
farmers had left they took into the general market situated in the
city proper where all could access it by various public transport,
now
the markets are so situated it is a hectic drive to even attempt to
get there.

and people lived in suburbs and business was in the city.

and in your scenerio or the current scenerio food is going to become
very very expensive to buy i the cities, and much can happen to stop
the harvest or the harvest being distributed, you may be affluent
enough right now? but very many aren't and everyone could be in
their
shoes at any time.

in the US of A some of the so called fresh food can be in transit
for
up to 2 weeks from what i have read at various times?

i never said it was going to be easy, but when do we start? when it
is
way too late maybe?


Demonstrate that you can feed half the population of Australia on 150
square miles of land.

There is no "my scenario". We feed the populations of those cities
now. The methods used may offend your sensibilities but they work.
You are the one proposing pie in the sky without running the numbers
and showing that they can work.


--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)


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Old 09-04-2008, 04:06 AM posted to aus.gardens,rec.gardens.edible
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Terryc wrote:
J. Clarke wrote:


How do you make this system work for Los Angeles or Mexico City or
Bombay? If the largest city you've seen is Sydney you don't really
understand the problem.


Who cares. Megatropoliss are not that great for the planet anyway
and
there is really no modern reason for them.


Whether they are "great for the planet" or not is irrelevant. It can
be argued that 6 billion humans are not good for the planet. So what
would you do about either?

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)




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Old 09-04-2008, 04:15 AM posted to aus.gardens,rec.gardens.edible
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"0tterbot" wrote in message
...

one last tiny rant: one thing i would love to see, which i can't see
happening yet (but is probably going to have to happen very soon) is that
governments need to put their foot down re overconsumption. according to
statistics (tee hee) something like a third of westerners have an
anti-consumerist mentality & tend not to participate in rabid consumption.
governments think this is Bad & want people to consume until they drop (then
consume something else to get them back up again). the day that govts get
the brainwave that overconsumption itself is what is bad, things are going
to change very much for the better, for everyone, because they have the
power to legislate and we do not. in the meantime it is up to individuals to
buy local, to limit consumption of stuff they don't need, etc; but people
who do so find a lot of support with like minds (of which there are actually
many).

all these things are interrelated. thank you for reading my rant! :-)
kylie



Current economic dogma says you must have growth around 3% per year for a
healthy economy. Nobody knows how to do it with much less without having
unacceptable unemployment. Thus the current model condemns us to be
constantly expanding: population, energy use, mineral use, land use, must all
grow indefinitely. Except that obviously in the real world they cannot.

Political systems around the world that reward short term popularity and
punish long term planning don't help.

David


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Old 09-04-2008, 04:18 AM posted to aus.gardens,rec.gardens.edible
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"Billy" wrote in message
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:
"len gardener" wrote in message

(snip)
i never said it was going to be easy, but when do we start? when it is
way too late maybe?


Well "the when it's too late" scenario seemed to be what got the Cubans
working on the problem so I wouldn't be surprised if it takes the same
thing
to get the first world doing the same thing. In Australia, given our
problems, I don't think it will be too long before we are faced with the
need to "do something" but for the US, I think it will take longer.
There
are many Americans who still don't believe in climate cahnage but I don't
think there would be many Australians who don't believe in it. Till
there
is a shift in attitude in the majority of the popultion, no change
happens
as there is no pressure to do so.


Take a look at http://www.adn.com/matsu/story/365375.html/ .


Did that. He sums up some of the problems quite well. Thanks.

Politics
stymied the truth about global warming in America because the
corporations will have to spend money to ameliorate their carbon
emissions. The result was that the corporate line was paid for in
Congress and sponsored by that right-wing nut case, Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch's Fox News is the only news cast in America where faithfully
watching it, will leave you more ignorant than if you had done
nothing.The corporations are on board now, more or less, like New
Orleans, I think now they see it as an opportunity.

If you read the "uh-oh thread", it might occur to you that a perfect
storm is brewing. Some countries are starting to withhold export crops,
in order to feed their own citizens. That will never happen in America.
Others, like Australia, have had crop problems (drought) and have no
export crop. Other countries are having food riots.

In any event, whether it was the bio-fuel scam, a conspiracy by the oil
companies, or the government encouragement you own your own home at any
cost, the American economy is set to tank. Asian banks don't want our
money anymore. Our top 1% will get more stinking rich while the rest of
us get acquainted with the way the rest of the world lives. Problem is
that crazed American consumers was the market of choice for most of the
world.

No society will escape the personal need to grow more food. Not just for
sensory satisfaction, but for survival.


That time will come although I'm not convinced that we are there just yet.


  #28   Report Post  
Old 09-04-2008, 04:22 AM posted to aus.gardens,rec.gardens.edible
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Posts: 2,358
Default Large scale permaculture

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message


No it won't. It will just continue with consumers telling the government
to
DO something. They are too lazy to do anything themselves like dig a
veggie
patch or even grow a few herbs. I despair of humanity. A good dose of
plague might not be such a bad thing.



Well it would rip right through those mega cities. A nice virulent avian
flu
that is human transmitted would do the trick, coming soon to your
neighbourhood? I hope not.


So do I (when I'm not feeling particularly negative), but I would be
surprised if we don't get another major pestilence of some sort.

There is absolutely no doubt that in the end climate change,
overpopulation,
land degradation, water pollution, peak oil and daytime soap operas WILL
be
dealt with. The challenge is to do it without allowing the four horsemen
to
cause untold misery to billions along the way.


At least 3 of those horsemen are already raging through the world in Iraq,
Africa and each winter as Flu carts off a huge number of people. I can't
quite see why the fourth wouldn't raise it's ugly head in due time too, but
I do agree with the sentiment that we shouldn't wish for it.


  #29   Report Post  
Old 09-04-2008, 07:48 AM posted to aus.gardens,rec.gardens.edible
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Posts: 2,265
Default Large scale permaculture

In article ,
"J. Clarke" wrote:

len gardener wrote:
On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 14:41:57 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:
snipped
How do you make this system work for Los Angeles or Mexico City or
Bombay? If the largest city you've seen is Sydney you don't really
understand the problem.

--

maybe john just maybe it is you who have no understanding of "the
problem"??

once you take the liberty to pidgeon hole what is current then you
take away any thinking outside the square.

all tall buildings have rooves?

there are balconies?

most cities have large parklands?

melbourne is noted for it's culturaly diversified gardens shared by
occupants who live in medium to high rise tennaments.

and back in the 40's and 50's over here what produce the market
farmers had left they took into the general market situated in the
city proper where all could access it by various public transport,
now
the markets are so situated it is a hectic drive to even attempt to
get there.

and people lived in suburbs and business was in the city.

and in your scenerio or the current scenerio food is going to become
very very expensive to buy i the cities, and much can happen to stop
the harvest or the harvest being distributed, you may be affluent
enough right now? but very many aren't and everyone could be in
their
shoes at any time.

in the US of A some of the so called fresh food can be in transit
for
up to 2 weeks from what i have read at various times?

i never said it was going to be easy, but when do we start? when it
is
way too late maybe?


Demonstrate that you can feed half the population of Australia on 150
square miles of land.

There is no "my scenario". We feed the populations of those cities
now. The methods used may offend your sensibilities but they work.
You are the one proposing pie in the sky without running the numbers
and showing that they can work.


--

No one ever said that you would make money with the "Cuban Solution".
you'd just get fed. If you want capitalism, you'll need to go elsewhere.
--

Billy

Impeach Pelosi, Bush & Cheney to the Hague
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/
  #30   Report Post  
Old 09-04-2008, 07:51 AM posted to aus.gardens,rec.gardens.edible
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Aug 2007
Posts: 2,265
Default Large scale permaculture

In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:

"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message
...

need to think outside the square, the answers will come and the sooner
the better.


No it won't. It will just continue with consumers telling the government to
DO something. They are too lazy to do anything themselves like dig a veggie
patch or even grow a few herbs. I despair of humanity. A good dose of
plague might not be such a bad thing.



Well it would rip right through those mega cities. A nice virulent avian flu
that is human transmitted would do the trick, coming soon to your
neighbourhood? I hope not.

There is absolutely no doubt that in the end climate change, overpopulation,
land degradation, water pollution, peak oil and daytime soap operas WILL be
dealt with. The challenge is to do it without allowing the four horsemen to
cause untold misery to billions along the way.

David


If it is you and yours' then maybe Farml is right. If it is me and mine,
I'd like a second opinion.
--

Billy

Impeach Pelosi, Bush & Cheney to the Hague
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/
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