I’ve got a serious problems. I have so many blogs I want to monitor in my bloglines feed, that I have to limit myself to reading one blog per day (not to speak of the newsletters and mailing lists I’m getting in my mailbox, and the suggestions I get from my readers). This means that even my top favorite blogs, like Kevin Carson’s Mutualist, only get the attention they deserve …. about every 50 or so days …
So here we are, reading the Carson blog in reverse chronological order, 71 entries late. The very first and most recent entry was already a jackpot entry. In the blog, he refers to the false alternative of setting no-tech organic agriculture against highly mechanized industrial agriculture, as if there were no intermediary models.
I’m quoting:
“First of all, he sets up a false dichotomy between “intensively mechanized” chemical agriculture and spadework. What about the possibility of appropriate-scale mechanization: i.e., the use of a simple rototiller? They won’t throw you out of the organic club for using it. Second, even without any mechanization at all, there’s a lot (really a lot) less spadework involved in intensive raised bed techniques than in spading up a field for row crops. One double-digging job for a bed can last for years, with only U-bar cultivation subsequently, if you’re careful not to compact the soil. Third, the vacant space in even a built-up city is sufficient to meet a surprising proportion of people’s total needs, what with rooftop gardens, vacant lots, small yards, and the like. John Jeavons, through years of experimentation, has managed to get the amount of space needed to produce an average person’s diet (meat included) down to 4,000 sq. ft. Fourth, from the point of view of labor-time, such techniques are probably a net plus for most people, if you compare the amount of time it takes to grow the stuff to the amount of time you’d have to work to earn it. Borsodi calculated, in Flight From the City, that the total cost of labor and supplies to grow and can one’s own tomatoes was about a third less than the grocery store price.”
