Otto Scharmer article: An Apple Shows Just How Broken Our Food System Is.
I was delightfully surprised to find this article on nutrition. The surprise came because it comes from an MIT Economist named Otto Scharmer. Those familiar with the discipline of systems thinking might recognize his name from the book titled "Theory U".
What was surprising was to see Dr. Scharmer's background and links to the emerging issues of nutrition, soil quality and our agricultural production system. While I don't agree with everything he says about livestock impact, he does clarify the growing scope of the nutrition issue, including its affordability, as well as agriculture's impact on our health and the climate. He points out that the costs of a conventional apple, in terms of damage to health and environment from the pesticides used, are extremely high. If, when buying the fruit, we paid the cost of cleaning up the water polluted by conventional agriculture's pesticides, non-organic produce would cost double what it does.
I should clarify why I am not supportive of Dr. Scharmer's statements regarding livestock. From our perspective, agricultural systems that are the most productive in terms of carbon sequestration involve perennial polycultures, or in other words, numerous species of trees, shrubs, grasses, etc, planted together, with livestock grazing among them. (The photo in the article shows a conventional ag system with dozens of cows standing or lying on bare ground, the opposite of a regenerative system, where the cattle enjoy lush meadows.) Livestock are by far the most economical way to use these perennial polyculture systems, convert sunlight into food, and sequester the most carbon. When these systems make use of a full, holistic lifecycle assessment, the picture regarding livestock impact can change dramatically.
CNU Savannah Keynote: Livable Cities for the 21st Century: A talk by Jan Gehl
I really enjoyed this presentation. For the uninitiated, this is a great chance to understand the way in which we have become a monoculture of modernism and motorism. What is motorism? Check out the video.
The costs of soil restoration
I recently did a calculation on the costs of restoring soils.
One acre of soil is 43,560 square feet. At a minimum, we are interested in the top 6" or 1/2 foot, so that results in a volume of 21,780 cubic feet.
The vast majority of our industrial agricultural soils are now at 0.5% organic matter, the point at which they are no longer productive without massive inputs of salt-based fertilizers. To get those soils functional, we need to bring them to about 3% organic matter and balance the minerals. Thus we need to increase the soil organic matter by 2.5%. Let's assume that we can replace that organic matter with compost alone (i.e. none of the expensive minerals). Fortunately, compost contains some of those minerals -- however, compost alone cannot fully balance the mineral needs for optimal plant growth.
Two-and-a-half percent of 21,780 cubic feet comes to 545 cubic feet/acre or 20 cubic yards. In bulk, we can source poor-to-average quality composts at $30/cubic yard delivered to the farm. That results in a cost of $600 per acre for the compost alone, for one acre. That does not include the costs of applying the compost (machinery and time) and incorporating it into the soil (more machinery and time), nor the costs of preventing its future loss to the same erosion that allowed the original soil to wash away into the Gulf of Mexico in the first place.
For a 100-acre farm, the cost of compost alone would be $60 thousand dollars. The value of very good corn land is around $10,000/acre; but for much agricultural land, the ceiling hovers closer to $3,000 per acre. Clearly no financial institution will loan a farmer $600 per acre for soil restoration when its resale value is only around $3,000 - $10,000/acre.
Based on a series of 40 soil samples that we submitted from 40 Travis County soils, we found that restoring the mineral balance in a soil is quite expensive. Restoring simple minerals like Sulfur and Phosphorous, etc. would add upto about $2,500/acre. More complicated problems such as balancing out excessive Magnesium by balancing out the remaining minerals would add on additional $5,000 per acre. Ecologically advanced soils with high humate levels (old carbon) would cost another $10,000. That adds upto about $20,000 per acre when all totaled.
No one ever explained to my father, a farmer in southern Ontario, that the combined cost to restore his soils would add up to about $20,000 per acre. If that was the going to be the case, would he have proceeded? Thankfully for my family, everyone in farming was convinced to follow the green revolution, and so all soils lost economic value as a level playing field. Thus when we went to sell our farm, our land was valued the same as everyone else's.
Further, how is a farmer to recoup this investment? Do we value the food coming from these soils enough to double the revenue/acre of the farm? Recall that I did not include the cost of balancing the minerals for the farm. Those numbers can vary quite widely, and the cost of minerals can add up to another $10,000/acre. Is that important? Yes, because balancing the soil minerals and increasing soil organic matter is the only way to get the nutrient-dense forms of food that we so desperately need to start controlling the skyrocketing costs of our health care.
This is what I call a soil economics problem. We have dedicated our lives to finding solutions to these problems, because our future and that of our children depends on it.
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NOTE: I will have to made some additions to this yet, regarding the costs of minerals and water. Done. New paragraph based on MEF15 Residential Soil Problem 1-12
A Playable City?
I came across this link recently and found the idea quite compelling. The article was posted on Reslience.org and is a radio interview with Hilary O'Shaughnessy.
The key question asked by the author of the article referred to the work of a National Trust report. The question is: What happens when play disappears from our cities?
“a potential impact is that children who don’t take risks become adults who don’t take risks”.
See the podcast link below and please comment.
https://soundcloud.com/transition-culture/hilary-oshaughnessy-on-the-playable-
The Journey Begins
Thanks for joining us!
Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton
US Health Care Costs
This is a fascinating article that discusses the rising costs of health care and brings greater clarity into the reasons why we, as citizens of one of the most developed countries in the world, are paying so much. Are we that ill? Maybe not. Maybe it is just that the solution to high prices is higher prices until a better alternative comes along. As long as we continue to allow our nation's soils to degenerate, better nutrition will not be part of the entrepreneurial answer.
Listing of the best dieting plan options
What is the best diet plan? Here is a linking of eight different diet plans and the priority that the authors placed them in. Quite curious and I am fascinated by the climate change implications of the article.
Link
Extreme hurricanes and wildfires made 2017 the most costly U.S. disaster year on record - The Washington Post
(Photo credit: Hurricane Katrina, as pictured in the Gulf of Mexico at 21:45 UTC on August 28, 2005. From a NOAA website page)
A fascinating look at the year behind us in terms of budget impacts.
$306 billion in damages, mostly from hurricanes. The base budget for FEMA is $0.6 billion and the "Major Declarations" budget is $6.7 billion. Source Politifact Link The politifact article goes on to explain that Moody's Analytics estimates that Harvey would cost $150 billion and Irma $200 billion. I have not seen any estimates for the wildfire fighting costs and damages in Calfornia/December.
At $150 billion, that is 22.4x of the annual appropriation for 'Major Declarations'.
The WaPo article ends with the following data:
According to the Congressional Research Service, Congress made 14 supplemental appropriations from 2004 and 2013, totaling $89.6 billion. That includes $43 billion in 2005 alone, the year Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma and Rita hit the United States.
It would seem to me that there is a real need for new funding sources which help the country to rebound from climate related events, and that they are falling far short of the funds needed, both in their budgeting and in their re-imbursements.
Extreme hurricanes and wildfires made 2017 the most costly U.S. disaster year on record - The Washington Post:
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Cracks in food packaging?
The article from NPR delves into the ways that the food industry is changing. It provides a fascinating look into pressures/needs of the conventional versus progressive food movements. As Amazon increases its control over the center aisles products or 'CPG' (i.e. consumer packaged dry goods), how will the big CPG multi-nationals respond. This article seems to provide some insight.
US environment guru William McDonough: Let's reconsider how we tackle climate change - The National
US environment guru William McDonough: Let's reconsider how we tackle climate change - The National:
William McDonough makes important points in this article from Jan. 2018: “There’s nothing wrong with carbon and the element is not the enemy, so let’s not demonise it. We are [made of] carbon and it’s a critical component of life itself,” the architect insists. “The problem of carbon in the atmosphere is not carbon’s fault. Climate change is the result of breakdowns in the carbon cycle caused by us. It is we who have made carbon toxic — like lead in our drinking water or nitrates in our rivers,” he says. “In the right place, carbon is a resource and a tool.”
McDonough distinguishes among three types of carbon: fugitive, durable, and living. Fugitive carbon is escaping atmospheric carbon like that released in vehicle emissions. Durable carbon is that locked in a wooden beam or a plastic bottle. But durable carbon going to some place where it has a negative effect, like plastic bottles in the ocean, becomes fugitive carbon. Living carbon is that which occurs naturally in plants and living organisms. This is carbon doing what it is meant to do, supporting soil organisms and all others, from the ground up.
McDonough would also like to define "carbon behavior" as negative, positive and neutral. Carbon negative behavior involves releasing more carbon into the atmosphere. Carbon neutral behavior includes renewable energy, solar collectors and recycling. And carbon positive behavior sequesters carbon into the soil and other living things.
We really like this intuitive characterization of carbon behavior: if you are doing good things like planting trees, you are engaging in a carbon-positive activity. If you live in Nature Towns, your overall carbon footprint might be positive - a good thing, as you become responsible for sequestering more carbon than you emit.
Regrettably, in the 18 months since this article appeared, McDonough’s positive-negative terminology seems to have not caught on. The overwhelming majority of the press refers to “carbon negative” activities as those that remove carbon from the atmosphere, i.e., a good thing. The reasoning for this usage is understandable, but it has the unfortunate result of being like medical tests in which “negative” is a positive thing, as in, “The cancer test came back negative (whew!).”
Too bad: a difficult topic remains more confusing than it needs to be.
-Karin
USDA NRCS Rainfall Simulator impacts on soil quality
If you have the time to view this, it is well worth it. USDA is definitely getting the message out about how to protect the soil. This is one of the highlight events at farmer conferences this winter.
Ford CEO: Together, let’s take back the streets for living - Recode
Ford CEO: Together, let’s take back the streets for living - Recode:
In an op-ed in Vox (Jan. 9, 2018) Ford's CEO Jim Hackett makes the surprising admission that automobiles have ruined the world's great cities. The car became "the ultimate disruptor to ... our civic way of life." While his diagnosis of the problem is good, his solution is a bit questionable. Here at Nature Towns, we think walkable villages will do far more than autonomous vehicles to bring back real community.
Rotten | Netflix Official Site
If you have the chance to watch this series, it is quite informative. It raises an important question. Can capitalism reverse the destruction of the commons?
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Developments in electric bikes
The latest in electric bike technologies. This lets my imagination think about how the "last mile" for public transit is getting shorter. Technologies such as these let people expand their access from just walking 0.5 mile to much farther, so public transit becomes more viable even for those who live a greater distance from a station.
Too bad this bike doesn't have saddle bags or cargo capacity!
-Patrick
Regenerative Farming Trailblazers: How Reintegrating Livestock and Restoring Soils Can Lead to More Resilient Farms - Union of Concerned Scientists
A great review of regenerative farming successes by accomplished land stewards. A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Forgotten towns
This article brings up a fascinating discussion for several reasons. Will some of these towns be bought out and converted into campuses for big technology companies? Will the fast growing towns of central Texas loose out to these opportunities? When a place starts to hit rock bottom is when it gets repurposed. I am fascinated by the prospect of creating new communities out of old ones, with the express intention of creating a more affordable lifestyle that leads on regenerating the climate.
Link
Why small, local, organic farms aren’t the key to fixing our food system - The Washington Post
Why small, local, organic farms aren’t the key to fixing our food system - The Washington Post:
I have posted this article because I think that it might poke a blind spot in our feelings about how to regenerate the planet's soils. There is certainly a scale issue that has been brought up by many.
I don't believe that local and organic is not up to the solution. It is. However, it must also be asked, what is the role of the large companies in the ecological performance of the country. Unless they have those metrics at their mission level, I am not sure that we will be able to use their networks and infrastructure, which is their key to profitability.
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Research: Announcement: Moody's: Climate change is forecast to heighten US exposure to economic loss placing short- and long-term credit pressure on US states and local governments - Moody's
Research: Announcement: Moody's: Climate change is forecast to heighten US exposure to economic loss placing short- and long-term credit pressure on US states and local governments - Moody's:
The impacts of this announcement could be serious. I was listening to an NPR broadcast last week about the Gulf Coast communities and residents which have just left. The homes on their properties are wiped out. They won't pay taxes on a home that is no longer there, and numerous lots will be coming up for sale at some point. That makes for a degenerative property tax system.
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