Perhaps you should look into fertilizers as a growing emission source of nitrous (N2O), which is a potent greenhouse gas as well.  -sam

Onward through the fog

There's a recent report in Science (two reports, really) on the role of nitrogen fertilizers in producing ocean releases of both CO2 and nitrous oxide.  This is one more warning that calls into question the wisdom of subsidizing corn production -- for ethanol or anything else.  Growing corn may actually be taking us the wrong direction on greenhouse gases and it is a chemical nightmare for our water resources.  Lets get US agribusiness off the dole.

Nitrous oxide at 296x the GHG effect of CO2 and methane at 21 times the GHG effect of CO2 are the key to an ag/energy policy to offset our carbon footprint.

The nitrous oxide emitted from chemical fertilizer use equals the GHG effect of 2/3 of the CO2 absorbed by the crop fertilized.

If the methane produced from fertilizer and manure run off were turned into biogas fuel instead (in a biogas digestor), would offset 20 times the CO2 produced from burning it for energy.

And the organic fertilizer from biodigestion would replace chemical fertilizer, halting the nitrous oxide release.

So if 5% of our CO2 emitting energy use came from biogas produced from manure and biomass, then that would offset all of our CO2 emissions.  

As solar and wind take over from fossil fuel and conservation reduces energy use, that 5% portion shrinks drastically, so it would become practical to offset the rest of unavoidable CO2 emissions, like fuel for plugin hybrids or aircraft.

A sufficient source of fertilizer exists in human urine alone to produce all thje food humans need.  The soil ammendment of fertilizer and partially digested biomass would revive our soil as a natural carbon sink.

With energy and ag policy like this, GHG and high ebnergy prices would pass into history with very little climate effect.  We have 10 to 20 years, lets get on this yesterday!

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

How much energy is used to move phosphorus from the mines to the fields?

Will phosphorus "run out" shortly after cheap oil disappears, regardless of whether there is still phosphorus to mine? And how might this affect the distribution of crops being grown?

We'll be in an awful postion, as a species, if our prime ag land is half a globe away from our prime phosphorus mines.

What should I be doing in my garden and future orchard right now to conserve phosphorous?

Dymaxion toilet separated the urine for fertilizer extraction.  I saw it done on the green netwirk, a fairly simple process.  It yields a powdered fertlizer.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Bonemeal.

Once we crush the republicans in november, there'll be plenty of phosphorus to go around.

Manures have a decent amount of P too, especially poultry manure. Not sure how sustainable manure is, though, unless it's coming from a sustainable farm.

NJD

Because without modern farming techniques, there's no way to feed 7 billion people.

Victory in Pattani

If the farming industry could produce the same amount of food for lower cost, they would do it. They are in business to make money like the rest of us. So something's not adding up here. The farming industry is not made up of idiots.

Victory in Pattani

In 1911 D.F.H.King wrote a book called Farmers of Forty Centuries Or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan.  King commented at the time that our Ag was unsustainable, whereas the Asian methods had demonstrated sustainability (as in the title).  It was fascinating to read that people were paying for the right to clean out the toilets of cities to haul the stuff back to the farmers.  The stuff was black gold to them.

Mad Mac said, "Because without modern farming techniques, there's no way to feed 7 billion people."

In 1910 the population of China was 410 million.  That was 43 per km2.

In 2007, the world was 45 persons per km2.  It might be feasible to feed the world with 1910 Chinese agriculture.  However, you might not like it.

That will allow mined fertilizer to take up the 10% slack until we figure out how other alternatives, like harvesting and biodigesting algae that extracts NP anf K from ocean water for instance.  Organisms act like filters.

Nitrogen is no problem because we can always grow nitrogen fixing green manure crops to add to our biodigestion process.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

..... slave laborerers working collective farms? The US is NOT, NOT going to go back to small farms unless there's an economic collapse and world war. You can't go backwards.

Victory in Pattani

Why should going organic be going backward? We got vastly more knowledge than the old about soil chemistry/biology and the biosphere at large. We know much more about nutritional and medicinal values of plants. Organic gardening can be high science.

From a scientist's perspective, current industrial agriculture is the height of primitivity and stupidity. Heck, we can't even do sustainable ag in the Amazon forest: the farming there being degenerated to the most primitive form of prehistoric agriculture (slash and burn soil exploitation), which the pre-Columbian inhabitants' technique was vastly superior to (their 500y old terra preta soil still being fertile; being mined and sold to gardeners).

Jobless? Hungry? Grow your own! Bored and unhappy? Go play with plants and animals! Getting rid of biophobia can also cure other civilisation neuroses.

Mad Mac says that if the farming industry could do organic at lower cost, they would.  If I told you that you could prevent breast/colon/prostate cancer or diabetes by not eating red meat, avoiding processed foods, and dairy products and that it would be a lot cheaper than chemo therapy, would you do it?

How is it that a $100K farm tractor, tons of sprayers and equipment, seed, fertilizer, and pesticides can cost less than the old way of doing things?  It can't.  The way the system is build up, however, farmers don't get paid for growing crops, they get paid subsidies.  If conventional agriculture was indeed cheaper than organic, then they'd be doing it our way everywhere in the world.

Cheap oil enables this unsustainable form of agriculture.  It will come to an end soon enough.

Shu pas a vende.

Mad Mac,

Industrial farming is probably "less expensive" because, like a lot of of our large industries, it externalizes huge costs by...

... depending on a tax payer supported military to ensure a steady supply of fossil fuel, dumping chemicals in the air and water and expecting the rest of us to pay for treatment for various illnesses caused by those chemicals, destroying soil and expecting federal and state angencies to find quick fixes to repair the damage, using the Mississippi and other rivers as open sewers while those dependent on clean rivers and clean oceans are forced to abandon their jobs... and, until very recently... they could move on to new land once the older land was exhausted.

Dumping your messes on other people is no longer a viable option. Exhausting the land and moving on to new territory is no longer possible. Soil is eroding, on average, about twice as fast as new soil forms. Industrial agriculture simply is not sustainable.

I can't find anything in the Army Field Manual or the Bible that says that industrial agriculture is unsustainable.

Shu pas a vende.

...and biointensive farming build up the soil -- or do they also need phosphorus to be imported from time to time?

Powered agriculture with robots can replace oil based ag and intensive labor organic ag.

Recycling fertilizer provides clean biogas energy (to backup a renewable smart grid) as well as GHG offset that can halt comate disaster.

Curtailing methane and nirtous oxide release offsets CO2 emissions.  It's just that simple.

Factories can produce agricultural robots instead of the farm machinery now in use.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Years ago I did some work related to composting of sewage sludge and didn't find that to be a particularly appealing source of fertilizer for crops. But even assuming the use of human waste as fertilizer on a more appropriate scale, given recent information on endocrine disrupters reaching the environment through pharmaceuticals excreted in our waste, would we have to go "drug-free" suppliers to get a truly "organic" source of fertilizer?

and empty the cities and dump them into small farms......... most of them will starve.

And it will be very bad for the environment as well.

Cities are good for the environment, because they compact a lot of people into a small space. Well, unless your organic methods are going to provide sufficient food for the peoples living int he cities, then it won't work.

We'll see how it shakes out. With the increasing cost of oil, that will be directly felt across the board, in food production, in clothing, etc.

But America will not become an agrarian society unless the global economy collapses. If that happens, expect massive war, massive violence (probably not good for the environment) and massive death across the planet. It won't be a gentle or willfull transition, nor can it be.

Victory in Pattani

Now those are good jobs Erik.  Excellent.

Many could be CSAs.  There is a growing grassroots movement to include dairy, poultry, and meat production in CSAs.

Local cooperative non-governmental socialism is a good thing.  Co-existing right alongside good old fashioned family farm/local business  competitive capitalism.

All those farms and many existing ones could produce clean GHG free energy and fertilizer too.  Energy/ag policy reform would allow these new farms to respond to real free market demand.

Subsidies for corporate ag and energy need to be redirected to level the market for consumers and producers.  So they can decide if they want local organic food without below cost corporate food shutting local farms and businesses down with unfair competition.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Then expect it to start happening pretty soon. The price of oil will continue to climb. Therefore, it will, in the not too distant future, make eminent economic sense to hire people to plant and harvest. It will be seasonal, low paying, work. But, for people who don't have work at all......... it will be a decent deal.

Victory in Pattani

Another point pro small-organic-farm is that small farms are significantly more efficient (if efficiency is measured as production per area, not per worker). This is a long known "miracle".