Transforming Food Systems to Transform the Future | Jason Bradford

Which animal consumes more energy producing food than it does eating that food? None, except industrialised humans. You don't need to be a scientist to know that's bad news.

Jason Bradford is a biologist and farmer working on how to transform food systems to make them more rural, sustainable, and to provide a net-positive energy consumption. He explains the failings of our current food production and encourages everyone to learn to farm as soon as possible. But beyond that, Jason provides a beacon of hope for the future, revealing the positive changes in his life and his community's since they began their own food production. Without over-simplifying "the great simplification", he thinks it could be a positive transformation.

Listen to discover why veganism isn't the answer and why everyone needs to upskill their practical abilities in the next decade.

#climatecrisis #energycrisis #economy #ruralagriculture #permaculture

© Rachel Donald

[voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang]

I worked full time in 1997 as a CSA intern - it is very hard labor. Yes we got free food with fresh organic salads that were awesome. The farm actually lost money and was folded - I think we did get a small stipend also. Now I have a Shiitake mushroom forest farm CSA that is in exchange for me doing the free regenerative lawn work on 1 acre of lawn for 20 households.

[voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang]

also CSA farms NEED animal manure - there was a doc on Netflix about a CSA farmer who had to truck in animal manure since for example corn uses tons of nitrogen to grow sweet corn. Our CSA farm in 1997 trucked in animal manure from outside.

[voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang]

we now have massive drought all over the world - I realize this was recording during the winter in the northern hemisphere but here we are! Already the farming is directly threatened - crashing worldwide.

[irkone]

Yeah, imagine how much progress would be made in society and ecology if the same amount of investment and energy that went into combustion technologies went into regenerative practices. I bet we could have 200’ chestnuts return to the Eastern USA.

[RickLarsonPermacultureDesigner]

The Bolsheviks killed off the peasant (Kulaks) and converted the land into large holdings. The Nazis smashes a part the small holders of Europe and the land was transferred into large farms. A US AgSec told small farmers to get big or get out. I'd say there is a pattern here and I think its carnage for higher profits fascism.
I expect agribusiness to chug on until it fails.

[voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang]

I dumpster dived my food for ten years in Minneapolis. I rode an old 3 speed British bicycle all year round. So I saved a lot of methane from being released from the food in landfills. hahaha.

[voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang]

check out Sanergy - a growing Humanure Composting business in Africa! MIT engineers helped set it up. Nonwestern culture farming relied on humanure composting. I visited the most traditional Berber village in Morocco - they lived for thousands of years by transforming the desert via humanure composting. Thanks

[jthadcast]

"and then there are priests and circus performers", our tertiary economy says it all.

[davidbarry]

Jason's idea seem like wishful thinking, and ignores too many obvious perils. Sending the poor and unenfranchised (or sometimes politically undesirable) to work the land has simply NOT worked wherever it was tried in the past (China under Mao, Russia under Stalin, even Zimbabwe under Mugabe) - but perhaps it might work with a 40-year training program first? Perhaps. The most likely outcome of emptying out the cities though, will be a neo-feudal class of indentured serfs (slaves?) working for wealthy land-owners. "More connected to the land"? Well yes, if you are not able to travel more than 10 miles from your home village, I guess that is a "connection". Also remember that in pre-industrial peasant villages, a huge amount of manual labour ended up being done by women in the home and fields. We might have a trickle of renewable energy to power home appliances, but the type of rural/agricultural economy envisaged would simply neither be able to produce such appliances (dishwashers, microwaves, laundry machines etc.), nor would generate enough cash income to be able to buy them from the remaining manufacturers. The modern economy, as we know it, would collapse - Boris's view of a Dark Age is distinctly possible, and scary AF. Donkeys and other farm labour animals would probably make a big return, but I've seen how they are usually treated in poor rural areas, and it is NOT kindly.

Personally, I'd prefer to see a $200/ton carbon tax implemented ASAP, and see what innovations that drives. Incentives to become more efficient in energy use (albeit with a risk of leading to even greater energy use) might also lead to more non-fossil fueled agriculture, and urban gardening. Right now, I think one recent estimate was that it would typically cost about $20 to grow tomatoes in a north american back-garden planter, that you could buy for $2 in a store. A carbon tax (combined with growing fuel shortages) might change that dynamic a bit, possibly in ways that we can't yet imagine, but hopefully encouraging better stewardship of farmland if nothing else.

I do think there is a place for small, family-run farms - and more of them than we currently have. However, I simply don't see how we can realistically have more than 10% of the overall population on such farms and still maintain any sort of civilization... Keep in mind that there are also countries like Saudi Arabia which simply don't have the water to do this level of farming either, and many other countries that will simply collapse and send waves of refugees out to other parts of the world, bringing chaos with them. You're going to need to maintain a societal elite (and warrior class) that will be able to deal with the waves of migrants. It's a horrible possibility.