Every calorie of food produced in the U.S. requires ten calories of hydrocarbons. Without oil, the U.S. can only sustain two thirds of its present population and world population should be around two billion. The solution: transition to a sustainable, localised agriculture.

2006-11-29 Industrial Agriculture is arguably Mankind's greatest folly

In this 100-or-so page book, Dale summarises the position modern Agriculture is in today, how it is already providing diminishing returns, and how fossil fuel depletion will hasten its departure. There are a few "Oh My God" moments.

The Introduction outlines the Green Revolution with its effects on soil, hunger, population and how it is utterly dependent on the availability of cheap fossil fuels.

Chapter 1, "Food = Energy + Nutrients", outlines how fossil fuels were created, and how humans developed from hunter-gatherering to agriculture.
The laws of Thermodynamics and Entropy are presented, the Green Revolution is revisited, indicating the energy inputs, and how it's already failing.

Chapter 2, "Land Degradation", describes how soil naturally replenishes its nutrients, and just how quickly this is being undermined by erosion,
with the knock-on effect of having to apply ever more pesticides and fertiliser.

Chapter 3, "Water Degradation", describes how modern agriculture is overdrafting rivers and aquifiers, with details regarding how much water is needed to feed a few different crops. Pollution from pesticides and fertiliser is also mentioned.

Chapter 4, "Eating Fossil Fuels", summarises a few studies undertaken to estimate the fossil energy inputs to provide food energy.
Studies of food toxicology is also described, for instance some foods are imported from countries where "banned" pesticides are still in use.
Food miles is described, as well as how the globalisation of food is leading to the spread of disease.

Chapter 5, "The End of the Oil Age", describes Peak Oil and the Natural Gas Cliff.

Chapter 6, "The Collapse of Agriculture", describes how industrial agriculture has been pushed to the limit and how it will fail to continue to feed the world by 2050, and how fossil fuel depletion will accelerate the coming crisis.
A model of how bad it could be is demonstrated with a description of the collapse of North Korea's industrial agriculture following the crash of the USSR.
Particular emphasis is given on how power failures and a lack of spare machinery parts contributed to a series of positive feedback loops which has created a series of humanitarian disasters.

Chapter 7, "The Next 'Green Revolution': Cuba's Agricultural Miracle" describes how Cuba responded to the USSR crash. Cuba was fortunate to have well educated scientists who had already developed Agroecology, a sustainable Organic farming system. Details are given of how the Cuban government embraced their methods and restructured the farms into smaller units to be compatible with the new methods. Urban gardens are also described as being a further, unplanned, response from individuals.

Chapter 8, "Building A Sustainable Agriculture", outlines how agriculture should be relocalised, supported by Urban food production, with a closed-loop approach to replenish nutrients. The difference between the effects of the USSR crash and the fossil fuel rate of depletion is covered with an optimistic view.

Chapter 9, "Twelve Fun Activities for Activists", outlines how grass-roots efforts should be attempted to engage with communities.

14 pages of resources follow, and 14 pages of source-material references.


This book is suitable for use as an introduction to the subjects covered. It should be read by everyone involved in agriculture, and every MP.

Chapters 6 and 7 are arguably the best parts of the book with a fair
amount of detail on how a sudden collapse of industry and fossil fuels affected two different countries in arguably the worst way and the best way. The book would be better if it featured flow diagrams illustrating the flows of all of the agricultural system's inputs and outputs. Chapter 4 should have provided some of the detail from the referenced studies.