#41
Post rating: ~

tsinava posted:

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

society was moving from an agrarian rural society to an industrial urban one. Your ideas seem to go against that .




You read things into peoples posts that don't exist and it's annoying. This is why people to tell you to shut the fuck up IWC.



would be working on sustainable farms where much human labor would be required. I would even extend to high school students as well. The immigrant workers labor would be required as well. All of that and it probably wouldn't be enough.



i 'read into your post' that a lot more labour would be required because you wrote it right there.

#42
Post rating: ~

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

tsinava posted:

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

society was moving from an agrarian rural society to an industrial urban one. Your ideas seem to go against that .




You read things into peoples posts that don't exist and it's annoying. This is why people to tell you to shut the fuck up IWC.

would be working on sustainable farms where much human labor would be required. I would even extend to high school students as well. The immigrant workers labor would be required as well. All of that and it probably wouldn't be enough.



i 'read into your post' that a lot more labour would be required because you wrote it right there.



Yeah, you quoted one little piece of my post that fully explained the labor distribution for your dumb argument. More people being employed does not mean an agrarian society. #STFU-IWC

#43
Post rating: ~
Also the definition of agrarian is weird. Do you mean luddism?

Did you know that you can farm food in cities? What kind of society is that?

Our society is still agrarian we still have massive farms and towns that depend on them nowhere near cities.

Edited by tsinava ()

#44
Post rating: ~
This is why I was talking shit about the urban/rural cultural separation earlier.

It has people thinking that you either have cities, or farms, and not both at the same place/time. It's a pretty dumb and restricting way of thinking imo.
#45
Post rating: ~
U can have large scale industrial food production combined with sustainable techniques. its not one or the other. right now industrial food production where i live is particularly high tech and efficient but still there is obvious waste both in the way the product of this industry is used (it is produced based on consumer demand resulting in bad tasting, cheap products and often exported for the profit of the farmer or used for financial speculation) and the way a lot of land goes unused because it's turned into boring lawns and stiff bourgeois gardens which produce nothing where they might, if the owner would be encouraged to take a bit better care of it, as well as causing environmental problems and marginalizing noble creatures such as the european badger
#46
Post rating: ~
and theres nothing communist in insisting on uniform efficiency in any case, and suggesting we should all live in dense cities with the countryside tended to by giant collective or automated farms (with the idea that it would minimize labor and maximize production) is an impossible demand and therefore posturing. the way i see it a strong, effective state limiting particular interests is needed exactly to open up a space for people to withdraw, if they wish, from such a lifestyle.
#47
Post rating: ~
Exactly.

Sustainable systems of agriculture aren't going to need manual labor forever. We are eventually going to develop machines that identify and harvest crops from polycultures. Just probably not initially. (or IDK maybe those already exist)

But that's way in the future I'm guessing.

Edited by tsinava ()

#48
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I've seen the three sisters used in family owned fields back when I was visiting former Yugoslavia. Other than that I saw no other plant mixing. I've been thinking about keeping chickens here in the city but I feel if I don't get a rooster along with the hens it won't be worth it. I'm sure a rooster would bring a lot of complaints with the noise it makes in the morning too. Do chickens have trouble surviving in cold temperatures? It doesn't get that cold in the balkans but Canada is a different story.
#49
Post rating: ~
It depends on the chicken and the temperatures it reaches. If it gets super cold I would build them an insulated coop. Some people do chicken greenhouses with compost piles in them for extremely cold climates. You may be able to find a rooster variety that isn't so aggressive and doesn't make noise.

If you can't, quail are a nice, quiet alternative. You can make a ventilated greenhouse to keep them in and grow some plants from the soil in there that will bear fruit and attract bugs for them to eat. Or just keep them in a big cage and manually feed them.
#50
[account deactivated]
#51
Post rating: +
well even when that happens theres going to be people who simply like doing that particular job (or at least, on a small scale around their own house or something).

right now a lot of people who engage in sustainable food production by themselves do so from an ideology of "self reliance", the idea being that if you can produce your own food and energy, you can be mostly isolated from having to participate in a terrifying and exhausting market society, but the problem there obviously is that it's just a way of escape and self preservation rather than engagement, and only open to those who have the means to buy a piece of land and a rural or semi-rural house in the first place, not to most people. watch a show like "escape to river cottage" (which i basically like because it does contain some useful tips and also because im just kind of a sucker for pastoral imagery, for which i will likely be executed at a later stage of the rhizzone revolution) for an example of this.

it should be possible to just live in the countryside if you wish and try to use whatever piece of land is available to you in an at least somewhat useful way (and to have land available to you in proportion to your needs), it just takes a strong state to make this an option for everyone who wants it in a way that is fair and doesnt result in the formation of the particular interests of kulaks as a class
#52
Post rating: ~

conec posted:

WHO JUST SHARTED.......?????????????????



#53
Post rating: +

Dargydoof posted:

I've seen the three sisters used in family owned fields back when I was visiting former Yugoslavia. Other than that I saw no other plant mixing. I've been thinking about keeping chickens here in the city but I feel if I don't get a rooster along with the hens it won't be worth it. I'm sure a rooster would bring a lot of complaints with the noise it makes in the morning too. Do chickens have trouble surviving in cold temperatures? It doesn't get that cold in the balkans but Canada is a different story.



i let my chickens sleep inside the house in a lil basket when its very cold, i have a tile floor though so its pretty easy to clean up their shit.

#54
Post rating: ~

conec posted:

WHO JUST SHARTED.......?????????????????



me i have an intestinal infection

#55
Post rating: ~

tsinava posted:

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

tsinava posted:

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

society was moving from an agrarian rural society to an industrial urban one. Your ideas seem to go against that .




You read things into peoples posts that don't exist and it's annoying. This is why people to tell you to shut the fuck up IWC.

would be working on sustainable farms where much human labor would be required. I would even extend to high school students as well. The immigrant workers labor would be required as well. All of that and it probably wouldn't be enough.



i 'read into your post' that a lot more labour would be required because you wrote it right there.



Yeah, you quoted one little piece of my post that fully explained the labor distribution for your dumb argument. More people being employed does not mean an agrarian society. #STFU-IWC



i didn't say it was, but no you didn't make a case about why there should be more people in the agricultural sector

#56
Post rating: ~

tsinava posted:

Also the definition of agrarian is weird. Do you mean luddism?

Did you know that you can farm food in cities? What kind of society is that?

Our society is still agrarian we still have massive farms and towns that depend on them nowhere near cities.



the way most people would understand it, no we do not live in an agrarian society; very few people are directly employed in agriculture.

like i said, i have no problem with urbanites growing vegetables and what not, but a) most people don't and b) the quantities grown are negligible compared to actual rural areas.

#57
Post rating: ~

tsinava posted:

This is why I was talking shit about the urban/rural cultural separation earlier.

It has people thinking that you either have cities, or farms, and not both at the same place/time. It's a pretty dumb and restricting way of thinking imo.



i know right, people think that foxes and humans are like two different, separate species and when i prove them wrong by wearing my fursuit around the street they still go on with their dumb, restricted thinking.

#58
Post rating: +

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

tsinava posted:

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

tsinava posted:

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

society was moving from an agrarian rural society to an industrial urban one. Your ideas seem to go against that .




You read things into peoples posts that don't exist and it's annoying. This is why people to tell you to shut the fuck up IWC.

would be working on sustainable farms where much human labor would be required. I would even extend to high school students as well. The immigrant workers labor would be required as well. All of that and it probably wouldn't be enough.



i 'read into your post' that a lot more labour would be required because you wrote it right there.



Yeah, you quoted one little piece of my post that fully explained the labor distribution for your dumb argument. More people being employed does not mean an agrarian society. #STFU-IWC

i didn't say it was, but no you didn't make a case about why there should be more people in the agricultural sector



I'm going to respond to IWCs boring, awful, divisive posts with gifs from now on if the rest of you don't mind.


#59
Post rating: +

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

tsinava posted:

This is why I was talking shit about the urban/rural cultural separation earlier.

It has people thinking that you either have cities, or farms, and not both at the same place/time. It's a pretty dumb and restricting way of thinking imo.

i know right, people think that foxes and humans are like two different, separate species and when i prove them wrong by wearing my fursuit around the street they still go on with their dumb, restricted thinking.



#60
Post rating: ~

tsinava posted:

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

tsinava posted:

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

tsinava posted:

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

society was moving from an agrarian rural society to an industrial urban one. Your ideas seem to go against that .




You read things into peoples posts that don't exist and it's annoying. This is why people to tell you to shut the fuck up IWC.

would be working on sustainable farms where much human labor would be required. I would even extend to high school students as well. The immigrant workers labor would be required as well. All of that and it probably wouldn't be enough.



i 'read into your post' that a lot more labour would be required because you wrote it right there.



Yeah, you quoted one little piece of my post that fully explained the labor distribution for your dumb argument. More people being employed does not mean an agrarian society. #STFU-IWC

i didn't say it was, but no you didn't make a case about why there should be more people in the agricultural sector



I'm going to respond to IWCs boring, awful, divisive posts with gifs from now on if the rest of you don't mind.




what's 'divisive' is the communal violence in India that would result from having their grain imports halved because bourgeois Americans like you decided that wheat and tractors are boring and inauthentic

#61
Post rating: +

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

what's 'divisive' is the communal violence in India that would result from having their grain imports halved because bourgeois Americans like you decided that wheat and tractors are boring and inauthentic



#62
Post rating: ~
I'm willing to answer any and all questions about cultivating food and other stuff in this thread and write long posts explaining certain vague concepts involving agriculture, if people ask for them, to the best of my ability!

I don't have a lot to do with my life right now except go to school and look for a job or a way to make money that isn't too degrading!

#63
Post rating: ~

tsinava posted:

I'm willing to answer any and all questions about cultivating food and other stuff in this thread and write long posts explaining certain vague concepts involving agriculture, if people ask for them, to the best of my ability!

I don't have a lot to do with my life right now except go to school and look for a job or a way to make money that isn't too degrading!



Sure: 1 billion people in the world face food insecurity, are you able to outline how they would benefit if America shifted towards the polycultivating, labour-intensive farming that you are proposing?

#64
Post rating: ~
Your question is too vague. Why don't you give me some specific agricultural exports as examples and I could tell you how we could reorient their cultivation to be more productive and sustainable? Give me like 5.
#65
Post rating: ~

tsinava posted:

Your question is too vague. Why don't you give me some specific agricultural exports as examples and I could tell you how we could reorient their cultivation to be more productive and sustainable? Give me like 5.



I'll give you three:

Wheat
Maize/Corn
Soybeans

if you could outline how under your system they will become cheaper and more abundant, or of better nutritional quality (for the same price) to a food-insecure person in the developing world, that would be great

1 billion people in the world face food insecurity, are you able to outline how they would benefit if America shifted towards the polycultivating, labour-intensive farming that you are proposing?

#66
Post rating: +

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

tsinava posted:

Your question is too vague. Why don't you give me some specific agricultural exports as examples and I could tell you how we could reorient their cultivation to be more productive and sustainable? Give me like 5.

I'll give you three:

Wheat
Maize/Corn
Soybeans

if you could outline how under your system they will become cheaper and more abundant, or of better nutritional quality (for the same price) to a food-insecure person in the developing world, that would be great

1 billion people in the world face food insecurity, are you able to outline how they would benefit if America shifted towards the polycultivating, labour-intensive farming that you are proposing?



I really don't know much about land distribution in the U.S., so say the government owns and is willing to give up I guess 1 million acres of arid desert lands (that's like 1/72 of arizona) for an agricultural experiment to demonstrate more effective methods.

First, in order to prepare the soil I would create large berms with whatever biomass is freely or cheaply available, plant grids of various nitrogen fixing trees that are extremely hardy and tolerant to harsh climates and shitty soil and all that jazz on those berms and mulch them. Some examples would be Black Locust, Lebbeck, Gray Alder, prairie acacia, mimosa tree, northern/southern bayberry, autumn olive, and other plants such as siberian/russian/pymgy pea shrubs, black-eyed peas.

These would be planted in wide lanes separating fields of crops that are maybe 10,000 sq ft each. (or larger depending on the size of the harvesting machines, going up to 100,000 sq ft actually) On the sides of these lanes would be planted various dynamic accumulators such as comfrey, dandelion, plaintain, nettles, vetch, perhaps sunflower. This would be the process of treating the soil. The trees would fix nitrogen with their shed pods, and leaves, the dynamic accumulators would be slashed and mulched on the fields. After the soil is mulched well enough, you may be able to grow some soybean because it actually fixes nitrogen!

I would have alternating fields I guess to see if I could grow soybean after 1 years fallow/mulch, 2 years fallow/mulch, etc. and measure crop outputs. After 5 years of continuous mulching from the trees, and people slash and drop mulching onto the fields, I believe they would be ready to start growing wheat and corn. Remember, that interactions with the fields would be on like a 6 month basis, or better yet once a year. When they are finally ready I'll sheet mulch the ones I let fallow to kill all the vegetation that either came in on its own or was planted to restore the soil.

I think 100 x 100 ft is enough for a machine to fit in and do it's thing, this isn't including the wide lanes of trees/mulchers. This is designed for machines to harvest from it. In fact you may be able to get machines to mulch the dynamic accumulators too. Who knows.

This system could be optimized to even inter-plant tree guilds in certain sections of the field probably, I'm just sticking with grids to be conservative.
Crop rotation of these three between the fields would definitely help, especially with Soybean in the mix.

I believe the system I just described can be used to harvest many different kinds of crops actually. The dynamic accumulators I described mine a wide array of nutrients from the subsoil.

Also I don't have a problem with GMOs being used or the concept of genetic modification in general.

For the problem of weeds growing in the fields, a lot of common weeds can't grow very well in healthy soil. I would leave the weeds that do grow alone until the day before harvest and have people go out and slash and mulch them. If weeds begin to take over, I would sheet mulch the field after harvest to kill their roots and seeds. For growing corn I would also plant a groundcover such as a clover variety to fix more nitrogen and prevent weeds.

I would plant many varieties that are only edible to birds and other animals that like to munch crops in the tree and shrub lanes so they wouldn't be so inclined to eat the corn, beans, or wheat. If your crop is in an open field most animals would naturally be discouraged to enter and eat everything anyways.

Though deer may become a problem down the line and we may need hunters to come in.

I believe this would make those foods cheaper and more abundant because the only things I really need in this are the seeds and seedlings for all the plants and trees I need, the initial biomass to construct the berms, laborers with vehicles to help do it, also maybe some materials for a drip irrigation/olla system to get it on it's legs. However after all that the idea is to just leave the system there and let it accumulate nutrients until it's capable of growing the desired crop. The only thing I'll need from then on is the machines for harvesting and occasional laborers for mulching. The investment is a pittance, long term when you consider other methods of farming.

Here's a rough diagram of what I'm talking about. It shows a quarter section of a square wheat polyculture field:

I'm bored.

Edited by tsinava ()

#67
Post rating: ~
Also way down the line when the black locusts are close to their age limit (I would plant a whole lot of them, they are very useful) you can cut them down for valuable wood that has a natural high resistance to rot and fungus. Replant of course.
#68
Post rating: ~
I suppose you could argue that what I'm describing is not a polyculture of those three crops, but small monocultures stabilized and regulated by intersections of polycultures and I guess you would be right. I still believe it would be effective though.

I borrowed from some methods described in these links: http://www.permaculture.com/node/140
http://www.agriculturesnetwork.org/magazines/global/monocultures-towards-sustainability/how-to-grow-winter-wheat-the-fukuoka-bonfils


Edited by tsinava ()

#69
[account deactivated]
#70
Post rating: +
i have an exceptionally large and fertile japanese maple in my back yard, pretty sure it's at least 35 feet tall judging by its height relative to my roof. i make a not insignificant amount each year selling saplings, which in addition to running crab pots and fishing scallops is basically how i make a living

turns out the tree was planted over the drain field of my septic tank. so far the irs has refused to credit my eating taco bell as a business expense
#71
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
so whats up with doing this in a country where most people are renters where everything they do with the rental property risks financial penalties? socialism happens first or
#72
Marxsplainer
Post rating: ~
pemaculture techniques like forest gardening/sepp holzer permaculture are particularly well-suited to orchards, vineyards, rubber plantations, chocolate/coffee farms or any other situation where the desired crop is the product of perennial trees/shrubs. orchards and the like are already very labor-intensive and require constant pruning, mowing, and maintenance under 'conventional' management schemes, so adapting to a more sustainable methodology wold not require significant reorganization of labor or machinery.

they probably the best possible candidates for large-scale adoption of those permaculture techniques as the improved resistance to pests and disease and addition of other food/cash crops to the existing orchard make it very attractive to otherwise skeptical farmers. there's a lot of money being made by enterprising hippies who convert low-producing, defunct or badly-managed conventional orchards into forest gardens.

large-scale production of grains or legumes aren't really suited to forest garden schemes, with good reason. there are great sustainable methods of semi- or fully-mechanized farming of these crops though!

#73
Post rating: ~
i planted a whole plot of nothing but chives with my stoner friend one time with the full intention of it being monoculture but the weeds sprang up and we just kind of left them so it was polyculture after all. coincidentally it was right around the time i was reading The One-Straw Revolution and the ideals of "Do-nothing Farming" manifested right in my garden
#74
Poronto
Post rating: ~
the idea of do-nothing farming manifests itself in my bathroom. mushrooms, yum
#75
Dont Mess With Sucess
Post rating: +

daddyholes posted:

so whats up with doing this in a country where most people are renters where everything they do with the rental property risks financial penalties? socialism happens first or

a common sight in brooklyn are half-assed community gardens that on plots that are being deliberately left vacant until its time to build luxury condos. also the dirt is poisoned and saturated with the remains of old basements

#76
Dont Mess With Sucess
Post rating: ~
when i grew up we had a real american garden with all plants in very specific rows and weeds were not accepetable, it went like this: small carrot, bare earth, tiny carrot, bare earth, micro carrot, bare clay, baby carrot, blank dirt, etc
#77
Post rating: ~
taro is the ultimate guerrilla crop. also slash and burn farming is cool at the low scales it was historically practiced sustainably (whatever the fuck that means).

read JC Scott's the art of not being governed for more cool info about forest products and agricultural slavery.
#78
Post rating: ~
I like the idea of a small balcony garden from your apartment that you can occasionally feed yourself from more than some community plot you have to rent and deal with some weirdo asshole in order to plant on.
#79
Post rating: ~
Here are some nice vertical gardening examples you could pull off on a balcony:




Here's another space-saving highly productive method, potato towers. This can be used with potatoes and sweet potatoes:





Here's a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeH9uqqG-oU
Here's another: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20WM7rqOGoE

Generally with potato towers, it is best to fill them with crushed leaf mulch or a mixture of crushed leaf mulch and soil.

Here is I guess what you could describe as a "greens tower" or something:



Can you see how the above concept could be combined with a potato tower to create a thriving, caged, polyculture on your apartment balcony? Potato towers only need the soil on the top clear, the soil on the sides is free game for veggies with mostly shallow root systems to grow. I would grow varieties of Allium here and there to prevent pests though.

Edited by tsinava ()

#80
Marxsplainer
Post rating: +
i dunno most community gardens in my area are run by parks and rec departments. i rent a 30'x40' plot which is enough for me and my partner to grow more than we can eat, can, or pickle. it only costs us $50 a year to rent from the city and there's a garden seed exchange set up so i usually don't pay for most of my seeds.

its crazy though i'd say over a third of the plots in the garden are unused and completely choked out by weeds.