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Post by steev on Jul 13, 2015 0:04:18 GMT -5
I'm afraid my land is nearly "flat as piss on a plate".
I'm not real concerned about rain-caught-water-pumping, as I would use such water to serve landscape-garden around the house, needing little pressure. My produce-irrigation will always be solar-pumped from my wells, which will also refill the tank serving the house; if there isn't enough rain to re-charge the wells, there won't be all that much falling on the roof, anyway.
I'm betting that incorporating organic matter into the soil and mulching (especially in unworked areas that separate worked areas) will help me catch more water and, most importantly, prevent it draining away or being carried off by dry wind. I think this is practical, as I don't envision worked areas larger than 10'X300' strips or 70' radius circles, in either case, separated by un-worked tree-areas for fruit, nuts, and wind-barrier. That's what I've been doing, and it seems to work. In truth, my problem is less lack of water, than lack of hands. Even in wet years, I have only two; though if it's really wet, I may grow webs between my toes; I still grow no more hands.
Driving back Sunday, I noticed another 300-500 acres of newly-planted vineyard that wasn't there two weeks ago; that being all one large block, it ain't no "family farm". I also saw at least ten double-gondola rigs hauling processing tomatoes, so somebody is raising tomatoes on plenty of irrigated acres, despite reports of 800,000 acres of farmland being fallowed this year in Cali. Note that that isn't farmland converted to nuts and grapes, but fallowed; I wonder what is the acreage being taken out of row-crops, both temporarily and "permanently"; I wonder what is the acreage of row-crops being off-shored (to places with less stringent chemical regulations?), with the produce "fresh" or processed, being "re-shored"?.
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Post by steev on Jul 14, 2015 0:48:33 GMT -5
There are currently reports of fracking water being used to irrigate crops. We aren't allowed to know what's in that shit (industrial property, proprietary secrets, you know).
It has occurred to me that none of this, fracking and Big Ag, really has anything to do with energy or food production; it's all about money and political power.
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Water Wars
Jul 14, 2015 21:08:37 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by jondear on Jul 14, 2015 21:08:37 GMT -5
I recently read an article about the fracking water too. Makes me want to run right out and buy some almonds. I wonder if the people pouring this crap on their crops would feed their families what they grow.
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Post by steev on Jul 15, 2015 0:28:32 GMT -5
Only those not in the 1%; I'm sure they only eat the most stringently organic food, being easily able to afford it. The common crap is for the common crap/folk who could afford the clean stuff, if they weren't so lazy and didn't pick the right parents. Damn! I sound bitter, but this is about how people live and raise their families; it's about health-care and the ability to work and be productive; it's about being a useful member of community, not a "taker" (thanks so much, Mitt Romney).
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Post by mskrieger on Jul 17, 2015 12:51:30 GMT -5
There's a truly memorable passage in The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan, when he goes to interview potato farmers in Idaho. He speaks with two conventional farmers; one is deeply suspicious of what he must spray on his land in order to get Russet Burbanks pretty enough to sell to McDonalds, and doesn't feed his family his own potatoes nor even let his staff in the fields for days after they spray pesticides. He only buys organic produce. The other farmer eats his own taters, feeds them to his large family and even to Michael Pollan--the day after they sprayed. These potatoes were just dug. You can almost choke on the potato salad along with the author (they tell him this as he's eating dinner with them.)
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Post by templeton on Jul 19, 2015 8:08:01 GMT -5
Latest debate here is an open cut coal mine on our prime agricultural land, the Liverpool Plains, as if Oz has plenty to spare...not. While i dont mind mines per se, using their products, the short sighted approach of sacrificing our prime land to send the coal to china, must have the chinese shaking their heads, since they are now the biggest buyers of the ag land thats not being mined. I wonder if the mine would have got approval if foregn interests had owned the farmland, and locals had wanted to open the mine...the lust for foreign investment by our sycophantic politicians, sheesh, similar to our foreign policy...but lets not go there...my ratbag credentials might show  T |
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Post by castanea on Jul 19, 2015 11:40:23 GMT -5
Here in the US one of our prime occupations is paving over agricultural land for housing developments. It might even be our national hobby. The people who plan these cities truly do not seem to know where food comes from.
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Post by blueadzuki on Jul 19, 2015 18:20:13 GMT -5
I've probably used this as a response before, but it still is my answer link |
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Post by 12540dumont on Jul 19, 2015 18:37:50 GMT -5
One pavement, one world! Pave the planet!
Most of the farming that has been fallowed is in the Central Valley, because the Gov shut off their water.
A study from University of Minnesota and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute researchers showed the current drought is California's worst in at least 1,200 years.
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Post by steev on Jul 19, 2015 21:15:46 GMT -5
Pop met Lee Marvin in the Marines. At chow-time, the custom was for an officer to take his men to the mess-hall and insert them in line according to his rank; Pop put his in front of Marvin's, since he had rank, being a master sergeant; Marvin, not so much, although Marvin did lots better than Pop, post-war.
As for the drought: still many years less than the worst that dendrology shows us. The Gov may have "shut off their water", but the wheel-pipe sprinklers are still going in the hot afternoon, where some have senior water rights or their own wells; I still see new nuts/grapes being installed (would I seem paranoid/chauvinistic, if I wondered how much of this acreage is foreign-owned and the products destined for export, or if I surmised that distant ownership/management might have less concern for those living where their profits are generated?); I noticed ~100 acres of recently-planted walnuts between Fairfield and Benicia today.
Satellite surveys in 2012 showed the worst areas of land-subsidence in the Central Valley were dropping as much as 12"/year due to well-pumping; we've had increasing drought 2 1/2 years since then, so one might surmise that more wells have been drilled and more pumping happened, but I've not seen figures published; I'm sure the corporation profiting from the cracking of your home's foundation will make you whole, since the Corporations are the "job-creators" and very responsible, not like the "takers".
The good news about the building of housing over prime land is that most of that housing is crap, unlikely to last in good condition much beyond a 30-year mortgage, so there will be good jobs in demolition a generation hence. If I expected to still be here then, I'd invest in a bulldozer, not bundled mortgages. Oh, wait; I do expect to be here, just not necessarily up to driving a bulldozer, maybe an electric scooter or a Harley (prolly with a sidecar; my balance isn't getting better; in fact, the older I get, the more I lean to the left).
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Post by steev on Jul 19, 2015 21:28:44 GMT -5
"Ratbag"? Vas ist das "Ratbag", bitte?
C'mon, Castanea; the people who plan our housing developments know exactly where food comes from: the supermarket! In any event, they expect to profit enough to move to somewhere nice, maybe gated, to keep out the "takers".
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Post by templeton on Jul 19, 2015 23:34:37 GMT -5
"Ratbag"? Vas ist das "Ratbag", bitte? C'mon, Castanea; the people who plan our housing developments know exactly where food comes from: the supermarket! In any event, they expect to profit enough to move to somewhere nice, maybe gated, to keep out the "takers". best definition i can find quickly. Bit similar to 'bastard' in oz english. Both disparaging and affectionate forms, dependent on tone and context. You bastard! = insult. 'You old bastard =affectionate greeting or remark. |
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Post by steev on Jul 20, 2015 0:11:20 GMT -5
Excellent!
"You old bastard" was about as verbally affectionate as adults got in my family. "You bastard" was never heard in my presence, me being a kid.
"Ozlish"? Why not? As I may have previously mentioned, we in the South-West USA are developing a "creole" language commonly called "Spanglish", but this is Anglo-centric; the more accurate and less-hierarchic term would be "Espanglish", putting the Hispanic emphasis first only for lack of a better form, while keeping the bi-cultural emphasis. I'm not sure language isn't the greatest thing humans have developed. Yeah, I know: fire; but language allows us to go beyond showing (as Japanese gibbons? show their young that they can wash food in sea-water for salt) to telling; "I saw that yesterday"; "we could do this tomorrow"; or even "He's a ratbag; let's go kill and eat him. Mmm, long-pig! We prolly won't live long enough to develop Kuru, anyway".
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Post by mskrieger on Jul 23, 2015 13:39:29 GMT -5
Latest debate here is an open cut coal mine on our prime agricultural land, the Liverpool Plains, as if Oz has plenty to spare...not. While i dont mind mines per se, using their products, the short sighted approach of sacrificing our prime land to send the coal to china, must have the chinese shaking their heads,.... Ah, but Templeton, them thars some prime, prime metallurgical coal. Australia has the finest met coal outside of the US Appalachians and the Colombia/Venezuela borderlands. US isn't so friendly to coal anymore, and the Colombia/Venezuela shipping lines are often disrupted by guerilla warfare. So Australia it is; and much closer to China and cheaper to ship from anyway. Who cares about prime agricultural land when you've got steel to smelt and cities to build? |
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Post by templeton on Jul 23, 2015 17:30:24 GMT -5
Latest debate here is an open cut coal mine on our prime agricultural land, the Liverpool Plains, as if Oz has plenty to spare...not. .. Who cares about prime agricultural land when you've got steel to smelt and cities to build? Just another in a long line of decisions from a government with all the long term vision of a mayfly. The future is a concept they understand only in as far as it stretches to this afternoon's tweet, tomorrow's headline, or, thinking long term, next week's opinion poll. From a prime minster who doesn't believe in global warming, has no Minister of Science, thinks an argument against wind farms is they are ugly, dumps millions of tonnes of sludge on the great barrier reef, and thinks its fine for foreign governments to buy up huge swathes of our good farm land...oops, strayed a bit off topic. However, short termism is a chronic problem. I note in the news how Obama is now a lame duck prez, look at the euro crisis where the EU meetings must be like herding cats, and shudder at Trump - how to strike a balance between democratic govt, and short sighted, lowest common denominator leadership? steev, when are you taking over? T |
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