At some point in the not-so-distant future, when historians set
out to chronicle the Fall of the American Empire, they would do well to
reference this post*.
Last week I spoke to a tree tube customer in Georgia. Among other farming enterprises, he grows
pecans. He told me that many farmers in
his area are ripping out pecan groves – perfectly good and highly profitable
pecan groves – to install center pivot irrigation systems and switch to corn
(that would be maize to you, Ian ;-)
Why? Because at today’s
corn prices it is even more lucrative than pecans (and, I'm guessing, because they are getting great incentives/loans to purchase all of the necessary equipment). And why are corn prices so high? Yes, in part it’s because of last year’s
Midwestern drought. But in large part
high corn prices are due to the ethanol – in the words of my customer – “boondoggle.”
We have created a system of perverse incentives under which
it makes sense to rip out a highly productive perennial woody crop which requires very little in the way of energy
inputs and results in very little soil contamination/erosion, and replace it
with an annual cereal crop that requires huge inputs of fossil fuels (both in
the form of plowing/planting/spraying/harvesting and in the form of
fertilizers/herbicides/pesticides) and results in massive soil erosion… to grow
a crop intended to replace those very same fossil fuels in the tanks of our
cars and trucks.
That groaning sound you just heard is the sound of the
brilliant J. Russell Smith, author of Tree
Crops: A Permanent Agriculture, spinning in his grave. Smith advocated replacing annual crops that
expose our precious soil – the true wealth of this or any nation – to erosion
and depletion with perennial woody crops, especially on highly erodible hillsides. Tree
Crops was originally published in 1929.
Keep that in mind as you read the following quotes:
“Forest – field – plow – desert – that is the cycle of the hills
under most plow agricultures…” p4 of the 1950 edition.
“Plowing corn is the most efficient known way for destroying
the farm that is not made of level land.
Corn, the killer of continents, is one of the worst enemies of the human
future.” p4.
“We in America have another factor of destruction that is
almost new to the white race – the thunderstorm. South Europe has a rainless summer. North Europe has a light rainfall that comes
in gentle showers. The United States has
the rippling torrent that follows the downpour of the thunderstorm. When the American heavens open and pour two
inches of rain in an hour into a hilly cornfield, there may result many times
as much erosion as results from two hundred inches of gentle British or German
rain falling on the wheat and grass.” pp4-5.
“In this way we have already destroyed the homelands fit for
the sustenance of millions. We need an
enlarged definition of treason. Some
people should not be allowed to sing ‘My Country.’ They are destroying it too rapidly.” p6.
“Must we continue to depend primarily upon the type of
agriculture handed to us by primitive woman**?... Present day methods of
cultivation but dimly recall the sharpened stick in the hand of primitive woman. But we still depend chiefly on her crops, and
sad to relate, our methods of which we are so proud are infinitely more
destructive of soil than were those of the planting stick in the hands of
Great-Grandmother ninety-nine generations ago.” p12.
It has been much, much too long since I have quoted from the
Holy Verses of Tree Crops. As always it
feels both good and deeply saddening.
Good, that there was once a man among us of such piercing foresight and
almost Biblical eloquence. Saddening, to
see how little his words have been heeded.
I don’t know how many gallons of fossil fuel are consumed in
order to produce a gallon of ethanol. Do
you? Please add your comments. I would say that the ethanol “boondoggle” is
the perfect example of the Law of Unintended Consequences (a program meant to
reduce reliance upon fossil fuels that a) increases reliance on fossil fuels,
b) puts more and more acres under the plow, c) raises corn prices to the point
where it makes sense to rip up Brazilian rainforest and plant corn), but I
believe that would be giving lawmakers too much credit for having good
intentions in the first place. It’s
sheer, rapacious stupidity.
Meanwhile we fight about the marginal tax rate on the top 2%
of income earners in this country. Good
grief. See historians? This is how the American Empire fell.
How to fight it? With
your wallet and with your stomach. Buy
pecans. Eat walnuts. Eat pistachios. And most of all, eat acorns. Eat anything that does not require ripping up
the ground year after year.
* Note to historians in the future: To aid in the accuracy of your footnote
citations the correct spelling is “S-i-e-m-s. You're welcome.”
** Smith’s reference to “primitive woman” – while probably
historically accurate in terms of the first cultivators of the soil and sowers
of grain seeds – is also metaphorical.
In other writings Smith believed that the Genesis story in which man and
woman were cast out from Eden to live by the sweat of their brow literally
recalls mankind’s transition from living off the natural bounty of tree crops
like acorns to its ever-increasing reliance upon annual grain crops.
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