Agricultural crisis. That means YOU

In the '50s and '60s sufficient advances in technology permitted agricultural techniques to develop that are based off the consumption of hydrocarbons, a fossil fuel derivative. It is possible to grow more food per acre than in the past. However, many of the primary technologies used, fertilizers and pesticides, erode the soil. This means that within a small number of seasons, the soil will be devoid of nutrients and the farming will have to move to fresh soil, pump it full of fertilizers, etc. This leads to deforestation and other problems in the quest for fresh soil. Since 1945, the amount of land degraded by soil depletion, desertification, and deforestation comes to more than 5 billion hectares, or greater than 43% of the Earth's vegetated surface. Each year 10 million hectares of productive land are abandoned due to severe degradation. At the same time 5 million hectares must be added to production to feed the extra 84 million people born every year. It takes 500 years for 1 inch of topsoil to be naturally replaced. It takes 3,000 years for natural reformation to a depth suitable for crop growth. With the use of fertilizers and pesticides the soil that would be sustainable for many seasons is turned useless quickly.

Problems involving water degradation arise when irrigation tactics must be used to supply water for increasingly remote locations. Many areas that are irrigated to in America exceed the refill rate, which means so much water is lost in the irrigation and consumption processes that the annual rainfall does not compensate; in short we are at a net loss of water.

A byproduct of this overabundance of food is an increase in population. Our world population is approaching seven billion, yet the projected oil peak is in 2010. What does this mean? Well, the cost of food will begin to increase as hydrocarbons became scarce. North Korea is a great example of what can happen when a country losses its oil supply and the effects that has upon agriculture. But, this time it will be on a world-wide scale. In short, most projections for a sustainable agriculture, using sustainable methods, return two billion people as the maximum world population our planet can sustain. We will be forced to sustainable methods when we run out of "free energy" reserves (oil, etc.). We should already be establishing a sustainable infrastructure, since America has an extreme deficiency of input/output per pound of food produced.

This is frightening, since the peak oil projected date uses moderate estimates. If there is less to oil to be had, we can feel this sooner. In one aspect, however, sooner is better since the population is still increasing (projected 2050 population: 9.4 billion).

Metropolitan areas have little to no food security. This means, if for any reason, food was unable to be imported, we would be unable to provide our own food.

Besides the cost of food increasing, to a point where a majority of people will be unable to afford it, besides the terrible waste of resources used in our food production and poor city planning, we have the long term effects on our planet, our scion, ourselves in the form of land and water degradation.

To learn more get a hold of the book "Eating Fossil Fuels" by Dale Allen Pfeiffer, here. It has an extensive amount of factual evidence, is up to date and very eye-opening.