John Ikerd is Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri - Columbia, MO
American farmers, on average, receive only about 20 cents of each food dollar spent. The remainder goes toward the expenses of processing, packing and distribution. Farmers who sell food direct to local customers, on the other hand, receive the full value for their product cutting out the costs to middlemen.
- My Top Ten Reasons for Eating Local, John Ikerd
http://web.missouri.edu/ikerdj/papers/Alabama-Eat%20Local.htm
----
“Get big or get out” is a refrain with which American farmers are all too familiar. Small farms are seen as being too small to survive, and thus, unworthy of serious consideration. For example, government programs, including publicly funded research and education, tend to focus on large, commercial agricultural operations as the future of American agriculture. In fact, the opposite is true. Most large, commercial farming today are too big to survive. Small farms are the future of farming in America. "
- Many Farms Are Too Big To Survive, John Ikerd
http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd/papers/SFT-Too%20Big.htm
-----
"However, by managing more “intensively” the new farmers are able to net far more profit from each dollar of sales. They reduce their costs of purchased inputs through diversification, increase the value of their products through niche markets, focus on the things that they do best, and work together to do the things that they can’t do as well alone. As a result, their net return per dollar of sales may be 40 to 50 percent rather than the 15 to 20 percent for a conventional farm. Thus, the net returns on a farm with $100,000 in annual sales may be $40,000 to $50,000 and even a farm with $50,000 in annual sales may net $20,000 to $25,000 to support the small farm family. The bottom line is that 10 acres, intensively managed to produce high valued products, may generate more profits than 1,000 acres used to produce bulk agricultural commodities - corn, cattle, wheat, cotton, etc. Many small farms make some fairly big profits."
- Farming for Profit and Quality of Life, John Ikerd
http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd/papers/SFTkeynote.html
-----
"Sustainable farming systems must be ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially responsible. All three are essential; more of one cannot offset a lack of either of the other two. The three dimensions of sustainability are not a part of some formal or legal definition, but instead, are a matter of common sense. If the land loses its ability to produce, the farm is not sustainable. If the farmer goes broke, the farm is not sustainable. And if a system of farming fails to support society, it will not be supported by society, and thus, is not sustainable.
- The Family Farm on the Cutting Edge, John Ikerd
http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd/papers/YakimaFamilyFarms.html
-----
"The highest priority for American agriculture should be on reducing the fossil energy dependence of food production. Our current food system, including food processing and distribution, claims about 17% of total U.S. fossil energy use, with about one-third of this total used at the farm level.[9] In fact, we use about ten kcals of fossil energy for every kcal of food energy produced, not counting the energy use in final food preparation. This means that even at the farm level, American agriculture uses about three kcals of fossil energy for every kcal of food energy produced. In a world of rising population and dwindling fossil energy, the first priority of agriculture should be producing more food with less fossil energy.
- Agriculture after Fossil Energy, John Ikerd
http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd/papers/Iowa-FmUnion-Energy.htm
-----
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Food growing - the big picture
This blog promotes sustainable local food production, growing your own, growing for local communities, using local resources without fossil fuel inputs, without relying on political solutions or ideologies. It's meant to contribute to the Transition movement, not because the future of safe, affordable food is assured or doomed but because it's uncertain. Excerpts below introduce only some of the concerns in this area. Much can be done, and much is being done. This blog is not connected to any site or organization, but for a sample of current food efforts on many fronts readers can check http://foodsecurity.org/links.html . We have nothing to sell you (unless you find us at our farmers markets).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(excerpts from sources)
by Harvey and Ellen Ussery
http://themodernhomestead.us/article/%28IH%29+Industrial+Food+Alternative.html
We are fortunate to live in an age of scientific agriculture and technologically advanced food processing. As a result, the American food supply is assured, in all its abundance and endless variety. Because of scientific agriculture and food technology, Americans enjoy the safest, highest quality, most convenient, and—most amazing of all—cheapest food supply of any nation on earth. What is wrong with this picture?
... An issue to which the average American eater has given entirely too little attention is that of food security. Our economy, both national and global, is dependent at every point on lavish use of cheap, abundant, easily accessible fossil fuels. Nowhere is this dependence more obvious than in our industrial food systems: Agriculture is heavily dependent on energy-hungry machinery, chemical fertilizers made from natural gas, and pesticides made from petroleum. The excessive processing and packaging of most modern foods are energy and resource intensive. The average bite of food on the American table has been transported 1500 miles from field to fork.
...We do not see any goal, challenge, or problem in isolation, but seek to put into place broader patterns in which the same project or effort answers several needs. This article focuses on strategies the homesteader can adopt to achieve greater integration of the various elements in the homestead, leading not only to bountiful harvests of wholesome food, but to emergent synergies, more efficiency, and ever greater diversity and ecological health.
Why Our Food is So Dependent on Oil
Friday, 01 April 2005
http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/portal/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=563
"Concentrate on what cannot lie. The evidence..." -- Gil Grissom
“Eating Oil” was the title of a book which was published in 1978 following the first oil crisis in 1973 (1). The aim of the book was to investigate the extent to which food supply in industrialised countries relied on fossil fuels. In the summer of 2000 the degree of dependence on oil in the UK food system was demonstrated once again when protestors blockaded oil refineries and fuel distribution depots. The fuel crises disrupted the distribution of food and industry leaders warned that their stores would be out of food within days. The lessons of 1973 have not been heeded.
Today the food system is even more reliant on cheap crude oil. Virtually all of the processes in the modern food system are now dependent upon this finite resource, which is nearing its depletion phase. Moreover, at a time when we should be making massive cuts in the emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in order to reduce the threat posed by climate change, the food system is lengthening its supply chains and increasing emissions to the point where it is a significant contributor to global warming.
The organic sector could be leading the development of a sustainable food system. Direct environmental and ecological impacts of agriculture ‘on the farm’ are certainly reduced in organic systems. However, global trade and distribution of organic products fritter away those benefits and undermine its leadership role. Not only is the contemporary food system inherently unsustainable, increasingly, it is damaging the environment.
The Food and Farming Transition
MuseLetter 199 / November 2008
by Richard Heinberg
http://archive.richardheinberg.com/MuseLetter/199
The only way to avert a food crisis resulting from oil and natural gas price hikes and supply disruptions while also reversing agriculture’s contribution to climate change is to proactively and methodically remove fossil fuels from the food system. The removal of fossil fuels from the food system is inevitable: maintenance of the current system is simply not an option over the long term. Only the amount of time available for the transition process, and the strategies for pursuing it, can be matters for controversy. Given the degree to which the modern food system has become dependent on fossil fuels, many proposals for de-linking food and fuels are likely to appear radical. However, efforts toward this end must be judged not by the degree to which they preserve the status quo, but by their likely ability to solve the fundamental challenge that will face us: the need to feed a global population of 7 billion with a diminishing supply of fuels available to fertilize, plow, and irrigate fields and to harvest and transport crops.
If this transition is undertaken proactively and intelligently, there could be many side benefits—more careers in farming, more protection for the environment, less soil erosion, a revitalization of rural culture, and more healthful food for everyone. Some of this transformation will inevitably be driven by market forces, led simply by the rising price of fossil fuels. However, without planning the transition may be wrenching and destructive, since market forces acting alone could bankrupt farmers while leaving consumers with few or no options.
Eating Fossil Fuels
by Dale Allen Pfeiffer October 3 , 2003, 1200 PDT, (FTW)
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html
-- Human beings (like all other animals) draw their energy from the food they eat. Until the last century, all of the food energy available on this planet was derived from the sun through photosynthesis. Either you ate plants or you ate animals that fed on plants, but the energy in your food was ultimately derived from the sun...
Solar energy is a renewable resource limited only by the inflow rate from the sun to the earth. Fossil fuels, on the other hand, are a stock-type resource that can be exploited at a nearly limitless rate. However, on a human timescale, fossil fuels are nonrenewable. They represent a planetary energy deposit which we can draw from at any rate we wish, but which will eventually be exhausted without renewal. The Green Revolution tapped into this energy deposit and used it to increase agricultural production...
In a very real sense, we are literally eating fossil fuels. However, due to the laws of thermodynamics, there is not a direct correspondence between energy inflow and outflow in agriculture. Along the way, there is a marked energy loss. Between 1945 and 1994, energy input to agriculture increased 4-fold while crop yields only increased 3-fold.11 Since then, energy input has continued to increase without a corresponding increase in crop yield. We have reached the point of marginal returns. Yet, due to soil degradation, increased demands of pest management and increasing energy costs for irrigation (all of which is examined below), modern agriculture must continue increasing its energy expenditures simply to maintain current crop yields. The Green Revolution is becoming bankrupt. ..
Quite plainly, as fossil fuel production begins to decline within the next decade, there will be less energy available for the production of food... Modern intensive agriculture is unsustainable.
...Given that the current U.S. population is in excess of 292 million, 40 that would mean a reduction of 92 million. To achieve a sustainable economy and avert disaster, the United States must reduce its population by at least one-third. The black plague during the 14th Century claimed approximately one-third of the European population (and more than half of the Asian and Indian populations), plunging the continent into a darkness from which it took them nearly two centuries to emerge.41
None of this research considers the impact of declining fossil fuel production. The authors of all of these studies believe that the mentioned agricultural crisis will only begin to impact us after 2020, and will not become critical until 2050. The current peaking of global oil production (and subsequent decline of production), along with the peak of North American natural gas production will very likely precipitate this agricultural crisis much sooner than expected. Quite possibly, a U.S. population reduction of one-third will not be effective for sustainability; the necessary reduction might be in excess of one-half. And, for sustainability, global population will have to be reduced from the current 6.32 billion people42 to 2 billion-a reduction of 68% or over two-thirds. The end of this decade could see spiraling food prices without relief. And the coming decade could see massive starvation on a global level such as never experienced before by the human race.
Successful relocalization means that you stop growing...
Sunday, March 15, 2009
http://thelocalizer.blogspot.com/2009/03/successful-relocalization-means-that_15.html
As relocalization efforts blossom globally, the discussions within local volunteer groups range from how to develop local food movements, alternative energy and conservation measures to climate change activities and the establishment of local currencies. Certainly such efforts reflect the need for these groups to maintain positive energies and attitudes by proactively engaging in project oriented activities that result in some visible outcome and are a building block for a positive future. Less common, although an underlying current in the foundational framework of most organizers and initiators, is the understanding that growth as we know it in all forms must cease.
The Future Of Food (1 of 2)
By Andrew Curry 14 February, 2011
http://www.countercurrents.org/curry140211.htm
The recent UK Government Foresight report on the future of the global food and farming system can’t be faulted for a lack of ambition. It takes on the whole of the global food system, and looks out to 2050. Much of what it says is valuable (and the supporting papers look to be a useful research resource), and this is to be expected, given the calibre of the advisers the project was able to draw on. But there are some telling gaps, and these largely come from a lack of decent futures work in the report.
How Expensive Is Food, Really?
By Sharon Astyk 14 February, 2011
http://www.countercurrents.org/astyk140211.htm
This is a lightly revised and updated version of a piece that ran at ye olde blogge and at Grist, but it seems just as pertinent now as it did in 2007 when I wrote it. At the time, some people doubted that the boom we were seeing in biofuel production, which was pushing up grain prices, would be followed by any kind of a bust. Farmers were predicting many, many good years - but we all know what happened. Farm incomes dropped by more than 20% during the recession. Just another reminder that busts are part of the boom and bust cycle, no matter how little we like to admit it. There is no doubt whatsoever that rising food costs are hurting people all over the world. More than half of the world's population spends 50% of their income or more on food, and the massive rise in staple prices threatens to increase famine rates drastically. Many people have already pointed out the intersections between the changes going on across North Africa and the Middle East and the current food crisis, and with all of us having spent more time in food crisis than out of it in the last three years, that seems to be an emerging norm.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(excerpts from sources)
by Harvey and Ellen Ussery
http://themodernhomestead.us/article/%28IH%29+Industrial+Food+Alternative.html
We are fortunate to live in an age of scientific agriculture and technologically advanced food processing. As a result, the American food supply is assured, in all its abundance and endless variety. Because of scientific agriculture and food technology, Americans enjoy the safest, highest quality, most convenient, and—most amazing of all—cheapest food supply of any nation on earth. What is wrong with this picture?
... An issue to which the average American eater has given entirely too little attention is that of food security. Our economy, both national and global, is dependent at every point on lavish use of cheap, abundant, easily accessible fossil fuels. Nowhere is this dependence more obvious than in our industrial food systems: Agriculture is heavily dependent on energy-hungry machinery, chemical fertilizers made from natural gas, and pesticides made from petroleum. The excessive processing and packaging of most modern foods are energy and resource intensive. The average bite of food on the American table has been transported 1500 miles from field to fork.
...We do not see any goal, challenge, or problem in isolation, but seek to put into place broader patterns in which the same project or effort answers several needs. This article focuses on strategies the homesteader can adopt to achieve greater integration of the various elements in the homestead, leading not only to bountiful harvests of wholesome food, but to emergent synergies, more efficiency, and ever greater diversity and ecological health.
Why Our Food is So Dependent on Oil
Friday, 01 April 2005
http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/portal/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=563
"Concentrate on what cannot lie. The evidence..." -- Gil Grissom
“Eating Oil” was the title of a book which was published in 1978 following the first oil crisis in 1973 (1). The aim of the book was to investigate the extent to which food supply in industrialised countries relied on fossil fuels. In the summer of 2000 the degree of dependence on oil in the UK food system was demonstrated once again when protestors blockaded oil refineries and fuel distribution depots. The fuel crises disrupted the distribution of food and industry leaders warned that their stores would be out of food within days. The lessons of 1973 have not been heeded.
Today the food system is even more reliant on cheap crude oil. Virtually all of the processes in the modern food system are now dependent upon this finite resource, which is nearing its depletion phase. Moreover, at a time when we should be making massive cuts in the emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in order to reduce the threat posed by climate change, the food system is lengthening its supply chains and increasing emissions to the point where it is a significant contributor to global warming.
The organic sector could be leading the development of a sustainable food system. Direct environmental and ecological impacts of agriculture ‘on the farm’ are certainly reduced in organic systems. However, global trade and distribution of organic products fritter away those benefits and undermine its leadership role. Not only is the contemporary food system inherently unsustainable, increasingly, it is damaging the environment.
The Food and Farming Transition
MuseLetter 199 / November 2008
by Richard Heinberg
http://archive.richardheinberg.com/MuseLetter/199
The only way to avert a food crisis resulting from oil and natural gas price hikes and supply disruptions while also reversing agriculture’s contribution to climate change is to proactively and methodically remove fossil fuels from the food system. The removal of fossil fuels from the food system is inevitable: maintenance of the current system is simply not an option over the long term. Only the amount of time available for the transition process, and the strategies for pursuing it, can be matters for controversy. Given the degree to which the modern food system has become dependent on fossil fuels, many proposals for de-linking food and fuels are likely to appear radical. However, efforts toward this end must be judged not by the degree to which they preserve the status quo, but by their likely ability to solve the fundamental challenge that will face us: the need to feed a global population of 7 billion with a diminishing supply of fuels available to fertilize, plow, and irrigate fields and to harvest and transport crops.
If this transition is undertaken proactively and intelligently, there could be many side benefits—more careers in farming, more protection for the environment, less soil erosion, a revitalization of rural culture, and more healthful food for everyone. Some of this transformation will inevitably be driven by market forces, led simply by the rising price of fossil fuels. However, without planning the transition may be wrenching and destructive, since market forces acting alone could bankrupt farmers while leaving consumers with few or no options.
Eating Fossil Fuels
by Dale Allen Pfeiffer October 3 , 2003, 1200 PDT, (FTW)
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html
-- Human beings (like all other animals) draw their energy from the food they eat. Until the last century, all of the food energy available on this planet was derived from the sun through photosynthesis. Either you ate plants or you ate animals that fed on plants, but the energy in your food was ultimately derived from the sun...
Solar energy is a renewable resource limited only by the inflow rate from the sun to the earth. Fossil fuels, on the other hand, are a stock-type resource that can be exploited at a nearly limitless rate. However, on a human timescale, fossil fuels are nonrenewable. They represent a planetary energy deposit which we can draw from at any rate we wish, but which will eventually be exhausted without renewal. The Green Revolution tapped into this energy deposit and used it to increase agricultural production...
In a very real sense, we are literally eating fossil fuels. However, due to the laws of thermodynamics, there is not a direct correspondence between energy inflow and outflow in agriculture. Along the way, there is a marked energy loss. Between 1945 and 1994, energy input to agriculture increased 4-fold while crop yields only increased 3-fold.11 Since then, energy input has continued to increase without a corresponding increase in crop yield. We have reached the point of marginal returns. Yet, due to soil degradation, increased demands of pest management and increasing energy costs for irrigation (all of which is examined below), modern agriculture must continue increasing its energy expenditures simply to maintain current crop yields. The Green Revolution is becoming bankrupt. ..
Quite plainly, as fossil fuel production begins to decline within the next decade, there will be less energy available for the production of food... Modern intensive agriculture is unsustainable.
...Given that the current U.S. population is in excess of 292 million, 40 that would mean a reduction of 92 million. To achieve a sustainable economy and avert disaster, the United States must reduce its population by at least one-third. The black plague during the 14th Century claimed approximately one-third of the European population (and more than half of the Asian and Indian populations), plunging the continent into a darkness from which it took them nearly two centuries to emerge.41
None of this research considers the impact of declining fossil fuel production. The authors of all of these studies believe that the mentioned agricultural crisis will only begin to impact us after 2020, and will not become critical until 2050. The current peaking of global oil production (and subsequent decline of production), along with the peak of North American natural gas production will very likely precipitate this agricultural crisis much sooner than expected. Quite possibly, a U.S. population reduction of one-third will not be effective for sustainability; the necessary reduction might be in excess of one-half. And, for sustainability, global population will have to be reduced from the current 6.32 billion people42 to 2 billion-a reduction of 68% or over two-thirds. The end of this decade could see spiraling food prices without relief. And the coming decade could see massive starvation on a global level such as never experienced before by the human race.
Successful relocalization means that you stop growing...
Sunday, March 15, 2009
http://thelocalizer.blogspot.com/2009/03/successful-relocalization-means-that_15.html
As relocalization efforts blossom globally, the discussions within local volunteer groups range from how to develop local food movements, alternative energy and conservation measures to climate change activities and the establishment of local currencies. Certainly such efforts reflect the need for these groups to maintain positive energies and attitudes by proactively engaging in project oriented activities that result in some visible outcome and are a building block for a positive future. Less common, although an underlying current in the foundational framework of most organizers and initiators, is the understanding that growth as we know it in all forms must cease.
The Future Of Food (1 of 2)
By Andrew Curry 14 February, 2011
http://www.countercurrents.org/curry140211.htm
The recent UK Government Foresight report on the future of the global food and farming system can’t be faulted for a lack of ambition. It takes on the whole of the global food system, and looks out to 2050. Much of what it says is valuable (and the supporting papers look to be a useful research resource), and this is to be expected, given the calibre of the advisers the project was able to draw on. But there are some telling gaps, and these largely come from a lack of decent futures work in the report.
How Expensive Is Food, Really?
By Sharon Astyk 14 February, 2011
http://www.countercurrents.org/astyk140211.htm
This is a lightly revised and updated version of a piece that ran at ye olde blogge and at Grist, but it seems just as pertinent now as it did in 2007 when I wrote it. At the time, some people doubted that the boom we were seeing in biofuel production, which was pushing up grain prices, would be followed by any kind of a bust. Farmers were predicting many, many good years - but we all know what happened. Farm incomes dropped by more than 20% during the recession. Just another reminder that busts are part of the boom and bust cycle, no matter how little we like to admit it. There is no doubt whatsoever that rising food costs are hurting people all over the world. More than half of the world's population spends 50% of their income or more on food, and the massive rise in staple prices threatens to increase famine rates drastically. Many people have already pointed out the intersections between the changes going on across North Africa and the Middle East and the current food crisis, and with all of us having spent more time in food crisis than out of it in the last three years, that seems to be an emerging norm.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Food Manifesto for the Future
A Food Manifesto for the Future
By MARK BITTMAN February 1, 2011, 10:28 pm
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/a-food-manifesto-for-the-future/\
?ref=opinion
For decades, Americans believed that we had the world’s healthiest and safest diet. We worried little about this diet’s effect on the environment or on the lives of the animals (or even the workers) it relies upon. Nor did we worry about its ability to endure — that is, its sustainability.
That didn’t mean all was well. And we’ve come to recognize that our diet is unhealthful and unsafe. Many food production workers labor in difficult, even deplorable, conditions, and animals are produced as if they were widgets. It would be hard to devise a more wasteful, damaging, unsustainable system.
Here are some ideas — frequently discussed, but sadly not yet implemented — that would make the growing, preparation and consumption of food healthier, saner, more productive, less damaging and more enduring. In no particular order:
- End government subsidies to processed food. We grow more corn for livestock and cars than for humans, and it’s subsidized by more than $3 billion annually; most of it is processed beyond recognition. The story is similar for other crops, including soy: 98 percent of soybean meal becomes livestock feed, while most soybean oil is used in processed foods. Meanwhile, the marketers of the junk food made from these crops receive tax write-offs for the costs of promoting their wares. Total agricultural subsidies in 2009 were around $16 billion, which would pay for a great many of the ideas that follow.
- Begin subsidies to those who produce and sell actual food for direct consumption. Small farmers and their employees need to make living wages. Markets — from super- to farmers’ — should be supported when they open in so-called food deserts and when they focus on real food rather than junk food. And, of course, we should immediately increase subsidies for school lunches so we can feed our youth more real food.
- Break up the U.S. Department of Agriculture and empower the Food and Drug Administration. Currently, the U.S.D.A. counts among its missions both expanding markets for agricultural products (like corn and soy!) and providing nutrition education. These goals are at odds with each other; you can’t sell garbage while telling people not to eat it, and we need an agency devoted to encouraging sane eating. Meanwhile, the F.D.A. must be given expanded powers to ensure the safety of our food supply. (Food-related deaths are far more common than those resulting from terrorism, yet the F.D.A.’s budget is about one-fifteenth that of Homeland Security.)
- Outlaw concentrated animal feeding operations and encourage the development of sustainable animal husbandry. The concentrated system degrades the environment, directly and indirectly, while torturing animals and producing tainted meat, poultry, eggs, and, more recently, fish. Sustainable methods of producing meat for consumption exist. At the same time, we must educate and encourage Americans to eat differently. It’s difficult to find a principled nutrition and health expert who doesn’t believe that a largely plant-based diet is the way to promote health and attack chronic diseases, which are now bigger killers, worldwide, than communicable ones. Furthermore, plant-based diets ease environmental stress, including global warming.
- Encourage and subsidize home cooking. (Someday soon, I’ll write about my idea for a new Civilian Cooking Corps.) When people cook their own food, they make better choices. When families eat together, they’re more stable. We should provide food education for children (a new form of home ec, anyone?), cooking classes for anyone who wants them and even cooking assistance for those unable to cook for themselves.
- Tax the marketing and sale of unhealthful foods. Another budget booster. This isn’t nanny-state paternalism but an accepted role of government: public health. If you support seat-belt, tobacco and alcohol laws, sewer systems and traffic lights, you should support legislation curbing the relentless marketing of soda and other foods that are hazardous to our health — including the sacred cheeseburger and fries.
- Reduce waste and encourage recycling. The environmental stress incurred by unabsorbed fertilizer cannot be overestimated, and has caused, for example, a 6,000-square-mile dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico that is probably more damaging than the BP oil spill. And some estimates indicate that we waste half the food that’s grown. A careful look at ways to reduce waste and promote recycling is in order.
- Mandate truth in labeling. Nearly everything labeled “healthy” or “natural” is not. It’s probably too much to ask that “vitamin water” be called “sugar water with vitamins,” but that’s precisely what real truth in labeling would mean.
- Reinvest in research geared toward leading a global movement in sustainable agriculture, combining technology and tradition to create a new and meaningful Green Revolution.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Perfect Storm and Local Food Security
(excerpts from sources linked)
Achieving Food Independence on the Modern Homestead
http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/achieving-food-independence-industrial-homestead.html
I wrote this article as a handout for my presentation of the same title at the annual conference of Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture, State College, PA, February 4, 2006. It was subsequently published in three installments in Countryside & Small Stock Journal (Sep/Oct 06, Nov/Dec 06, and Jan/Feb 07 issues).
Table of Contents
1: Industrial Food and the Homestead Alternatives2: Soil Fertility3: Organic Matter4: Minimizing Tillage5: Garden Year--Spring6: Garden Year--Summer7: Garden Year--Fall8: Garden Year--Winter9: Orchard and Woodlot10: Forest Garden11: The Lawn12: Livestock13: Poultry14: Ruminants15: Closing Thoughts on Livestock16: Local Foods17: Bringing It All Together
Current food production system due for collapse
ISIS Report 06/04/05
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/SustainableWorldInitiativeF.php
World grain yield fell for four successive years from 2000 to 2003, bringing reserves to the lowest in thirty years. The situation has not improved despite a 'bumper' harvest in 2004, which was just enough to satisfy world consumption. In too many food production regions of the world, conventional farming practices have severely depleted the underground water to the point where rivers and lakes have dried out, topsoil has been eroded away, and wild life decimated. At the same time, world oil production may have passed its peak; oil price hit a record high of US$58 a barrel on 4 April 2005, and is expected to top US$100 within two years. This spells looming disaster for conventional industrial agriculture, which is heavily dependent on both oil and water. The true costs of our current food production system are becoming all too clear (see Box 1). Getting our food production sustainable is the most urgent task for humanity; it is also the key to delivering health, ameliorating the worst effects of climate change and saving the planet from destructive exploitation. The benefits of sustainable food production systems are also becoming evident (see Box 2). The Independent Science Panel (ISP) and the Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) are launching this Sustainable World initiative to engage with all sectors of civil society to make our food production system truly sustainable.
John Ikerd, Agriculture After Fossil Energy
http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd/papers/Iowa-FmUnion-Energy.htm
The world is running out of cheap fossil energy. Some dismiss the current energy crunch as nothing more than a short run phenomenon, arguing that we have used but a small fraction of the earth’s total fossil energy reserves. While there is truth to this argument, it masks far more than it reveals. The industrial era of the past 200-years has been fueled by cheap energy, first by wood from abundant forests and then by fossil energy from easily accessible sources. But the days of old-growth forests, oil gushers, surface veins of coal are gone. Most of the remaining reserves of oil and natural gas are buried far below the earth’s surface or deep beneath ocean floors. The remaining reserves of coal likewise are more costly to mine and to burn without degrading the environment. There are no more sources of cheap fossil energy. Industrialization, which has dominated modern society for the past two centuries, is coming to an end.
...The highest priority for American agriculture should be on reducing the fossil energy dependence of food production. Our current food system, including food processing and distribution, claims about 17% of total U.S. fossil energy use, with about one-third of this total used at the farm level.[9] In fact, we use about ten kcals of fossil energy for every kcal of food energy produced, not counting the energy use in final food preparation. This means that even at the farm level, American agriculture uses about three kcals of fossil energy for every kcal of food energy produced. In a world of rising population and dwindling fossil energy, the first priority of agriculture should be producing more food with less fossil energy.
By Ronnie Cummins Organic Consumers Association, October 14, 2008
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_15140.cfm
OCA is happy to announce a new grassroots-powered campaign called Organic Transitions, inspired in part by the UK's fast-growing Transition Towns movement. Organic Transitions is designed to mobilize organic consumers and local communities to start planning and implementing “transition” strategies so as to survive and thrive in the turbulent times ahead, with organic food and farming providing the healthy cornerstone for a new, more localized and sustainable green economy.
First the bad, or shall we say the really bad, news. Not since the Great Depression have Americans been challenged by anything comparable to the current unfolding disaster: economic meltdown, global warming, climate chaos, escalating energy and resource costs, looming shortages, endless war, biodiversity erosion, and deteriorating public health—metastasized and abetted by a corporate elite and indentured federal government that apparently doesn’t know what to do, or, worse, doesn’t care. Even with likely regime change on November 4, we are in very deep trouble, according to leading scientists, economists, agronomists, and public health experts.
Fortunately a critical mass of people are waking up to the fact that we must get organized and find holistic solutions, not mere band-aids, for our crisis. Millions of us are heartened by the indisputable fact that organic, green, commonsense solutions for all of our life-or-death problems are at hand, including appropriate technology and innovative public policy and legislation. We don’t have to wait for Washington bureaucrats or corporate marketers to tell us what to do. We can join together with our fellow citizens and begin the absolutely essential process of organizing Organic Transitions committees and campaigns in our local areas, starting with local organic food buying clubs, house parties, and study and action circles.
Achieving Food Independence on the Modern Homestead
http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/achieving-food-independence-industrial-homestead.html
I wrote this article as a handout for my presentation of the same title at the annual conference of Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture, State College, PA, February 4, 2006. It was subsequently published in three installments in Countryside & Small Stock Journal (Sep/Oct 06, Nov/Dec 06, and Jan/Feb 07 issues).
Table of Contents
1: Industrial Food and the Homestead Alternatives2: Soil Fertility3: Organic Matter4: Minimizing Tillage5: Garden Year--Spring6: Garden Year--Summer7: Garden Year--Fall8: Garden Year--Winter9: Orchard and Woodlot10: Forest Garden11: The Lawn12: Livestock13: Poultry14: Ruminants15: Closing Thoughts on Livestock16: Local Foods17: Bringing It All Together
Current food production system due for collapse
ISIS Report 06/04/05
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/SustainableWorldInitiativeF.php
World grain yield fell for four successive years from 2000 to 2003, bringing reserves to the lowest in thirty years. The situation has not improved despite a 'bumper' harvest in 2004, which was just enough to satisfy world consumption. In too many food production regions of the world, conventional farming practices have severely depleted the underground water to the point where rivers and lakes have dried out, topsoil has been eroded away, and wild life decimated. At the same time, world oil production may have passed its peak; oil price hit a record high of US$58 a barrel on 4 April 2005, and is expected to top US$100 within two years. This spells looming disaster for conventional industrial agriculture, which is heavily dependent on both oil and water. The true costs of our current food production system are becoming all too clear (see Box 1). Getting our food production sustainable is the most urgent task for humanity; it is also the key to delivering health, ameliorating the worst effects of climate change and saving the planet from destructive exploitation. The benefits of sustainable food production systems are also becoming evident (see Box 2). The Independent Science Panel (ISP) and the Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) are launching this Sustainable World initiative to engage with all sectors of civil society to make our food production system truly sustainable.
John Ikerd, Agriculture After Fossil Energy
http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd/papers/Iowa-FmUnion-Energy.htm
The world is running out of cheap fossil energy. Some dismiss the current energy crunch as nothing more than a short run phenomenon, arguing that we have used but a small fraction of the earth’s total fossil energy reserves. While there is truth to this argument, it masks far more than it reveals. The industrial era of the past 200-years has been fueled by cheap energy, first by wood from abundant forests and then by fossil energy from easily accessible sources. But the days of old-growth forests, oil gushers, surface veins of coal are gone. Most of the remaining reserves of oil and natural gas are buried far below the earth’s surface or deep beneath ocean floors. The remaining reserves of coal likewise are more costly to mine and to burn without degrading the environment. There are no more sources of cheap fossil energy. Industrialization, which has dominated modern society for the past two centuries, is coming to an end.
...The highest priority for American agriculture should be on reducing the fossil energy dependence of food production. Our current food system, including food processing and distribution, claims about 17% of total U.S. fossil energy use, with about one-third of this total used at the farm level.[9] In fact, we use about ten kcals of fossil energy for every kcal of food energy produced, not counting the energy use in final food preparation. This means that even at the farm level, American agriculture uses about three kcals of fossil energy for every kcal of food energy produced. In a world of rising population and dwindling fossil energy, the first priority of agriculture should be producing more food with less fossil energy.
By Ronnie Cummins Organic Consumers Association, October 14, 2008
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_15140.cfm
OCA is happy to announce a new grassroots-powered campaign called Organic Transitions, inspired in part by the UK's fast-growing Transition Towns movement. Organic Transitions is designed to mobilize organic consumers and local communities to start planning and implementing “transition” strategies so as to survive and thrive in the turbulent times ahead, with organic food and farming providing the healthy cornerstone for a new, more localized and sustainable green economy.
First the bad, or shall we say the really bad, news. Not since the Great Depression have Americans been challenged by anything comparable to the current unfolding disaster: economic meltdown, global warming, climate chaos, escalating energy and resource costs, looming shortages, endless war, biodiversity erosion, and deteriorating public health—metastasized and abetted by a corporate elite and indentured federal government that apparently doesn’t know what to do, or, worse, doesn’t care. Even with likely regime change on November 4, we are in very deep trouble, according to leading scientists, economists, agronomists, and public health experts.
Fortunately a critical mass of people are waking up to the fact that we must get organized and find holistic solutions, not mere band-aids, for our crisis. Millions of us are heartened by the indisputable fact that organic, green, commonsense solutions for all of our life-or-death problems are at hand, including appropriate technology and innovative public policy and legislation. We don’t have to wait for Washington bureaucrats or corporate marketers to tell us what to do. We can join together with our fellow citizens and begin the absolutely essential process of organizing Organic Transitions committees and campaigns in our local areas, starting with local organic food buying clubs, house parties, and study and action circles.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Permanent Intensive Beds
Why grow with permanent intensive beds?
from Paul at livingonthelandweb@gmail.com
There are places where food gardening can be done by tilling up a whole area and planting in single rows, and often requiring too much watering and weeding, and cost. But times like these need more efficient and sustainable - and often more inexpensive - use of space and inputs. And for the current growth of home, market, and community gardening to be sustained, the methods need to be both doable and rewarding. Too often they aren't. Some useful sources listed at the end of this article.
Efficiency
Not just trendy, permanent beds and aisles can make more efficient use of available space and inputs for growing. Beds can be intensively planted and allow the garden to produce much more vegetables by NOT leaving 18" aisles for tractor wheels between single rows. No tractors here. In intensive beds plants are spaced equally in each direction, depending on the room they need when mature. Do the math for carrots with recommended spacing between plants and the same spacing between rows - say, for a simple 3'x20' bed. Eight rows in a three foot wide bed? How many carrots total? Unsustainable industrial farming methods are also inefficient and impractical for home, market and community vegetable gardens.
Soil compaction
Beds are usually 3-4 feet wide to reach the middle from either side, and aren't walked on and compacted. Aisle width may vary as needed. Soil that is not compacted by feet or wheels allows better root growth and better plant growth. As such it needs little or no annual tilling or digging. It's easier to work in amendments. Uncompacted beds percolate irrigation more deeply, hold moisture better, and drain excess water more easily. Compacted soil is harder to water deeply and is more prone to waterlogging when it is watered deeply or gets too much rain. Either condition is hard on plants.
Inputs
Beds require less amendments, mulch, tilling, and irrigation than the entire garden because aisles need none of these. All inputs are concentrated on the growing soil in beds. This saves labor and money. Plus, the cost of a tiller can easily outweigh any savings from growing your own. Initial bed layout and digging in organic amendments can avoid buying a tiller altogether - and regular tilling brings weed seeds to the surface to sprout. With free or cheap local materials for amendments and mulch, startup costs can be limited more or less to simple hand tools.
Mulched beds
Organic mulch allows water to penetrate while reducing surface evaporation, conserving moisture, and greatly reducing weeding. In a wet climate beds may need to be slightly higher than aisles for better drainage. Mulch protects shallow roots from the sun's heat and moderates soil temperature which helps growth - and food production. It helps to keep the soil surface from being compacted and crusted by rain on bare soil. Water percolates down more easily. So besides saving water by not irrigating aisles area, less water also is needed for the bed soil. Winter mulch can protect soil from hard freezes in milder climates, and as Ruth Stout explained long ago you just pull the mulch aside in spring to let the sun warm the soil and plant. For transplants mulch can be pulled aside and replaced around plants. Coarser mulch material needs to be a little thicker layer than finer material. Bare soil is subject to erosion loss by wind and water, and is rarely best for growing. In field and forest nature works to remedy bare soil.
Amendments
With permanent beds, the labor and expense of amendments aren't wasted on aisles that get walked on. Organic amendments may vary including compost, green manure crops, animal manures, bone meal, and minerals. In composting, greens and browns ideally are combined in a ratio of more or less 1:20 for nitrogen in green matter to decompose browns such as aged manure. But the same materials may be worked into the soil directly, skipping the compost pile. Proper amendments also go beyond providing plant nutrients, by loosening soil structure for good root growth and moisture retention, and by providing raw materials for earthworms and microorganisms such as mycorrhizae that improve soil structure and healthy plant growth. Raising the level of organic matter becomes more practical and affordable when only the growing beds are amended.
Adaptations
Beds may need raising and framing under certain conditions such as sloping or uneven ground, thin, rocky, or hopeless topsoil, or too much rain. Where conditions permit beds can simply be laid out flat and marked with permanent stakes or other markers. Lumber or other materials may be used to define edges and keep bed soil or mulch in place if needed. Where space permits green manure crops such as legumes that add nitrogen and bring up subsoil minerals can be rotated with growing beds. Local conditions and resources often influence choices in growing, and have since the dawn of agriculture. In parts of New England rocks removed to clear garden space can be used to outline beds and hold warmth. There are endess variations and workarounds on ideas that work.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sources
Some of many sources on intensive beds and organic growing, available at low cost from http://www.bookfinder.com which includes many booksellers . I'm not an expert and we don't need to be experts if we combine what works best from those who are.
High-Yield Gardening: How to Get More from Your Garden Space and More from Your Gardening Season, Rodale Press
How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine, by John Jeavons (& others by Jeavons)
Rodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening. The Indispensable Green Resource for Every Gardener, Rodale Press
Getting the Most from Your Garden, Rodale Press
The Complete Book Of Composting, Rodale Press
Sunday, February 6, 2011
About Food, Egypt and Wall Street
A reader writes:
"We are seeing the consequences of over use of resources , exuberant enlightened self interest coupled with amoral ethical regimes. Place this with short sighted economic planning (the quarterly system) and we have the mess we are in now.
"Cheap energy has resulted in excessive food production , which has resulted in excessive population growth (population will follow the food curve) and it has to a point we can no longer expand food production to the point of supporting population levels let alone population growth. Too many people not enough resources equates to increased civil unrest from decreased economic opportunity , too many people and not enough resources leads to increase in food prices this leads to malnutrition and more civil unrest . Add to this a rapacious economic system whose regulations are set up and maintained by the very people who benefit from the said system .
"One does not have to call for revolution nor predict collapse it is self evident that it will happen as the various lobbying interests of industry and finance continue to influence legislation where there interests take preeminence over the common good and this will lead to civil unrest and food shortages (exacerbated by speculation, again enhanced by political manipulation by lobbyists) .
"It is ironic that the conservative element of our country which boasts about their moral high ground are funded by the amoral corporate system."
-------------------
My response (for those not watching the Superbowl today):
Yes, it's evident that some form of rough collapse will continue, with the dominant wealth stealing till there's little left to steal and the middle class is reduced to 3rd world living conditions. Even the "3rd rail" SS is now in the crosshairs. It appears the fraudulent Wall Street (US & EU) grab was so widespread that it was impossible for governments to even prosecute, and "austerity" or "stimulus" to save us (or them) is just digging the hole deeper. States are cutting into the bone now. If that's the case then the economy is beyond the tipping point, and resource depletion is now passing various tipping points as we sleep. Officially the peak oil plateau was hit in 2006. The argument now is only about how steep or gradual the downside will be.
As for food and population, we now know industrial food prices already are fueling riots and regime change in the Mideast and elsewhere. The underreported news is organic can feed the world, as Rodale Institute documented in 2008 based on the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report: "These conclusions also confirmed findings and recommendations of the recently released report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) panel, an intergovernmental process supported by over 400 experts under the cosponsorship of the FAO, GEF, UNDP, UNEP, UNESCO, the World Bank and WHO (issued on 14 April 2008). The IAASTD report stated that “the way the world grows its food will have to change radically to better serve the poor and hungry if the world is to cope with growing population and climate change while avoiding social breakdown and environmental collapse.” "
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20081203/fp1
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/files/GreenRevUP.pdf
The problem with that option is twofold. First: the financial powers that nearly collapsed the global economy control the industrial food and financial system that makes the top 1% richer and makes industrial food unaffordable to one billion people, and Second: other resources (water, minerals, energy) can't even support the current population's consumption. Not to mention the effects of climate instability on failing grain production right now. And the financial system demands exponential growth just to survive. Facing all these brick walls we ask, can change come in time? Not while the powers that be pay reactionary elements to kill every effort to ease the transition to a more sustainable society.
"We are seeing the consequences of over use of resources , exuberant enlightened self interest coupled with amoral ethical regimes. Place this with short sighted economic planning (the quarterly system) and we have the mess we are in now.
"Cheap energy has resulted in excessive food production , which has resulted in excessive population growth (population will follow the food curve) and it has to a point we can no longer expand food production to the point of supporting population levels let alone population growth. Too many people not enough resources equates to increased civil unrest from decreased economic opportunity , too many people and not enough resources leads to increase in food prices this leads to malnutrition and more civil unrest . Add to this a rapacious economic system whose regulations are set up and maintained by the very people who benefit from the said system .
"One does not have to call for revolution nor predict collapse it is self evident that it will happen as the various lobbying interests of industry and finance continue to influence legislation where there interests take preeminence over the common good and this will lead to civil unrest and food shortages (exacerbated by speculation, again enhanced by political manipulation by lobbyists) .
"It is ironic that the conservative element of our country which boasts about their moral high ground are funded by the amoral corporate system."
-------------------
My response (for those not watching the Superbowl today):
Yes, it's evident that some form of rough collapse will continue, with the dominant wealth stealing till there's little left to steal and the middle class is reduced to 3rd world living conditions. Even the "3rd rail" SS is now in the crosshairs. It appears the fraudulent Wall Street (US & EU) grab was so widespread that it was impossible for governments to even prosecute, and "austerity" or "stimulus" to save us (or them) is just digging the hole deeper. States are cutting into the bone now. If that's the case then the economy is beyond the tipping point, and resource depletion is now passing various tipping points as we sleep. Officially the peak oil plateau was hit in 2006. The argument now is only about how steep or gradual the downside will be.
As for food and population, we now know industrial food prices already are fueling riots and regime change in the Mideast and elsewhere. The underreported news is organic can feed the world, as Rodale Institute documented in 2008 based on the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report: "These conclusions also confirmed findings and recommendations of the recently released report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) panel, an intergovernmental process supported by over 400 experts under the cosponsorship of the FAO, GEF, UNDP, UNEP, UNESCO, the World Bank and WHO (issued on 14 April 2008). The IAASTD report stated that “the way the world grows its food will have to change radically to better serve the poor and hungry if the world is to cope with growing population and climate change while avoiding social breakdown and environmental collapse.” "
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20081203/fp1
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/files/GreenRevUP.pdf
The problem with that option is twofold. First: the financial powers that nearly collapsed the global economy control the industrial food and financial system that makes the top 1% richer and makes industrial food unaffordable to one billion people, and Second: other resources (water, minerals, energy) can't even support the current population's consumption. Not to mention the effects of climate instability on failing grain production right now. And the financial system demands exponential growth just to survive. Facing all these brick walls we ask, can change come in time? Not while the powers that be pay reactionary elements to kill every effort to ease the transition to a more sustainable society.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Growing Sources
Our unique selection of helpful sources to get growing or get better!
There's a lot more out there - of course - but these are fairly reliable in most particulars. My short list of seed sellers, scroll down. No endorsements implied in this blog, no financial interests.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Germination time & temps
http://www.heirloomseeds.com/germination.html
http://www.ourgardengang.com/Seedlings.htm
Seeding, growing chart
http://www.savvygardener.com/Features/veg_garden_calendar.html
How long till harvest
http://www.locavorenetwork.com/content/how-long-until-harvest
Gardening Calendar
http://organotill.org/calendar/
Vegetable Planting Guide and Recommended Planting Dates
http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/envirohort/426-331/426-331guide.html
http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/426/426-331/426-331.pdf
Planting dates, plant spacing, time to maturity, etc.
http://www.thegardenhelper.com/vegtips.html
Transplant Production many useful links to other sources also
http://smallfarms.ifas.ufl.edu/crops/vegetables/transplant_production.html
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/HS126
Intensive gardening methods
http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/mg/vegetable/intensive.html
Crop Planning for Organic Vegetable Growers book
http://www.growingformarket.com/store/products/115
Hoophouse production
http://www.growingformarket.com/categories/Hoophouse-production
Row Cover Roundup
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/1988-03-01/Row-Cover-Varieties.aspx
Season Extension Techniques for Market Gardeners
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/seasonext.html
Season Extension in Organic Vegetable Production Systems
http://www.extension.org/article/18366
Scheduling Vegetable Plantings for Continuous Harvest
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/summaries/continuousharvest.html
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/continuousharvest.pdf
Ripeness Guide
http://www.almanac.com/garden/vege/ripeness.php
Vegetable Yields
http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/mg/vegetable/guide.html
When to Harvest Vegetables
http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_h/h-216/welcome.html
Planting and Harvesting Guide for Piedmont Vegetables and Herbs
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/chatham/ag/SustAg/plantingguide.html
Market Gardening: A Start-up Guide
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/summaries/marketgardening.html
http://www.growingformarket.com/
http://farmersmarketcoalition.org/
http://www.dripworksusa.com/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here is my short-short list of seed/plant sources online
selected from my long-long list...
http://www.gourmetseed.com/
http://www.seedsofitaly.com/
http://growitalian.com/
http://www.ortoland.it/
http://www.ingegnoli.it/
http://www.italianseedandtool.com/
http://www.paganocostantino.it/engindex.htm
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/
http://www.fedcoseeds.com/
http://www.botanicalinterests.com/
http://b-and-t-world-seeds.com/
http://www.dixondalefarms.com/
http://www.seedsofchange.com/
http://www.burpee.com/
http://rareseeds.com/
http://www.oikostreecrops.com/
http://www.bountifulgardens.org/
http://www.comstockferre.com/
http://www.fedcoseeds.com/
http://www.filareefarm.com/
http://www.fungiperfecti.com/
http://www.highmowingseeds.com
http://www.horizonherbs.com/
http://www.irish-eyes.com/
http://www.kitazawaseed.com/
http://www.nativeseeds.org/
http://www.seedsavers.org/
http://www.tomatogrowers.com/
http://seeds.thompson-morgan.com/us/en
http://www.tomatofest.com/
There's a lot more out there - of course - but these are fairly reliable in most particulars. My short list of seed sellers, scroll down. No endorsements implied in this blog, no financial interests.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Germination time & temps
http://www.heirloomseeds.com/germination.html
http://www.ourgardengang.com/Seedlings.htm
Seeding, growing chart
http://www.savvygardener.com/Features/veg_garden_calendar.html
How long till harvest
http://www.locavorenetwork.com/content/how-long-until-harvest
Gardening Calendar
http://organotill.org/calendar/
Vegetable Planting Guide and Recommended Planting Dates
http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/envirohort/426-331/426-331guide.html
http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/426/426-331/426-331.pdf
Planting dates, plant spacing, time to maturity, etc.
http://www.thegardenhelper.com/vegtips.html
Transplant Production many useful links to other sources also
http://smallfarms.ifas.ufl.edu/crops/vegetables/transplant_production.html
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/HS126
Intensive gardening methods
http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/mg/vegetable/intensive.html
Crop Planning for Organic Vegetable Growers book
http://www.growingformarket.com/store/products/115
Hoophouse production
http://www.growingformarket.com/categories/Hoophouse-production
Row Cover Roundup
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/1988-03-01/Row-Cover-Varieties.aspx
Season Extension Techniques for Market Gardeners
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/seasonext.html
Season Extension in Organic Vegetable Production Systems
http://www.extension.org/article/18366
Scheduling Vegetable Plantings for Continuous Harvest
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/summaries/continuousharvest.html
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/continuousharvest.pdf
Ripeness Guide
http://www.almanac.com/garden/vege/ripeness.php
Vegetable Yields
http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/mg/vegetable/guide.html
When to Harvest Vegetables
http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_h/h-216/welcome.html
Planting and Harvesting Guide for Piedmont Vegetables and Herbs
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/chatham/ag/SustAg/plantingguide.html
Market Gardening: A Start-up Guide
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/summaries/marketgardening.html
http://www.growingformarket.com/
http://farmersmarketcoalition.org/
http://www.dripworksusa.com/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here is my short-short list of seed/plant sources online
selected from my long-long list...
http://www.gourmetseed.com/
http://www.seedsofitaly.com/
http://growitalian.com/
http://www.ortoland.it/
http://www.ingegnoli.it/
http://www.italianseedandtool.com/
http://www.paganocostantino.it/engindex.htm
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/
http://www.fedcoseeds.com/
http://www.botanicalinterests.com/
http://b-and-t-world-seeds.com/
http://www.dixondalefarms.com/
http://www.seedsofchange.com/
http://www.burpee.com/
http://rareseeds.com/
http://www.oikostreecrops.com/
http://www.bountifulgardens.org/
http://www.comstockferre.com/
http://www.fedcoseeds.com/
http://www.filareefarm.com/
http://www.fungiperfecti.com/
http://www.highmowingseeds.com
http://www.horizonherbs.com/
http://www.irish-eyes.com/
http://www.kitazawaseed.com/
http://www.nativeseeds.org/
http://www.seedsavers.org/
http://www.tomatogrowers.com/
http://seeds.thompson-morgan.com/us/en
http://www.tomatofest.com/
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