Haitians present Jatropha petition

Of the many peasant protests world wide on World Food Day this caught my attention:

Peasant Groups Present Petition Against Jatropha to Haitian Parliament

www.Alterpresse.org, 16 October 2009

"A group of several peasant organizations presented a petition to the Haitian Parliament containing 31,198 signatures against the proposed development of plantations of the agro-fuel jatropha on the land of Haitian peasants, noted Alterpresse.org.

“This struggle which came about during the thirty-fifth anniversary in March 2008 of the Peasant Movement of Papaye is about raising awareness of the call to all of society to contribute to a mobilization against this project to exterminate the peasants,” stated Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the group “4 je kontre” (literally, the convergence of two pairs of eyes) several hours before the petition was submitted to the Haitian Parliament.

Several dozen peasants, representing the ten departments of the country, marched from the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Turgeau (Port-au-Prince) with slogans and demands. “The little earth that is the country Haiti, that our ancestors left to us, must produce native food to nourish the population; national food production – yes; production of agro-fuels, no; Down with the production of gas for the tanks of foreign cars; Down with all death projects against the peasants,” are among the demands of the peasants who have the support of the international peasant movement Via Campesina."

Read more of the translation from Konbit Pou Ayiti

A Farm for the Future

This is a pretty amazing film. I found it at the Post Carbon Institute

"Filmmaker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family's farm in Devon (U.K.) into a low-energy farm for the future. This video features excerpts from an interview with Post Carbon Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg".

One of Heinberg's quotes " Our energy dependence is equivalent to 22 billion slaves".



I`ll be looking forward to a part 2 of this in a few years time: I sure hope there is one, and that feeding people is one of the top 3 achievements: carbon neutrality and ecological health, being the other 2.

Permaculture gardens and tree farms are lovely and if one is lucky enough to have the land to feed yourself, is the best way to do that ecologically - But they can't feed the biilions on the planet, unless complete global redistribution of land, infastructure costs and somehow skill aquision is transfered to 10 - 50% of the population. I don`t see that happening before the real food-fuel crises. Permaculture takes long, laborious, minimal return, years of work and money (trees/shrubs are not cheap) to get established. While many incredible examples of permaculture design thrive, very few can feed more than a few families. Harvesting is particulary laborious. Most people could not afford to farm like this.

I believe plowing has a place in food production and but it can be reduced to once in a long while with long rotations, cover crops and diversity, with pastures brought into the rotation with grains and vegetables. This does requires power.

I think its folly to dismiss the horse. I`d suggest finding Eric and Anne Nordell`s excellent series of articles in the Small Farmers Journal on sustainable large market horse gardening. You`ll have to buy the back issues, but you can, and you won`t be disapointed!

As well there are electric tractors, conversions and new ones and I think they deserve far more attention.



On market gardens a biodiesel walk behind tractors may be an option for transition if materials are available for making the fuel locally without competeing for food or land resources (waste grease, for e.g.)

In Canada we have a lot of large beef farms too and the acreage for is vast and the hay making energy intensive, as is the grain production that goes into fattening up the steers at feedlots. I propose the government purchase these large acreages, close to towns and cities across the country and redistribute this land in 5 - 100 acre lots (depending upon the farming proposal) to farming potentates. We`ll need organic agriculture departments not threatened with closure, and mentoring with farmers and, yes, permaculture designers.

you have a 500 acre farm endowed with hedgerows and woodlot, a small scale intensive agriculture could thrive - each independent, yet interconnected. Trade becomes real goods - use of my horses to plow in exchange for grazing on the harvested market garden...or I grow you mangles and you give me the wool. What a lovely world!

But it won;t come to that until....it comes to that (when there are no more desk jobs, or waitress or call centers. We`d have to give people land, say title is earned after proving production of so much food with said amount of carbon debt.

That is what I think Rebecca Hosking should do to transform her family's farm in Devon into a low-energy farm for the future. Bring in the community of people it would take to do just that.

Post Carbon farming

Transition away from oil is a critical step that requires a plan ...now.





Food and Farming Transition; Toward a Post Carbon Food System
The Post Carbon Institute report with cooperation from the Soil Association of Britain.

Read the PDF report


What do they propose we transition to for a post carbon food system?

Animal and human power for vegetables, nuts and dairy
rotational crops for fertility and pest control
pastures meat
local non gmo seed developed for local crops
hedgerow/woodlots and biochar
on farm biofuel production for large (grain) operations
wind solar and other alternatives

Sounds like a fabulous list. How do we make it happen?

How do we make sure incentive monies are not sidetracked toward industrial bichar and ethanol production?
Will there be the workers willing to engage in the manual labour that the transition will necessitate?

How will the current drivers of modern agriculture (monsanto, cargill, syngenta, et al) fit in to the picture? Do they need to be transitioned themselves by the transference of authority - perhaps legislation to return governance of corporations to its shareholders is in order.

Urgency is needed to honour those farmers who have preserved many of these excellent traditional carbon minimal practices...we are getting old and have been treated badly. Ridicule and repudiation and ignorance by the FDA, Ag Canada, corporate bodies and large export farm organizations is more like it. But ask eaters what they want in their kitchens and let them decide!

Powerful corporate interests will transition only through real changes in participatory democracy.

Science catches up to common sense: food not fuel

With world grain stocks precariously low several years and an increasing number of people going hungry worldwide, common sense would indicate the disaster implicit in converting more of our diminishing farm land to fuel crops.

Unfortunately, we are not ruled by common sense, so a little science if you please. (I hope we don't have to thank the oil industry for this).

Biofuels Ignite Food Crisis Debate


ScienceDaily (Jan. 29, 2009) — Study highlights problems linked to converting crops into biofuels Taking up valuable land and growing edible crops for biofuels poses a dilemma: Is it ethical to produce inefficient renewable energies at the expense of an already malnourished population?


David Pimentel and his colleagues from Cornell University in New York State highlight the problems linked to converting a variety of crops into biofuels. Not only are these renewable energies inefficient, they are also economically and environmentally costly and nowhere near as productive as projected. Their findings are published online in Springer’s journal Human Ecology.
Read the whole article in Science Daily


And go on over to La Vida Locavore to read Jill Richardson's take on the battle of the pro and anti ethanol camps in Washington.

"Next Generation Biofuels": Bursting The New "Green" Bubble

Letter challenges unrealistic promises from an unsustainable industry
ETC Group. Jan. 15bio
United States--A diverse alliance of organizations published an open letter [1] today in the U.S. and internationally warning of the dangers of industrially produced biofuels (called agrofuels by critics). The letter explains why large-scale industrial production of transport fuels and other energy from plants such as corn, sugar cane, oilseeds, trees, grasses, or so-called agricultural and woodland waste threatens forests, biodiversity, food sovereignty, community-based land rights and will worsen climate change. With the new Obama Administration slated to take office Tuesday, the letter's originators warn that if Obama's "New Green Economy" runs on agrofuels it may trap the U.S. in a dangerous "Green Bubble" of unrealistic promises from an unsustainable industry.
More

Climate Geo-engineering with 'Carbon Negative' Bioenergy

Climate saviour or climate endgame?

Almuth Ernsting and Deepak Rughani, Updated December 2008

This is a critical analysis of proposals for 'carbon negative' bioenergy, including biochar (agrichar) and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, as a means of reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and mitigating climate change. It includes a wider discussion about the impacts of large-scale bioenergy, and about alternative adequate responses to the current crisis.

The statements and conclusions contained in the report are the sole responsibility of the authors.

It may be downloaded as sections or as a full document:

Header

Executive summary

Section 1. Introduction: Abrupt climate change and the search for solutions

Section 2. Proposals for cooling the planet

Section 3. ‘Carbon negative’ bioenergy from vast monocultures?

Section 4. Biochar: cooling the planet with charcoal?

Section 5. Five Hundred Million Hectares of Plantations to Cool the Planet? (1.0 megabytes)

Section 6. BECS, Biochar and the converging ecological and social crises

Section 7. Towards an adequate response to the converging crises

click on title for full article.

The Trojan Terra Preta?

I received a very long reply to my post Inadvertent Biochar from Erich who is clearly very impressed with the promise of biochar "the modern version of an ancient Amazonian agricultural practice called Terra Preta (black earth), is gaining widespread credibility as a way to address world hunger, climate change, rural poverty, deforestation, and energy shortages… SIMULTANEOUSLY!" Wow, all that? How about one more: a sugar coating to a bitter pill; its kinship to bioprocessing fuel from agricultural "wastes" (wastes here referring to the carbonous materials that are worked back into the soil to build microbial communities, biomass/tilth and fertility).

"Modern Pyrolysis of biomass is a process for Carbon Negative Bio fuels, massive Carbon sequestration,10X Lower Methane & N2O soil emissions, and 3X Fertility Too.
Every 1 ton of Biomass yields 1/3 ton Charcoal for soil Sequestration, Bio-Gas & Bio-oil fuels, so is a totally virtuous, carbon negative energy cycle." The report does go on to note however that the fuels are required for the supplying of energy of pyrolysis..so what is the point? Organic farming systems are carbon negative and a much less wasteful virtuosity. Probably the real motive for coupling biochar and biofuel can be seen in the funding breakdown of the U.S. Farm bill :The Salazar Harvesting Energy Act of 2007; A Summary of Biochar Provisions in S.1884:
Carbon-Negative Biomass Energy and Soil Quality Initiative

# Bioenergy Program/Feedstock Residue Management Program: (pg. 7 of S.1884) Provides assistance to cellulosic biorefineries in the form of transition payments in preparation for bioenergy operations; requires that land conversions for such operations ensure the protection and enhancement of soil quality and the prevention of soil erosion and nutrient leaching, and other impacts. Provides a total of $1.458 billion over the 5-year period FY 2008-2012.
# Biochar Demonstration Projects: (pg. 18 of S.1884) Provides that demonstration projects on a farm and cooperative scale be carried out to demonstrate the advantages of using biochar production systems to improve renewable energy production and protect and enhance soil quality; and for demonstration projects that demonstrate the manner in which biochar may be used to generate agricultural credits for carbon trading within greenhouse gas emissions reduction programs. Promotes high-priority biochar research and demonstration projects in three areas: biochar production and commercialization; biochar’s behavior in the environment; and economic and life-cycle analyses of biochar systems. Provides upwards of $100 million for the section, by authorizing “not less than” $20 million for each of FY2008-2012.
Sorry to be cynical, but follow the money. While I'll fish out the charcoal from my early morning stove and add it to my beautiful compost and even marvel at ancient Amazonian farmer's ingenuity in creating these durable and fertile soils, coupling modern biochar and the synthetic biology driven cellulosic fuel industry sets off some red flags.

An evolutionary first for E coli... but is it evolution?

Using E Coli To Make Better Biofuels
"For the first time, researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have successfully pushed nature beyond its limits by genetically modifying Escherichia coli, a bacterium often associated with food poisoning, to produce unusually long-chain alcohols essential in the creation of biofuels".

There are thousands of varieties of E.Coli, many of them very dangerous. Just what a strain of E.Coli that oozes out long chain alcohols would do in our guts, and the guts of fish, and other living organisms is something I don't see being addressed in this mad rush to engineer biofuel producing organisms, ie, to make money patenting new life. Is this what we mean by fuel cell? Forcing a bacteria to do something it never achieved on it’s own through evolution without asking ..why has it never evolved to do that? Symbiosis. Interconnection. Perhaps these are things we need to study more of.
It was a little more than a decade ago that a genetically engineered soil bacteria Klebsiella planticola, engineered to produce alcohol, was almost released until shown by independent researchers to be lethal to plants and other soil microbes. source. How is it Synthetic Biology is taking place in the absence of regulation and independent research, even given "authoritative" voices of caution and concern. The fact that these organisms are patentable, therefore lucrative is driving the inventions...this is the engineering of new life. And this unmoderated gold rush could conceivably unleash an ecological disaster. " such a prospect raises concerns about their accidental release into the environment, as by their very nature such biological machines could evolve, proliferate and produce unexpected interactions that might alter the ecosystem." source
I've written about this before here, where there are some good links to read on.

Ethanol worst energy option - Stanford Study

Mark Jacobson director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University published a study that appears in today's online edition of Environmental Science & Technology, a publication of the American Chemical Society. Here

"Ethanol is being promoted as a clean and renewable fuel that will reduce global warming and air pollution...But our results show that a high blend of ethanol poses an equal or greater risk to public health than gasoline, which already causes significant health damage." from S.F. Gate

"The Tier-4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85. See http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/12/12/22530/864
Wind with electric vehicles ranked first.

Berkeley National Lab Director to be US Energy Secretary

The Berkeley National Lab has engaged in "world-leading and pioneering work in nanotechnology and synthetic biology" to convert biofuels from biomass, generate biofuels by algae, convert water and carbon dioxide to fuels. Source. Its director since 1994, Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu will be named as Energy Secretary.

Read Chu-ing the fat of the land? In the Gristmill

And in related news... yesterday the National Research Council issued a critical 97 page report on the safety and regulatory standards of nanotech:
Research Council: Nanotech Safety Needs a Closer Look. Much Closer.

Cleantech's synbio shh shh

Image: "the Escherichia coli bacterium, one of the many microorganisms used in synthetic biology experiments and in bioconversion of biomass into both cellulosic ethanol as well as biohydrogen". source
I'm not a scientist, I'm a farmer, and yet I feel it is important to have a debate about the ethics of synthetic biology and its break-neck race to the biofuel future. What unexpected interactions might we expect between genomically engineered microbes and our ecosystems?
Venture capital is swarming to "cleantech" like thistle on idle plowed land. The promise is clean energy and big profits. The nextgen biofuels require an ample source of biomass and microbes designed to efficiently digest the material within their own factory cell walls. It is the sugar/synbio century that industrialists, big Ag and governments hold as the holy grail of expansion that will see us to the next boom time. In Canada, legislation was passed this spring requiring 5% ethanol in all gasoline by 2012 and has endowed clean tech foundation, the Sustainable Development Technology Centre with $1.05 billion for investments in cleantech The NextGen Biofuels Fund received $500 million of this and distributes funds to support "first-of-kind large demonstration-scale facilities for next-generation renewable fuels".
Where is the debate about the genome modified or synthetic microbes that are being designed for bioprocessing? If you read the disciple and industry websites the potential dangers are clear and the lack of regulation pertaining to Synbio, equally so. Andrew Balmer & Paul Martin Institute for Science and Society University of Nottingham in a report Social and Ethical Challenges of Synthetic Biology describes some of these concerns, for example: "One of the main aims of synthetic biology is the creation of novel genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which may have utility in the production of energy and bioremediation. However, such a prospect raises concerns about their accidental release into the environment, as by their very nature such biological machines could evolve, proliferate and produce unexpected interactions that might alter the ecosystem." If their function is to digest biomass into alcohol, is that the kind of interaction possible on accidental release into the biosphere? And if Synthetic biologists are notorious for asking not "What have you learned?" or "What do we understand?" ... but instead asking.. "What have you made?" and "How did you make it?", will the unraveling of the complexity of these synthetic organisms fall to biologists funded by the public purse, after the fact, with regulations from 1999 ?. The potential for "bio-error" as well as bio-terror" are very real. Its time to let the people in on the decisions for the future of our planet.