The Future of Farming

Rebecca Hoskings "Farm for the Future"

I was browsing the videos posted at Tricycle Gardens media library and came across this 48 minute documentary by Rebeca Hosking, a wildlife photographer who grew up on a farm in Devon, England.

Its a visually lovely and compelling look at the predicted peaking of the fossil fuel boom, and the effect of declining availability of fossil fuel on current methods of farming. The idea is that we will transition from fuel surplus to fuel shortage sometime in the next 2-10 years, with the fossil fuel age slowly declining over the next 100 years, about the period of time over which weve enjoyed the burgeoning of the fossil fuel age up to now.

I enjoyed the early bit where Rebecca looks at a sandwich, the kind you buy for a couple of bucks at a convenience store. She explains how fossil fuel is necessary to production and shipping of each bit of that sandwich, and doesnt even point out the fundamental petroleum origin of the plastic packaging.

This brings me back to the reason why I want to figure out a system that almost anyone could set up - to make it possible for millions of folks (specifically Americans) to create millenial "victory gardens" from readily-available materials.

As for supplying the needs for fuel for vehicles, I enjoyed this video on production of algae, which in open pond culture can produce an astounding 20,000 gallons of oil per acre per year (compared to a mere 18 gallons per acre per year for corn). The vertical grow system seems like it could be much more productive than open pond culture:


Culture of algae to be refined into carbon based fuels

I look forward to seeing how all this evolves over the next decade. I predict many will be taken unawares - living at the edge of their finances and relying on modern conveniences to meet the requirements of their lives.

But I doubt there will be world-wide apocalypse as sometimes projected. Personal discomfort, but not collapse of civilization.

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Photography New to me Canon EOS 20D camera

My new camera is a lot like my old camera in so far as they both take pictures, and they are both 8 megapixel cameras.

But after that they diverge a bit.

The Sanyo Xacti that Ive been using for the last 1300 photos Ive taken was gifted at me by someone (Thanks anonymous company) when I really needed a replacement because all the point and shoot digital cameras Ive bought to make this blog (I think its 3 now) fall over just after 5000 happy snaps.

5000 seems like a lot when I put it in print, but in terms of time, that equates to less than a year per camera.  Sure they cost less than AU$100, but I still want more than a year out of anything I buy.

This one that Ive been using is still going strong, and does a pretty good job of it I suppose, but I found the interface very heavy going.

It has quite a few options and features, but all of them have to be accessed via a clunky multi-level menu system. That means that every time you want to do anything other than what its set to do now, you have to explore a stack of menus to finally find what you need, and by the time youve found it, the ladybird has finished eating its aphid, and flown away.

My new camera on the other hand is a zillion times better to work with. Ive only had it for around 10 hours, but it already feels comfortable.

Its taken around 1200 pictures so far in its life.

I have very greasy fingers.

Im eating zucchini and haloumi fritters.

Delicious.


The new camera is a Canon 20D. It was originally sold for around AU$1500 (Australian dollar) in 2004, and was described as a "semi-professional" or "prosumer" camera at the time, which of course means substantially more than other imaginary words and their associated imaginary metrics.

But on the whole, the camera rocks.

Thats my official rating out of 5.

It has a 4 GB CF memory card, which is the size of a bulky circa 2012 64GB mp3 player, and that cost around the same as a bulky circa 2012 64GB mp3 player. It takes a while to transfer photos, but it has very nice functionality, and best of all has an interface that works.

It also comes with some nice lumps of glass in the lens. It seems to be the lens that lets down lots of little point and shoot cameras. The quality of the photos taken by my new 8 megapixel camera is a lot better than those Ive taken with an 8 megapixel point and shoot style camera.

The second lens feels a bit like it might blow away, but at $10 its a very nice thing to have around.

The camera came with a Canon 18-55mm f3.5 image lens, with image stabalizer. Ive just discovered I love image stabalizing. Image stabalizing allows you to be a bit shakey, and have the lens do some stuff to fix it.

As I understand it, there are exactly two ways to do image stabilizing.

• 1. Project an image onto the censor, so that the image is a little larger than the censor, and the image has some extra image in the margins. Then have the camera track your shakey projection, and then use magic or software or something to knit together a nice crisp image.

• 2. Track some points on the image, and move the lens around a bit so that any given point on the censor always sees the same bit of the image, or move the censor to achieve the same thing.

• 3. Use gyroscopes mounted on at least two axes to resist the movement of the entire camera. Things spinning around like to keep doing it. If you take the tire off your bike (stop first) and hold the axle while someone else spins it as fast as they can, it becomes difficult to change the angle its on. This is why a spinning top (do they still have those?) stays upright, and is simply due to the universe being an amazing place.

Amazing!

The camera shows its age through its 8 megapixelness, as at the time of writing, thats about 16 megapixels short of where it should be.

I bought it from a second hand camera store in Japan for $150 with the Canon 18-55mm zoom, and I got the second lens, a Tamron 100-300 zoom, for $10 from the bargain bin.

Thanks Tom.

Toms a friend of mine.

Hes really good at buying way too much camera gear from junk bins. His hobby includes buying those instamatic film cameras that were big in the 70s. He likes to buy them when they have rolls of film still in them so he can process the film. In some subtle way, thats slightly different from buying some old photos.

Which is nice.

For him.

Hes kind of a time traveller, but he only gets to look, and doesnt get to choose what he looks at.

Mostly he gets to look at darkness.

Sometimes darkness, but with slightly mouldy edges.

Luckily, I dont suffer from collecting things other than my collection of odd people I know.

Toms one of my favourites.

Thanks Tom.




120 Things in 20 years - One of the best parts about getting my new, second hand Canon 20D camera, was getting to look at the Japanese supermarket junkmail it was packed in. Its been 20 years since I was in Japan, and the junkmail paper is now of even better quality.

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Thinking 懐かしい

????

Now theres a word we need an English equivalent to.

Why is my native language so incomplete? 

I want my money back!

120 Things in 20 years is slightly disappointed!

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A List of Double Up Food Bucks Locations in Albuquerque and Valencia County

Thanks to an initiative approved by the State Legislature this year, New Mexicans who receive food stamps can use their EBT cards to double the amount of fruits and vegetables they purchase at growers markets. Here is a list, courtesy of the New Mexico Farmers Marketing Association, of locations in the Albuquerque area and Valencia County that offer the Double-Up Food Bucks option.

• ABQ Uptown Growers’ Market 2200 Louisiana Boulevard NE, Albuquerque (Saturdays 7AM–12PM)
• Albuquerque Downtown Growers’ Market Central and 8th, Robinson Park, Albuquerque (Saturdays 8AM–12PM)
• Albuquerque Growers’ Market at Presbyterian 1100 Central Ave. SE, Albuquerque (Tuesdays 7AM–12PM)
• Albuquerque: Rail Yards Market 777 1st St. SW, Albuquerque (Sundays 10AM–2PM)
• Belen Growers’ Market Anna Becker Park, Highway 309 & Reinken Avenue, Belen (Fridays 4:30–7PM)
• Bosque Farms Growers’ Market 1090 North Bosque Loop, Bosque Farms (Saturdays 8AM–12PM)
• Los Lunas Farmers’ Market 3447 Lambros Circle, Los Lunas (Tuesdays 4PM–7PM)
• South Valley Armijo Village Growers’ Market Isleta Blvd. and Arenal Rd. SW, Albuquerque (Saturdays 8AM–12PM)
• South Valley Gateway Growers’ Market 100 Isleta Blvd. SW, Albuquerque (Thursdays 5PM–8PM) 
• Zia Bernalillo Farmers Market 335 S. Camino del Pueblo (Fridays 4pm-7pm)

Double-Up Food Bucks benefits are also available in Alamogordo, Aztec, Cuba, Carlsbad, Clovis, Dixon, Española, Farmington, Las Cruces, Las Vegas (Tri-County Farmers Market), Lordsburg, Mescalero, Mora, Pojoaque, Portales, Ramah, Santa Fe, Silver City, Socorro, Truth or Consequences (Sierra County Farmers Market), Taos and Tucumcari. Click Here to find specific information about each of these markets. 

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Compassionate Killing of Fish

 If you raise fish for food you will need to kill them.  
There are many methods.  
Some are cruel and inhuman.  
Below you will find links that demonstrate how to kill your fish.

Aqui-S is a safe and easy solution which appeals to me.  
http://www.aqui-s.com/


The following is an excerpt from:

THE WELFARE OF INTENSIVELY FARMED FISH
A Report for
COMPASSION IN WORLD FARMING TRUST
Philip Lymbery
Animal Welfare Consultant
February 2001


Starvation & Slaughter
Farmed fish are normally starved for about 7-10 days before slaughter. It is said that
this is to empty their gut and minimize the risk of the flesh becoming contaminated
when gutted. However, gut clearance only takes 24-72 hours. Farmed fish are
conditioned over months and years to expect frequent and plentiful feed. To suddenly
cut off that feed is likely to be detrimental to their welfare. CIWF Trust believes that
starvation periods of longer than 72 hours should be prohibited.

About 40 million salmon and 30 million trout are slaughtered annually in the UK.
That represents more animals than all the pigs, sheep, cattle and turkeys killed
altogether. Some widely used slaughter methods for farmed fish cause appalling
suffering. So much so that the perpetrators would be prosecuted if they were
slaughtering other farm animals in a similar way. Widely used slaughter methods in
the trout industry, for example, include the suffocation of fish in air or on ice. In the
latter method, the cooling effect of the ice prolongs the time it takes for the fish to
become unconscious, with fish being able to feel what is happening to them almost 15
minutes after being taken out of the water. The Government’s advisory Farm Animal
Welfare Council (1996) condemned this killing method, recommending that it be
prohibited. Nearly five years on, it remains widely used.

Another inhumane slaughter method often used for salmon and trout is the use of
carbon dioxide stunning. The bath of carbon dioxide saturated water causes the fish
to thrash around the killing container. They stop moving after 30 seconds, but do not
lose consciousness for 4-9 minutes. Salmon usually have their gills cut after stunning
and are allowed to bleed to death. The prolonged procedure is inhumane in itself.
However, as carbon dioxide causes immobility long before unconsciousness, there is
a real danger that fish remain conscious but unable to move as they are bleeding to
death.

Inhumane and totally unacceptable slaughter methods, that can take a long time for
fish to lose consciousness and die, should be prohibited urgently. These include
suffocating fish in air or on ice, bleeding to death without pre-stunning, and the use of
carbon dioxide for stunning.

Only slaughter methods that cause an instant death or render the fish instantly
insensible to pain until dead should be permitted. These include percussive stunning
techniques whereby fish are rendered instantly unconscious when carried out
efficiently. Also electrocution methods where properly designed and carried out
effectively. In the case of electrocution, the electric current must be sufficient to stun
and kill the fish otherwise considerable suffering could result.


_____________________________________________________________
Further information can be found at
http://fishcount.org.uk/fish-welfare-in-commercial-fishing/humane-slaughter

http://www.daff.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/152108/aaws_stocktake_aquatic.pdf

_____________________________________________________________
These videos show how it can be done and demonstrate the difficulty involved.
How to Perform a Head Spike 
How to Bleed a Fish after the Head Spike
Clubbing a Large Fish
Clubbing and Bleeding
Cutting the Head Off
The Humane Way to Kill a Cray
Still Alive and Feeling Pain?


While searching for this information I found some of the most disgusting and cruel video where people were amused at the pain, and suffering of various animals.  I dont even wish to understand what these people were thinking.   Please be as humane as possible.

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Lots of Nitrate

Water Chemistry Results - 05/14

Last week when I tested my water chemistry, my pH was about 8.0. Ammonia was at 0.25 ppm, nitrite was at 0.25 ppm, and nitrate was about 40 ppm.

So the past week I added 1-2 tablespoons of pH down morning and night, testing the pH as I went. (Didnt bother doing all the tests each day, since the ammonia-nitrite-nitrate series of tests take about 10 minutes to complete, whereas pH is immediate.)

Happily, Ive gotten my pH down to 6.6.

Unhappily, my nitrite and nitrate have shot up.

Happily, the remedy for high nitrate is to plant more plants. So here are the new additions:

Rosemary

Red Sails Lettuce

Cucumbers (3 plants)

Sequoia strawberry (3 plants)

Better Belle pepper

Cherry tomato

Butter Crunch lettuce

Next project: finish enclosing the ends of the greenhouse...

Someones been eating the cabbage...

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Prayer for the Care of Creation

Tomorrow, September 1, we celebebrate World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. Join us in solidarity with with others around the world, including The Philippines  to pray for our good stewardship of God’s gift of creation! The video above, recommended by Catholics Confront Global Poverty,  comes via Catholic Relief Services. And here is a list of resources from Jesuits Northeast Province. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) recommends the follow prayer from St. Francis of Asissi

Canticle of the Sun
O most High, almighty, good Lord God,
to you belong praise, glory, honor, and all blessing!
 
Praised be my Lord God with all creatures;
and especially our brother the sun,
which brings us the day, and the light;
fair is he, and shining with a very great splendor: O Lord, he signifies you to us!

Praised be my Lord for our sister the moon,
and for the stars,
which God has set clear and lovely in heaven.

Praised be my Lord for our brother the wind,
and for air and cloud, calms and all weather,
by which you uphold in life all creatures.
Praised be my Lord for our sister water,
which is very serviceable to us,
and humble, and precious, and clean.

Praised be my Lord for brother fire,
through which you give us light in the darkness:
and he is bright, and pleasant, and very mighty,
and strong.

Praised be my Lord for our mother the Earth,
which sustains us and keeps us,
and yields divers fruits, and flowers of
many colors, and grass.

Praised be my Lord for all those who pardon
one another for Gods loves sake,
and who endure weakness and tribulation;
blessed are they who peaceably shall endure,
for you, O most High, shall give them a crown!

Praised be my Lord for our sister,
the death of the body, from which no one escapes.
Woe to him who dies in mortal sin!
Blessed are they who are found walking by your
most holy will,
for the second death shall have no power to do
them harm.

Praise you, and bless you the Lord, and give thanks to God, and serve God with great humility.

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Stirling engines A complete history of Engines

Some time ago, somebody invented the steam engine. The steam engine works by heating water in an airtight container to make steam. The steam is massively expanded water, and the result is lots of pressure.  Once you have lots of pressure you bleed a bit of that pressure intermittently into a piston, and the piston gets pushed. Connect that to a crank, and you have rotational motion, and an industrial revolution. You also have lots of factory workers being blown up in hideous, explosive  accidents, with all the screaming, and loss of productivity that goes with being killed.

Later someone invented the internal combustion engine, and the turbine engine. These run on fossil fuel. They had a pretty good run until somebody discovered it was making us sick and killing everyone.

The turbine engine is a big thing you tend to stick to the ground in a power plant and make electricity. That way the factories could all have much safer working conditions where hardly anyone ever got blown up, but it also kills the earth a bit. Just a little every day. And sometimes some of them explode anyway. Thats not so good, because some use uranium to make the heat, and that never ends well.

Anyway...

The internal combustion engine tends to be used in portable things like cars, because they pack such a lot of punch for such a small weight in fuel. They also kill the world, just a little bit each day, and sometimes explode, and sometimes just mash into each other, and mash into other things that tend to be near roads. They do a lot of mashing.

The main advantage with the turbine, and internal combustion engines, is that they spread out the damage. Just one or two people from any given factory at any given time get killed by them rather than taking out half the factorys workforce all in one go like a steam engine disaster might. The mayhem and disaster is spread out so that each factory takes just a small share of the disruption to productivity. Except perhaps with the uranium stuff. I think thats why Australia is shipping all our uranium to distant countries. To move it as far away as possible.

Anyway...

A Stirling engine on the other hand is a slightly more peaceful beast that doesnt really do a lot, but what it does, it does pretty thoughtfully. Historically it fits between the steam engine and the stuff we use today (2013, just in case someone reads this in 40 years). The Stirling engine is an engine that uses the difference in heat between two of its bits of kit, to make stuff spin around without all the explosions.

There.

Thats the design description out of the way.

Its very safe, because it doesnt have a pressurised container. It needs a source of heat, but that can be solar, or waste heat from something else. Rotting compost, your wireless router, whatever. They are not a very powerful engine, which is why the internal combustion engine took over, and they are not very responsive to sudden changes in desired power output. Thats also why the internal combustion engine took over. And they are not very powerful... Internal combustion engine blah blah blah.

So...

The most beneficial thing as far as Im concerned is that they wont blow up and kill me.

Theyre not very useful. But thats not going to stop me making one.

The kind of thing that will stop me making one, is more likely to be that I have no idea how.

Ive never made an engine before, and have also never met anyone who has, but it turns out they are a pretty simple kind of beast, and with a bit of luck, wire, string, and the total combined wealth of human knowledge stored on the Internet, I might be able to make one.

People are very clever, and there are some really helpful ones out there that are willing to help me.

Ill be trying to make a very small Stirling engine that runs on the power of a small candle, that will do no work, but will hopefully work.



120 Things in 20 years - Stirling engine - It might go round and round.

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Review of Fat Head

The "Fat Head" trailer

Since weve been on this kick, watching movies about the modern impact on diet, my daughter asked if Id seen "Fat Head," Tom Naughtons 2008 sardonic examination of the claim fast food is evil.

I had seen "Super Size Me" a few years ago, a 2004 documentary showing Morgan Spurlocks 30 day experiment with eating only McDonalds food. Spurlock gained a lot of weight and his cholesterol shot through the roof:


The "Super Size Me" trailer

If youre inclined to watch these movies, you should watch "Super Size Me" first. "Super Size Me" conveys a compelling message: fast food phenomenon isnt healthy. I really liked the experiment where they examine how long it takes fast food to decay - particularly the days, weeks and months where the french fries didnt appear to decay at all.

Spurlock presumes the ideal diet is vegetarian and organic. He consumed 5000+ calories a day of non-vegan food to illustrate the difference. As conveyed in "Super Size Me," Spurlock inferred the fattening part of the fast food diet was the sugar and fat and meat. That plus being so available and cheap and alluring.

In "Fat Head," Tom Naughton sets out to show that a reasonable person eating a fast food diet for a month can be just fine, thank you very much. Naughtons ideal diet is one moderate in calories (~2000 per day) and low in carbohydrates (<100 g per day). So Naughton necessarily avoided the sugary sodas and starchy parts of the McDonalds repetoire. Plus he walked 6 days a week (5 miles per day).

Naughton ends his experiment having lost 12 pounds and improving his cholesterol levels.

Throughout "Fat Head," Naughton mocks Spurlock. Its pretty amusing. Naughton also hits a theme that resonates with the warnings in "Food, Inc." and "The Future of Food:" the business behind corn and soybeans has been twisting science and law and policy to fundamentally change what we eat, and it hasnt been a good thing.

Naughton isnt preaching organics, however. Hes just pointing out that a low-carb diet is healthy and its entirely possible even while eating fast food.

I think both documentaries are worth watching. But Naughtons work reminded me of Woody Allens "Sleeper," where a man put in cryo-suspension in 1973 is revived 200 years later.

"...this morning for breakfast... [the Sleeper] requested something called wheat germ, organic honey, and tigers milk."

[Doctor laughs] "Oh, yes. Those were the charmed substances... that some years ago were felt to contain life-preserving properties."

"You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or hot fudge?

[Doctor again] "Those were thought to be unhealthy, precisely the opposite of what we know now to be true..."

I should call "Fat Head" thought-provoking, because it was. But I was giggling too much to feel as though Id been educated. If you like such things, enjoy.

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Immaculate Conception Church in Albuquerque to Offer Church of Second Chances Program this Fall

Photo: JustFaith Ministries

Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Albuquerque is one of dozens of faith communities around the country that will participate in one of three JustMatters modules that JustFaith Ministries is offering this fall. The modules encourage small groups to explore critical current issues within the context of the Gospels and the life and example of Jesus. "In a world that is too quick to encourage rhetoric that divides us from one another, these experiences cultivate genuine dialogue, contemplative prayer, and community," said JustFaith.

Immaculate Conception will offer an eight-week session around the Church of Second Chances module, which shares the stories of incarcerated people and exposes injustices in the judicial system through the lens of faith. This module hopes to inspire a prophetic revision of incarceration that invites restoration, mercy and reconciliation.

This newly revised eight-session version of JustFaiths Prison Reform module represents greater diversity in the voices of those behind bars, includes updated video resources, encourages deeper dialogue, and incorporates Pope Francis’ message of mercy.

The eight-week session will be held  each Thursday evening at Immaculate Conception, 619 Copper NW (map) in downtown Albuquerque, September 24 through November 12, 2015,  in the Guadalupe Room.  For more information or to register, please call or email Joy Dinaro in the church office.(505) 247 – 4271 ext. 3034  jdinaro@iccabq.org

In addition to the module on prison reform, JustFaith Ministries offers the Crossing Borders program (immigration) and The Sultan and the Saint (Muslim-Christian relationships) this fall (More details here), but no churches in the Albuquerque area are offering these two programs. Other programs on the environment, solidarity and peacemaking are currently available but have not been recently revised and are not supported by JustFaith staff this fall.

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Loss of Appetite

UPDATE 8/9/2012
I know it must seem like Im always correcting myself with these updates, but Im documenting the learning experience and attempting to pass on knowledge as I learn it.  Many times it appears that I have understood the problem at the time, but as more information appears this changes on occation.  

A few days ago I found small red worms, and at first thought they were Camallanus, but it turned out to be Midge.  Midge is a great food for fish, and it was only after transferring my fish to the raft so that I could better care for them that I figured that out.   The fish have not shown the excitement they used to show when fed, and I wonder if this is because they were feeding on Midge worms, and have become spoiled.  Simple fish food must seem tasteless to them now, and I suspect this is the reason for their lack of appetite.

ORIGINAL POST:
For about six weeks my fish have not been eating as aggressively as they used to. 
They have been showing signs of breeding, and I attributed this to the loss of appetite.

But it was about the same time I added Dr Iron iron chelate. 
The iron made the water quite brown, and I also observed some algae on the walls of the tank, and in the water which I attributed to warmer weather. 
So the cloudy water did not concern me, and my assumption remains that iron chelate is not harmful to the fish, but its definitely not to be dismissed.   
The Iron Chelate level has dropped from 0.5 ppm to 0.1 ppm over the past three weeks.  Today I bumped that up again with 60ml of Dr Iron .
 
Before the fish began to loose their appetite I began to allow the salt levels to become depleted in an effort to see what affect if any a 0.15% salt level has on plants.
I let the salt level drop to zero over the course of a couple months.   That experiment was trashed when a leak developed in my grow bed, and I had to remove all the media and plants. 
The bacteria took a small hit but I was able to preserve, and restore the bacteria within a few days by using a small wet/dry bio filter.
Two days ago I began to bring the salt levels back up since I have very few plants left in the grow bed to experiment with.  Im now using this system for starting seeds and growing outdoors in my other system.

After bringing the salt up to only 0.9% the water cleared the fish began to eat better.
Ill continue to watch the fish to see if their appetite continues to improve, but since I have several variables going on Im still trying to figure out what it is that caused the loss of appetite.   It might be simply salt levels, but I feel that there is more to it than that.  Maybe there was enough algae in the tank to keep them satisfied. Im also  pretty sure they are also eating their young even though I have tried to provide a safe areas for the fry to escape into.

I added FE2 today, so I should be able to tell if this is the cause or not.  Ill update this post as I learn more.

UPDATE July 22, 2012 
After adding the FE2 on July 16 the water became dark again.   The fish seemed to feed a little less aggressively, but they did not ignore the food like before.  A week later they are eating better.   Dr Iron contains Phosphate 5%:  Potash (K2O) 8%;  Iron (Fe)  8%  so there are other ingredients beyond FE2 and it may be that this may be causing the fish to temporarily eat less.

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The Power of the Sun

DIY Solar Course - a mere $50
So what to do when the power fails? I guess the recent earthquake and tsunami got me thinking, again, about "preparedness." All things considered, Im on track to be pretty self-reliant in a disaster, with the following items (not even counting the garden):

• food storage in cans
  
• manual wheat grinder
  
• water storage
  
• 72-hour emergency kits
  
• solar oven
  
• manual washing machine
  
• makings for a loveable loo
  

A glaring omission in this sea of preparedness is electrical power generation.

I really like the idea of being able to create my own power, particularly now that Ive got dozens of fish who wouldnt survive long if there were a prolonged power outage. (My family would survive, theyd just be irritable...)

Even though Im a physicist, Ive not previously wrapped my head around how one might make a good solar panel. But tonight, I chanced across the following series of videos from the folks at Affordable Solar Frames, down near Mobile, Alabama:

How to make your own 30-year Solar Panels (1 of 3 videos)

After watching these videos, I "get it." As I scope out my greenhouse-enclosed polyculture backyard aquaponics system, Ill be seeing how little power I can get by with.

It would be sweet to be able to run that outdoor system off solar panels!

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Genetic Modification of Organisms

Today my son-in-law suggested I watch the film The Future of Food online with him.

The film clearly has the worldview that corporations have taken immoral measures to consolidate power and reap profit via biotechnology. The film makes no attempt to find any virtuous motive for the technological tinkering corporations have been conducting with biological organisms. For this post Ill ignore the legal and market implications, and focus on the biological implications of genetic modifications.

To create a genetic modification, they invade the original DNA with foreign genes. This part I actually dont mind.

Often the invasion is done by linking the gene with a viral delivery system. This I mind.

To mark the fact that the gene splice has worked, they include an anti-bacterial marker. This I mind.

And for an un-known motive, they are now including a termination function, rendering future seeds infertile. This I wouldnt mind *if* biology was controllable.

The result engineered plants that:

1. Aggressively crowd out natural plants,


2. Arguably reduce consumer resistance to antibiotics, and


3. Produce sterile seeds, so future seeds must be bought from the corporations.

Resistance to Anti-biotics. Beginning with Louis Pasteur, mankind was able to curb infection with antibiotics. Over time, however, bacteria evolve, so that some strains are no longer harmed by antibiotics that killed earlier generations of bacteria.

Future infections will eventually have full power to kill again, as the vast majority of bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. Broadcasting antibacteria-imbued matter like so much seed corn across millions of acres cant have a zero impact on creating that resistance.

Viral invasion of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). Biology is messy. The film shows multiple cases where GMO crops have shown up in fields where they were never intentionally sown. A discussion of genetically modified salmon projected the modified salmon could crowd out all the native salmon in a matter of 40 generations.

The very modification was inserted by linking it to a viral component. The viral component in something good at invading cells, like E. Coli. GMOs are intended to thrive, to be stronger, better, more aggresive than the native parent organism.

Over time one could imagine the GMO variant replacing the native parent crop, as well as the native variants of the crop, leaving a monoculture. This biological Ponzi scheme eventually defrauds humanity of the biological diversity that protects us the way a diversified financial portfolio protects and investor from failure of any one monetary asset.

The Irish potato famine happened because blight killed the near-monoculture potato crop. A million lives were lost.

But its OK if we design GMOs to self destruct, right? Recently an additional bit of genetic stuff gets added when organisms are modified. After the GMO seed has grown, produced, and died, the seeds of the GMO are sterile.

This works just fine for the corporations selling GMO. That way customers always have to come back to buy, year after year.

If this self-terminating gene remains in the GMO and doesnt contaminate other organisms, were good. In fact, this could be a great way to eliminate all GMO from world food production. Stop allowing sale of GMO, and the seeds from existing GMO will fail to reproduce.

But what if the self-terminating gene cross-pollinates into native stock. What if, after years and decades and centurys, weve created a world where the plants and animals we eat cannot reproduce without the technological interference of man?

Evils and Designs of Conspiring Men. I now understand why members of the European Union and other nations adamantly oppose allowing GMOs into their food supplies.

I understand afresh the concern about buying non-organic food.

And I read with new eyes a warning we Mormons believe God gave over 150 years ago [D&C 89: 4, 10-11]:

In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you...

God hath ordained for the constitution, nature, and use of man every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in the season thereof...

Those who first heard this could hardly have imagined a world where produce travels on average 1500 miles from farm to plate, where less than 3% of the population is involved in farming, where people consume food without thought for what season or continent is actually appropriate for that food.

Every time we purchase food, were voting with our wallets. Those planes and trains and combines are forcing world food supplies to do un-natural things because of how we choose.

Let us choose wisely. Else a just God will lay blame for the consequences at our feet.

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Review of Food Inc the movie

From The Official Food, Inc. Movie Website

So my daughter goes to school and tells her teacher about The Future of Food. The teacher tells my daughter she has to watch the movie Food, Inc.

There isnt a free version of Food, Inc., on the internet, but you can watch it on Netflix.

They discuss a variety of issues that have been exacerbated by the industrialization of food:

• Nasty food-borne diseases. Kevin is the poster child for this, a boy who died from contaminated food. Legislation to prevent future occurrences of this tragedy has been batting around for years, now. But the film illustrates a now where the majority of food is processed in a handful of plants. The FDA has been stripped of the power to shut down such plants, presumably because to do so would have massive repercussions.
  
  
• Obesity. One in three individuals is obese. When we talk minorities and poor folks, it grows to one in two. The subsidized foods are cheap and easy, and have been engineered to maximize appeal. So it is cheaper and easier to eat sugary, fattening foods than to eat vegetables. Nuts!
  
  
• Illegal immigration. The highly mechanized, significantly subsidized US grain supply has put many farmers in other nations out of business, particularly once the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) prevented Mexico and Canada from retaining protective tariffs. Food industries, e.g., slaughterhouses, recruit across the border and bring in illegal workers.
  
  
• Indentured servitude for farmers. Since there are so few markets for food, now, those markets can demand conditions. Like making farmers buy the latest equipment ($250,000 per chicken shed, for example). Upgrades (at profit to the industry) become mandatory as a condition of keeping the contract with the buyer. Per the film, a poultry farmer with two chicken sheds would have a debt of $500,000 for the sheds along, and only net $18,000 per year out of which that debt must be paid.

Interests of the food industry are protected by the US government. The movie presents a nice montage of executives who have worked for key food companies (e.g., Monsanto) and for the highest levels of government, under both parties.

But despite the crushing dominance of this mechanized food system, the film offers hope. It shows how customer demand for organics is causing Walmart to start carrying organics. And the film ends with a hopeful note, showing how we can "vote," at least three times a day, to make a difference.

The movie went to wrap before the most recent food crisis, arguably a major contributor to civil unrest in Egypt and other countries (though Twitter and Facebook have no doubt contributed).

With this same civil unrest causing increased risk to petroleum resources, it will be interesting to see what happens in the US to the price of gas and a food industry that is so completely dependent upon petroleum to fertilize, harvest, transport, and process food.

I suggest this movie as a holistic explanation of the 2010+ US food market. Much becomes clear after seeing this.

My daughters teacher will be using Fridays class time to show Food, Inc., to her health students. I project several of those students will commit to an all organic diet, if not become full-out vegans, as a result of Fridays showing.

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Epic adventurer Solar boat Nobility of metals and becoming unhinged

So...

 Im building a framework to hold some solar panels to power me the length of the mighty Murray River, and I figure I should mount the entire assembly on hinges so I can lift one side at a time to add the extension tubes to raise it up high when Im on a long trip so I can use the space under it to sleep or whatever.  

The panels were originally going to be mounted on hinges as well so I could tilt them to the sun as required, but I figured Id keep it simple and see how much cruising time I have per day without moving them. I can always add hinges later.

One of the problems I have is that Im using three or four different metals in a potentially salt water environment. 

Metals hate that kind of thing. 

They have a problem with nobility. 

It turns out that if you arrange a stack of metals in a particular order based on something called their nobility, and you pick some that are a decent distance away from each other on that list and try to build a boat out of them, you get a battery, and some stress.

I already have the stress, and the battery doesnt even exist yet. 

And by the way. Wherere not talking about some awesome battery that will be useful, but the kind of battery that used to be around in the 70s in your transistor radio left in a cupboard in your room, and that was left un-attended for too long and decided to go all acid all over the shop and make your mum angry because you didnt own clothes any more. It seems when you stick two metals that are far from each other on this table of noblenessso they touch each other, and then wet them with some electrically conductive liquid...say... salty water, they get all crazy and dissolve each other and basically ruin your boat. 

Sometimes ruining your boat includes letting go of solar panels while youre driving to the water at high speed, and that is the very thing Im trying to avoid.

I have stainless hinges, painted iron grow house tubes for a frame, nickel coated nuts and bolts, and aluminium frames on my solar panels. 

Lucky me!

I bought some rubber grommets because the guy at Bunnings told me to, and said everything would alright. He was the one who sold me the hinges, the nuts and bolts, the grow house (two years before) and all the tools I needed. He was very reassuring. 

But just in case he had no idea what he was talking about, I paid some drunk guy with a boat shaped voodoo doll to make everything better, so I should be good. 

At least he claimed his boat shaped thing was a voodoo doll. 

Whatever.

Im sure everything will be fine.




120 Things in 20 years needs all the magical help it can get to prevent becoming unhinged, and/or zombieism.

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After Life The Science Of Decay BBC Documentary

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Ten Calories Of Energy To Produce One Calorie Of Food

I just read the article  "The Permaculture Solution – an Interview with Warren Brush". It said "Estimates are that the modern agriculture system uses ten calories of energy to produce one calorie of food."

Fearing that I too may be growing negative net energy food. I immediately looked at the energy costs involved with my soil-less gardens. My hydroponic pump uses 160 watts-hours per day or 137.6 KCal or about 576 KJ/day.   Chris Carr was kind enough to remind me that nutritional calories (KCal) are equal to 1000 chemistry calories (cal).    A chemist would probably use Joules and Kilo-Joules (KJ) rather than KCal.   But the we think of food in terms of KCalories rather than Joules, so Ill keep it in KCal also known as large calories as much as I can.  There were other errors in my first draft,  so heres the rewrite.  Many of my calculations will be done using the Energy and Work Unit Conversion at unit-conversion.info/energy.html. 

I did some research and found a daily harvest of 8lbs of lettuce and 100lbs of tomatoes to be respectable averages for a 100sf garden. So I will be using those figures throughout.
Just for grins lets say you irrigate 100 square feet of garden with 10 gallons per day, and you are pumping water from lets say 100 feet below the surface. 

To calculate the power used to pump 10 gallons per minute 100

P_whp = q h sg / 3960

where

P_whp = water horsepower (hp)
q = flow (gal/min)    = (10)
h = head (ft)              = (100)
sg = specific gravity = (1)

P_whp = 10x100/3960 = .2525whp = 0.04497210699688 KCal/sec
This could also be expressed as 188.2892175745  J/sec which is the definition of a Watt.

If you are following along and checking my math you can use the Power Unit Conversion to find the Power.
Power and Energy are different.  Energy is what is delivered and Power is the rate at which it is delivered.
In the above example we deliver 188 Watts for 10 minutes or 31.38 Watt-Hours



We pump for 10 minute so
0.04497210699688 KCal/s  x  600sec = 26.9 KCal
So how many lbs of vegetables would you need to produce 26.9 KCal
Lettuce is 67.37 KCal per lb so you would need 26.9/67.37 = 0.40 lbs of lettuce per day from your 100 sq ft garden. If you harvest 8lbs / day the net gain is 19.97 times
Tomato is 80 KCal per lb so you would need 26.9/80 = 0.34 lbs of tomatoes per day from your 100 sq ft garden  If you harvest 100lbs / day the net gain is 296 times

Below is a list of common vegetables which I got from http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calories_in_vegetables.htm


Lets put this in perspective of a soil-less aquaponic or hydroponic system:
Lets say you use a 20 watt pump 5 hours a day.
    Thats 20 watt-hours x 5 hours/day = 100 Watt-Hours / day  (W-Hr/day)
    Each W-Hr is equal to 0.859845227859  KCal so you spend about 86.0 KCal to pump water each day.

If you grow 8 lbs of lettuce per day on your 100 sq ft aquaponics garden,
8lb/day x 67368 cal/lb = 538944 cal/day or  ,  538.944Kcal/day

You would spend 86.0 KCal to pump water to produce 538.944 KCal of lettuce.
A return of over 6.27 to 1.  Not quite 19.97 times like soil gardening but pretty good!



How about tomatoes...
Lets say you grow 100 lbs of tomatoes per day in your 100 sq ft garden.   
Let also say you use the same amount of electricity - (86.0 KCal/day).
100 lb/day x 80 KCal/lb = 8000 calories/day
So you would spend 86.0 KCal/day to produce 8000 KCal of tomatoes.
A return of over 92 to 1.  Soil gardening was 296 but this is not bad!

Compared to soil gardening the power efficiency is not as good, but water is also a commodity worth preserving and my guess is any of the soil-less methods will beat soil based gardening several times over.   It gets pretty complicated if you consider that some of the water applied to soil returns to the aquifer but ponics are definitely more efficient with water.  

Back to my hydroponic system which consumes 137.6 KCal per day.  It would need to produce 1.72 lbs of tomatoes per day.  But this is just the power used to move water.  Warren Brush was including the power used to make fertilizers, mine, and apply nutrients, and maintain the crop from start to finish.  Thats beyond the data available to me, but at least it still looks like a positive net gain whether you are gardening with soil or without and probably far better than the modern agriculture system using ten calories of energy to produce one calorie of food.

Aquaponics has a side benefit of fish protein which I have not included, but the energy used to make fish food should be considered.  Bioponics on the other hand is free of any further input save iron and magnesium which is also required in aquaponics.


Ill admit this article was difficult for me,  I feel like I have dyslexia where it comes to keeping units straight.  If you find any errors I will correct them, but to my best knowledge I have presented this correctly.

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Water Storage

As water becomes more difficult to obtain we are going to be forced into looking for better solutions.
This is a section of a modular water wall.

I did a quick search and others are also thinking along these lines and some of the walls are very decorative.  The idea of free or cheap drums is admirable but they are not large enough nor are they aesthetic.
 
Its time to think outside the box.  What about large reservoirs of water under our houses or hidden within our walls which would also be used to moderate temperature with its thermo-mass.

I used to live in a very old house in downtown Tucson.  The walls were built of adobe and they were nearly 3 feet thick.  The hot Tucson summers were quite bearable due to the thermo-mass of these walls even though I had no air conditioning.

If we were to build houses like this our energy and water consumption would both drop.  A stucco finish would make the walls look like any other house except for thick walls, and the comfort would be amazing.  This water could be collected during the rainy season and used later in the hot dry summer months to grow food and ensure a beautiful cooling landscape.

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A family of five uses  about 1 acre foot (about 325,000 gallons) or (1225 m³) of water a year.  So saving water from your roof top may only make a small difference, but small differences add up.   Right now it costs about $1000 to process that much water from waste water or to build a new reservoir.  

Desalination has been done in other parts of the world and California is going to build a desalination plant in San Diego capable of 50 million gallons (189000 m³) a day.  But the cost is probably going to be twice the cost we are used to.  There are also concerns that the plant will kill fish, but efforts are being incorporated that should solve this problem.

In total fifteen desalination projects using reverse osmosis are proposed along the coast from Los Angeles to San Francisco Bay.  In the past many other desalination plants have been closed due to the high cost of operation.  The plant will use an enormous amount of energy -- about 38 megawatts, enough to power 28,500 homes.  
The efficiency works out to be about 3 kWh for 1 m³or 88 gallons / kWh fresh water.  Sounds like a lot of water, but the reality is this will only provide about 7 percent of the total water needs of San Diego County.   

Another problem I see is that this is going to be privately owned.  I would prefer to see communities own their own water source.

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Aquaponics Is Not A Sustainable Form of Agriculture

Aquaponics has been touted as a way to save the world from the destructive and wasteful agriculture practices used on most commercial farms which is clearly not sustainable.. But just as raising cattle for meat, raising fish on farmed grain is also costly to the environment.

 

Much of the grain used to produce fish food is GMO;  raised using large amounts of fossil fuels for fertilizer and machinery in order to produce a profit while neglecting the environment.

Perhaps aquaponics will find a place in outer space, but while we are still here on Earth, aquaponics will remain a romantic attraction blindly portrayed as sustainable, and ecologically sound by those who fall in love with the technical wonder of soil less gardening.  For some the full experience includes the ability to automate, and record  data from sensors.

Clean, neatly segmented water processing stations each providing an optimum environment for bacteria, roots and water quality at the expense of outside energy and natural resources.  Computerized systems can even be monitored and operated remotely from a smart phone miles away.
 
Certainly easing the harvest of wild fish is a good thing, but we often overlook the large picture. Kinda like growing corn for ethanol. What a short sighted idea that was. Aquaponics is not easing the harvest of wild fish as well as it appears. The food we feed to the fish is made from wild caught fish. And while that source is comprised mostly of fish with little commercial value, and waste from the processing it still places a burden on the wild fish population. For more about the analysis of fish food read http://www.oscarfish.com/fish-food-ingredients.html.

Aquaponics uses less water than soil based farming, but it comes at a cost is the environment, and fossil reserves which seems to be overlooked. All along I have promoted energy efficiency in aquaponics, but the numbers still come up short as I demonstrated in another article Energy to Produce Vegetables .  The caloric value of the food produced does not match the energy required to operate an aquaponic system. The pumps require more energy than is grown by a very large factor; sequestering far less carbon than it releases. Some aquapons are supplementing light, and heat during the cold season. This puts aquaponics so far into energy debt that it becomes absurd.

This government funded aquaponics research system has deep pockets and no regard for wasted energy

Bottom line - aquaponics is fun, its interesting, but its not saving the world as a sustainable form of agriculture.

So what can we do?  The answer lies in simply helping, and growing with nature rather than in spite of nature.

Plant in soil, according to the seasons.  Conserve water by creating collection and recollection areas,  use green mulch,  alternate and grow companion crops, build healthy soil with micro-nutrients, and microorganisms, never let the soil lay bare,  Use only safe pesticides if needed.  Never waste a good thing - compost and use compost tea and EM.   Use bio-char,  humus and rock minerals.  Gather leaves in the fall or just let them provide the natural benefits to your soil by leaving them alone.  Pay attention to micro-climates, and take advantage of shady areas near fruit trees.  Let some beneficial weeds grow in order to bring nutrients up into the top soil.  Love the worms and bees, and feed them well.  Plant flowers among your vegetables.  Do not till your soil.


Wear sun block, and a hat!

Wicking beds and Hugelkultur beds conserve water

The Basics of Natural Farming

The common theme between Hugelkulture and Wicking Beds is water supplied from below the soil.  These are both considered Permaculture.  It may very well work in our favor to integrate these methods with aquaponics.  This new hybrid system is called Earthan Beds. 

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