Thanks for a great perspective. I was just rereading the reissued farm memoir RFD, which you wrote a powerful Foreword for, and was struck by how much conditions in 1938 mirrored our own. Of course, Americans were even more shaken then than they are now because they had suffered a lot more. The book was a bestseller even though–or because–the author was a political radical who saw farming as a way of life.

Richard

Economic cycles are “real” – take a look at the unemployment numbers – that doesn’t mean they are natural or inevitable. I suggested they’re caused by financial speculation.

This is why I stopped buying the peak oil / peak population stuff. There is no way to infer the available oil reserves, the amount of population the earth can carry, the amount of farmland required, (the “energy economy”) based on financial data. Anything measured in dollars is governed by speculation and corporate profit, which also drive the political climate.

Profitable small farms could rebuild the national economy from the inside out, but they’ll never last without a national politics able to protect them from price speculation, foreign land investors and cheap imports. As Mr. Logsdon suggests, the current back to the land movement is likely another bubble.

The “peak everything” mindset is that things will devolve forever into some kind of Mad Max scenario, and we should all be islands unto ourselves. I think this is a mental trap to keep you away from effective politics. If you look at history, you’ll see a neverending rollercoaster of false paradises and false apocalypses, all used as carrots and sticks to keep the unwitting serfs on the primrose path. I don’t accept your pessimism about physical reality – but I wish you the best of luck with your new farm, which looks like a lot of fun!

Kyle (et. al.) speak of “economic cycles,” as though such things have some basis in reality. What lies at the base of any and all economies? Energy. The upheavals of the ’70′s are about to be repeated, on a much grander scale. I haven’t studied the ’20′s enough to be able to tell where the energy was coming from to drive that process then.

Teresa stands up for the small farm — so do I! But I think the long-term trend in the coming energy decline will be in what I call (for lack of a better term) the mid-sized, cooperatively-run farm. With nearly 7 billion mouths to feed on this planet, I don’t see any long-term trend in the decline of farm values, quite the contrary. The only way that most individuals and families will be able to be involved will be as hired workers, renters, or as co-operative owners.

There will be more energy shocks. When oil drops to a mere $300 a barrel, people will breathe a sigh of relief as diesel fuel drops below $6 a gallon. But that’s just for a while, until the next energy shock happens. Meanwhile, automated agriculture will begin a slow, steady decline, and the only way we’re going to grow enough food will be to get more people on the land — people who will be willing to plant fruit and nut trees and perennial crops. In other words, land owners.

We’re not waiting for this to happen; we’re starting now… if you want a part of a lovely farm in SW BC, check us out!