Why peak oil helps industrial agriculture
Bob Morris @ Jan 21st 2008 14:33 - Category: Peak oil
The Oil Drum does a superb job of refuting that tired, gloomy prediction by some peak oil theorists that we will need to go back to small farms and hand farming. They show this is not based on fact, but on nostalgia for the past.
Industrial agriculture is likely to be stronger and more profitable when oil prices are high, not weaker. So the reversalist future of local food production on smaller farms with higher labor input will not come to pass as a result of peak oil.
Thus the industrialization of the land is not a reversible process any time soon - it is a fallacy to think so. The reversalists are expressing wishful thinking and nostalgia for the past, not a reasoned analysis of how the future is likely to play out.
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DJ on 21 Jan 2008 at 9:41 pm #
Oddly, despite the plethora of huge farming corporations and a certain level of government harrassment, small farms have been making a comeback in recent years– even without peak oil. My wife and I are in that sense latecomers to the small farm community.