Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
pressure to meet targets of economic performance. And they will be destined for a more
local market, so there should be no need to pack them into multi-storey cattle trucks.
In a ruralized society, where decentralization prioritizes proximity, and where human set-
tlement is more attuned to the cycles and rhythms of nature, animal automotive power is
more likely to be economically viable. And in a low carbon society where energy is at a
premium, it makes no sense to waste it. The energy which animals expend on movement,
digestion and reproduction is an unnecessary waste to the vegan, and an unavoidable cost
to the industrial farmer - both of whom share a similar reductionist logic. The permacultur-
ist, on the other hand, views animal energy as part of the natural cycle and tries to integrate
it into the farming system, rather than using it as a reason for shutting the beast up in a fact-
ory, or ejecting it from the system altogether. Farmers have lived and worked like this with
plants and animals for centuries, and it is arguable that advocates of permaculture have had
to coin a new name only because industrial farmers have brought the term agriculture into
disrepute.
It is possible that we will be forced to resort to very low carbon farming, and it is time
to consider how we would cope if we had to. The following are some of the adjustments
we might have to make to our management of livestock if we did reduce carbon emissions
to near zero. Since some of these have already been described in foregoing chapters, they
are listed in bullet point form. would be slaughtered on the farm. Butchers would become
butchers again, rather than meat retailers: that is to say they would store animals on the
hoof, behind the shop, and slaughter them as and when they needed it.
• Farms would grow a wider range of livestock and crops, selected with a view to
working together. Livestock would graze in rotation with crops, eat residues, bring
nutrients onto arable land from outlying areas and keep orchards clean - all activ-
ities which are still carried out on many mixed farms. But there are other less well
known symbiotic approaches which might come into more widespread use under
zero carbon farming conditions. Pigs or chickens can be used for gleaning, clearing
and fertilizing land. Chickens following three days after cows will pick the parasites
out of cow manure. Ducks are one of the most effective organic means of getting
rid of slugs. Horse manure can be used to heat greenhouses or polytunnels for out
of season crops, or chickens can be housed there for the same purpose. Pigs can
be persuaded to turn muck heaps by burying grain in them. Silkworms and fish are
well-established companion animals - the fish eat silkworm excretions, and muck
ent flows between the different components of a mixed livestock farm, while Fig 6
shows how much less complex a vegan but otherwise similar farming system would
be.
