Visit the forum instructions to learn how to post to the forum, enable email notifications, subscribe to a category to receive emails when there are new discussions (like a mailing list), bookmark discussions and to see other tips to get the most out of our forum!
running out of land
  • 7 Comments sorted by
  • Last thing we need is for the government to regulate prices on tools and consumables of food production. Having to get a permit and pay a tree tax to be able to cut down a tree on my own property isn't going to solve the problem. Or to pay more for fertilizer?

    All that this will lead to is a form of genocide. Make farming expensive so that only the wealthy can eat. Brilliant! Only a bureaucrat could have come up with that idea.
     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    MetzMetz
     
    October 2011
    I don't think the world is really running outof land. Having travelled vast amounts of the globe from north America, Horn of Africa to The Middle East, and SE Asia, I have seen much underutilized and empty land.

    For example a 60 km drive east of Manila Philippines which has 11 million population will take you to area that has a very low population density and stays that way all the way to the east coast of Luzon Island. There is the American West, Patagonia, Northern Canada, Siberia, Eastern Russia, Alaska, Horn of Africa, Australian outback, and Antartica that all contain vast empty lands suitable for settling if the right tech was developed to make it feasible or a infrastructure was in place for transportation. Phoenix Arizona is a prime example of empty useless desert land being repurposed into usable purpose.
     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    mjnmjn
     
    October 2011
    Phoenix, Arizona is a prime example of what happens when local resources are consumed without thought to renewal.  Soon, there will be no water in Phoenix having used up tens of thousands of years of water in the aquifer.  Technology isn't always a solution.  Sometimes it is a prop that eventually breaks leaving several million people in an uninhabitable land.

    - Mark

     
  • @Metz
    I agree with Mark, there are many areas that are not suited to more than a very low population density. And at least current level of technology can't change that. As long as energy is scarce and expensive, this situation won't change, and even with abundant energy, not all problems are solved.


    Speaking about agricultural land, IMO that there isn't really much unused good farmland in the world. Most of the areas You have mentioned are to cold or to dry to make a living of farming.
    Since the beginning of civilization people have been in search of the best farmland, so I don't think there is much prime farmland still available.


    I've never been in the philippines, but if the region east of Manila is sparsely populated, there prob are good reasons for it: to warm, to dry, to wet, to steep, to infertile. If there are thousands of hectares of quality land available for free or a minimum rate, give me details to start a farm operation there....


    Mike

     
  • It is an issue of Knowledge, we can green the desert if we have to.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=sohI6vnWZmk#t=14s  The current unsustainable farming method of using oil for fertilizers,herbicides,and pesticides that most know of is more akin to Necromancy than to traditional farming or bio-intensive farming.
     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    MetzMetz
     
    October 2011
    Well land in the Philippines can not be owned by anyone other than a Filipino citizen.  A good resource for Phils property availability would be sulit.com.ph.

    But asides from that I think that the present agricultural practices need to be updated.  If the guys in Colorado can do a million pounds of food a year on 3 acres via aquaponics then it can be applied in even more conventional inhospitable climates.

    For example I spent some time living and working in Djibouti, which is a tiny country on the Horn of Africa.  The arable land in the entire country is measured in less than a couple thousand US acres.  However with aquaponics the locals could raise most of their own food instead of importing it from europe and Ethiopia.

    That said, the citizens of Djibouti prob would not do aquaponics because of the plentiful American food aid and the chronic drug problem that makes most of the population spend their afternoons stoned.
     
  • There is a distinct difference between 'make a living farming' and 'operating a monoculture commercial farm'.  Subsistence farming doesn't take much, and as the greening the desert video demonstrates, you can do this in places most people wouldn't expect.  No, we're not running out of land.  We're coming up on the need to adapt to using the land we have.

    Just as the people in phoenix will adapt their systems, houses, water usage, and treatment depending on their water supply issues.
     

Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Login with Facebook Sign In with Google Sign In with OpenID Sign In with Twitter

In this Discussion

Tagged

Loading