Agricultural equipment with the strength of the calves!

[Grelinette]

You see, in this shared garden project, we are still far from intensive farming!


Here is another experimental garden.
The experiment consisted in evaluating the time it took for a piece of land impoverished and overexploited by intensive agriculture to become fertile again.



And a last yard of shared garden in buttes:

[Ahmed]

The intensive is not necessarily wrong, especially when it comes to survival!

Of course, this term is often associated with current agriculture, accused of productivism, whereas it would be clearly preferable, because more just, to stigmatize its extractivism. 
Productivity suffers in its usual use of the same uncertainty as yield, as noted Chatelot16, so I can not fail to react when Did67 writing:

On the one hand, about 2% of people feed the other 98 ...

Not that it is false, administering speaking, but because it corresponds to a seriously truncated vision of reality.
Conventional agriculture can boast only extremely low productivity (ratio between Nb of active agents and volume of production), even if the production is enormous.
This type of agriculture is content to turn oil into agricultural products with much lower efficiency than traditional agriculture did before it.
Indeed, it has outsourced most of its players, which means that the only ones present on the plots do not reflect the reality: agents working more or less for agricultural activity are legion. No study (would it even be possible?) Has ever been undertaken to better understand the real agricultural productivity ...

[Did67]

Conventional agriculture can boast only extremely low productivity (ratio between Nb of active agents and volume of production), even if the production is enormous.
This type of agriculture is content to turn oil into agricultural products with much lower efficiency than traditional agriculture did before it.
Indeed, it has outsourced most of its players, which means that the only ones present on the plots do not reflect the reality: agents working more or less for agricultural activity are legion. No study (would it even be possible?) Has ever been undertaken to better understand the real agricultural productivity ...

I agree.

My point was correct to say that we cannot "translate" our experiences in a garden and what happens in agriculture without further ado. I illustrated the fact that "gardening" is one thing, that agriculture is another.

"De-intensifying" a garden, when you don't live one, is quite easy. The experience that I relate elsewhere shows it clearly ...

About "intensity", we approached it indirectly in the thread created by chatelot on the notion of yield, we must specify what we are talking about:

- "area" intensity [how many tonnes / unit area]
- intensity of work [how many tonnes / work unit]
- energy intensity [how many tonnes produced / amount of energy consumed]

The method I have described elsewhere (summarily), is:

- a surface de-densification [I need more surface for the same production, since I produce the biomass I need]
- an intensification of work [since I produce so much we do not care much]
- an energy intensification [since I produce as much by consuming little energy - almost no inputs, a little electricity for my crusher, some accessories - pegs, etc ...]

[Grelinette]

The intensive is not necessarily wrong, especially when it comes to survival!

But the intensive, in the sense of exceeding the normal and ordinary measure and eliminating any phase of natural rest and regeneration, especially in the case of the living, does not make it necessary or even compulsory to use aggressive inputs that are, in large doses and long-term, real poisons?

Thus, the intensive, as a solution of short-term survival, and also a means of long-term destruction!

- an intensification of work [since I produce so much we do not care much]

This is an argument that you often give but which does not seem to me to be very questionable: it is not good to believe that we can produce more and better with less or no effort, and that is moreover all the time. absurdity of our societies which favor and value more abstract and intangible "productions", such as the tertiary sector or the predominance of capital over labor ...

It is more of a philosophical debate, but the value and richness of any kind of production is largely related to the effort that has had to be made in order to obtain it: the substantive marrow of all production is the effort and sweat that had to be devoted to creating it ... even if there are limits!

"The stable wears out the horse more than the race."

[Ahmed]

Yes, if we understand the intensive in the usual sense of going beyond the possible with strong inputs; this is what I mean by "extractivism", no, if it is a question of making the best use of the maximum potential of a soil while respecting its functioning: "helping nature, hastening its work" .

Did67your sentence is curious:

an intensification of work (since I produce as much as we do not care much)

Personally, I would call it a de-intensification ...?
In relation to work, there is a good increase in productivity by decreasing the share of activity ...

[Did67]

Did67your sentence is curious:

an intensification of work (since I produce as much as we do not care much)

Personally, I would call it a de-intensification ...?
In relation to work, there is a good increase in productivity by decreasing the share of activity ...

You're right: lapsus writes! Thank you for correcting me.

By "labor intensity" I mean the fact that to produce x tonnes requires a lot of work.

The classic "organic" - hey, a neologism! - is more labor intensive than conventional agriculture.

My way of doing things is less intensive at work, since I produce so much with little work. So it's good compared to my gardening digged / biné d'avant, a disintensification work...

[Did67]

It is more of a philosophical debate, but the value and richness of any kind of production is largely related to the effort that has had to be made in order to obtain it: the substantive marrow of all production is the effort and sweat that had to be devoted to creating it ... even if there are limits!

Indeed !!!

There is this, say, "moral" perception - something is only worth the effort it takes.

I therefore specify that:

a) I claim the right to laziness (which is in fact the right to do something else, read, observe, discuss - like here, on this thread, etc ...)

I don't think that the "value" of a life is the sum of the labors that one has done.

I think that work can be a chore, which hinders the quality of life, to think ... It can even be a drug. Like any drug, it prevents you from apprehending "real life"

b) I would even say that it is indeed one of the "arguments" which "obscures" all reflection and all progress.

Having a garden that is a bit "messy", "dirty", not "spade" undeniably gives me the image of lazy. The farmer who mows the meadow next door laughs gently. My neighbor, an urban executive living in the countryside, is just as shocked.

For me, the essence of life is not toil. It's life. Joy.

This does not exclude the "shramdam" - not very intensive, collective, festive work ...

In fact, in your photos, there are more people who do nothing than people who work. Let me put this in the non-intensive and find that it's probably pretty close to what I'm advocating, right?

c) But definitely have the same amount of salads, enough, on one side by baking / hanging / sweating and on the other side doing almost nothing but meditate, think, read a book, for me, there not a photo!

[NB: I have 60 years, survived a heart attack; aware that I could be dead, I have plenty of things to do § But something other than sweat in my garden]

To have it by dispensing with even "organic" products, that delights me.

Because it should be noted that there is convergence Between "do as little as possible, so make life of the soil in my place, so me totally spend fertilizer".

Do not forget that P and K fertilizers (phosphorus and potassium) "organic" are mining extractions, that the global stock is finished. So even this "organic farming" there will very quickly come up against its natural limits - find out about the known stocks of P and and K. It's mind-blowing !!!

But I respect the opposite point of view, which was that of all my childhood, which was agricultural in a modest farm 4 ha in the poor part of Alsace ...

[Ahmed]

I bounce on the quote from Grelinette which goes beyond the framework of a philosophical reflection; there is this confusion between value and wealth obtained through work.
The value is good, as you urge, Grelinetteproportional to the amount of socially necessary work.
I translate this sentence: it means that the value drops when productivity increases, which is fraught with consequences.
This does not mean that a job will be paid in proportion to the time spent, but only up to the equivalent time required with the most productive method. Clearly, the poorly equipped producer can not hope to sell its products more expensive than the industrial ...

Wealth is a more substantial notion that reflects the real potential of the commodity: nothing to do, therefore, with value.

[Did67]

As usual, it's a little complicated, because French is a rich and ambiguous language despite everything ...

There is of course the "economic value" ...

There is "social value" - an economic good (eg a tank or a fighter plane) has what social value?

And then there is still, what I understood here, the "sentimental value" or "moral" ...

A "something" for which you will have developed a lot of effort will have, in your feeling, more "value" than the same "something" that you will have been offered on a platter (unless the person who gave it to you donated means a lot to you!).

From this point of view, we can understand that 10 feet of salad grown with force of sweat will have more "value", will be more appreciated than 10 feet of salad picked up without doing anything.

That's how I understood grelinette.

And I agree a little too.

But that's what I'm trying to get vaccinated against. 10 feet of salads are better if they haven't been processed. If they did not cause too much ecological footprint ... And if in addition I could read books that I put on the shelves because I "did not have time", well they are even better ... And I leave the sweat to those whom I will therefore call, nicely and collegially, "sweat addicts" - in my conception, these are people morally stuck, unable to enjoy top quality salads that would have "fallen from the sky "... Why? Because you will earn your bread by the sweat of your brow, my son?

It is therefore a "philosophy", a "way of seeing things"!

[Ahmed]

My message was not intended to challenge this perfectly acceptable subjective interpretation, but to broaden the focus to a more economic interpretation.