Reply #11: The biggest problem with going back to 1750 farming technical is HOW not if.

[happyslug]

Today's best farm land is corporate owned (or owned by large farmers). These corporate farmers use tractors and other mechanized farming technical to maximize crops on a per worker per acre basis. Thus they produce food at prices traditional farmers can NOT match (Thus you see even in Africa a movement to the Cities from the Rural areas). Until that is NO longer the case, they will NOT be a switch to any traditional farming technical by farmers whose main source of revenue is farm products (hobby farmers will convert as will many a back yard gardener, but such peoples main source of Income is some other activity NOT farming, and that other activity pays the cost of their home and other needs).

Now such hobby farmers and Gardeners can, and often do, produce food at substantially less costs then corporate farmers, but not in sufficient quantity to pay for their other needs (including taxes). I suspect this will change as the price of Oil goes up, but until tractors are NO longer more profitable then horses small farms will NOT be profitable enough to pay their overhead.

Now, while Corporate farms are more efficient on a per crop, per acre, per man-hour basis, they are NOT the most efficient on a TOTAL crop per acre basis. The main reason is that for mechanized farming to work, you have to rely on one crop per field (and the larger the field the more productive you can be). In the old Soviet Union (and today's Russia) the Farming Collectives copy fairly accurately what corporate farms do in the US (Do to management errors the Collectives are less productive then US corporate farms but that is the product of bad management then anything else). The Soviet Union managed to feed itself NOT off its Collectives but off the products of the peasants who worked on the Collectives in the fields each peasants were permitted to have an grow food for themselves and their families. These plots were quite small, but do to the fact the peasants could, and did, plant various crops that could grow together, such plots were extremely productive on a TOTAL crop per acre basis (I.e. grow Corn, Beans and pumpkins on the same acre, each slightly less productive then a US Corporate farm as to that crop, but the US Corporate farm would NOT have the other two crops on the same piece of land).

American Indians introduced Corn, Beans and Pumpkins to the First settles in the US, and these were the top three food products in the US till after 1800 (When Wheat slowly became the main form of bread replacing Corn). Beans and Pumpkins were not compatible with wheat, but Wheat could be shipped to Europe. US Wheat started to be shipped to Europe before the War of 1812. The Dukes of Wellington's Army in Spain fighting the French was mostly feed American Wheat. This developed into a weird situation during the War of 1812. During War of 1812, the British blockaded the US Ports EXCEPT for New England, which had been shipping wheat to Spain every since the Duke of Wellington invaded Spain to drive out the French while BEFORE the start of the War of 1812, it was weird, if a British ship saw an American Ship coming out of almost any port they would take it as a prize, but if if came out of a New England Port they would escort it to Spain. This seems to start the shift from Corn to Wheat production in the US. The year without a Summer of 1816 confirmed the Switch, since the cold that started during the Summer that year occurred after the Wheat crop was in, but before the Corn crop. Those farmers who grew Wheat could feed themselves that year, those that grew corn could not. It still took another 50 or so years for Wheat to become the main cereal food in the US (and even then wheat was planted do to the ability to ship it overseas, something that could NOT be done with Corn, for outside of the New World and Africa, Corn is generally NOT eaten by Humans, being viewed as strictly a crop for animals).

Anyway my point is the problem is NOT if we switch to smaller farms but how that will be done. It is the transition that will be difficult, maybe taking decades to complete. The present controllers of the land will oppose any changing, even of that means bankruptcy for themselves. Bankruptcy will force many of the changes but every other solution, good, bad or worse will be tried first. Only when it becomes clear that the only solution is smaller farms and more intensive human farming techniques will such farms become the norm.

The year without a Summer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_A_Summer
http://www.dandantheweatherman.com/Bereklauw/yearnosummer.html
http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/history/1816.htm

On Squash, Corn and Beans:
http://books.google.com/books?id=xGzF54OaJE4C&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=Corn,+beans+and+Pumpkins&source=web&ots=P3XqtyWVI8&sig=W3vIDdbV2k-l-PcoZVdOYpVD8BQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result
http://www.chaddsfordhistory.org/history/3sisters.htm
http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/3sisters.html
http://www.wampanoagtribe.net/Pages/Wampanoag_Education/corn
http://www.theorganicreport.com/pages/519_the_three_sisters_corn_beans_and_squash_activities_for_the_classroom.cfm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17651062?ordinalpos=11&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/jmf.2006.234