Agriculture facing its own Katrina

[IDemo]

By Jimmy Westerfeld -- McLennan County, Texas, Farm Bureau President

Agriculture today is facing a major catastrophe not experienced since the Dust Bowl days of the Great Depression. Based on expert economic projections, for the first time in decades, many U.S. farmers cannot possibly "cash flow" a crop or crops for the year 2006. Bankers are saying "No." Many of us will not be able to farm this year or the next. The doubling and tripling of fuel and petrochemical prices are the last link in a chain of bad economic events.

Since Aug. 29, the entire world has been focused on the aftermath of the terrible destruction of Hurricane Katrina. Then, to make a terrible tragedy even worse, Hurricane Rita slammed into Southeast Texas and Western Louisiana on Sept. 24.

These two storms had an impact on the nation's fuel refining capacity, increasing prices beyond an already dismal situation. In agriculture, we cannot pass these prices along as other industries do. Ultimately, it means the numbers don't add up. If we can't show positive cash flow, we won't get our operating loans.

For farmers, a Katrina-like disaster is building. It will soon swamp many family farming operations. Astronomical fuel prices, fertilizer and chemical costs have reached the point that even a modest profit is impossible.

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[TheFarseer]

1. Yes, gas comes down but diesel is still rising

I honestly don't see farming going much longer at this rate (and I mean only a couple of years not a couple of decades) We will never outsource food though. We will drive all the family farmers out of business and then when corporate farms take over, there will magically be a profit in it again (subsidized like mad if need be). When input cost are going crazy and corn prices are so low, it just can't work. To put it in perspective, last year, farmers were complaining that a gallon of diesel cost as much as a bushel of corn. This year, farmers are complaining that a gallon of diesel costs double a a bushel of corn.

[IDemo]

2. Why isn't this being recognized by our government for the threat it is?

Even if you're not one of the doomsaying Peak Oilers (I am), the failure of small farm operations should be seen as much worse than even the bankruptcies of Delphi and GM (soon). Americans can survive the loss of pay or jobs, albeit painfully. Many will not survive, however, if food is not grown, harvested, processed, refrigerated, and trucked to the grocery stores, all of which require significant energy input.

[nosmokes]

3. BWAAAAA HAAAAAAA HAAAAAAHAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAA!

i'm sorry, but someone from the farm bureau talking about family farmers as if he actually gave a shit about them just tripped my irony meter into hysterical. the farm bureau is nothing but a lobying organisation for corporate agriculture these days and wouldn't recognize a family farmer if one bit them on their collective ass. but there is a bright side to this, and that is that maybe whatever smaller holdings that do exist amongst the agribusiness giants will now see the light and start getting rid of all the synthetics and petro fertizers and return to a more sustainable and bio-friendly method of farming that produces a healthier product and a healthier planet.

[callady]

4. you got it

we don't need any of the agribusinees soil depleting way of so-called farming. it is actually poisoning the land and mining the soil. All of it is so energy intensive and we will be going back to the small bio-dynamic-organic farms ceremoniously or painfully.




What is the Haber-Bosch Process?


Sometimes called the most important technological advance of this century, the Haber-Bosch process allows the economical mass synthesis of ammonia (NH3) from nitrogen and hydrogen. It was developed immediately prior to World War I by Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch, German chemists. Haber won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1918 for his discoveries, while Bosch shared a Nobel Prize with Friedrich Bergius in 1931 for his work on high-pressure chemical reactions. At first a German national secret, the chemistry and techniques behind the effective synthesis of ammonia spread to the rest of the world in the 20s and 30s.

Ammonia is important because it is the primary ingredient in artificial fertilizers, without which modern-day agricultural yields would be impossible. Sometimes called the "Haber Ammonia process", the Haber-Bosch process was the first industrial chemical process to make use of extremely high pressures (200 to 400 atmospheres). In addition to high pressures, high temperatures (750 to 1200 degrees Fahrenheit or 400 to 650 degrees Celsius) are used. The efficiency of the reaction is a function of pressure and temperature - greater yields are produced at higher pressures and lower temperatures.


In the first decade of the 20th century, the artificial synthesis of nitrates was being researched because the world's supply of fixed nitrogen was declining rapidly relative to the demand. While nitrogen in its inactive, atmospheric gas form is very plentiful, agriculturally useful "fixed" nitrogen compounds were harder to come by at that time in history. Agricultural operations require liberal amounts of fixed nitrogen to produce good yields. At the turn of the century, all the world's developed countries were required to mass import nitrates from the largest available source - Chilean saltpeter (NaNO3). Many scientists started worrying about the declining supply of nitrogen compounds.


The Haber-Bosch process provided a solution to the shortage of fixed nitrogen. Using extremely high pressures and a catalyst composed mostly of iron, critical chemicals used in both the production of fertilizers and explosives, were made highly accessible to German industry, making it possible for them to continue fighting WWI effectively. As the Haber-Bosch process branched out in global use, it became the primary procedure responsible for the production of fertilizer to feed the world's population. Without it, billions of people might not exist. Today, the Haber-Bosch process is used to produce more than 500 million tons (453 billion kilograms) of artificial fertilizer per year; roughly 1% of the world's energy is used for it, and it sustains about 40% of our planetary population.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-haber-bosch-process.htm

Good riddance to the Haber Bosch Process

[Porcupine]

5. Well nobody was going to eat that food anyway right?

I mean there isnt' any huge mass of people in the third world that depend upon the grain surpluses of the US to provide them the cheap grain that keeps them alive. Right?

It rots in the silos, goes to feed pigs and is used in pellet stoves. Who cares.






The above will be the idiot opinion spouted be the lapdog media shortly before the worldwide wave of food riots. Malthus was right.

[depakid]

6. Malthus may have been an optimist

http://www.energybulletin.net/4735.html

[bobbieinok]

7. lived in IA 68-89; I got a real education on the importance of

farmers and the disasterous situation they work in ...... where farmers get 1-3% (guessing) of what the customer pays for food.....where futures traders make so much more than the farmers

[rodeodance]

8. darkness on the horizen.

its all i hear lately and our congress can not even raise fuel efficiency standands on cars!1

[Tace]

9. Never Farmed, But Traded Corn Futures... This Is A Scary Story

Few people seem to understand that human civilization is "one week thick." And they don't dare imagine what's on the other side of that one week. Think New Orleans.