Farmer Scrub | In my presentation on Self Sufficiency, Five Years In, I gave some back-of-the-envelope calculations on the carrying capacity of the city of Portland. If everyone in the city does a better job of feeding themselves and fueling their houses from local resources than we expect to manage on our own site, the city could support about 280,000 people. In this best-case scenario, the current population of 600,000 would have to kick out more than half the people to become sustainable.Leonard emailed me a question about this, and I wanted to post his question and my reply. This illuminates my philosophy of sustainability and what I think it'll really take to adapt to a post peak oil world in a healthy manner.
Leonard asked: "One bit I wanted to question is your assumption about carrying capacity for Portland: it seems to assume that we would need to produce ALL food within city limits, and couldn't rely on a significant portion of land-extensive staple crops being produced on broadacre polycultural farms in our pretty-well-intact horticultural hinterlands. The future that I've envisioned is one in which intensive vegetable gardening for zone 1-3 crops happens in the city, with zone 3-5 crops coming largely from outside using appropriate (low-embodied energy) means of transport into the city."
My reply follows for the rest of this post:
Good question, and thanks for asking it. In short, my calculations are based on a long term stable, sustainable system. I recognize that in the short term, the city will have to transition from here to there. Your model could make sense as a transition strategy.
However, I think any scenario in which a city depends on the importation of resources perpetuates unsustainability, and a relationship of domination and exploitation, both of the landbase, and of the people working it. That is, it doesn't fulfil the "care for earth" and "care for people" ethics of permaculture. And the "redistribute the surplus" ethic continues as the current mostly one-way, coerced flow of resources into the city.
A lot of my thinking is based on Derrick Jensen's writings. I think his two volume Endgame is the most important reading for modern times; it gives a crucial analysis of the relationship between cities, civilization, and our landbases. Should be required reading for all permaculturists, activists, and anyone else working with the "invisible structures." You can read an excerpt here of Jensen's Endgame, talking about cities.
My first concern is that even with the best intentions, when third parties get between the consumers in the city and the producers outside the city, the loss of direct connection can quickly lead to over-harvesting of resources. The middle men have little reason to foster sustainable harvest, and focus instead on maximum production.
I think this can only be fully averted via direct relationships between buyers and sellers, complete with buyers being fully educated about the impacts of harvests on the landbase, and with visits to the sites of harvest to ensure sustainable operations. Theoretically feasible, but unlikely to actually happen. (And of course, for sustainability, you then have to deal with getting the waste products of the city, such as humanure, back out to the hinterlands.) Fist tap Dale.
