The money shot;
The UN Environment Program had concluded that the planet's water, land, air, plants, animals and fish stocks were all in "inexorable decline" much of it due to agriculture, which constituted the greatest single source of human impact on the biosphere.
Heinberg said that to get to the heart of the crisis a comprehensive transformation of world agriculture was needed - greater than anything seen in many decades - which would produce a system that was not reliant on fossil fuels.
He cited Cuba as an example of what could be achieved. In the 1980s it had become reliant on cheap fuel supplied by Russia and was using more agrochemicals per acre than even the US. But after the fall of communism, supplies dried up. The average Cuban lost 20lbs in weight, living standards collapsed and malnutrition became widespread.
Cuban authorities responded by redesigning the food supply system. Large state-owned farms were broken up and given to families and they were encouraged to form co-operatives, biological methods were used for pest control, oxen replaced tractors, urban vegetable gardens flourished and people began to keep chickens and rabbits for food. Twenty years later food production was 90 per cent of its former levels.
Heinberg said what was needed was a return to ecological organic farming methods which would require the transformation of societies.
And with oil supplies rapidly running out the full resources of national governments would be needed to achieve it.
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