>>One a simple question asking to better understand your advocated farming method.<<

It's called polyculture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyculture

Also see permaculture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture

"If it was more efficient, why isn't there any example of it in practice outcompeting current agricultural practices?"

There are plenty of examples.  Read the links above.  It hasn't caught on yet, though, because it is relatively new.

"We in developed countries have more than enough food to provide for our people.  The issue isn't one of supply, but distribution."

Irrelevant to the discussion.  This is about the world, not developed countries.

By the way, xeno, I read your articles.

Polyculture is just using multiple crops instead of using only one crop.  That's not your advocacy, which was the use of those layered farms with some fruits on top of others.

Permaculture is simply creating a farmland that uses relationships between plants found in nature.

Yeah, that's not what you argued for, xeno... not by a long shot.

Quote it.  Maybe I missed it.

The reason why this system isn't used is because the engineers who design the machines currently used in the agricultural industry haven't figured out how to get them to do 'selective' harvesting.  They make 'robots' that only seem to know how to harvest from land upon which there is only one crop being cultivated.  Maybe in the future the engineers will figure out how to design machines that can harvest 'polyculturally' instead of monoculturally.  However, I don't think they will.  They don't care.  The intensive agriculture industry doesn't want to have to bother with 'innovation'.  No.  They'd rather just let people starve and be malnourished, just as long as they keep getting their fat government subsidies, lol.  The agri-business fatcats with the politicians in their pockets are profiting off the malnourishment and starvation (scarcity of food = PROFIT), and you people seem to LIKE that.  WTF?

heh, i leave for a few months and this thread is still here and Xeno still hasn't proven that this isn't Marxism. ^.^ The truth hurhs eh?

It should prob be noted that US farmers are effieicnt enough to feed a quarter of the worlds population without breaking a sweat. When you think about all the food we export worldwide we prob feed close to about 500-800m people every year. Also most of our land isn't in use most of the time. We only use about 50% of our capasity to prevent degeration of the soil.

Just look at all the staple foods we send to countries like China, Russia, and all the food we send off as part of our Foriegn Aid to other countries. The efficiency of our farmers becomes apparent. The great plaines region of the US is one of the largest, if not the largest farming region in the world.

Also we hold back our production because of lessons learned from the Dust Bowl in the 30's. So it's for a good reason that we do.

@Xeno

Vertivcal gardens are NOT common in most undeveloped countries due to the technological hurdles that they present. Now layered or Staggared gardens are common in areas of China, India, Japan and South America, but these are mostly due to necessity with the lack of viable land. If they are common then by all means provide proof. I seriously doubt it. I've seen the system that your talking about, NASA's been working on the stuff for years for future space missions. I've seen the facility here in Houston.

Truth be told there is enough food in the world to feed everyone. The issue is getting that food from the farms to people's mouthes. These are logistical issues mostly having to due with simple transportatin and government resurictions to get that food into the mouthes of the people. A good example is N. Korea, one of the most impoverished countries in the world whose people starve due to their regime who funnels food stores to their military first and eveyrone else second. I would care to say that more poeple suffer from hunder due to political reasons than a chronic inability to grow enough food.

Also to clarify some things you obviously don't understand.

Polyculture is something that has been practiced for centuries. Welcome to old news. Permaculture's efficiency declines over time as the eco-system matures. Furthermore it has not proven any more efficient in tropic regions in terms of fruits and nut production than current methods. I think it is best to stick with our current system which is far more stable and efficient.

@"http://www.midwestagnet.com/Global/stor

I think we're the worlds largest Orange producer as well. ^.^ Don't quote me on that one though. Plus take a look at a map and look at how much of the great planes isn't accessiable to farming due to them being federal lands, parks, military bases, indian reservations. There's a lot of real estate out there that we intentially don't use.

Petro-Backed by Oil
Dollar-Backed by Gold

Which one is more stable to you?

Actually it still is. Look on the bill, check out the top. See what it reads "Federal Reserve Note". ^.^ Now the value of the dollar can be changed in accordance with other economic factors and mechanisms. But in the end it all falls back on that "Federal Reserve Note". Sorry to dissapoint.

Actually some notes are exchangeable, but that have to specifically state so. I have about $20 in US Silver certificates back at home. I can legally take them int a federal reserve and walk out with solver in hand. Though the process is a fair but more extensive that that.

And actually I read up on wikipedia, it isn't backed by hard assets but on the faith of the US government to pay off the debts. The hard assets still exist however, their importance has been marginalized though. Other countries also hold large amounts of our gold reserves as collateral for our debts, China and India are good examples. So the gold assets are important.

Don't tell me you people are going to have an actual intelligent conversation in here? Where is Xeno, he needs to make those tag points work for him and dumb this all down...

The Ogalala Aquifer?  That what you're talking about?

@ Lizon

"this isn't Marxism" because there is still private property, profit, etc..  It has nothing to do with Marxism.

"Just look at all the staple foods we send to countries like China, Russia, and all the food we send off as part of our Foriegn Aid to other countries."

Ok.  Where is it all?  Any source for your claim?

Last I heard China is feeding Japan.

"There's a lot of real estate out there that we intentially don't use"

We are talking about starving nations, not America.

Re polyculture:

http://www.satavic.org/farmdiversity.htm

Re world hunger:

http://www.satavic.org/hunger.htm

Re 'modern' farming; 18 ways it is failing:

1
    Land exhaustion     The constant use of artificial fertiliser, together with a lack of crop rotation, reduces the soil's fertility year by year. 

2
    Fertilisers     High yield levels are produced by applying large quantities of artificial fertilisers, instead of by maintaining the natural fertility of the soil.

3
    Nitrate run-off     About half of the nitrate in the artificial fertiliser used on crops is dissolved by rain. The dissolved nitrate runs off the fields to contaminate water courses.

4
    Soil erosion     Where repeated deep ploughing is used to turn over the ground, heavy rains can carry away the topsoil and leave the ground useless for cultivation.

5
    Soil compaction     Damage to the structure of soil by compression is a serious problem in areas that are intensively farmed. Conventional tillage may involve a tractor passing over the land six or seven times, and the wheelings can cover up to 90 per cent of a field. Even a single tractor pass can compress the surface enough to reduce the porosity of the soil by 70 per cent, increasing surface run-off and, therefore, water erosion. In the worst cases, the surface run-off may approach 100 percent - none of the water penetrates the surface.

6
    Agricultural fuel     As crop yields grow, so does the amount of fuel needed to produce them. European farmers now use an average of 12 tons of fuel to farm a square kilometre of land; American farmers use about 5 tons (1987 figures).

7
    Biocide sprays     The only controls used against weeds and pests are chemical ones. Most crops receive many doses of different chemicals before they are harvested.

8
    Cruelty to animals     On most "modern" farms, all animals are crowded together indoors. Complex systems of machinery are needed to feed them, while constant medication is needed to prevent disease. The cruelty involved in managing, breeding. growing and slaughtering farm animals today is unimaginably repulsive and horrifying.

9
    Animal slurry     With so many animals packed together in indoor pens, their manure accumulates at great speed. It is often poured into lagoons which leak into local watercourses, contaminating them with disease-causing organisms and contributing to algae-blooms.

10
    Imported animal feed     Many farms are not self-sufficient in animal feed; instead they rely on feed brought into the farm. This often comes from countries which can ill afford to part with it.

11
    Stubble burning     In countries where stubble is burned, large amounts of potentially useful organic matter disappear into the sky in clouds of polluting smoke.

12
    Loss of cultivated biodiversity     Large and other chemical farms tend to be monocultures growing the same crop and crop variety.

13
    Threat to indigenous seeds and animal breeds and species     Native cultivars and animal breeds lose out to exotic species and hybrids. Many native animal breeds are today threatened with extinction. The same holds true for many indigenous plant varieties which have disappeared within the space of one generation.

14
    Habitat destruction     Agribusiness farming demands that anything which stands in the way of crop production is uprooted and destroyed. The wild animals and plants which were once a common sight around farms are deprived of their natural habitat and die out.

15
    Contaminated food     Food, both plant and animal products, leaves the farm contaminated with the chemicals that were used to produce it.

16
    Destruction of traditional knowledge systems and traditions     Rural indigenous knowledge and traditions, both agricultural and non-agricultural, is invariably connected to agriculture and agricultural systems.

17
    Control of agriculture inputs and food distribution channel     The supply and trading in agricultural inputs and produce is in the hands of a few large corporations. This threatens food security, reducing the leverage and importance of the first and the last part of the supply chain - the farmer and the consumer.

18
    Threat to individual farmers     Chemical agriculture is a threat to their livelihoods and changes their lifestyles, unfortunately not for the better.

"Next, Pollan visits a small-scale, genuinely organic farm in Virginia called Polyface Farm, run by a farmer named Joel Salatin. Salatin oversees a polyculture, the way most farms once were, raising beef, pork, turkey, chicken, eggs and rabbits, plus tomatoes, sweet corn, berries and hay. Through natural systems of crop and pasture rotation and closed-loop cycles of nutrition (i.e., using manure to fertilize the fields), his farm is more productive, acre for acre, than industrial monoculture, without using any antibiotics, pesticides or chemical fertilizers. Nevertheless, farms like Salatin