"Did any of you follow similar paths to mine, whereby the information and critical thinking shared on this site led to significant changes in your life path? (I never thought I’d be a farmer when I grew up.)"

Yes.

I never expected to become a novelist and I never expected (I only have an MA and not a PhD)to do original work in Shakespeare criticism. But, thanks to TOD, that is what happened. I started investigating imagery of fossil fuels in literature and found something interesting: "Gregory, on my word, we'll not carry coals"--the first line of "Romeo and Juliet". No one had ever thought about it before; it was considered trifling.

Little did I know what I had stumbled across.
But I did manage to unravel the mystery.
Although it took many months.

"My father named me Autolycus; who
being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise
a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles."

It's impossible not to change anything after digging into all this information. We've only just started. Changed my bank account, changed/changing our consumption habits, moving into a more supportive community soon. The biggest barrier is exactly what you describe: being dismissed by the hungry ghosts. The Zürich variety is particularly insatiable. I sorely miss the subject in the mainstream media.

Did any of you follow similar paths to mine, whereby the information and critical thinking shared on this site led to significant changes in your life path?

No.
However I did learn a great deal about oil wells, funky-mud, hydro-static pressure, water-flooding, oil-field economics, trains, Oldavi Gorge (LOL), Screaming, Moaning, Bedwetting and received a clue as to the large number of people who sincerely desire a simpler lifestyle and hope that DOOM will force them into their subsistence farms. To them I hope they can find happiness with BAU and remind them that they can retreat to the doomdacha at anytime, and it might make them happier just to do it now. Also I leaned that genuine nuts are still with us..... anyone remember Matthew? He understood exactly what many doomers dream of... genocide....... and was banned for being too out front. To that sort, I hope you evade the long-white coats.

Good bye and good luck to you all.

Yes - I went from suburbia to a rural setting, moving from buying food to raising fruits, veggies and meat small scale (enough for me; enough to learn how). I dropped back even further from the "hungry ghost" economy, as I discovered how persuasive it can be when it's continually hammering at me. I gained many new perspectives on Life and its purpose from being able to work silently in my garden, and do handwork in the evening, without the noxious presence of the media. Barriers were my own strength and age (late 50's) and finances that dipped greatly once I'd made my choice. Still don't regret it. A pervasive anxiety that was only semi-conscious was relieved as I started to believe I could provide the basics for myself (I have now done roofing, carpentry, brewing, woodchopping, etc.). What my suburban friends don't understand is that their anxious lifestyle is due in part because they know they are living on someone else's sufferance - they know they couldn't survive if "civilization" fell apart even for a month. They (like the commenter above) turn to mockery as a way to silence their fears. Now I give back by teaching food preserving, and writing about social issues (in my poetry and fiction) - but I've stopped arguing with those who don't want to hear. They are consumer-addicts and have to hit bottom first.
I'm eager to go back and read all the old Campfire posts - I hadn't gotten to all of them (as you know, working out in the world can take a lot of time!)

Just out of curiosity I checked my user profile as well - 8 years and 2 months. I have not contributed much because there are those who know much more than I do but I have learned a great deal by checking the site daily. It will be missed.

Why yes my life changed, I literally bought the farm – ten acres in South Central Illinois. I’ve been and avid gardener since I was a child. I have no idea who I got this from, I just was. I was the guy who you got fresh veggies, or cuttings, or seedlings (always planted too much), or advice on gardening. At my Chicago residence the front and back yards were gardens (no lawns), along with the rooftop and during the winter, the basement with the help of lights. I decided through my investigations on peak oil and sustainability to go the “full monty” to get a small farm to really put my green thumb to the test. Selling my two flat at the top of the bubble allowed me the opportunity. One difficulty I had was my employment was still in Chicago which necessitated travel and expense if I moved a considerable distance. Moreover, since I was no longer available for short notice jobs, my location really cut into my income. It was a price I was willing to make as I really wanted to do this, and early retirement from the Carpenters Union was available within a few years. One aspect I had not analyzed thoroughly was doing this alone. I’m a bachelor, and doing everything wears you out. There are not enough hours in a day to get everything done, especially if something breaks and you have to run to town. After seven years of owning my acreage can’t believe all the mistakes I have made even with my gardening experience. Stay away from exotic crops – they probably will not thrive unless grown in perfect environments, and with much coddling. I wasted more than a few dollars on plants that looked good in the catalogs but never thrived. Sites that looked good for some crops, such as the vineyard I planted, were a total waste of time; others, I had put in on a whim, such as my pear trees, produced abundantly. Irrigation is something I’ve learned to value, especially with drought conditions. I have about six acres of good pasture (I have been eliminating weeds and brush for the last six years)I plan to put to use for livestock when I retire at the end of this year. I’m leaning towards getting a couple of steers and a few sheep, but I’m still researching. I’m reading much about rotational grazing. I don’t want to screw this up too badly.

This is not something everyone could do, and I would not advise it unless you really want it and have the necessary skill set. A farmer must be a carpenter, electrician, mechanic, etc., to have any kind of a chance at surviving. My pole barn has a complete shop of woodworking tools, welder, and an almost complete set of mechanics tools acquired over a lifetime.

8 years, two weeks here. TOD is the only page in which I still use internet explorer. I use the internet at the local Subway (internet is much too expensive in the back of the woods) and save the pages for later reading as web archive in IE to preserve the formatting.

Did any of you follow similar paths to mine, whereby the information and critical thinking shared on this site led to significant changes in your life path?"

Somewhat. While I was already on a similar path (though have never considered it at the scale you have), in some ways I was making things up as I went along. First of all, I no longer feel crazy and alone for having the ideas I've had for a couple of decades since TOD has validated them and provided so much support: Intuition became knowledge; I've been able to flesh my beliefs out with data.

TOD also created a bit of a pause in my process, time to reevaluate some of the things I was planning, adjust some priorities, and reconsider future inputs. I'm more convinced that the systems I adopt will need to operate with little or no fossil fuel derived inputs. Any mechanical assistants will need to be simpler and locally sustainable, and have viable manual alternatives. I've learned to think in terms of creating no dead ends.

An example would be our water systems for irrigation and livestock; currently solar assisted, but capable of using only gravity flow from the source with a little tweaking. I'm also incorporating absorption zones (sponges) to decrease runoff and to help maintain the water table. All streams have a larger buffer which required moving fences, sometimes several meters (still ongoing). The loss of a bit of pasture will hopefully be offset by having a more robust water system, more wildlife habitat, and zones for native plants that may be useful. I've stopped almost all unnecessary mowing.

The greenhouse(s) I've been planning will be far more passively designed, and of more durable materials (glass vs plastics, etc). I see this as a win/win, since if fossil fuel derived inputs are available going forward, they will be increasingly expensive and competition for such will be high. If they aren't available, I'll have an advantage, especially important for small scale farming. Paying some things forward now, while costs and availability are more realistic, seems prudent.

I've redesigned my fencing plan for better crop and livestock rotation, trying to eliminate 'exclusion zones' where only one or the other is viable. I'm more permaculture oriented.

I'm also continuing to work on things like our ginseng patch which is expanding nicely this year. We have a section of forest that is perfectly suited to the kind of wild ginseng that the Chinese will pay top dollar for, and new regulations have only driven the prices higher. I think there will be a market for these very low input, high value natives for the foreseeable future. Also promoting the growth of other native medicinals and herbs. These things were always here, so restoration and encouragement seems like a good strategy. My updated fencing plan takes this into account. It's easy to see where cattle had access to the forest in the past.

Now if I can only get my kids more involved. Some are becoming more peak everything aware, and the knowledge and data acquired via TOD lends weight to my arguments. Besides, I need the help, and they and their children will certainly be dealing with peaks more than my generation. At least they can say that their baby boomer parents saw these things coming and tried to respond in a more reasonable and responsible manner. I've archived, locally, many of these response strategies, and many of the 'whys', including articles from TOD, hopefully to at least provide a source of understanding in a world that will become less understandable with time.

Looking into FarmLand LP extensively I would say you are definitely working more in the TOP of Cobb's chart, Finance, Realestate, Leasing.

FarmLand LP is a hedge fund taking money from the 1% agressively buying up farms as a hedge on the future.

This is skewing the exesting dynamics of small and Family farmers and the financing they are able to use to be productive. Also skewing the land lease rates historically available to local area farmers.

It would seem that your path of Peak oil awareness has simply led you to having a rather extreme cyincal outlook on humanity.

I got involved with renewable energy, conservation and home building in the first energy crisis, mid 70's, then watched the interest, and the market disappear in the late 80's. Who would of thought that the earth, and our economy had the capacity to adjust and rebound for another round of gung-ho expansion. My question is whether a similar economic rebound will occur again over the next one or two decades as society ignores all danger signals. Certainly, most people in the US want a return to economic expansion. My guess is that the next crash will be even more destructive because we aren't adjusting.
Irregardless of the near term economic and energy cycle, we have learned a lot as an informal community, building on the experiences of the earlier energy crisis. So the depth of understanding, and the cadre of committed world citizens is building out of these two periods, and will be there when TSHIF. TOD was a big part of re-invigorating my work, and broadening my perspective and giving me new tools.
For me the energy design of buildings has become a lifelong passion and a way of life. I've long felt that, when movement on the bigger scale stalls, it is time to refocus on personal and local efforts. I contribute my energies to political affairs, help with numerous community building projects, work professionally in the energy field, and increasingly focus my personal and family life on making as little impact as possible.
In response to Jason's first chart, above, I have really struggled with the nature of an economy where so much activity is non-essential, and where essential goods, services and resources are stretched so thin. Eventually,as the world adapts, too many people will have to live off of meager resources and local economies. Growing some of your own food, conserving household energy and minimizing transportation only go part of the way towards a vibrant, sustainable and local way of live for the whole community.

I too will miss this site. For the wouldbe farmers, I have heard that rye straw is best for stuffing horse collars, and a working lathe can be made using the branch of a tree as a spring

By All.

I have been thinking about the first figure in Jason's post, that shows finance as the largest part of the economy. Is this what the end of an empire looks like?

1. So in the early stage of growth a country has natural resources and builds up a manufacturing base.

2. That manufacturing base allows a hard currency. Another country can spend that $ and get manufactured goods with high energy content in return.

3. The strong currency allows the building of a larger financial system. They make loans over seas to put more natural resources into production. The trade always favors the product builder, over the natural resource seller. The product builder gets wealthier.

4. Local resources deplete, the manufacturing base stops growing, and faces contraction.

5. The economy grows, but only on interest charged on the loans. Those loans keep pulling in more natural resources. If the country controls the reserve currency, it can inflate (tax) all current $ holders. Thus a much larger finance industry, coasting on the good will of a hard currency.

So the first peak might be iron, coal, or oil, but is the last peak is financial? The last good will used up pulling in resources that are locally depleted?

Because of TOD I only practice medicine part time, and I will likely get out in a few years.

Physicians are for the most part intelligent, compassionate, and hard working. But they are also delusional, they believe in keeping people alive forever (it's debatable whether or not this is a worthwhile endeavor), and they believe they will succeed (this is categorically false, every last human being will die of something or the other).

I'm just tired of the delusion. Don't hate me for it! An investment banker might quit and take the money and run if he saw what was going on. A soldier might desert or surrender if he had enough and his side was losing. It's no different.

I've personally changed my entire perspective on how the world works. The difficulty with the information given from TOD is that it raises a lot of good questions, but without good answers. The challenge moving forward is in dealing with the understanding of resource constraints whilst also having to decide on a future in that world. Most of the TOD members are over the age of 50 it seems, so my perspective as someone in his mid 20's is likely entirely different. Whilst most of your decisions have been made, I have to make my own within the constraints of resource limitations in setting out a general path for my life.

I somehow ended up a farmer also.
The UC system in the 60s prepared me to be a academic.

Medicaid Covered Births, 2008 Through 2010, in the Context of the Implementation of Health Reform
(For link, search for title)

Methods
We collected 2008–2010 data on Medicaid births from individual state contacts during the winter of 2012–2013, systematically documenting sources and challenges.

Findings
In 2010, Medicaid financed 48% of all births, an increase of 19%* in the proportion of all births covered by Medicaid in 2008. Percentages varied among states. Numerous data challenges were found.

Conclusions/Implications for Research and Policy
Consistent adoption of the 2003 birth certificate in all states would allow the National Center for Health Statistics Natality Detail dataset to serve as a nationally representative source of data for the financing of births in the United States. As states expand coverage to low-income women, women of childbearing age will be able to obtain coverage before and between pregnancies, allowing for access to services that could improve their overall and reproductive health, as well as birth outcomes. Improved birth outcomes could translate into substantial cost savings, because the costs associated with preterm births are estimated to be 10 times greater than those for full-term births.

*Based on the study, the percentage of US births paid by Medicaid rose from 40% in 2008 to 48% in 2012, a 9%/year rate of increase.

Jason, so glad to hear you’re using your botany skills towards figuring out best practices for growing sustainable organic food. Julie Guthman’s book “Agrarian Dreams. The Paradox of Organic Farming in California” made me realize what a sham most organic farms were, but I know you’re aware of what’s at stake and shooting for real, sustainable farms, and hope you’ll be able to help others out with this from what you’ve learned.

I too wanted to follow your path in farming. I fondly remember seeing you in Willits when I took John Jeavons biointensive workshop about ten years ago, and saw what great things you did for Willits (community, school gardens, etc). I’m surprised Jeavons ideas aren’t as widespread as permaculture given their proven efficacy. I imagine you’ve incorporated some of his ideas as well as other farmers.

I don’t have a farm yet because I’m married to a techno-optimist, but I still have plans for an organic rare/heirloom fruit farm at a smaller scale than I’d originally hoped for. Meanwhile I came up with a way to make whole grain, nut, corn, or legume flatbreads/crackers from dozens of kinds of flour. As the electric grid sputters more often and refrigeration becomes less reliable, foods that keep a long time will grow in importance (Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers).

When I’m working out at the gym, I always wish I were doing actual work – need help picking corn in Brentwood? Then I could get paid to work out…

You may someday be in the position of hiring people, Heinberg’s vision of 50 million farms will happen eventually, and probably not as family farms, or willingly, sigh.

I am not the least worried about how you’ll treat farmworkers, but I wish Richard Street’s “Beasts of the Field. A Narrative History of California Farmworkers, 1769-1913” was more widely known. California has a ghastly history of exploiting people and never had many small farms -- it’s been a large farm state from the beginning. In this book, the few farms that treated people well were far more profitable and better in every way for both the owner and farm workers. To grow a variety of crops, you need trained, skilled workers, not random vagrants or exploited farmworkers kicked out when harvest season is over. Especially not in the future when travel is less possible. Perhaps between the CSA’s and what you and other organic farmers are doing, a more hopeful model of how to integrate quite a few more people into agriculture further down Hubbert’s curve can become widespread, and give people true, not false hopes, of how a life can still be well-lived in a postcarbon world.

Alice Friedemann

a few agricultural book reviews
http://energyskeptic.com/category/books/agriculture/

And a few books to read if this topic interests you

Industrial Agriculture

Peter Golob Crop Post-Harvest Handbook Volume 1: Principles and Practice
Eric Schlosser Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
Michael Maren The Road to Hell The ravaging effects of foreign aid and international charity
Steven Stoll The Fruits of Natural Advantage: Making the Industrial Countryside in California
Richard Street Beasts of the Field. A Narrative History of California Farmworkers, 1769-1913.
Richard Walker The Conquest of Bread. 150 years of Agribusiness in California.
Julie Guthman Agrarian dreams. The paradox of organic farming in California
Kimbrell (editor) Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture
Jim Hightower Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times: A report of the Agribusiness Accountability Project on the Failure of America's Land Grant College Complex
Carolyn Johnsen Raising a Stink: The Struggle over Factory Hog Farms in Nebraska

The Future of Farming

John Jeavons How to Grow More Vegetables: And Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine
Jim Bender Future Harvest: Pesticide-Free Farming
B. C. Mollison Permaculture: A Designers' Manual

The Joys and Hardships of Family Farms

Mildred Kalish Little Heathens. Hard times & high spirits on an Iowa Farm during the great depression.
Barbara Greenwood A Pioneer Sampler : The daily life of a pioneer family in 1840 (illustrated, good for tweens)
M. R. Montgomery A Cow's Life The Surprising History of Cattle
David Masumoto Epitaph for a Peach, Four Seasons on my Family Farm
Gene Logsdon The Contrary Farmer

Did any of you follow similar paths to mine, whereby the information and critical thinking shared on this site led to significant changes in your life path? (I never thought I’d be a farmer when I grew up.)

Not really. I grew up on a farm, but early on realized that my father wasn't making any money at it. He eventually realized the same, and moved into a nearby town where he started a farm supply dealership - which was somewhat more lucrative but not really great. My brother and my sister and I went into the oil industry, where the dollars really were really big, particularly if you were willing to work in some godforsaken place where nobody wanted to go, and do things that nobody else understood. Every time we went back home, our mother would quiz us on how much money we were making, and when we told her, she would say in horror, "NOBODY is worth that much money!" Our father would just philosophize about how he must have been born in the wrong generation.

Later on, when he was in his 90's and fading, he got all teary eyed and bemoaned how he would have liked to have given us more stuff when we where growing up, but he didn't have the money. I had to tell him, "Dad - you gave us everything we needed - the right genes and a work ethic. Everything else we could do for ourselves." I remember one of his friends saying to him, "How can you afford to have three kids in university at the same time?" He looked completely blank, and said, "Well, it's cheaper than having them at home." He had only a grade 8 education, so it was all a mystery to him. We handled the financing ourselves because we understood it better.

What barriers to making the changes you wanted did you encounter? Did they stop you from going on or did you overcome them somehow?

The only barriers I encountered were people who didn't understand what I was doing, or what they were doing. However, they weren't insurmountable. Once upper management realizes that you know what you are doing, but your boss doesn't, he gets fired and you get his job. It's a Darwinian approach to job advancement, but that's what the capitalist system is all about. So, I did a lot of development in oilfield automation, oil sands in-situ production, and oil and gas production management software. I retired after it got to be old hat and everybody knew what it was. Fracking? That was old technology even before I started working, and by the time I retired it was getting to be downright ancient history like Greek and Roman architecture. It's only new for NYT reporters.

On the public service front, I always thought I should help out, so I got on city committees and helped get light rail transit up and running (the largest system in North America) and bicycle paths going (the largest system in North America.) It was really exciting to be doing things like that. In my own neighborhood, I managed to rename a lot of the streets. It was completely accidental, but the city was shifting the EWNS grid system a bit which meant the old street numbers didn't work any more, I suggested a bunch of new names for the streets, and darned if the city didn't accept most of them - I was flabbergasted. Of course, when the neighbors realized that instead of living on "First Street East" they would be living on "Parkhill Street", or "Erlton Street" it was a total no-brainer for them, particularly since their neighborhoods were called "Parkhill" and "Erlton" and their particular streets were only two blocks long due to intervening cliffs. It suddenly all started making sense.

Each U.S. farmer (plus machines with fuel) feeds 100 people

That's the issue with farms. Farms have become very, very efficient over the past century or so and the average farmer can feed hundreds of people. That's the factor that is driving the decline in farm population - people need to find something else to do because there is little need for farmers any more. Information technology worked for me, but other people must follow their own path, most likely not involving farming.

One of my nephews put 1 square mile (640 acres) of land into peas - just part of his several thousand acre operation. This is in Canada, which you will note on the chart is at the high end of the energy vs population scale. The thing is that Canada has vast amounts of farm land, vast amounts of energy of all kinds, and not a lot of people so the farmers tend to go for bigger operations and fewer workers than almost everywhere else. So, where was my nephew selling his peas? He was selling them in India on the free market. It would probably take about 640 farmers on 1 acre farms in India to produce as many peas, and while Indians don't earn very much, they don't work for free, and they'd probably eat all the peas themselves. Hence my nephew working alone with his computer controlled, GPS guided machines can do it cheaper in Canada. The Indians are better off making cheap cotton shirts or something and selling them to the West.

Now of course, many people would object, but they don't understand basic economics, so I get my last kick at the can, TOD shuts down, and its over. If they object, they can complain to their wife, relatives, and friends, all of whom stopped listening to them years ago for obvious reasons.

Jason;
Just a last little note of thanks for your offerings here. I look forward to seeing your name around as we all push on to the next steps!

Bob Fiske
Portland, ME

WSJ: Country Commuters: Londoners Move Back to the Land

Harried Londoners are increasingly buying so-called hobby farms where they can grow food, raise exotic animals and perhaps earn a second income off the land.

Getting awfully quiet around here. Hope to see you all around some other fire, somewhere, sometime...

Just watched a couple of TED talks by Hans Rosling on pop/religion and 'development'. Fascinating presentation of data. His effort is to make global stats available via gapminder.com Can't recall where I heard of him first, was probably somewhere on TOD, as that is was my primary (almost sole) source of news/info/links. Hope to see y'all around some other fire, somewhere, sometime...