Reply #54: The issue I brought up are alternatives to Tractors. [View All]

[happyslug]

Even with oil going for $3 a gallon, large farms are more efficient using tractors. My concern is how long can that continue AS THE PRICE OF OIL GOES UP. At what point does other methods of farmer get more cost effective. I do NOT farm, but the subject is fundamental to out society. At what point do the 3% of the US population whose main source of income is farming can NO longer produce what they have been producing since WWII. My point was what are the alternatives to oil feed tractors? I suspect they are NONE, except for the horse AND ALL THE LIMITATIONS OF THE HORSE. If that is the case the days of the 1500 acre farm may be numbered. If smaller farms are what are economical GIVEN A HIGH PRICE FOR OIL, then smaller farms will prevail.

I know that larger farms have been the norm since WWII, most farmers today have taken over at least one other farm beside the one the started with. Tractors both permit that AND REQUIRE THAT (You have to meet your competition, if that is tractor and more efficient, then it is tractors, if oil gets so high horse and SMALLER FARMS are more economical then it will be horses and smaller farms).

For the first time in the life time of most Americans (except for the 1970s) we are looking at a steady increase in the price of oil, which may make the 1970s look like a time of low oil prices. The check on oil prices will be when people cut back. People who live in the urban areas can cut back by buying smaller cars or even bicycles. What can farmers do? Smaller tractors may be LESS efficient than larger tractors (Larger tractors can pull more at once than smaller tractors so job get down quicker and uses less oil even if a per hour or per mile basis the larger tractor has worse millage than the smaller tractor.

What are the alternatives to oil on the modern farm? I can not see much and therefore farmers will have to pay whatever price oil is at, until such time as alternatives become profitable.

Remember the overall topic of this thread, how will we handle the issue of peak oil and the subsequent increase in the price of oil. First we MUST look backward at how it was done pre-oil, and thus why I brought up horses. Second we must took at things POST-OIL to see where we may be headed for. How would you farm your farm IF YOU HAVE NO DIESEL FOR YOUR TRACTOR? Gasoline will NOT be an alternative. Natural gas is believed to have peaked in North America (Through world-wide Natural gas will no peak for a couple of decades), and thus NOT an alternative. Bio-Fuel may be the solution, but the amount of bio-fuel needed for Highway transportation is quite high. It may be the best alternative on the farm, but it may be more economical to convert your crop to hay for horses then the hay to bio-fuel. Furthermore the more bio-fuel we make the less food can be grown (i.e. use crop for fuel instead of selling it for food). On the other hand having horse ear the hay and uses the horses instead of a tractor may be a more efficient way to use that hay. Only time will tell which way to more efficient, but both will have much higher costs in terms of labor and other costs than the present use of oil to fuel tractors.

I am throwing ideas out about this subject. What are the best alternatives to oil base farming? Sooner or later we will have to address that problem. The solution may be Bio-Fuel, it may be electrical driven tractors. I do no known and neither does anyone else, but it has to be discussed and that is why I brought it up. To dismiss the problem is to ignore it, and being a problem that will NOT go away if ignored it must be addressed.