The next added 100 million Americans - Crossing our Agricultural Rubicon

By Frosty Wooldridge

November 25, 2006

In 49 B.C., Julius Caesar defied the Roman senate by crossing the Rubicon River to wage civil war against another Roman, Pompey the Great. By crossing the Rubicon, Caesar made a decision whereby he could not turn back.

Today, “Crossing the Rubicon” means no way to change, repair, or undo your destiny. Yes, Caesar conquered Pompey, but the Roman senate, along with Brutus, stabbed Caesar to death.

If President Bush signs an amnesty or bill similar to S.B. 2611, he casts the dye; he crosses the Rubicon of America’s death knell. Bush ensures 100 million more people added to our country that explodes our nation to 400 million in the next 34 years on our way to a half billion. Once manifested, we will not be able to turn back.

In a crystal clear exposé, “Crossing the Agricultural Rubicon," Dr. John Tanton, Spring 2005, The Social Contract Quarterly, presented harsh realities as to America’s food supply.

“We export immense quantities of corn, wheat, soybeans, etc., but much of this crop is fed to animals or processed into food that we then re-import as higher-value agricultural products,” Tanton said. “It is the dollar value of imports that is projected to be equal to exports for 2005.”

He continued:

"The U.S. consumes two-thirds of its own grown food. As population grows, more agricultural land will be converted to non-agricultural uses — roads, hospitals, schools, parking lots, shopping malls, and housing projects. Our expanding population will cause us to import more food. The net result will be the gradual decline of our agricultural trade surpluses. We are already in energy deficit as we import 12 million of the 20 millions barrels of oil we burn each day. Now, we have a diminishing agricultural exchange surplus with which to buy fuel to facilitate that very agriculture.”

The United States feeds the world, but as Tanton exposes in his excellent graphs and charts, we’re already importing as much as we’re exporting: “We won’t feed people around the world much longer,” Tanton said.

For example, Colorado’s population will add 1.5 million by 2022. That increase means, according to the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post, that 3.1 million acres of prime farm land suffer development into homes, roads, malls, schools, and other development.

Whatever your population expansion in your state, commensurate farm acreage will be destroyed. For example, by 2050, Texas will grow from 21 million to 48.1 million, which means millions of acres of land will be taken out of farming for development. No one knows the disaster that awaits them as to water usage. “Crossing the Rubicon” via farmland destruction brings yours and all states closer to Caesar’s fate.

Another aspect of this “Agricultural Rubicon” manifests itself in Eric Schlosser’s “Fast food nation" where he exposes the chemicalization of our foods by hundreds of additives, colors, preservatives, and poisons like the sweetener aspartame. If you see any food that says, “Sugar Free” or “Diet Soda”, run, don’t walk away from it.

Since 1950, farmers have sprayed their crops with herbicides and pesticides while injecting soils with dozens of chemical fertilizers that destroy nitrogen fixing bacteria and poison earthworms, bees, and birds into early graves. Today, we force genetically modified seeds to produce unnatural harvests while we clone many vegetables and create perfect apples. No one has bought a "real" strawberry from a major grocery store chain in the last 20 years. Those genetically manufactured berries are big, fat, and white with some red coloring, and taste like chalk. The United States Department of Agriculture states that because of depletion of micro-nutrients, you must eat 49 servings of spinach in 2006 to gain the same amount of micro-nutrient value as one serving of spinach in 1949.

In conjunction with fertilizers draining into rivers which poison the fish we eat, farm land suffers acid rain from chemical contaminants raining down from the sky from tens of thousands of industrial smoke stacks spewing sulphur, ammonia, incinerated plastics, mercury, and other toxic amalgamations into the air.

In a report, “U.S. Pesticide Stockpile Under Scrutiny” by Rita Beamish of the Associated Press, she said:

"The Bush administration is seeking world permission to produce thousands of tons of a pesticide that an international treaty banned nearly two years ago, even though U.S. companies already have assembled huge stockpiles of the chemical."

“Methyl bromide has been used for decades by farmers to help grow plump, sweet strawberries, robust peppers and other crops, but it also depletes the Earth's protective ozone. The United States and other countries signed a 1987 treaty promising to end its use by 2005."

If you think our government tells the unvarnished truth, think again.

Senator Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ, said he was informed that the Inspector General for the Commerce Department and NASA had begun "coordinated, sweeping investigations of the Bush administration's censorship and suppression" of federal research into global warming. But the total U.S. emissions, now more than seven billion tons a year, are projected to rise 14 percent from 2002 to 2012. In other words, everything that goes up must come down. When it does, it’s a disaster for the entire web of life on our planet home.

In a recent report by Lester Brown, publisher of State of the World, he notes that farming causes the loss of 26 billion tons of topsoil annually worldwide. Once soils suffer depletion, chemical fertilizers may allow crops to grow, but a consumer may as well be eating cotton candy for the lack of micro-nutrient value in foods.

What about water for irrigation? At the moment, farmers from Iowa to California draw down underground aquifers faster than they can recharge. Farmers suck billions of gallons of water from the great Ogallala Aquifer beneath Nebraska. What happens when it dries up?

Dr. David Pimentel, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, says that if we ever think growing huge amounts of corn for ethanol fuel, we need to think that over. He writes:

“Our up-to-date analysis of the 14 energy inputs that typically go into corn production and the nine invested in fermentation and distillation operations confirms that 29 percent more energy (derived from fossil fuels) is required to produce a gallon of corn ethanol than is contained in the ethanol. Ethanol from cellulosic biomass is worse: with current technology, 50 percent more energy is required to produce a gallon than the product can deliver. In any event, biomass ethanol is a bad choice from an energy standpoint."

“The environmental impacts of corn ethanol are enormous. They include severe soil erosion, heavy use of nitrogen fertilizer and pesticides, and a significant contribution to global warming. In addition, each gallon of ethanol requires 1,700 gallons of water (to grow the corn) and produces six to 12 gallons of noxious organic effluent."

“Using food crops, such as corn grain, to produce ethanol also raises major ethical concerns. More than 3.7 billion humans in the world are currently malnourished, so the need for grains and other foods is critical. Growing crops to provide fuel squanders resources. Energy conservation and development of renewable energy sources, such as solar cells and solar-based methanol synthesis, should be given priority.”

If we add another 100 million Americans, our impact and consequences multiply by 100 million. That much more chemical spray, fertilizer, and water must be used. Remember: for each American added to the United States, 12 acres of land must be developed. That’s 1.2 billion acres of land used up that can’t produce food. Experts tell us that by 2040, we’ll be a net importer of food.

What if our food source can’t or won’t provide for us? What if we can’t economically transport the food to our shores?

As you read this series, I hope you understand our country heads into dangerous waters. Have you heard the expression, “Up the creek without a paddle?” Whether it’s “Crossing the Rubicon” of agricultural destruction of our food supply, or using up our oil reserves without sufficient alternatives, or exceeding our carrying capacity as to water — we’re driving our nation into grave consequences.

Yet, you won’t see the president, his cabinet, Congress, or all 50 governors speak about it or address it. Our captains of corporations and industry think they can keep revving the engine of consumption without end. It’s like they’re all brain dead. They lack insight, understanding, intelligence or common sense. Most possess a paradigm of "economic growth at any cost"; most cannot comprehend their folly as their "capitalism god of growth" dominates their world view; most think they can "red line" the engine of growth by encouraging population without consequences.

However, no matter how much they ignore it, like the tsunami that hit Sri Lanka last year and Hurricane Katrina that hit our Gulf Coast, this 100,000,000 “human tsunami” injects itself into America with accelerating penalties.

As my 50 years in farming grandfather Jesse Ward Johnson used to say, “You’re a bunch of damned fools if you think it’s going to work out all right. Horses got more common sense than humans!”