Ox Power - Not there when you need it?

[Guest guest]

Ekabuddh (AT) aol (DOT) com wrote:

 

>broad scale ox power would be very much appreciated if there were no fuels

>for larger equipment. SInce this is not the case at this time, I do not see

>the

>whole world using oxen power in the near future.

>

 

I wish I had some statistics handy, but groups like ATNESA and others

can provide documentation that shows that most of the world's poor

people eat food produced by animal traction. So, for them, ox power is

not a romantic idea -- it's a life-and-death idea.

 

But for people living in industrialized cultures (whether rich or poor)

ox power is, indeed, as you note, a romantic idea.

 

You are probably correct in noting that -- all things being equal --

people in industrialized cultures will not be interested in using ox

power as long as there are fossil fuels available for heaby equipment.

 

Of course, we all know that those fossil fuels will be running out by

the time our grandchildren are grown. But that brings me to an

interesting scenario. Probably, if no one intercedes, ox power will

*not* be there when they need it.

 

Here's the scenario:

 

Sooner (with oil wars, rebel sabotage, cartel price manipulation, etc.)

or later (with less of those things), oil will gradually become to

expensive to use for agriculture.

 

The first place in agriculture to be hit when oil prices increase is

livestock. The bigger the livestock breed, the heavier the impact of

increasing oil prices. Why is that? It only takes 3 pounds of feed to

make a pound of chicken, but it takes 22 pounds of feed to make a pound

of beef. Practically speaking, beef represents a highly concentrated

amount of oil -- since it takes so much oil to produce the food to feed

the livestock.

 

That is the reason why, historically speaking, when you see gasoline

prices going up, you will also see at the same time a sharp increase in

the rate of cow slaughter. Farmers simply cannot afford the escalating

feed prices, so they slaughter large numbers of cows. Then, as

petroleum prices go back down, they allow their herds to expand again.

 

But, what would be the natural sequence of events if the oil prices did

*not* go back down. Then, simply, they would keep slaughtering more and

more cows. More and more farms of all types would go out of business,

because they either could not pay high feed prices (the first ones to

go), or they could not pay high petroleum prices to fuel their tractors.

(What to speak of increasing fertilizer prices -- when the rest of the

economy switches to natural gas to replace fuel oil for heating.) From

the perspective of the consumer, the good thing about a fuel crises is

cheap hamburger -- because so many farmers are killing off herds they

can no longer afford to feed.

 

But, in our fuel crises of the future, when the well has finally run dry

(well, not totally dry -- but dry enough so that only the military and

the rich can still afford gasoline), that is the point when we do really

need ox power.

 

But, the big problem when that happens (in 20-40 years) is that, at the

point when we really need the oxen. They will all be gone -- because

we've eaten them all up in cheap hamburgers, when the crises was just

beginning.

 

This is why we need to support our Hare Krsna ox teamsters. They are

the only ones who will make sure that the cows and oxen are still there

when we really, really need them a couple decades down the road. But

they can't do it without the support of the larger community of devotees.

 

This is why the vegans have to be taught that there is one more step

beyond being a vegan -- it's actually helping to make sure that the cows

and oxen stay alive so that we don't all eventually starve to death.

 

your servant,

 

Hare Krsna dasi