Great article. I did not know that about cotton grown in AZ and the pumping of H2O. In fact, Learned a lot about alpacas and will have to buy more yarn from alpacas. Thanks so much! I did share on Gab.
Another facet to this is the demand for 'fast fashion': Semi-disposable clothing meant to be worn for a season then discarded or given away. I'm not saying we need to go back to when people had one set of clothes, maybe two with one for Sundays, but we need to seriously examine why we need to have endless fadddish clothes spun from oil (and often made to imitate items made of real fibers, heck, I can barely find anything in stores made of cotton except occasionally sheets and underwear.).
Amazing article. I loved reading about your alpacas. I’m a knitter so I have some familiarity with animal fibers but not so much about the production side.
I have backyard chickens. I think anyone can do it, I recently wrote about getting started brooding lots of chicks and selling off extras to offset your startup costs https://texbat.substack.com/p/how-to-get-started-with-backyard. Today I sold 6 chicks for $20 each and they’re not even 5 weeks old yet. I don’t vaccinate my birds and I give them quality feed and let them free range and they never have health problems (except for the occasional hawk attack)
And I made a conscious effort to buy organic cotton. It’s easy to find baby clothes in organic cotton but it gets harder the more you grow. For kids it’s mostly PJs. Good thing my 4 year old is in a “wear unicorn rainbow pjs 24/7” stage (hey, at least she’s wearing pants)
tee-riffic and facinatin' deep dive into fibers--beautiful pix of the alpacas an' info-wise much I didn't know 'bout (though fer long I have known about the "cotton con" and the pesky-cides an' all) Up here in the N. East there are quite a few folks that have alpacas an' sell their lovely wool, some also raise and sell grassfed meat (usually lamb) at our farmer's market--my younger daughter does spinnin' (spindle not wheel) and has made some nice yarn from alpaca--bee-u-tee-ful stuff! I love knowin' how it's so much better from a resources perspective too--never thought much 'about that... Not to resist a nice bit'o Fall cornball, folks gotta be "woolin'" to rethink their fibers--and give better'uns a big high-fibe(r)...
I became chemically sensitive to almost everything. Glyphosate is a terrible thing! Ruined my generation (56) along with the other junk in the air and food. It’s very difficult to find organic products, I bought feminine hygiene product , twice as expensive and once I read the fine print, only the top layer was organic. Even the certificied non gmo ( has a butterfly on the label) let’s a small amount of gmo in their certified non gmo label. I often wonder how much healthier I’d be if I’d lived in Europe..
After reading down I see you were a hippie. I grew up in that era to. Never a hippie. Our family lived as if the depression was next year as both parents lived grim childhoods during the depression. So I was always fiscally conservative. Dad said "if you don't have cash you don't need it." So I have never gone into debt. I came to realization of the disaster of agriculture in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Been watching the slow motion train wreak ever since.
No way to communicate with people about the up coming disaster. Well it has arrived. Thank you so much for this article. I hope readers perceive the depths of the problem you have outlined. with fingers crossed, my comments follow.
_________
While several searches strongly suggest there was no conspiracy against Industrial Hemp in the US, nevertheless it was outlawed. Something odd about that. Why outlaw industrial Hemp? The articles all say why Dupont Company, William Randolph Hearst, Harry Anslinger, were not responsible for Hemp being made illegal. They never explain why it became illegal. I haven't been able to find a reason either. Mysterious.
Surprisingly this came up earlier today when my wife (South Korean) and I were talking about industrial hemp. She grew up and wore hemp clothing and more. Then the US came to save Korea from the communist. At least they saved the South Korean's from the horrors of Industrial hemp. Hemp that had been grown for thousands of years.
Over the course of a four-year trial, we are exploring hemp’s powerful potential to heal soil and support farmers.
Hemp, marijuana’s non-psychotropic cousin, was grown in Pennsylvania for more than 260 years as a valuable cash crop. Banned in the 1930s, hemp production became legal for research purposes in 2014. We are exploring the plant’s potential to suppress weeds, add diversity to crop rotations, and boost farmers’ bottom lines.
The results of making cotton king are numerous, none of them good. One of them is that none of those rivers now reach the sea. Another is that cotton requires more pesticides and fertilizers than any other crop. This has resulted in vast regions of biologically dead soil that no longer sequesters carbon and will soon no longer support crops of any kind.
Reply:
Very true. I have seen the transition of healthy soil to dead ground in my life time. But it is not chronicled where everyday folks can know about it. Nor is small farming affordable. You cannot make a living that way.
Secular Heretic wrote:
Another cog in King Cotton’s misguided wheel is that most of the cotton grown in the US gets shipped overseas to be made into textiles that are then shipped back to your local Walmart and Gap stores. In other words, the cotton growing in a cotton field next to a Walmart store here in Arizona may have traveled all the way around the world to be sold in that same Walmart store as a t-shirt. And we think 1,500 miles is a long way for our food to travel! All of this means that the cotton industry in the US employs very few people which translates to minimal economic impact.
Reply:
This whole carbon problem is a fiction. The real problem for all living including the Earth is the 80,000+ chemicals release into the air, water and soil everyday. IT IS THE CARBON STUPID. Do not look anywhere else as you will see the real problem.
_________
Secular Heretic wrote:
We are now all of 75 years into the making of King Cotton and its viability is fading fast. Let’s see, 1,000 years for the Hohokhum, 75 years for Europeans.
Reply:
Not just cotton but all corporate agriculture is on the ropes. We face a real disaster when the bottom falls out of corporate agriculture.
In part that is what I think is behind the Great Reset. Put all these folks back to work in the field. Like the peasants and serfs of old (really slaves to the Lord of the mannor) "we will bust our asses and own nothing!" It could be said "YOU WILL OWN NOTHING and WORK LIKE A SERF"
You will be too tired malnourished to be happy or sad. Just dumb slaves. Or chipped slaves, in case you realize you are a slave. Chips will correct your thinking.
Thanks for this in-depth look into the opaque world ( to us consumers) of big ag. I’ve lived rural most my life. Raised sheep beef goats pigs chickens horses and rabbits for meat wool and fun. Fed our family for years this way.
Eventually the feed costs got too high to afford growing our meat. You have just explained why. it makes no sense to grow backyard animals and use big ag products.
What a great view of the solution you provide. Still not sure how to do it here. But thanks so much for starting the conversation on this important topic. Food and fiber need to be freed.
A Lancaster County Amish farmer faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and potential jail time for repeated violations of food safety laws. Miller’s Organic Farm, owned by an Amos Miller in Bird-in-Hand, has been described as “tangling with federal authorities for several years over its food handling practices” in this report by Fox43:
U.S. District Judge Edward G. Smith, Jr. found Amos Miller in contempt of court for violating a 2020 consent decree and ordered him to pay $250,000 in fines, plus an additional $14,436 to cover enforcement costs.
The original violation in this case occurred in 2015, and according to what the government alleges, had serious – that is, deadly – consequences:
The forwarded part is from Rebel News Canada (see below)
____________
William --
Thank you for signing. Please forward this email on to others who may want to sign.
Amos Miller, a holistic Amish farmer in Pennsylvania, is being persecuted by the government for exercising his religious freedom to grow food as per his religious beliefs.
Miller, who grows and prepares his food naturally, claims he has been able to curb federal farming regulations by selling his food privately to members of the farm's "food club."
Earlier this year, armed feds paid a visit to Miller's farm for allegedly not cooperating with the government, and he is now facing over $300,000 in fines and potential jail time.
No one should be persecuted for exercising their religious freedom.
If you agree that the U.S. government must stop persecuting Amos Miller and his farm, sign this petition.
“To be interested in food, but not in food production, is clearly absurd.” Wendell Berry
Thank you for the above. Since the 1970 (Nixon Ford) the destruction of agriculture by corporate interests has been accelerating. Nixon's Ag secretary Earl Butz told small farmers to "GET BIG or GET OUT"!. Wendell Berry debated Earl Butz, it was covered if I remember in Co-Evolution Quarterly. I mark Mr. Earl Butz declaration to small farmers as the epitaph to US health and well being.
I cannot thank you enough for this article (stopped to write when I saw the quote from Wendell Berry). Most people haven't a clue how long humanity has been herded into CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) that control food inputs, emotional inputs and psychological inputs. All to make the human animal conform to the Machine. Or welcome to the "Absurd"
Thanks, Kyle! Glad to know this so I can prevent any future shelter cat I adopt from being injected with a toxic mRNA gene modification substance. The only shot required by CO govt is for rabies and Ninotchka was given this shot. No cat I've adopted has received any additional vax. Local vets are just as clueless about vaccines for animals as doctors are clueless about vaccines for humans. Unfortunately for me, there are no holistic vets in my city, so it's up to me to keep them healthy. Raw meat and NO grains are the FOUNDATION of health for cats.
Shelters have 2 objectives: 1. Have their animals adopted quickly and 2. Receive donations and enlist volunteers. IF mRNA rabies shots are the new standard, I can and will make a donation (in addition to the fee) if the shelter will give the cat the old-fashioned rabies shot. Then, I'll administer the antidote to the rabies shot when I know more about homeopathy.
A propos textiles is this interview with Megan Meiklejohn with Land to Market, an initiative started within the Savory Institute, whose focus is connecting regenerative growers to brands. By designing supply chains from the farm forward, she has helped brands source natural fibers that support ecosystem functioning and local communities.
What a WONDERFUL article is this. Your trials and triumphs experimenting with regenerative farming in the hot and dry AZ desert are IMMENSELY interesting and inspiring. More in this line, please.
Humans of all stripes can be arrogant in their use of nature and can also be very wise. Interesting reads are "The Dawn of Everything", "1491", "Web of Debt". There was a Pre-Inca culture in arid Southern Peru that used irrigation to grow cotton. It took its water from rivers flowing from the Andes. They grew cotton. The main use of the cotton was to make nets. Their diet was mainly fish. They made exquisite fabrics, but like the Hohokam climate got them. In this case probably torrential rains and floods that wiped out their crops and abodes. When humans rely on agriculture they are exposing themselves to eventual disaster. If you herd, fish or hunt you can move with the animals. Not so with crop fields.
As Jared Diamond. the author of "Guns, Germs and Steel", said: "Agriculture is humanities greatest mistake." Before the invasion of the plow, the carbon rich and moisture laden top soil of the Great Plains was 6 ft deep; held more carbon than the Amazon with its thin and easily depleted top soil and supported more than 100 million large grazing animals, innumerable small and medium size herbivores, countless water fowl and other birds, their predators and scavengers including humans and the rivers ran clear year round and were teeming with fish. If that environment had not been destroyed, it would be able to feed the entire US population in perpetuity.
The destruction or massive reduction in agriculture led to the Little Ice Age. First there was the 14th century plagues in Eurasia that killed many and reduced agriculture. Then there was the 15th & 16th century devastation in the Western Hemisphere that reduced the population by up to 98%. Archeaologists estimate that before 1492 there were 25 million living on the Mexican plateau. Being arid and the building materials being stone and mud and not degraded, that estimation is probably accurate. A 1638 census by Spain counted 700,000 residents. That is a 98% reduction. Other parts of the Americas are difficult to count because of more moisture and plant growth. We have little idea of how many lived in Meso America or the Amazon.
The abandoned gardens and fields reverted to weeds, grasslands and where appropriate forests. The grazing animals proliferated without the apex predator. That drew so much carbon from the air that worldwide temperatures dropped by 1C. Humanity could duplicate that but corporate/government fascism is not likely to respond quickly enough despite the scientific support for regenerative agriculture being able to reverse global warming. Corporations and their governments have no soul or empathy so they continue the pathological narcissism that characterized royalty of the age of the divine right of kings.
On a positive note back yard chickens and bees are easy and fun hobbies that provide good food. The Russsian dachas, their equivalent of backyard gardens, but outside cities or suburbs, provide more than 50% of the vegetable and animal food for the people. The same is true of Cuba.
I was vaguely aware of the benefits of Alpaca clothing until I moved to Ecuador. It is incredible. Unfortunately the Ecuadorians are subject to the same propaganda and maybe even worse than Gringos. They are very likely to clothe themselves and their children in nylon and acrylic. It is sad to see their babies in PJs, blankets and baby slings made of artificial fabrics when they could be using alpaca. Thank you Kyle for your holistic thinking and action. There is no better lesson than example.
Very interesting, informative and inspiring article. Those alpacas have such sweet faces, how can you rear them for meat?
However, although viable on a small local scale, I don't see how such farming could be sufficient for current population numbers in terms of suitable available land.
Great article. I did not know that about cotton grown in AZ and the pumping of H2O. In fact, Learned a lot about alpacas and will have to buy more yarn from alpacas. Thanks so much! I did share on Gab.
Another facet to this is the demand for 'fast fashion': Semi-disposable clothing meant to be worn for a season then discarded or given away. I'm not saying we need to go back to when people had one set of clothes, maybe two with one for Sundays, but we need to seriously examine why we need to have endless fadddish clothes spun from oil (and often made to imitate items made of real fibers, heck, I can barely find anything in stores made of cotton except occasionally sheets and underwear.).
Amazing article. I loved reading about your alpacas. I’m a knitter so I have some familiarity with animal fibers but not so much about the production side.
I have backyard chickens. I think anyone can do it, I recently wrote about getting started brooding lots of chicks and selling off extras to offset your startup costs https://texbat.substack.com/p/how-to-get-started-with-backyard. Today I sold 6 chicks for $20 each and they’re not even 5 weeks old yet. I don’t vaccinate my birds and I give them quality feed and let them free range and they never have health problems (except for the occasional hawk attack)
And I made a conscious effort to buy organic cotton. It’s easy to find baby clothes in organic cotton but it gets harder the more you grow. For kids it’s mostly PJs. Good thing my 4 year old is in a “wear unicorn rainbow pjs 24/7” stage (hey, at least she’s wearing pants)
tee-riffic and facinatin' deep dive into fibers--beautiful pix of the alpacas an' info-wise much I didn't know 'bout (though fer long I have known about the "cotton con" and the pesky-cides an' all) Up here in the N. East there are quite a few folks that have alpacas an' sell their lovely wool, some also raise and sell grassfed meat (usually lamb) at our farmer's market--my younger daughter does spinnin' (spindle not wheel) and has made some nice yarn from alpaca--bee-u-tee-ful stuff! I love knowin' how it's so much better from a resources perspective too--never thought much 'about that... Not to resist a nice bit'o Fall cornball, folks gotta be "woolin'" to rethink their fibers--and give better'uns a big high-fibe(r)...
I became chemically sensitive to almost everything. Glyphosate is a terrible thing! Ruined my generation (56) along with the other junk in the air and food. It’s very difficult to find organic products, I bought feminine hygiene product , twice as expensive and once I read the fine print, only the top layer was organic. Even the certificied non gmo ( has a butterfly on the label) let’s a small amount of gmo in their certified non gmo label. I often wonder how much healthier I’d be if I’d lived in Europe..
GRIM REALITY
Good day Secular Heretic,
After reading down I see you were a hippie. I grew up in that era to. Never a hippie. Our family lived as if the depression was next year as both parents lived grim childhoods during the depression. So I was always fiscally conservative. Dad said "if you don't have cash you don't need it." So I have never gone into debt. I came to realization of the disaster of agriculture in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Been watching the slow motion train wreak ever since.
No way to communicate with people about the up coming disaster. Well it has arrived. Thank you so much for this article. I hope readers perceive the depths of the problem you have outlined. with fingers crossed, my comments follow.
_________
While several searches strongly suggest there was no conspiracy against Industrial Hemp in the US, nevertheless it was outlawed. Something odd about that. Why outlaw industrial Hemp? The articles all say why Dupont Company, William Randolph Hearst, Harry Anslinger, were not responsible for Hemp being made illegal. They never explain why it became illegal. I haven't been able to find a reason either. Mysterious.
Surprisingly this came up earlier today when my wife (South Korean) and I were talking about industrial hemp. She grew up and wore hemp clothing and more. Then the US came to save Korea from the communist. At least they saved the South Korean's from the horrors of Industrial hemp. Hemp that had been grown for thousands of years.
_________
https://rodaleinstitute.org/science/industrial-hemp-trial/
Over the course of a four-year trial, we are exploring hemp’s powerful potential to heal soil and support farmers.
Hemp, marijuana’s non-psychotropic cousin, was grown in Pennsylvania for more than 260 years as a valuable cash crop. Banned in the 1930s, hemp production became legal for research purposes in 2014. We are exploring the plant’s potential to suppress weeds, add diversity to crop rotations, and boost farmers’ bottom lines.
_________
Earl Butz vs Wendell Berry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_zCCy46QXo
for the modern day small dairy farmer. "Get Big or Get Out"
https://onpasture.com/2020/01/06/what-is-the-cost-of-get-big-or-get-out/
_________
Secular Heretic wrote:
The results of making cotton king are numerous, none of them good. One of them is that none of those rivers now reach the sea. Another is that cotton requires more pesticides and fertilizers than any other crop. This has resulted in vast regions of biologically dead soil that no longer sequesters carbon and will soon no longer support crops of any kind.
Reply:
Very true. I have seen the transition of healthy soil to dead ground in my life time. But it is not chronicled where everyday folks can know about it. Nor is small farming affordable. You cannot make a living that way.
Secular Heretic wrote:
Another cog in King Cotton’s misguided wheel is that most of the cotton grown in the US gets shipped overseas to be made into textiles that are then shipped back to your local Walmart and Gap stores. In other words, the cotton growing in a cotton field next to a Walmart store here in Arizona may have traveled all the way around the world to be sold in that same Walmart store as a t-shirt. And we think 1,500 miles is a long way for our food to travel! All of this means that the cotton industry in the US employs very few people which translates to minimal economic impact.
Reply:
This whole carbon problem is a fiction. The real problem for all living including the Earth is the 80,000+ chemicals release into the air, water and soil everyday. IT IS THE CARBON STUPID. Do not look anywhere else as you will see the real problem.
_________
Secular Heretic wrote:
We are now all of 75 years into the making of King Cotton and its viability is fading fast. Let’s see, 1,000 years for the Hohokhum, 75 years for Europeans.
Reply:
Not just cotton but all corporate agriculture is on the ropes. We face a real disaster when the bottom falls out of corporate agriculture.
In part that is what I think is behind the Great Reset. Put all these folks back to work in the field. Like the peasants and serfs of old (really slaves to the Lord of the mannor) "we will bust our asses and own nothing!" It could be said "YOU WILL OWN NOTHING and WORK LIKE A SERF"
You will be too tired malnourished to be happy or sad. Just dumb slaves. Or chipped slaves, in case you realize you are a slave. Chips will correct your thinking.
Thanks for this in-depth look into the opaque world ( to us consumers) of big ag. I’ve lived rural most my life. Raised sheep beef goats pigs chickens horses and rabbits for meat wool and fun. Fed our family for years this way.
Eventually the feed costs got too high to afford growing our meat. You have just explained why. it makes no sense to grow backyard animals and use big ag products.
What a great view of the solution you provide. Still not sure how to do it here. But thanks so much for starting the conversation on this important topic. Food and fiber need to be freed.
Love the ending. Some cold water to counter the narrative and point at the larger problem.
Links to Amos Miller's Amish Farm.
https://amishamerica.com/lancaster-amish-organic-farmer-must-pay-250k-possible-jail-time-food-violations/#contread
https://www.fox43.com/article/news/lancaster-farmer-fined-food-safety-violations/521-9ed0fe84-e9ba-4656-9023-f900b3c6a6f2
https://amishamerica.com/study-75-percent-amish-would-reject-covid-19-vaccine/#contread
Posted on August 4, 2021 in Amish Controversies
A Lancaster County Amish farmer faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and potential jail time for repeated violations of food safety laws. Miller’s Organic Farm, owned by an Amos Miller in Bird-in-Hand, has been described as “tangling with federal authorities for several years over its food handling practices” in this report by Fox43:
U.S. District Judge Edward G. Smith, Jr. found Amos Miller in contempt of court for violating a 2020 consent decree and ordered him to pay $250,000 in fines, plus an additional $14,436 to cover enforcement costs.
The original violation in this case occurred in 2015, and according to what the government alleges, had serious – that is, deadly – consequences:
The forwarded part is from Rebel News Canada (see below)
____________
William --
Thank you for signing. Please forward this email on to others who may want to sign.
Rebel News
http://www.rebelnews.com/
Here's the full petition:
PETITION: Leave Them Alone
Amos Miller, a holistic Amish farmer in Pennsylvania, is being persecuted by the government for exercising his religious freedom to grow food as per his religious beliefs.
Miller, who grows and prepares his food naturally, claims he has been able to curb federal farming regulations by selling his food privately to members of the farm's "food club."
Earlier this year, armed feds paid a visit to Miller's farm for allegedly not cooperating with the government, and he is now facing over $300,000 in fines and potential jail time.
No one should be persecuted for exercising their religious freedom.
If you agree that the U.S. government must stop persecuting Amos Miller and his farm, sign this petition.
I had no idea that "organic cotton" is not environmentally inert. Good to know.
“To be interested in food, but not in food production, is clearly absurd.” Wendell Berry
Thank you for the above. Since the 1970 (Nixon Ford) the destruction of agriculture by corporate interests has been accelerating. Nixon's Ag secretary Earl Butz told small farmers to "GET BIG or GET OUT"!. Wendell Berry debated Earl Butz, it was covered if I remember in Co-Evolution Quarterly. I mark Mr. Earl Butz declaration to small farmers as the epitaph to US health and well being.
I cannot thank you enough for this article (stopped to write when I saw the quote from Wendell Berry). Most people haven't a clue how long humanity has been herded into CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) that control food inputs, emotional inputs and psychological inputs. All to make the human animal conform to the Machine. Or welcome to the "Absurd"
Again thank you!
Thanks, Kyle! Glad to know this so I can prevent any future shelter cat I adopt from being injected with a toxic mRNA gene modification substance. The only shot required by CO govt is for rabies and Ninotchka was given this shot. No cat I've adopted has received any additional vax. Local vets are just as clueless about vaccines for animals as doctors are clueless about vaccines for humans. Unfortunately for me, there are no holistic vets in my city, so it's up to me to keep them healthy. Raw meat and NO grains are the FOUNDATION of health for cats.
Shelters have 2 objectives: 1. Have their animals adopted quickly and 2. Receive donations and enlist volunteers. IF mRNA rabies shots are the new standard, I can and will make a donation (in addition to the fee) if the shelter will give the cat the old-fashioned rabies shot. Then, I'll administer the antidote to the rabies shot when I know more about homeopathy.
A propos textiles is this interview with Megan Meiklejohn with Land to Market, an initiative started within the Savory Institute, whose focus is connecting regenerative growers to brands. By designing supply chains from the farm forward, she has helped brands source natural fibers that support ecosystem functioning and local communities.
https://www.westonaprice.org/podcast/slow-fashion/#gsc.tab=0
What a WONDERFUL article is this. Your trials and triumphs experimenting with regenerative farming in the hot and dry AZ desert are IMMENSELY interesting and inspiring. More in this line, please.
A lot of useful info about clothing fabrics and how to avoid synthetics made from chemicals is in this article by John Moody, a homesteader in Kentucky who writes frequently for WAPF: https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/health-issues/the-clothing-conundrum-safe-warm-winter-dressing/#gsc.tab=0
Humans of all stripes can be arrogant in their use of nature and can also be very wise. Interesting reads are "The Dawn of Everything", "1491", "Web of Debt". There was a Pre-Inca culture in arid Southern Peru that used irrigation to grow cotton. It took its water from rivers flowing from the Andes. They grew cotton. The main use of the cotton was to make nets. Their diet was mainly fish. They made exquisite fabrics, but like the Hohokam climate got them. In this case probably torrential rains and floods that wiped out their crops and abodes. When humans rely on agriculture they are exposing themselves to eventual disaster. If you herd, fish or hunt you can move with the animals. Not so with crop fields.
As Jared Diamond. the author of "Guns, Germs and Steel", said: "Agriculture is humanities greatest mistake." Before the invasion of the plow, the carbon rich and moisture laden top soil of the Great Plains was 6 ft deep; held more carbon than the Amazon with its thin and easily depleted top soil and supported more than 100 million large grazing animals, innumerable small and medium size herbivores, countless water fowl and other birds, their predators and scavengers including humans and the rivers ran clear year round and were teeming with fish. If that environment had not been destroyed, it would be able to feed the entire US population in perpetuity.
The destruction or massive reduction in agriculture led to the Little Ice Age. First there was the 14th century plagues in Eurasia that killed many and reduced agriculture. Then there was the 15th & 16th century devastation in the Western Hemisphere that reduced the population by up to 98%. Archeaologists estimate that before 1492 there were 25 million living on the Mexican plateau. Being arid and the building materials being stone and mud and not degraded, that estimation is probably accurate. A 1638 census by Spain counted 700,000 residents. That is a 98% reduction. Other parts of the Americas are difficult to count because of more moisture and plant growth. We have little idea of how many lived in Meso America or the Amazon.
The abandoned gardens and fields reverted to weeds, grasslands and where appropriate forests. The grazing animals proliferated without the apex predator. That drew so much carbon from the air that worldwide temperatures dropped by 1C. Humanity could duplicate that but corporate/government fascism is not likely to respond quickly enough despite the scientific support for regenerative agriculture being able to reverse global warming. Corporations and their governments have no soul or empathy so they continue the pathological narcissism that characterized royalty of the age of the divine right of kings.
On a positive note back yard chickens and bees are easy and fun hobbies that provide good food. The Russsian dachas, their equivalent of backyard gardens, but outside cities or suburbs, provide more than 50% of the vegetable and animal food for the people. The same is true of Cuba.
I was vaguely aware of the benefits of Alpaca clothing until I moved to Ecuador. It is incredible. Unfortunately the Ecuadorians are subject to the same propaganda and maybe even worse than Gringos. They are very likely to clothe themselves and their children in nylon and acrylic. It is sad to see their babies in PJs, blankets and baby slings made of artificial fabrics when they could be using alpaca. Thank you Kyle for your holistic thinking and action. There is no better lesson than example.
Beautiful farming world you live in. I envy you, not in a bad way; on the contrary, I wish you the best. Thank you for sharing, much much appreciated.
Very interesting, informative and inspiring article. Those alpacas have such sweet faces, how can you rear them for meat?
However, although viable on a small local scale, I don't see how such farming could be sufficient for current population numbers in terms of suitable available land.