monkeymanwasd123 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2019 7:31 pm
im more interested in the difficultys/ and solutions for more extreme environments such as drylands in the tropics or cold climates
im most interested in solutions that do not include importing food from long distances and greenhouses
Possibly you're familiar with it already, but arguably the most impressive example of reclamation through transformation of crop-based agricultural management in a semi-arid place (rainfall < 20 in/year in this case) is the Loess Plateau in China (documentaries readily available on Youtube). I admit to not knowing enough about vegan keto regimens to speculate about whether such a climate is suitable for small scale (or even large scale) agriculture geared towards vegan keto, but the project required huge amounts of both human sweat equity and central government financial investment (I think it's in its 2nd or 3rd decade and still ongoing) to essentially terraform an area to undo desertification caused by thousands of years of human habitation.
Savory on the other hand has pioneered techniques to restore desertified land through use of improved agricultural management focused on livestock. Unfortunately livestock has been blamed for the adverse effects of human management of livestock, so his ideas have a strong headwind due to prevailing attitudes. But his foundation and their efforts have proven the viability of reclamation of desertified land on a smaller scale (small village or family) with less financial backing from a strong centralized government. The net result is restored (and net carbon negative) semi-arid land that is productive for agriculture with a blend of crops and livestock. Most of the actual "work" is done by the livestock, but the livestock must be actively and carefully managed by human intervention. This is probably the technique most likely to succeed in areas whose original suitability for human habitation was rooted in a natural landscape of grasslands/savannahs populated by large herds of grazing animals and the predators that exploited them. It's simply mimicking the solution nature provided using livestock to replace the roaming herds. These habitats are also the habitats humans evolved in, and in which we first started practicing agriculture and developed civilization; and were the first areas we turned into deserts, and are continuing to desertify at accelerating rates. They apparently account for something upwards of 2/3 of the earth's land surface, which is why I devoted more words to him.
A third way of doing it is typified by the Selah ranch, where a wealthy man restored a ranch essentially ruined by livestock mismanagement through nudging the landscape back towards its natural state, but the net result is more of a nature preserve without emphasis of agricultural food production. It is potentially a path towards hunter/gatherer sustenance which would naturally be lower in grain and starch-based carbohydrates.
The point of the ramble is that there are "many roads to Dublin". My instinct is that looking to the solutions provided by nature prior to human interference and either mimicking their effect or restoring them outright is the most efficient long-term way to address desertification.
The prevailing wisdom at the present time is:
human activity->atmospheric carbon-based climate change->desertification
But there seems to be a second cycle that predates industrialization by millennia that is relatively ignored:
human activity->desertification->climate change
Much of the approach has to be based on location. In places where the majority of the year is relatively wet and any dry season that exists is moderate in dryness and short (eastern US, northern S. America, NW Europe, SE Asia, etc.) we have a lot of latitude because the environment is resilient and forgiving. In places where drought is the norm (western and southwestern N. America, southern S America, most of Africa, west and southwest Asia, most of Australia, etc.) the range of choices are narrower.
It also depends on what you mean by efficiency.
If it's just a matter of feeding yourself in the desired manner by spending the least time/effort and money to accomplish that, than it is a real estate problem: location, location, location. Pick a benign location and do what suits your fancy.
If you want to approach it as a more holistic investment and consider the net ecological benefit as an offset to invested time and money when calculating the net cost of your nutrition, maybe even prioritizing ecological benefit aspects, then your options expand to include combined ecological restoration-food production projects. Our fellow board members like 7wb5 can speak more eloquently to the system frameworks to formally evaluate such things. I'm much more simple-minded and when I see something like small impoverished villages in Africa transition away from being fed by grain imported from the Midwestern US and turn their little patch of dry, dusty earth into something that looks suitable for human habitation while feeding themselves, I conclude the ideas behind it are sound although I can't evaluate their efficiency.
I must also admit that while such noble ideas stir my heart, I still just drive to the grocery store and forage the shelves for the lowest-dollar means of meeting my nutritional goals.
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