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pcplantdb - Re: [pcplantdb] synthesis[29][12.04.04]

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  • From: John Schinnerer <john@eco-living.net>
  • To: Permaculture Plant Database <pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] synthesis[29][12.04.04]
  • Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 22:49:37 +0000

Aloha,

Very much agree with Scott here.
That is the point of my comments about the WSF and their self-contradicting content.

No objection to taking money from them as long as we stay in integrity with our responses to their questions and they still choose to give us some. What "our" means here is open to discussion.

They are not saying that large-scale in itself is unsustainable, just that modern large-scale ag is. How can we - Pc and PIW - help render modern large-scale ag sustainable?
IMHO this is an oxymoron and one that we shouldn't get near. I have serious doubts that one can farm more than 40
acres sustainable let alone 4,000. ...

Case in point - the only "small" farmers in the USA who are not only not going broke and losing their farms but actually doing pretty well are the Amish. They keep it small; they keep it relatively low-tech; they choose not to farm more than they can handle with some (locally sustainable) draft animals and their own community resources; they produce top-quality products that fetch premium prices. And, not least, they support each other in communal ways that the rest of us have mostly abandoned.

Meanwhile the poor suckers who believed the "get big or die" propaganda of the banks and equipment and chemical manufactureres tried to get big and died trying, or are still slowly dying.

To steward land you have to be able to walk it, smell it, and be involved in it, this can't be done in an air conditioned tractor cab with quad stereo headphones driven by an "operator" who get paid $6 .00 per hour.

Absolutely.

aloha,
John S.

--

John Schinnerer - MA, Whole Systems Design
------------------------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Whole Systems Design Services
People - Place - Learning - Integration
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net




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