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[Tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>]

Low-input agriculture is the only sustainable path for farmers in poor 
countries---it is a life-or-death decision for them that lets them control 
vital things such as replanting their own seed which has been acclimated to 
their climate and soil, and which has evolved resistance to diseases, and for 
which oil-based fertilizers are not a dire necessity.

Low-input agriculture is alse the only sustainable path for U.S. farmers---a necessity disguised temporarily by (no longer) low-cost oil inputs, and a constant din of supplier and processor propaganda.  Like farmers in poor countries, U.S. farmers have come to accept high-input as the norm in farming practices, and have become slaves to lenders and suppliers, with bankruptcy the inevitable end to the economic insanity of high-input factory-farming. 

This refers to the discussion on food vs fuel initiated by Tom Reed. The
farmer wants to convert his farm produce into money.  He is not concerned
about the national concern about food self-sufficiency. In the case of
cotton in India, the cotton pests have become resistant to most of the
insecticides. The yield of cotton is steadily on the decline, in spite of
applying insecticide sprays at a frequency of 20 sprays in a season.
Nowadays the cotton farmer in the rainfed regions makes no profit at all,
but is indebted to the merchants who provide him with inputs on credit. The
safest way of agriculture in the rainfed areas is not to provide the crop
with any inputs that cost money. Use seed from the previous crop, use your
own bullock power and the labour of your own family. Although a monetary
value can be put on all these inputs, they are free to the farmer, and
therefore, whatever income he gets from his farm is net profit in his eyes.
An NGO in the cotton growing area in Maharashtra State has started
advocating this principle.  The yield of no-input cotton is just 200 kg per
acre, as against 400 kg per acre with inputs, but while the farmers could
not repay their debts with their 400 kg/acre, they are now well off with
their 200 kg/acre. The government planners are opposed to the no-input
technology, because it would mean reducing the national production. But if
the farmer makes greater profit by not applying inputs, why should he apply
them?
Yours
A.D.Karve