Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

Good work, Mark. Elsewhere in the FAO study I see Brazil makes extremely poor 
use of animal manures, as does the U.S. And their chemical fertilizer use is 
almost exclusively for export crops, not food staples for the masses. What's 
wrong with this picture? Not that this country is any shining example. I know 
some have argued we can all grow crops for ethanol on marginal land without 
sacrificing any food cropland, but that's not what's being done. If land can 
be cultivated mechanically for ethanol crops, then it can be cultivated for 
food crops instead.

paul, tradingpost@riseup.net
---------------
The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not 
television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism. Only 
those who know the most about it can appreciate how little we know about it.
   - Aldo Leopold in  Round River, 1933
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 4/26/2006 at 8:58 PM Mark Nagel wrote:

>Originally I ran across this article while debating the feasibility of
>ethanol in the US; repeatedly we hear about the success that is Brazil's
>ethanol program, that is a "model" for self-suficiency (and cleaner air
>[which, runs into problems when cane stock is burnt by famers]) that we
>should look to.
>
>Thanks to the influence of this group, I figured I'd  double-check all the
>claims using the most important measure- soil health!
>
>I found the following UN Food and Agriculture document to be quite the
>treasure trove of information.  As soil folks might expect, extensive,
>intensive growing and exporting of coffee and sugar cane (plus burning it
>for transportation) is taking a toll on Brazil's soils.
>
>>From
>http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/docrep/007/y5376e/y5376e08.htm
> their concluding remarks contain:
>
>"In general terms, the fertilizer nutrient balance in Brazilian
>agriculture is unsatisfactory. The removal of nutrients by the 16 main
>crops is higher than the quantities applied in the form of mineral
>fertilizers*. The deficit is much greater in the case of nitrogen than in
>those of phosphorus and potassium. >>> Thus the soil is being seriously
>depleted of nutrients and this represents a serious threat to long-term
>agricultural sustainability.<<<" (emphasis added)
>
>* This is a big "duh" when one exports lots of crops!
>
>But hey, Brazil is self-suficient in energy (well, not really, but that's
>a separate issue)!
>
>Not suprizingly, Brazil's import of natural gas is rapidly inceasing.  I
>don't know what their pecentage of NG use goes toward fertilizer
>manufacture, but I'm sure that it can only be increasing.
>
>One way or another we'll find a way to kill ourselves via automobile:
>we'll do it via air and water pollution, and or through starvation...
>
>
>-Mark Nagel
>Everett, WA