Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Mark Nagel <activism98201@verizon.net>]

Thanks Paul.

I was going to mention the report's comments about poor use of organic 
fertlizers, but felt that this would suggest a solution, when in fact there 
isn't any solution when, as you note, you're exporting (and burning) your 
minerals.

One can see that as natural gas prices increase there will be a push to 
utilize animal manures.  This should be a no-brainer, but unfortunately 
industry will look to scale this up.  Scaling up will likely mean that more 
animals will be raised and more forest land cleared for them.  And at some 
point there's going to be contention between land for the animals and land 
for agriculture.

It's really a shame that we're heading down the biofuels path, as this just 
perpetuates the inefficiency of long-distance food transport.  And I see it 
as a wicked trap to suck small food producers into the corporate web, where 
they'll fall prey to the big conglomerates (and loose their land).

Anyone want to speculate on how long it is before agribusiness and big-energy 
combine?  ADM and Exxon for example?  As we here are all to familiar with, 
food IS energy!

BTW - Wouldn't marginal land produce less energy dense biomass?  In order to 
make up for this lesser density more land would be required.  And marginal 
land isn't likely going to be nice flat or gently rolling land, which means 
that it'll be fairly difficult (read energy intensive) to cultivate.


Mark Nagel
Everett, WA


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From: 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