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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Fertilizer use by crop in Brazil

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  • From: "Kathy Moore" <anichinimoore@hotmail.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Fertilizer use by crop in Brazil
  • Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 21:46:26 -0500

Animal maures can also be utilized to produce alternative energy or methane gas along with fiber for composting or land application for plant nutrients. Perhaps concentrated feeding operations also have this in mind as a means to confine manures so they won't have to transport them far for their alternative energy production operations? It would make their operations sustainable in a sense. Seriously, I think it is about monopolizing all food and energy production including manures.
Kathy Moore


From: Mark Nagel <activism98201@verizon.net>
Reply-To: activism98201@verizon.net,Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Fertilizer use by crop in Brazil
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 14:55:44 -0500 (CDT)

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


=====================
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

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