Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Ryan Albinger" <ryalbinger@earthlink.net>]

No one tool can turn any situation around.  It is a system.  Whether it is
compost, compost tea, rock powders, mined minerals, animal manures, cover
crops, or whatever that is used it does little, if anything, alone by
itself.  Animal manure alone doesn't do anything.  Rock powders don't do
anything alone.  When they are put together in the field or compost pile
with a correct microbial and mineral system, they can do great things.
Compost tea can make things better when used as part of the system.  It can
put biology, nutrients, and other compounds into the system.  But for
compost tea, it must be remembered that the microbial systems form a
Synergy with nutrients to feed the plants.  The microbes eat first!  The
microbes put nutrients in plant available form to be delivered on an as
needed basis.  Compost tea can offer a simple method to deliver a nutrient
package.  So can compost.  So can worm castings.  So can a good cover crop.
Each have their advantages and uses.  Some offer a much higher return on
investment.
Why would anyone spend their whole life in huge fields of single file
tractor rows over growing humus rich permanent beds?  I find that question
interesting.  Per unit of production, broadacre crops are more effective at
harvesting solar energy per unit energy expended.  A lot is produced on a
small amount of material input.  Secondly, America no longer has the
infrastructure to facilitate local food.  Suburbia is not conducive to it. 
Labor costs are too high unless imported labor is used.  Too few people
have an inclination or will to grow food- it is easier and cheaper to swipe
the credit card at the grocery store.  Lastly, if every farmer would reduce
themselves to a 1/2 acre lot, America would reduce it's population to the
ten's of thousands.  Many of things done on a small scale are completely
impractical to do at a scale large enough to support a non-agrarian
economy.  It is very unwise to extrapolate small gardening with acreage
farming.  Broadacre farming is the means to make the American economy
function at a point that her people may move away from agricultural life
and market and build an economic powerhouse of technology, financial
production, and continual growth.  Not that I like the removal from the
land, but that is fact.  Well, the answer to your question is this: Because
it has to be.  Should houses be planted on the assumed unused, unneeded
land?
Why would anyone .... spend their whole life to get a 2% of return on
investment and work for 10 cents an hour?  Yeah, why would they?  Well, I
shouldn't speak so fast I only make $0.00 per hour!  BUT when I take my
year earnings and divide by hours worked, I see big double digit earnings
so I don't work for free.   And if ROI were below inflation, it won't last
long.  You need to remember also that return on equity is far more
important than return on assets.  Leveraging with good debt vastly improves
earnings ratios.  Not for the faint of heart, but puts up the numbers. 
Farming ain't simple and it ain't easy, but competent people do it everyday.
Ryan


> [Original Message]
> From: TradingPostPaul <tradingpost@riseup.net>
>
> Of course that was a small scale experiment. But if you can grow five
times
> as much on humus-rich soil in permanent beds on 1/2 acre and clear a good
> profit, then why would anyone stay stuck in huge fields of single file
> tractor rows, spending their whole life in debt to the banks to get a 2%
> return on capital investment and working for 10 cents an hour? I just
don't
> see how compost tea or any other one technique alone can turn around the
> disastrous paradigm in modern agribusiness. 
>
> paul, tradingpost@riseup.net