Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Couldn't have said it better. As for the conspiracy part, it amazes me when
people go on about the bad guys buying up and hiding the 100mpg carburetors
and all the other energy devices that allegedly threaten Big Oil. How do
they figure the entire world is in on it? China, Russia, Brazil -
everybody's in on the same conspiracy? 

Agree conservation would save more than ethanol could contribute, and it
doesn't cost my tax dollars to support ConAgra and ADM growing corn. 

>Living on the Land (the list and the act) is important because at least 
>some people have to live outside the shielded box of television 
>propaganda and commercial profit addictions. 

Bingo. Anyone not read the book or seen the film "Affluenza"? 

>determine not the university-optimized amount of food which can be grown 
>on an acre, but the amount that will be grown by less than optimal 
>conditions, with less than optimal training and less than optimal 
>equipment. In other words, what kind of native living can be 
>reestablished without current infrastructures? 

I have less than optimal conditions, in spades. My degree is not in
agriculture (not that it would help). And my equipment shed holds a
wheelbarrow and shovel, etc. Infrastructure? Farmers markets around this
area are artsy-craftsy and not a whole lot else. Yet down in Catron County
last year we were able to provide regular customers with some of the best
produce they've ever had. I made mistakes too, but came away convinced you
can grow far more and better in limited space than most people would dream
of. And if I can do it anybody can. 

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 7/14/2006 at 1:33 PM Dan Conine wrote:

>Hello, my name is Dan, and I'm a conspiracy nut....
>My years of work with technology, research into physics, and general 
>feel for the technical environment has yielded several ways of looking 
>at the needs/wants of humanity when it comes to sustainability. The 
>first is that there really is a vast black conspiracy with men in suits 
>and everything who take promising technology and squirrel it away from 
>prying eyes in order to protect us from our own abilities. There are 
>holes in the quantum/relativity paradigm and "here there be 
>monsters"-leaving this thread to other lists...
>The ethanol vs. petroleum debate is simply one of shoveling a lot of 
>manure around without taking real action. The amount of energy to be had 
>from ethanol can easily be saved through simple conservation methods and 
>a few regulation changes. Development of ethanol production should be 
>focused on small scale production for local use, whether for on-farm or 
>in-town utilization, not on supporting the status quo of transportation. 
>Transportation should be focused on hybrid drives and electric chassis 
>systems (fuel cell or battery) because that is the future of technology, 
>regardless of the fuel.
>Living on the Land (the list and the act) is important because at least 
>some people have to live outside the shielded box of television 
>propaganda and commercial profit addictions. When the next economic 
>collapse comes, there won't be a cow in the shed to milk and feed all 
>the hobos: only an empty gas tank on an ATV. Most of the current farm 
>economy is based on the high volume, processed stuff and the meat 
>industry. These are both highly dependent on centralization, cheap fuel, 
>and ignorant consumers.
>Another key point to frugality and land-based culture is that we have to 
>determine not the university-optimized amount of food which can be grown 
>on an acre, but the amount that will be grown by less than optimal 
>conditions, with less than optimal training and less than optimal 
>equipment. In other words, what kind of native living can be 
>reestablished without current infrastructures? From there, we have to 
>decide on what population levels we can sustain as a species, rather 
>than starting with any assumptions about 'servicing' the behemoth we 
>have wrought.
>I applaud all of you, all of your arguments, and mostly, all of your 
>hard work.
>
>Dan Conine
>Belgium,WI
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