Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Think you've got a point there. Which might explain why people from those
$800 permaculture seminars don't grow anything themselves. Nothing in
school or college taught me any do-it- yourself skills. Not even high
school FFA, which is never about food gardening. 

I doubt we'll get many farmers to convert to organic, intensive no-till,
and I really doubt we'll get many overeducated non-farmers to either. 

Yet I've read the typical farmer's return on investment today is about 2%.
You get a better return on a savings account. The way they farm we have at
best 50 years of topsoil left, and less for irrigation water. Going broke
and destroying what's left of productive soil. Technology can't make more
soil and water. But organic, intensive no-till effectively reverses the
damages and makes it profitable to stay on the farm. But it's probably too
late. I don't know how to tell my kids and grandkids. 

paul tradingpost@lobo.net
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 2/3/2007 at 3:31 PM Laurie Ann Powell wrote:

>My guess, Paul, is that the real misconception is the Western idea that
>behavior can be "taught" or "learned" from books, tapes, seminars or
>phone calls, and then acted on.
>
>Modeling, live-in apprenticeships, and daily life are the only ways that
>"work" for any skill that requires applying knowledge in a physical way.
>
>Which is why we live among a generation of people who only know how to
>teach or learn - but not know how to DO anything they teach or learn. 12
>years of public education prepares you to be a teacher, student,
>factory worker or a couch potato. Not a farmer. Farming with a farmer
>teaches you to be a farmer.
>
>So, it's not that I don't want to do no-till or send out my soil sample
>or remediate my pasture. But only what I learned living at Carrie's
>house and doing her chores with her seems to really get done at my
>house! 
>
>Laurie Ann
>
>
>
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