Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

We've seen framing beds and railroad ties cussed and dis-cussed. Building
permanent beds, whether raised or just wide rows, and the soil in them is
the first part of our Intensive, No-till, Organic survey. This is a fairly
comprehensive article though I can't endorse everything in it.

Building Soils for Better Crops, 2nd Edition
from http://www.sare.org/publications/soils.htm
Online PDF at http://www.sare.org/publications/bsbc/bsbc.pdf


Farmers are also in a perpetual struggle to maintain a decent standard of
living. As consolidations and other changes occur in the agriculture input,
food processing, and marketing sectors, the farmer’s bargaining position
weakens. The high cost of purchased inputs and the low prices of many
agricultural commodities, such as wheat, corn, cotton, and milk, have
caught farmers in a cost-price squeeze that makes it hard to run a
profitable farm.

Are low nutrient status, poor water-holding capacity, soil compaction,
susceptibility to erosion, and disease, nematode, or insect damage really
individual and unrelated problems? Perhaps they are better viewed as only
symptoms of a deeper, underlying problem.

What many people think are individual problems may just be symptoms of a
degraded, poor quality soil. These symptoms are usually directly related to
depletion of soil organic matter, lack of a thriving and diverse population
of soil organisms, and compaction caused by use of heavy field equipment.
Farmers have been encouraged to react to individual symptoms instead of
focusing their attention on general soil health  management. A new approach
is needed to help develop farming practices that take advantage of the
inherent strengths of natural systems.
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paul tradingpost@lobo.net

All over the country [some soils are] worn out, depleted, exhausted, almost
dead. But here is comfort: These soils possess possibilities and may be
restored to high productive power, provided you do a few simple things.
—C.W. BURKETT, 1907