Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["E. E. Mitchamore Jr" <emitch@att.net>]

EXCELLENT POINT.  This is an "Attaboy" for you.  For some reason it's hard for Americans to think that way.  Sometimes very low cost (cash, labor, effect on environment), can justify a lower yield.

 

E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
www.hillcountrynatives.biz

----- Original Message -----

From: TradingPostPaul

To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2007 12:23 AM

Subject: [Livingontheland] Yield vs output/ was nutrition

Reply to Ken's post.
Looking at # 8. Manage crops for highest profit per acre;  not the highest
yield per acre.

We've been bamboozled by industrial agribusiness over the word "yield".
Total output is what counts, and total profit which is gross minus
expenses.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net
------------------

This is from http://www.keepmainefree.org/myth3.html

THE MYTH:
Industrial agriculture is efficient.
THE TRUTH:
Small farms produce more agricultural output per unit area than large
farms. Moreover, larger, less diverse farms require far more mechanical and
chemical inputs. These ever increasing inputs are devastating to the
environment and make these farms far less efficient than smaller, more
sustainable farms.

Output Versus Yield

Agribusiness and economists alike tend to use "yield" measurements when
calculating the productivity of farms. Yield can be defined as the
production per unit of a single crop. For example, a corn farm will be
judged by how many metric tons of corn are produced per acre. More often
than not, the highest yield of a single crop like corn can be best achieved
by planting it alone on an industrial scale in the fields of corporate
farms. These large "monocultures" have become endemic to modern
agriculture for the simple reason that they are the easiest to manage with
heavy machinery and intensive chemical use. It is the single-crop yields of
these farms that are used as the basis for the "bigger is better" myth,
and it is true that the highest yield of a single crop is often achieved
through industrial monocultures.

Smaller farms rarely can compete with this "monoculture" single-crop
yield. They tend to plant crop mixtures, a method known as
"intercropping." Additionally, where single-crop monocultures have
empty "weed" spaces, small farms use these spaces for crop planting.
They are also more likely to rotate or combine crops and livestock, with
the resulting manure performing the important function of replenishing soil
fertility. These small-scale integrated farms produce far more per unit
area than large farms. Though the yield per unit area of one crop - corn,
for example - may be lower, the total output per unit area for small
farms, often composed of more than a dozen crops and numerous animal
products, is virtually always higher than that of larger farms.

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 3/10/2007 at 6:36 PM Ken Hargesheimer wrote:



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