Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Here are some of many sources that illustrate what I'm saying.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net
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"In 2003, Four Season Farm grossed $100,000 on just an acre and a half of
ground, including 12,500 sq ft under cover. Now both in their sixties,
every year Coleman and Damrosch reevaluate "each crop's profit and pain
factor," as Damrosch puts it. As a rule of thumb, they say each crop has to
return $1.50/sq ft for two months to be worth growing." - (about Eliot
Coleman,
http://www.georgiaorganics.org/Files/Archives/GOnewsWinter05Web.pdf )

"Biointensive techniques can make possible a 200-500% increase in caloric
production per unit of area, a major increase in soil fertility while
productivity increases and resource use decreases, a 50+% reduction in the
amount of purchased organic fertilizer, a 99% reduction in the amount of
energy and a 67-88% reduction in the amount of water required per unit of
production, and a 100+% increase in income per unit of area."
http://biointensiveforrussia.igc.org/docs/695companion.pdf

"The premise of this book is that you can make a good living on five acres
or less of intensive vegetable production. .. if five acres is all you can
afford, it  is more than sufficient for an economically successful farm."
(Eliot Coleman in The New Organic Grower p.17)

"It takes about 15,000 to 30,000 square feet of land to feed one person the
average U.S. diet," he says. "I've figured out how to get it down to 4,000
square feet. How? I focus on growing soil, not crops."  John Jeavons
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/04/
13/HO126062.DTL

"Economically, conventional agriculture in the US produces on the average
up to $100 per sixteenth of an acre; the net return on a $500,000
investment on the average 500-acre farm is about $12,000, or a little over
2  percent. We are depleting our agricultural economic base and indirectly
our farming community base. Biointensive economic mini-farming, in
contrast, can produce up to $20,000 on a sixteenth of an acre through
increased yields, decreased resource use, and direct marketing." -- John
Jeavons, http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_3659.cfm

"John's methods are nothing short of miraculous" -- Alice Waters, from the
forward in How To Grow More Vegetables, Jeavons. And from Bob Bergland,
former Secretary of Agriculture, quoted in the same book, "The Jeavons
approach has done more to solve poverty and misery than anything else we've
done".

"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." p.viii Building soils for better crops, 2nd edition, Fred
Magdoff and Harold van Es p.121
http://www.sare.org/publications/bsbc/bsbc.pdf

F.H.King (in Farmers of Forty Centuries) reported intercropping of “two
rows of maize, kaoliang or millet alternated with soy beans” and
commented on the nitrogen fixing ability of the soy (ch. XVI), and that
rice crops were followed by red clover (ch. XII). He reports the
“planting of cotton in wheat fields before the wheat is quite ready to
harvest … without plowing … the growing of multiple crops is the rule.
Sometimes as many as three crops occupy the same field in recurrent rows,
but of different dates of planting and in different stages of
maturity”(ch. XI).

"The world's croplands are in decline due to the pressure of human
activities... The first global survey of soil degradation was carried out
by the United nations in 1988-91. This survey, known as GLASOD - for Global
Survey of Human-Induced Soil Degradation, has shown significant problems in
virtually all parts of the world. .. The loss of arable land has been
caused by a number of factors, many or most of which are tied to human
development. On the global basis, the soil degradation is caused primarily
by overgrazing (35%), agricultural activities (28%), deforestation (30%),
overexplotation of land to produce fuelwood (7%), and industrialization
(4%). In North America, agriculture has been responsible for 66% of the
soil loss, while in Africa, overgrazing is responsible for about half of
the soil degradation. ..No continent is free from the problem. Areas of
serious concern include zones where up to 75% of the topsoil has been lost
already. The central portion of the United States is an area of particular
local concern. The practices of large scale mechanized monoculture has
contributed to the decline in soil in the mid-west."
Land Degradation
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/land_deg/la
nd_deg.html

"Sustainable farming systems must be ecologically sound, economically
viable, and socially responsible.  All three are essential; more of one
cannot offset a lack of either of the other two.  The three dimensions of
sustainability are not a part of some formal or legal definition, but
instead, are a matter of common sense.  If the land loses its ability to
produce, the farm is not sustainable.  If the farmer goes broke, the farm
is not sustainable.  And if a system of farming fails to support society,
it will not be supported by society, and thus, is not sustainable.  The
economic, ecological, and social dimensions of sustainability are like the
three dimensions of a box.  All are necessary.  A box that is lacking in
height, width, or length, quite simply is not a box.  A farming system that
is lacking in ecological integrity, economic viability, or social
responsibility, quite simply is not sustainable."
John Ikerd, The Family Farm on the Cutting Edge
 http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd/papers/YakimaFamilyFarms.html

"The highest priority for American agriculture should be on reducing the
fossil energy dependence of food production. Our current food system,
including food processing and distribution, claims about 17% of total U.S.
fossil energy use, with about one-third of this total used at the farm
level.[9] In fact, we use about ten kcals of fossil energy for every kcal
of food energy produced, not counting the energy use in final food
preparation. This means that even at the farm level, American agriculture
uses about three kcals of fossil energy for every kcal of food energy
produced. In a world of rising population and dwindling fossil energy, the
first priority of agriculture should be producing more food with less
fossil energy. ... Many conventional farmers have considered sustainable
agriculture to be a niche market, okay for a few small, “fringe
farmers” but not for “mainstream agriculture.” Today, however,
sustainable agriculture, by its various names, is showing signs of becoming
the new agricultural mainstream. Organic foods first brought widespread
attention to sustainable agriculture when organic food sales grew by more
than 20% per year throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. In spite of this
rapid growth, organic foods still only account for about 2-3% of total food
sales. However, the potential market for sustainable/local foods now
appears to be far larger."
John Ikerd, Agriculture After Fossil Energy
http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd/papers/Iowa-FmUnion-Energy.htm

"Population will increase rapidly, more rapidly than in former times, and
'ere long the most valuable of all arts will be the art of deriving a
comfortable subsistence from the smallest area of soil." -- Abraham Lincoln
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