Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

        OK folks, time for a hard look at what's happening with "real" farms 
- the
guys that followed Earl Butz advice of “Get Big or Get Out”, U.S.
Secretary of Agriculture during the 1970’s. It's beyond argument;
industrial agribusiness is destroying the land, water, and fossil fuels -
and our children's generation will reap the whirlwind. The irony is, small
or micro farms can feed the world sustainably, with intelligent methods,
without fossil fuels, without depleting the land and water - and without
government subsidy or approval. That's what I'm all about.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net
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- American farmers, on average, receive only about 20 cents of each food
dollar spent. The remainder goes toward the expenses of processing, packing
and distribution. Farmers who sell food direct to local customers, on the
other hand, receive the full value for their product cutting out the costs
to middlemen.
Eating Local: A Matter of Integrity. John Ikerd

- "While the “bigger is better” myth is generally accepted, it is a
fallacy. Numerous reports have found that smaller farms are actually more
efficient than larger “industrial” farms. These studies demonstrate
that when farms get larger, the costs of production per unit often
increase, because larger acreage requires more expensive machinery and more
chemicals to protect crops."
from http://www.keepmainefree.org/myth3.html

- "The negative impacts of mono-crop, chemically intensive agriculture are
topsoil loss and soil erosion, aquifer depletion, pollution, loss of
genetic diversity and the overall breakdown of ecological systems. There
are deeper social issues connected with hunger and poverty. .. The
foundation of sustainability addresses concerns that go above and beyond
the term “Organic”. .."By nature, sustainable agriculture is generally
smaller in scale. From an economic standpoint sustainable agriculture works
to provide viable business pathways for small-mid sized farmers. The goal
is to create a decentralized, self-sufficient, local/regional food system
that empowers farmers and strengthens community."
http://www.communitymarkets.biz/questions.php

- Profits and concentration of power has shifted to fewer and larger
industrial farms where, 8% of the farm population accounts for 72% of the
sales. That same 8% receives the most money in federal agriculture
subsidies.
World Watch Report, Home Grown: The Case for Local Food in a Global Market.
Brian Halweil. 2002

- Between 1987 and 1992 America lost an average of 32,500 farms per year,
80% were family run farms. Seventy years ago there were nearly 7 million
American Farmers. Today there are only 2 million. Less than one million of
those farmers claim farming as their primary occupation. The remaining half
rely on a secondary income.
Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture. Edited by Andrew
Kimbrell.

- Because overpumping to satisfying growing food demand virtually
guarantees a future drop in food production when aquifers are depleted,
many countries are in essence creating a “food bubble economy”-one in
which food production is artificially inflated by the unsustainable mining
of groundwater.
http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Seg/PB2ch03_ss6.htm

- Linking Land Quality, Agricultural Productivity, and Food Security
http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aer823/aer823b.pdf

- With an estimated 36 percent of the world's cropland now losing topsoil
at a rate that is undermining its productivity, our food security is also
at risk if this trend continues.50 As pressures to expand food production
have climbed, farmers have been forced into marginal areas, plowing land
that is too dry or too steeply sloping to sustain cultivation. At some
point probably within the last century, the long-term accumulation of
topsoil was reversed as erosion losses surpassed new soil formation,
leading to a gradual depletion of this basic natural capital.
http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Eco/EEch3_ss5.htm

- topsoil loss in countries
http://www.earth-policy.org/search/search.php

- Based on the estimate that 0.5 ha per capita is necessary for an adequate
and diverse food supply, it would be possible to sustain a global
population of approximately 3 billion humans. However, arable land is being
degraded and lost at a rate of more than 12 million ha per year (Pimentel
et al., 1995; Pimentel et al., 1997c). At this rate of loss, in just 42
years there will be sufficient arable land for a population of only 2
billion. It is critical to adopt soil and water conservation techniques to
protect the soil resources that currently produce more than 99% of the
world’s food (Pimentel et al., 1995; Pimentel et al., 1997c).
http://www.oilcrash.com/articles/limit.htm

- Topsoil, transportation, energy, water costs
1/3 of US topsoil is gone. 90% of US farmland is losing topsoil 17 times
faster than new topsoil is being formed
Hidden Infrastructure Costs
• Transportation Costs - Hidden taxpayer subsidies in support of highway,
rail and port systems (average dinner travels 1300 miles from farm to
table)
• Energy Costs - US food industry consumes 10% - 15% of all energy:
mostly for packaging, processing, and distribution
• Water Costs - 75% to 80% of water is used for agriculture. Drinking and
Ag water management costing a fortune
http://www.ecotrust.org/foodfarms/SustainableFoodSystems.pdf

- Beginning in the 20th century, the energy of human and animal labor and
wastes has been replaced with the use of fossil fuels and mechanization.
Today nearly half the energy consumed in the United States goes into our
agricultural system.
http://www.smartcommunities.ncat.org/rural/agriculture.shtml

- "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)

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 3/16/2007 at 1:20 PM Bobby G wrote:

>...well, the reason i value this list so much and i
>keep the digests in a resource folder is because i
>think this list is about "real" farming.
snip