Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Some "wow" points all  the way through there, and  I like that last line. 

You said
Some are lucky enough to have outside income to support the 'best'
practices, some are lucky to have customers who appreciate the best
practices (Organic Markets, CSA's, etc.).

What we know is most farm families today need outside income  to support
"worst" practices - the typical large-scale, machine row cropping and
tilling that's degrading our land. And "best" practices give the highest
yields in less area and reduce costs and labor to finish with the highest
profit margins per pound sold. 

It's hard to shake the mindset, the idea that growing organically is more
work and has to be priced higher to make a living on it. Not if "best"
practices are used to full advantage to lower labor and input costs. 

No-till, permanent mulched beds can yield anywhere from four to eight times
as much from a given land area. A lot of land costs a lot of money.
Equipment to work the soil every year costs a lot of money. Row cropping
wastes space and grows a lot of weeds. We don't need all that nonsense.
Permanent beds concentrate amendments and water where the plants grow, not
in the aisles you walk on. Intensive planting means twice the plants you
have in row cropping, and with mulch it shades the soil better and
suppresses weeds. With permanent mulch beds and simple season extension
techniques, it's also practical to double or triple crop, pushing up total
yields even further. You feed the soil and it feeds you. You work less and
produce much, much more. 

But the bottom line is the real surprise:  these "best" practices lower
your input costs and labor (count your labor as a cost) while multiplying
total production, so you get a higher profit per pound sold. SO, consider
this: if your profit margin goes from 10% to 90%, you only need one-tenth
the production to make the same amount of gross profit. Or it may be 5% to
50%, depending on your own situation. Do the math yourself. YMMV. First
year of soil and bed work is the hump to get over; after that it's gravy,
no-till, no cultivate, less irrigating. Some weeding, yes, and added mulch
or compost, and so forth. Eliot Coleman is just one living example of how
to make good money growing sustainably on an acre and a half. He grossed
$100,000 in 2003, albeit in a good market.

I keep saying you can go broke on a thousand acres or make a good living on
five or ten. With the cost of land what it is, and the rising cost of
fossil fuel inputs and machinery and labor, nobody's going into farming
large-scale anymore. Nobody. Industrial agribusiness is dying of bloat and
indigestion. The new farmers are small scale, sustainable, and profitable.

This is the real revolution, and nobody can stop it or exploit it. 

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 3/17/2007 at 9:51 AM Dan Conine wrote:

>Bob C. said:
>> It is not one way, you must listen 
>>  and be more than a bit humble. Nature will then reveal herself and you
>will be in awe, astounded even. If earth chooses you to be a steward of
>her treasures you are the receiver of a great richness of the fabric of
>life. Bob C
>Thanks, very well said.
>
>My family also has several generations of farmers on land, but Grandpa's
>land was subdivided, even though it was some of the richest land
>available, due to greed in my father's siblings.
>I am trying to start a new legacy on land that was abused in the Earl
>Butz fashion, and it is obvious that this land was exploited for the
>corn/soybean rotation. We have lived here 10 years, and it is still
>referred to as "The Old "soandso" Place". SoandSo didn't care for this
>land. When they couldn't pull a plow through the clay hills anymore,
>they tiled the swamps and farmed those. When the swamps had too many
>weeds, they sprayed atrazine and killed the stream. Once the stream was
>dead, they moved it to accomodate the drain tiles better and 'straighten
>out' the fencelines. The first time they tried to sell, they couldn't
>because of fuel contamination that had to be cleaned up. By the time we
>found it, the last 120 acres had been split into parcels. The local town
>thought that there was too much land being subdivided before that, and
>passed a law that houses couldn't be built on less than 35 acres.
>Instead of slowing the rate of farmland loss, it accelerated. People
>from Chicago, Milwaukee, and points unknown decided that they could all
>afford a $400,000 drywall shanty on 40 acres, yet they won't pay more
>for a tomato next door than they pay for a pink waterball in the
>supermarket--yet.
>There are two places where appreciation for good farming take place:
>inside the cities, where they know they are dependent on the outside,
>and on the New Farms(large and small). In between are the Suburbs and
>the farms that support Suburbia as the American Dream. Some of those
>farms are lucky, and they have several FEET of dark topsoil which
>continues to produce, almost regardless of how it is abused. Some farms
>are big, yet they do their best to till the soil with care, others are
>small and abuse it. There are some 'best' practices, but there are also
>'good', 'bad', and 'horrible' practices. Some are lucky enough to have
>outside income to support the 'best' practices, some are lucky to have
>customers who appreciate the best practices (Organic Markets, CSA's,
etc.).
>I'm not the best by any means. I hope that I can simply add more to the
>land than I take away from it.
>Criticism is one of my favorite tools, but I think everyone on this list
>is trying to establish a practice of Net Creativity with their land.
>I think also, that people who are still connected to commercial
>agriculture through family or directly, need to understand that the
>future of farming lies in educating the worst practicing farmers to
>either change or minimize their impact on the commons. We aren't trying
>to get legislation passed, or grant money. We are simply looking at the
>land we own, and the land around us, and pointing to things that are
>wrong and saying "that can't continue without affecting my land's
>future". There are places in the Midwest where monocropping and
>overproduction have gone on for a hundred years or more, but that
>doesn't mean it is possible for it to continue without declining.
>There are small organic farms that are dependent upon plastic mulch,
>plastic housing, or heated greenhouses in order to maintain profits in a
>petroleum-oriented society. This also can't continue unless new energy
>sources are developed.
>The current systems and population levels are dependent upon ignorance
>of their true dependencies. Nobody is going to publicly announce a
>population reduction or "lifestyle" reduction as resources run out. The
>powerful will simply take advantage of the profit "opportunities" as
>things fall apart; starting companies to build gas chambers, investing
>in burial systems and decontamination equipment, getting laws passed
>against free speech, building prisons and detention centers.
>The Revolution will not be televised; it will be exploited.
>
>Dan
>
>
>
>
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