Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Aliza" <realfood@wonderfulfarm.com>]

LOL - or if they would eat it it would be over cooked and mushy - no offence 
to any uk members - I too noticed the incorrect comments about having to use 
grains or other concentrates to produce lamb.  My pastures are not that 
great but my girls make me nearly two nice lambs a piece each year on 
pasture only.  I have about a 180% lamb crop annually without pushing the 
ewes.  They do get hay in the winter (third trimester and or/nursing ewes) 
but other then that they do it all on the grass with suitable free choice 
minerals.  the trick is to use the right sheep.  Currently I raise cormo and 
cormo crosses (fine wool and meat dual purpose) but I have my eye on a flock 
of tamarack sheep because they do it even better.    I know a woman who 
raises dairy sheep for cheese on grass only.  She is averaging 3 1/2 pounds 
a day of 23%milk and her lactation lengths are like 240 days.  If you know 
anything about dairy sheep that is amazing on grass.

Aliza


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2007 8:18 PM
Subject: [Livingontheland] Food That Travels Well


> I located the entire article. It's flawed. What it does is compare total
> energy input using low inputs + long food miles to high inputs + short 
> food
> miles.
>
> "University scientists expanded their equations to include other
> energy-consuming aspects of production - what economists call "factor
> inputs
> and externalities" - like water use, harvesting techniques, fertilizer
> outlays, renewable energy applications, means of transportation (and the
> kind of fuel used), the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed during
> photosynthesis, disposal of packaging, storage procedures and dozens of
> other cultivation inputs."
>
> What sustainability people advocate is wholesale change from the high 
> input
> agriculture described in that report. We advocate low water growing,
> returning organic material to the soil instead of expensive fossil fuel
> inputs, and of course
> local consumption where feasible. Of course food miles alone isn't the big
> picture. But those comparisons don't justify flying lamb from New Zealand
> to England - under any circumstances. And I don't know of any law to make
> the British eat lamb anyway.
>
> paul tradingpost@lobo.net
> ------------------------