Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

So if we ask where we go from here, we need to focus on sustainable water
use in feeding ourselves. We know humus-rich soil from organic matter
decomposition is much more moisture-retentive and produces better food
crops with far less irrigation. We know mulching has its place in
conserving moisture and weed control. We know permanent bed/aisle systems
alone can cut the need for irrigation and mulch by at least 50% (Not to
mention, it doesn't water and fertilize weeds in the half that's
non-growing aisles). And none of this is new; none of this is rocket
science. Yet we can't expect corporate agribusiness to roll over and put
resource efficiency ahead of profits. Or expect any level of government to
develop intelligence. So to think outside the box, the alternative would be
for millions more to grow our own food and supply our local communities,
from small, sustainable, water conserving plots. 

Not so long ago I didn't know these things or didn't believe them. That was
then. We're near one of those "desert cities" mentioned below -
Albuquerque. This year in our new location we were able to cut irrigation
to one-fourth of previous gardens, simply with permanent, framed beds and
mulch and better amended soil. One overall weeding only, watering every
four or five days in rotation. In a first year garden, we simply couldn't
have started a fenced garden from scratch and in the same year got
continuous crops out of it for three months of twice-weekly markets
otherwise. And my thumb is no greener than anyone else's. We can conserve
the water we've got left. 

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 10/18/2007 at 7:30 AM Douglas  Willhite wrote:
Our Drinkable Water Supply Is Vanishing
By Tara Lohan, AlterNet. Posted October 11, 2007.
snip
>The biggest drain on our water sources is agriculture, which accounts for
>70 percent of the water used worldwide -- much of which is subsidized in
>the industrial world, providing little incentive for agribusiness to use
>conservation measures or less water-intensive crops.
>
>This number is also likely to increase as we struggle to feed a growing
>world. Population is expected to rise from 6 billion to 8 billion by 2050.
>
>Water scarcity is not just an issue of the developing world. "Twenty-one
>percent of irrigation in the United States is achieved by pumping
>groundwater at rates that exceed the water's ability to recharge," wrote
>water experts Tony Clarke of the Polaris Institute and Maude Barlow of the
>Council of Canadians in their landmark water book Blue Gold: The Fight to
>Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water.
>
>The Ogallala aquifer -- the largest in the North America and a major
>source for agriculture stretching from Texas to South Dakota -- is
>currently being pumped at a rate 14 times greater than it can be
>replenished, they wrote. And, across the country, "California's Department
>of Water Resources predicts that, by 2020, if more supplies are not found,
>the state will face a shortfall of fresh water nearly as great as the
>amount that all of its cities and towns together are consuming today," add
>Clarke and Barlow.
>
>Demand is outstripping supply from the rainy Seattle area to desert cities
>like Tucson and Albuquerque. And from Midwest farming regions to East
>Coast cities.
>
snip