Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Harvey Ussery <boxwood@nelsoncable.com>]

> Many ppl can live on a macrobiotic diet which consists
> mosty of grain.  ~su do [Love your handle--gotta be a Linux gal/guy, right?]

I appreciate the concern for wise agricultural resource use that lies 
behind, this statement, su do. Frances Moore Lappe got us all thinking 
along these lines with DIET FOR A SMALL PLANET--"ten pounds of grain for 
one pound of flesh" and all that. But Lappe wasn't a farmer, and was 
completely blind to some fundamental facts of resource use. There are 
real-world situations in which eschewing meat as "wasteful" and growing 
for a diet "which consists mostly of grain" either ignores potential 
resources or is a disaster in practice. Examples:
*You have a sloped field you want to produce food on. Plow it to grow 
those oh-so-efficient grains to feed people, and it will erode 
disastrously. OTOH, you can plant fruit trees on that slope, and graze 
sheep on the mixed-pasture groundcover. Oh, and let's throw in some 
geese--both they and the sheep are grazers, but select different plant 
species by preference, hence more efficiently utilize the resource.
*You have an existing forest. The "efficient grains" point of view 
dictates cutting it down and plowing. But getting rid of forest has 
*serious* cascading consequences. Maybe smarter to turn in pigs and 
turkeys to forage and fatten on the abundant acorns, leaving in place a 
diverse and valuable ecology? (Which can also be used to grow medicinal 
and culinary herbs, edible and medicinal mushrooms, nuts and berries, on 
and on.)
*You have areas in shrubby growth. You can plow them all--to grow 
grains--and destroy habitat for countless species essential for 
ecological balance. [This is not hypothetical fancy--I'm simply talking 
about "conventional" agriculture here.] Or you can leave that habitat in 
place, and browse goats there. As long as you don't over-browse, you 
keep ecological diversity in being while using the space as a 
food-producing resource (milk and meat).

I could multiply examples all day, if it would help change the 
persistent mantra that grain production is *always* more "efficient," 
less "wasteful." Wise land use always fits the production model to the 
existing ground/climate/other conditions--never the reverse.

~Harvey

--
Harvey in northern Va
www.themodernhomestead.us

"Can't you see those dark clouds gathering up ahead?
They're gonna wash this planet clean, like the Bible said.
Now you can hold on steady, try to get ready,
But everybody's gonna get wet--
Don't think it won't happen just because it hasn't happened yet!"  (Jackson 
Browne)