Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Good, IMHO. If animals were limited to those areas unsuited to growing
field crops, we'd eliminate the monster feedlots, and the huge grain
production and freshwater waste needed to support them. And we'd still have
sufficient meat in our diets. And we know today that heavy grain diets make
unhealthy animals and encourage e.coli.  There are questions about the need
for so much grain production for human consumption also, relating to
omega-6 versus omega-3 fatty acids. Pollan touches on this. Grains store
and travel well so they make efficient foods for global shipping. But we
have other good calorie (and vitamin) whole food sources like potatoes,
squashes, beans, and other kinds in many countries. Indigenous populations,
mostly in the southern hemisphere, fed themselves very well without our
modern grain farms before colonial conquests turned them into plantations
for northern palates. And could do so again if left alone. A last point:
most of the grains we get end up with the life - the nutritious endosperm -
processed out. White flour - the ultimate industrial diet. And the
undertakers' profit. 

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 1/26/2008 at 12:47 PM Harvey Ussery wrote:

>>
>> 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)
>
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