Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Ken Hargesheimer <minifarms2@yahoo.com>]

Excellant writing.  Ken Hargesheimer

Harvey Ussery <boxwood@nelsoncable.com> 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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