Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[l kelly <elkel@hotmail.com>]

Paul,

I wish to thank you for your information-rich posts, and all the time and effort you put into the living on the land list.

I'm glad you are concerned about market growers receiving generous payment for their efforts, as you are so right that many more folks need to begin growing food, and earning a living must come with that choice.  

I vend my garden surplus at a local farmer's market.  I understand that many of the crops I grow are not profitable, and I do not make much money per hour for my efforts.   I don't need to make much money, though, as the small plot of land is paid for, the irrigation is rain-catchment, and my transport is an elaborate bicycle trailer contraption (that turns into a market table complete with umbrella).  Even my property taxes are just pennies a year. 

Your responses to the black-eye pea grower give me pause. 

I guess i'm concerned that you over-emphasize small market gardens with only the "high profit" products. 

As you know, many folks across the nation are successfully, sustainably growing field crops.  I myself eat sustainably-grown food, and what I don't grow I buy through a food club.  Most of what I buy is grown here in the Midwestern or Southern United States in field production in the same low-impact, moderate yield methods of my grandparents generation.  In fact, many still use draft animals, and grow cover crops.  Haven't the Amish farmed fields sustainably for generations?  Profit does not motivate me, but quality of life--including food security-- certainly does.

I encourage all field farmers transitioning to less chemical-dependent methods to keep growing.  I need your product.  America needs your products.

Thanks again, Paul, for your work to keep this list alive and well.

Laura

Fayetteville, Arkansas

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