Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

Thank you. The reason I stress small market operations is millions of people 
have a little land they could be using to cut their food bill and/or making a 
good extra income doing something really worthwhile and healthy.

The reason I stress profitable growing is because millions of people are 
losing it in this economy. You and I are lucky not to be among them. Yet. 
Most people need to be very concerned about what they get for the time they 
put into home growing. Too many have three or more jobs in the household 
trying to pay for gas and/or heating oil and/or utilities and/or 
prescriptions and/or rent or mortgage and groceries, and can't afford to 
waste time on the garden.

People generally think growing is too much work for too little reward, and 
until people see good examples of profitable operations they won't even 
consider getting into the action. No farming is sustainable if it can't 
sustain the farmer first. If organic growers can't make good money, they 
won't be growing organically or any other way. Farm families have been losing 
their land or selling out by the millions over the last decades. And I 
believe the centralization of corporate agribusiness is a stupid ripoff and 
ecological suicide. Small is Beautiful.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 7/7/2008 at 2:08 PM l kelly wrote:

>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