Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Feeding the growing population, in my view, is not so much about organic 
versus chemical, but about the systems using each approach. I haven't seen 
this point made anywhere. Organic is mainly small farm, family run and 
locally consumed with little waste. Industrial or chemical farming is mainly 
corporate megafarms today. And much is wasted before it ever gets to the 
store due to natural variations in size or appearance. And much of the store 
produce has to end up in the dumpster unsold. Question: which is more 
efficient use of land and resources? And which would feed more people?

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 6/3/2010 at 9:49 PM Tommy Tolson wrote:

>I'm not certain that "organic" and "agriculture" go together.
>Agriculture is part of the main reason we've lost so much topsoil.
>Agriculture is domination of the land by humans lacking the foresight to
>care for the land.  I suggest that what we do when we grow organically
>is called "horticulture." It's the last human food production system
>that was sustainable, as far as I can tell.  How much of the present
>human population it will feed is, as far as I can tell, unknown.
>
>The UN isn't talking about choice, though, it seems to me.  There is no
>way the US model of meat-eating can continue, and the dairy industry
>isn't a lot cleaner, so vegan lifestyles are a survival device, rather
>than a choice, until we get our species out of population overshoot
>(Earth without cheap oil supports perhaps two billion humans, Richard
>Heinberg says) and recalibrate from there.
>
>Smiles.
>Tommy
>
>On 6/3/10 4:29 PM, Ken Hargesheimer wrote:
>>
>>     The vegetarian myth is disproved. It is often stated that meat
>>     produces one-fourth to one-tenth the food that using that same
>>     land for a vegetarian diet would produce. That is not the whole
>>     picture. Animals who transform one-fourth of their food into meat
>>     transform three-quarters of their food into manures (high value
>>     fertilizer if properly managed and used) which is transformed into
>>     humus which is transformed into crops for both livestock and
>>     people. Organic agriculture recycles everything and transforms
>>     inert minerals, air, water and sunshine into increased biota
>>     through feeding the microherd a full diet including animal wastes.
>>     There is more life created into existence out of the dead
>>     planetary chemistry than vegetarians are able to account for with
>>     their tired false myth. [Lion Kuntz]
>>
>>     Much of the land in many countries is suitable only for pasture
>>     which can be used only to produce meat
>>
>>
>>
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