Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

I'm familiar with the writing from Heinberg, Ruppert, Savinar, Kunstler, and 
several others on the subject but there are differences of opinion among them 
all and frankly it's confusing. As someone said, predicting the future is 
hard because it hasn't happened yet ...  Heinberg said we need fifty million 
farmers. No, we need more farmers but we need fifty million people growing 
for their own use at home. That's more practical and doable, and affordable. 
More like the early 20th century - remember that one? But I hope we've 
learned something about sustainable growing since Dust Bowl days. Plowing up 
the prairie? Bad idea.  SEE attachment 
http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/128_migm.html

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 6/4/2010 at 12:32 AM Tommy Tolson wrote:

>There are several studies (please don't ask me to produce them, but I
>recall reading about them) that say organic growing outproduces
>industrial farming at all scales, within five years, and, since organic
>tends the soil so it's better each year, it's really a no-brainer, isn't
>it?  The only thing that's propping up industrial farming is their
>political power through the Farm Bureau, etc, and it appears that
>Monsanto has busted any profit the big boys may have made at one time
>with exports for which they no longer make enough of a crop using GM
>seeds.  When they stop getting paid by the federal government to crash
>the human food production system, they will be gone, and organics will
>be all there is.  Richard Heinberg says a whole lot of people will
>become farmers, because it will take a lot of people to produce enough
>crops to feed everyone by the organic method, when oil gets up to
>$200/barrel and stays there, as it will, maybe sooner than we think.
>Michael Ruppert says by the end of this summer, and others are saying
>the same thing.
>
>Since we took so long to start listening to Richard, I suspect we will
>have a human die-off of some magnitude as we ramp up transition efforts
>so we can choose humane methods to bring our population out of
>overshoot, but, if we're a bit lucky, it will be a relatively low
>magnitude, and we'll have built the resilience to withstand the shock.
>It will be a shock, even though science has been warning about climate
>change for 100 years or so.  Some still can't/won't hear it.
>
>So it's going to have to bite us harder to get our attention off the
>Koch brothers' propaganda campaign and onto saving our butts from fossil
>fuel addiction, as Dubya named it.  The good news is that cultural
>resilience requires full human development so that we are each fit to
>respond appropriately to ecological changes resulting from foolishly
>ruining our stable climate system.  Organically tending the land is a
>critical element of the solution system, certainly, but the complete
>solution system is a functioning ecological culture in the US and I hope
>we keep our eyes on that prize from here on out.
>
>The oil business's Three Mile Island is occurring out in the Gulf of
>Mexico right now.  When those pictures of oil covered critters start
>showing up on TV screens, oil's regulated out of profitability.  We must
>transition off fossil fuels now, ASAP.  Even Obama said so the other day.
>
>As Edward R. Murrow famously said, good night and good luck.
>
>Smiles.
>Tommy
>
>
>On 6/3/10 10:42 PM, Tradingpost wrote:
>> 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
>>

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