Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Kate Spinner <kespinner@gmail.com>]

Just like we need to find an alternative to fossil fuels, we need to  
find an alternative to phosphate. Extracting it is horrifically  
destructive. If anyone needs proof of that, visit the Peace River in  
Southwest Florida where phosphate mining has severely changed the  
watershed's natural hydrology. The river no longer flows its full  
length for several months out of the year.

On Jun 4, 2010, at 4:38 PM, Tradingpost wrote:

> When the price of oil rises, as demand outsrips supply, agriculture  
> will
> likewise become more expensive. This will make staple foods cost more
> throughout the world, possibly sparking food riots, and increasing the
> level of tension over resources such as water.
>
> It’s wrong to look at depletion of any one resource in the absence of
> others, because they all play together – at the most basic, a rise  
> in the
> price of oil will push demand for natural gas, for instance. In  
> addition,
> many writers are independently plotting declines of resources that  
> fit a
> similar timeline, coming together over the coming decade or so. For
> instance, an April 2010 Foreign Policy article, Peak phosphorus,  
> stated
> that demand for this mineral – which is subject to the Hubbert bell  
> curve
> model of decline – is already outstripping production enough to raise
> prices. Phosphate fertilizer prices rose 350 per cent between 2003 and
> 2008, they claim. If this is not addressed we could face “a Malthusian
> trap of widespread famine on a scale that we have not yet  
> experienced.”
>
> http://peakgeneration.blogspot.com/2010/06/government-investigates-resource.html
>
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