Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

And good to meet you again too Dieter. I could not agree more. At the moment 
the Amazon is burning more to grow tofu than cattle.
And yes it is all about scale and intensity. Industrial farming will destroy 
soil and fertility on the best soil in on average twenty years whatever the 
end product they are producing.
Old fashioned and varied, mixed agriculture in old China went on for more 
than four thousand years on the same land and ended up with better fertility 
than it started with.
john

> Hi John,
>
> Good to hear from you again!  What you say about Ireland applies to the 
> South of Portugal and most arid or semi-arid regions of the World too. 
> Much of the land is too poor to sustain farming, it can however be used as 
> grazing land for goats and sheep.  The goat and sheep manure is 
> traditionally used to feed the land that can be used for farming.  Without 
> that manure the soil has to be fed by synthetic fertilizers.
>
> I think Tommy doesn't understand the difference between traditional 
> farming and conventional or industrial farming.  Traditional farming has 
> increased and maintained soil fertility in many parts of the World for 
> numerous centuries; while industrial farming has destroyed this same soil 
> fertility within a few short decades only, among other things to produce 
> grains for vegetarians.
>
> The problem is not the feedstock in farming; the problem is the way 
> industrial farming works.  Industrial farming is destructive no matter 
> whether it is used for producing meat, vegetables or grains.  Vegans like 
> to point to the methane gas produced by cows, conveniently forgetting all 
> about the methane gas produced by paddy culture of rice, for example.
>
> Dieter Brand
> Portugal
>
>
> --- On Fri, 6/4/10, John D'hondt <dhondt@eircom.net> wrote:
> Sorry to say that where I live in Ireland it is impossible to be a vegan 
> or even a vegetarian and self sufficient both. What grows best here is 
> grass. There are traditional ways to keep farm animals without being cruel 
> or dirty and I can see no other way as long as we are desperately failing 
> to grow climate adapted nut and fruit trees. (we have been working on it 
> for close to 25 years and we probably need another 100 years to succeed)
> john
>
>
>
>
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