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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Growing sustainable models

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>
  • To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Growing sustainable models
  • Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:30:43 +0100


I'm focusing here on the part, "more profitable growing through less bought inputs, less need for water, fewer losses from pests and disease, and less vulnerability to fossil fuel problems now or in the future."

<There are a few extra difficulties in rural Ireland for organic producers. Immagine a grower selling an organic head of broccoli on the farmers market. Customer takes it home, cooks it and puts in on the family dinner table. One of the children notices a cooked caterpillar in the brocolli. The producer (of Dutch origin) got fined 14 thousand euros to compensate the Irish family for loss of apetite in an Irish court. Happens quite a lot.


I appreciate the detail you put into your account of growing in Ireland, and your production for the family is important. But how does the price of petrol figure into the cost of growing? Are you saying globalization of food undercuts local food producers?

<I think it is a given that globalisation undercuts local producers. In Ireland at the moment that is mostly beef inported from Brasil that is extensively produced way below what is possible locally. It used to be the same with lamb from New Zealand and Australia. We have to feed our animals for at least 5-6 months of the year when there is not enough gras growth due to climate. In the last year it are the dairy farmers that have seen milk prices drop and their profits evaporate. (because of rBSH in the US)
But farmers in India and Mexico have been suffering from American rice and corn exports for a long time.

As to the cost of fuel being important...if I make hay and get a contractor in, a bale of my own gras under the form of hay or silage will cost me something like $15-20. Bought in hay easily comes to $35 or more. That is because of fuel cost mainly. Other than that if I have to drive to a farmers market 30 miles away the cost of fuel makes making a profit nearly impossible. Let us say that driving a vehicle here costs around $2.000 on tax and insurance alone. Add fuel and repairs (and believe me with the state of the roads here there will be repairs) and transport becomes a major cost. Especially that the main markets for organic produce are Cork (70 miles) and Dublin (360 miles) away. There used to be a COOP of organic West Cork producers that went bust quite fast because the director drained the cash away to his own pocket and then started as a distributor of organic supplements and tools from the stocks of the bancrupt COOP that he snatched up at rockbottom prices. No more central distribution of organic produce combined with some big financial losses.




On to deeper questions, and trust me, I don't have all the answers. Are there ways to undercut the global imports or compete on quality, freshness, or to sell to a clientele that wants organic? Are there ways to cut growing costs enough by adopting certain crops and not others, by changing the scale of land cultivated downward, by avoiding animals, by growing intensively, or by doing without the cost of machinery, labor or bought inputs?

< I have no machinery of my own much. What needs big power we do with the horses. I do not pay for labor as such but we definitely get through a lot of food. Avoiding animals is out when you want to be self sufficient here since the plants that do best here have not enough protein or fatty acids. The most interesting crops can not be sold locally for there is no interest in them. Native Irish here have only discovered onions and tomatoes in the last twenty years if that. Also most of the organic producers (99%) are not native Irish but from mainland Europe (same as myself) which means that it is hard to sell in a xenophobic society except for the big cities.

As to inputs...This part of Ireland has been exporting food and fertility for 800 years without ever giving anything back. When we arrived here there was not a square yard of fertile or even just flat soil. We have for near 25 years been importing organic materials and we have had to build our soil from scratch. I have learned that when you export more than you import that you lose soil and vise versa.
Most of our imports consisted of free saw dust and wood shavings. And in the last five years or so we have imported huge amounts of free fish and shell fish waste. However we are now emerging out of a rosy period when the scavenger could get what he needed for free. (transport and labor of some free commodity is still expensive)

I have seen organic producers completely exhaust reasonable soil here in less than 5 years by avoiding inputs to keep cost down.
I think that in America in the grain fields soil destruction takes on average 20 years or so.
Of course plants consist mostly of just water and air (CO2) but a healthy plant needs some 40 different elements and any one of those can become a limiting factor if you sell stuff and not replace the lost minerals. You should really bring a cart of night soil back from the farmers market or eventually you will loose your fertility.

John





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