Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Fair question actually. My answer is, if everybody around started recycling 
their horse manure and spoiled hay for food production, then we'll be closer 
to local food security without me selling to them. But more, my guess is we 
have more available plant matter to compost than we can ever use. We're not 
limited to the waste produced in our own fields or gardens.

About leaching, some sandy soils require lots of time and amending to stop 
it. Level of organic matter has a lot to do with soil holding moisture - 
which reduces leaching. With moisture and organic matter the microbes build 
fertility. And we know the healthy fungal thread and crumb structure resists 
leaching. Mineral salts like commercial fertilizers leach like mad.

As resources deplete and their prices rise, the high tech agriculture and 
global trade will fail when the rising cost curve meets the falling curve of 
ability to pay. Several countries already have passed that tipping point and 
one sixth of global population now goes hungry. Dieoff has been picking up 
speed for some years now. It's not gloom and doom; it's present reality.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 9/24/2010 at 6:45 AM pbunch@cox.net wrote:

>On one level I am thinking out loud about our local conditions. On
>another I am trying to understand the implications of our methods for
>long-term global sustainability. I don't mean to sound argumentative in a
>negative way.
>
>Clearly importing nutrients from neighbors is a mid-term solution but what
>will the situation be if everyone in a given area is recycling the
>nutrients present in their systems? I suspect they will not give them up
>at a reasonable price. While good soil structure and a healthy flora and
>fauna provide optimal condition for local nutrient cycling, nutrients are
>inevitably lost to leaching and where produce is sold they are exported
>from the farm with the vegetables and other products. Sustainability is a
>long-term project and things like potassium and easily leached trace
>minerals may become limiting factors. Calcium also can be a problem in
>high rainfall areas. The natural geochemical cycles are the ultimate
>constraints on what we can do. Mass is conserved.
>
>Eventually, and perhaps sooner than later the throughput  via the human
>population has to be addressed. I doubt if 6 billion people, with 9
>billion in the near future, can be supported even with the best methods.
>
>
>---- Tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net> wrote:
>>
>> Intensive gardens can also be the cash crops, as it is with us. Since we
>don't have fields we import free amendments and mulch for intensive. In
>both cases nearby farmers have excess to get rid of and it gets recycled.
>The sources don't have to be esp fertile. Fertility - the crumb sructure
>and biologicals - is built up in the beds.
>>
>> paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>>
>>
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