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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Groundwater Depletion Raises Likelihood of GlobalFood Crises

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Groundwater Depletion Raises Likelihood of GlobalFood Crises
  • Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2010 02:33:04 -0700 (PDT)

Hi John,

I guess lack of water is one problem you don’t have in Ireland. Rather the
opposite? In arid regions, like in the South of Portugal, everything depends
on water. At least the government tries to regulate; we have to register
every deep well with a pump of 5 PS or more. Still the groundwater level
keeps on falling and people have to drill deeper to get to any water. Many
of the old wells with a depth of 15 to 20 meters have run dry. During a dry
summer, even some deep wells of 100 meter run dry.

I have a deep well for emergencies, but in the last 10 years I haven’t pumped
one liter, even though I have a solar pump that costs nothing to operate. In
the summer, I limit my growing area to what I can irrigate with the surface
water I collect in a number of water catchments. By improving soil water
retention properties with OM, selecting the right crops for the right soil
and the right timing, and numerous other tricks, I have reduced irrigation by
more than 80 %. That is, I use the same amount of water I had ten years ago
to irrigate an area about five times the size. Over the years, I found ways
of using every liter of water as effectively as possible and retain soil
humidity by every trick in the book. Sometimes I ask myself why I bother
when I see the giant irrigators of half a mile in length they use in the
commercial farms along the coast to spew out day and night millions of liters
of water subsidized by public money.

Dieter


--- On Thu, 9/30/10, John D'hondt <dhondt@eircom.net> wrote:
> It is one of the most basic and fundamental issues Paul but
> what do you want to do about it? ...







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