Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

from
Diversity is Key to Sustainable Farming, So Why's It So Damn Hard?
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 05. 6.11
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/05/diversity-key-sustainable-farming.php

To take a specific example, often when I've seen permaculture enthusiasts 
make plans for sustainable, working commercial farms using the permaculture 
model, they focus on the idea of developing as broad a range of crops and 
income streams as possible in an effort to build resilience. But, it seems to 
me (as a non-farmer, it must be said!) that unless we view this effort 
through the lens of complexity as well as diversity, we run the risk of 
spreading ourselves too thinly and coming away with nothing.

The fact is that a commercial farm will need to not just grow a broad range 
of crops, but to find a way to harvest, process, and eventually get those 
crops to market (a decidedly linear process). From an economic standpoint, 
unless you can establish a useful relationship between your crop and a 
potential market, your diversity of crops only leads to a harder system to 
manage without contributing to the resilience of your overall system. 
(There's a reason conventional farmers like crops that all ripen at the same 
time.)