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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Livingontheland Digest, Vol 372, Issue 1

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Dan Conine <dconine@bertramwireless.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Livingontheland Digest, Vol 372, Issue 1
  • Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2012 20:07:43 -0600

Yup. Except I think we have become much too competitive about the "making a living" part of it in our society. The small farms that fed and built this country didn't go away because they were less efficient except in business terms. In physical reality terms, they cared for the land as though their lives depended on it (most of the time). Various opportunists and poor national policies made that harder and harder to do. Schools didn't help, with their emphasis on "anything but stuff that gets your hands dirty."

Meanwhile, these apprenticeships often include business training and the academic programs do also. Unfortunately, it ends up being like the inventions business: the dream of success overcomes sense and recordkeeping.

I think they should be recruiting from the nursing pools. First, find people who know how to keep records of what they've done. THEN train them to farm.

I also think we should bring back more experimental farms on a grand scale: employing military personnel so that when they go to other countries, they can see what really needs to be done to build a civilization.

Dan C.
Belgium, WI


On 11/6/2012 11:00 AM, livingontheland-request@lists.ibiblio.org wrote:
Message: 5
Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2012 21:40:01 -0700
From: "Tradingpost"<tradingpost@lobo.net>
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] (")OWL(") Cultivating New Farmers
To:livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org,
OWL-OldWaysLiving@yahoogroups.com
Message-ID:<201211052140010089.1145DA92@mail.lobo.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"


Have to find one problem with that but it's a biggie. They all help to learn farming
but they forgot to cover the "make a living" part of it. Trust me, that's the
hard part. I'm suspecting those who survive do it by relying on cheap labor from
volunteers, grants, or family members. Or they have family land paid off long ago. The
cost of good farmland puts farming out of reach for almost all aspiring farmers. No
healthcare or retirement benefits of course. My own goal is more realistic, to
supplement retirement with cost effective growing for great customers, on a small plot
that just came with the house. And millions of others can find this doable too.

paultradingpost@lobo.net





  • Re: [Livingontheland] Livingontheland Digest, Vol 372, Issue 1, Dan Conine, 11/06/2012

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