Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

I agree with this article except that it is possible to build soil faster. I 
built two feet of soil in 26 years but of course I imported huge amounts of 
organic materials from other places that saw this material as a waste.
And you can degrade and erode much faster than you can possibly build it. I 
remember an article in National Geographic long ago that showed foto's of 
land eroded some 3 meters deep caused by wheat cultivation for 20 years. 
There were cabins and poles on pilars of soil 3 meters above ground level. 
The soil pilars had never been plowed.
In Spain I saw vineyards you had to climb down to with a ladder all 
surrounded with neat stone walls that were still at the original level.
The phenomenon is not new. Whole civilizations have disappeared in the 
distant past because of soil erosion caused by agriculture. Even thousands 
of years later most of these places are still desert.
John

> I'm sure you're familiar with Soil Assn. John
>
> British farmer, Helen Browning, on peak soil: unless we act now the very
> ground beneath us will die.
> http://forkedmagazine.org/2013/11/08/peak-soil-unless-we-act-now-the-very-ground-beneath-us-will-wither-and-die/
>
>
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