Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

THIS is that call then, you nailed it. Millions of folks on food stamps 
(whatever they call it now) here have room & ability to produce some of 
their own food. In my local area most everyone has an acre or more. I 
heard the food pantry used to toss fresh greens when no one wanted that, 
but now they take it all.

On the plus (?) side for us, they are warning of rising produce prices 
due to the extreme drought in California's central valley. Right here 
we've been in extreme to exceptional (worst rating) for 3-4 years at 
least. They don't even sell raincoats & umbrellas around here. At least 
our water is safe; it's a closed fossil aquifer, no recharge or exit. 
But all the farmers' well irrigation goes for corn, alfalfa, pinto 
beans. Over the mountains they're always in court fighting about who 
gets the contaminated/declining Rio Grande & Pecos water. The famous 
Hatch chile festival down south has been cut way back; the big lake is a 
mud hole. I don't grow it myself, can't compete with migrant labor, & 
every China-Mart has a chile roaster going outside.

There I've spent too much lunch time on this reply, need to be back out 
transplanting if the wind dies down.


On 3/26/2014 10:47 AM, Dan Conine wrote:
> We (humans) have spent the last 100 years replacing the value of 
> people on the land with petroleum-based products.
> Now that the petroleum is getting expensive and people are crying for 
> jobs, there still isn't much call to put people back to work on behalf 
> of their own future (and the future of the land itself).
>
> No profit in that until there isn't anything else.
>
> Dan C.
> Belgium, WI
>
> On 3/26/2014 11:00 AM, livingontheland-request@lists.ibiblio.org wrote:
> > Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 20:55:09 -0600
> > From: tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net>
> > To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> > Subject: [Livingontheland] Why industrial farming may be the most
> >     INefficient farming method
> > Message-ID: <5332418D.4050606@lobo.net>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> >
> >
> > Why industrial farming may be the most INefficient farming method
> >
> > Reading this good article
> > http://www.cornucopia.org/2012/10/only-organics-can-feed-the-hungry-world-heres-why/ 
> >
> > something bothered me. I've thought it over for a very long time, but
> > just now it hit me.
> >
> > They always stress how modern farming allows one man to farm hundreds of
> > acres. This is completely false.
> >
> > That claim simply ignores all the workers who manufacture all the kinds
> > of farm machinery needed, who produce the raw materials that go into the
> > machinery, who sell or transport machinery or build the facilities for
> > their manufacture - a very long supply chain. It ignores the source of
> > fossil fuels that power the monster tractors and other equipment., or
> > that's used in the manufacture, or that goes into manufacturing the
> > fertilizer and pesticides used in ever greater amounts. From drilling to
> > refining to storing and transporting, hundreds more workers are involved
> > with the energy required. None of the practices of industrial farming
> > can take place without first the work of many hundreds of others.
> >
> > I can buy some seeds and hand tools and gather some organic amendments,
> > take water from a household well, and with my work alone supply three
> > farmers markets a week for six-eight months, all from part of the acre I
> > live on. Millions of other people are better able to do that than I.
> > When all the work and costs are compared this seems pretty efficient 
> > to me.
> >
> > paul, on a line between extreme and exceptional drought areas.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Livingontheland mailing list
> > Livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/livingontheland
> >
> >
> > End of Livingontheland Digest, Vol 434, Issue 3
> > ***********************************************
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Livingontheland mailing list
> Livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/livingontheland