Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Industrial farming is sometimes defined as the conversion of oil into food. 
And it can be seriously inefficient because oil is still very cheap. Often 
10 or a hundred or more energy units of oil are needed to produce one energy 
unit of food. (a one calorie drink takes about 200 energy units to produce) 
And this is counting only from the time the oil is refined and ready for 
use.
Biggest disadvantage is that when crude oil prices go over $ 150 per barrel 
this agriculture comes to a screeching standstill unless food prices can go 
through the roof.
John

> 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.
>
>
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