Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

The article below seems to think that more money for research will save our 
pie. Only I have seen much of what came out of Teagasc (local agricultural 
research institute) in my time here as completely destructive. Farmers were 
pushed and pulled to uproot their well producing orchards because there was 
more money in gras. Then they started telling farmers to re-seed regularly. 
This consists of spraying with roundup, then plowing and harrowing after 
which the land is left fallow for most of the growing season before 
re-seeding. Should anything green germinate on these orange fields 
pre-maturely then the cycle is gone through twice. Cost of this operation 
almost $80 per acre, zero productivity for the year and higher disease in 
animals later. This is supposed to help?
John

> Dumbing down, yes, and the lack of imagination & inventiveness of today's 
> big farmers proves the point.
>
> One for the road:
> Why we really should care about boosting farm yields
> http://grist.org/food/why-we-really-should-care-about-boosting-farm-yields/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Daily%2520Sept%25202&utm_campaign=daily
>
>
> On 9/2/2014 2:29 PM, John D'hondt wrote:
> > I think it makes a lot of a difference what sort of farming we are 
> > talking about Paul. Industrial farming with mono culture does probably 
> > not take a rocket scientist to succeed (more or less for a while).
> > I find that an old fashioned family farm takes a lot more brains to 
> > survive. Imo it takes twice as much brain power to successfully work with 
> > horses than it would driving a tractor. Many aspects of "progress" have 
> > made a serious dumbing down possible.
> > John
> >
> > > Good point, experience is pretty handy when a new challenge hits. I have 
> > > frustrating times when everything forces me to find new workarounds. And 
> > > don't always succeed.
> > >
> > > And they think farmers are dumb until they try it themselves and fail 
> > > disastrously. It's not for college majors or something; it requires a 
> > > variety of specific skills learned by practice and perseverance. Texas 
> > > A&M never taught me how to grow food, nor my parents, tho grandpa 
> > > homesteaded in Colorado in a dugout. Later their garden & root cellar 
> > > got them thru the Depression.
> > >
> > > paul
> > >  2:02 PM, John D'hondt wrote:
>
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