Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[herb farmer <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

Right, no disagreement there. I do want to connect some more dots tho. Of course I'm talking about the extreme overconsumption of beef in the U.S., and  CAFOs, commercial feedlots, not free range or grazing. Small family farms can grow what they want without being a problem. In a nutshell:

Hard facts.
We have global scarcity of unpolluted & accessible freshwater, and it's getting worse fast.
We don't have enough cropland to feed the world at current rates with current methods.

So consider:
2/3 of all agricultural land is devoted to growing feed for livestock, only 8 % to grow food for direct human consumption.
AND it takes ten times the water to produce beef as to produce wheat.

We're not even looking  here at the health, environmental, energy and climate disasters of industrial farming.

Conclusion: The numbers tell us if we produced only a small fraction of the vast feedlots for beef, saving most land from grain & forage, then we'd have enough cropland to grow far more food for people directly, and feed far bigger populations, and we'd have the water to do it with.


"2/3 of all agricultural land is devoted to growing feed for livestock, only 8 % to grow food for direct human consumption"
 https://woods.stanford.edu/environmental-venture-projects/consequences-increased-global-meat-consumption-global-environment

"it takes about 5300 liters of water to grow and process a dollar’s worth of grain"
in Agriculture Consumes 92% of Freshwater Used Globally - US Leads Per Capita Consumption
http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-agriculture/agriculture-consumes-92-all-freshwater-used-globally-and-us-leads-capita-consumption.html

Infographics Water shortages resulting from food production

http://sputniknews.com/infographics/20130322/180181240/Water-shortages-resulting-from-food-production.html

-------------------

On 12/8/2014 2:02 PM, John D'hondt wrote:

548611F4.2010002@eircom.net" type="cite">We have had a disagreement about this before Paul but I think I have seen where the difficulty is. I may have to do with the first article you sent on today with which I completely agree.

The name of the TED speaker explaining how grazers are essential for the sustainability of an environment and the growing and thriving of natural vegetation slips my mind right now but I completely agree with the man. I doubt very much that a cow on grass with enough space to roam is polluting. Made an attempt this summer to determine what lived in and on a cow pat and I found a minimum of 15 species of beetle,3 different worms and 3 different diptera. A cow pat is not waste but an ecosystem! Birds, frogs and newts know where to get their next meal here.

Of course that is not the way modern meat farming is done. A few years ago we got saddled with the nitrate directive here that forces a farmer to collect all the waste from animals in "slurry" pits where a lot of nutrients are off gassed and where a toxic, evil smelling brew is made. I think that this year about a dozen people found their death in Ireland by "falling" into a slurry tank and "drowning". I think it is highly likely that people can loose consciousness by just coming too close to an open tank and then drop in. After all, some of the released gasses were used in WW1 to wipe out large numbers of soldiers.

I think the real reason farmers were forced to go this way was to get rid of the small ones and to aim for more industrial farming. After all, a cow bedded down on fresh straw in a stable can be kept clean with a 4 pronged fork and a wheelbarrow. In a modern, officially approved cow stable the cows are restricted in movement and excrement is removed with a ram scraper full automatically. Quite a few new born calves have ended up in slurry tanks thanks to these automatic scrapers.

Then there are particular periods of the year that a farmer has to empty his slurry tanks and for that big machines are necessary. Normally a farmer here aims to get the slurry out just before rain because in a dry period the evil liquid will blacken and kill all the grass and most soil dwellers. This ensures maximum run off into water ways. Of course many slurry tanks have a hidden and illegal overflow pipe that ends straight in the nearest stream as well.

Once again the bureaucrats in government ensure maximal pollution and green house gas production by their stupid regulations and this is the real problem. Not meat as such but meat industrially produced is most definitely a problem for the environment apart from the fact that it is probably rather unhealthy to eat. Free range animals have a beneficial omega 3-6 ratio and they are not full of E. coli H17 that is lethal for a consumer to name but two things.

John

On 08/12/14 15:00, herb farmer wrote:

 Thanks to meat, farming emissions set for 80% rise
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/2653583/thanks_to_meat_farming_emissions_set_for_80_rise.html

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