Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

When we first bought our farm 30 years ago we heard the story that the original long term owner had in his last few years planted barley on 160 acres. He had bought a huge pile of bags to put the finished grain in after the combine had done it's job. He only got to use a very few bags and the vast majority remained unfilled.
The reason for that imo is that Ireland has exported food from this land for 800 years and the land just had not much left to give. It took me 30 years and a huge investment in time and money (even if almost all my imports were free for the hauling) to turn the tide.

Even with the best organic farming if you just sell and export and give not enough back you are destroying the bank that is the soil. And for 80 cents per pound... it still seems very cheap.

Chinese peasants farmed the same land for 4 thousand years. They brought produce to the marts in the cities and returned home in the evening with a load of night soil and the money they made on their crops. And long term this is the only way imo.
John

On 08/07/15 22:10, herb farmer wrote:

559D91C7.1040805@lobo.net" type="cite">
thoughts on this?

---> Buying the Farm - making sustainability profitable
https://orionmagazine.org/article/buying-the-farm/

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