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  • From: "Jill Bussiere" <jdt AT itol.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Latest tirade against organics
  • Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 14:38:53 -0500

I think some of the difficulty in feeding the entire world will be in those
places where there is drought and erosion - we will need to reforest and
make healthy many places that are not now sustainable. This will be a
challenge given the current state of the world.

Jill Bussiere, Wisconsin

-----Original Message-----
From: market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of
Tradingpost
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2005 2:34 PM
To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Latest tirade against organics



I'm in west central NM a couple hours from you probably. As to that
question of Jeavons:

>What is exciting about a personal approach is that it seeks
>to answer the question: 'How do we enable ourselves to take care of our
>own needs?'

Jeavons and all the others have good ideas and practices, but my answer is
for most of history ordinary people knew quite well how to take care of
their own needs, food, shelter, and so forth. We don't have to reinvent the
wheel when we can rediscover Old Ways and adapt to our needs today. Try our
list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OWL-OldWaysLiving .

Jeavons used a lot of outside inputs and lots of help, and it still took
him quite some time to build healthy soil. He drew on the French market
gardeners, and there's undeniably a long history of indigenous techniques
we know little of today. We can do even better, and should. Compost,
minerals, microbes, and the unseen forces do the real work. All we do is
cooperate.

paul, tradingpost AT gilanet.com
http://medicinehill.net

The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all
our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to
foster its renewal is our only hope.
- Wendell Berry

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 10/19/2005 at 12:03 PM Matt Cheselka wrote:

>Exactly, Paul!
>
>I just got John Jeavons' book and wow am I psyched! Here's a quote that
>is relevant to this discussion:
>
>"Generally, the challenges of world hunger, soil depletion, and
>diminishing resources seem so overwhelming that we tend to look for big
>solutions, such as massive grain shipments, breeding high-yield miracle
>crops, or establishing infrastructures ... These solution create long-term
>dependency. What is exciting about a personal approach is that it seeks
>to answer the question: 'How do we enable ourselves to take care of our
>own needs?'"
>
>I really do think that the solution to most of our current "problems"
>(social, political, medical, etc.) is to grow small gardens or mini-farms
>and distribute what's produced to people within a small (I'm aiming for 30
>miles) radius. This is what I mean by "feeding the world". Not that I,
>personally, am going to feed people in Mongolia, but rather local farmers
>in Mongolia will do it using the same basic farming practices that I'm
>using.
>
>People with full bellies of delicious, healthy food are going to feel
>better about life in general and probably be nicer to others. Of course
>we'll always have the "kooks", but that's what would keep life interesting
>for the rest of us, eh?
>
>Jeavons speaks to the idea of importing manure and other inputs from
>outside the farm. His basic argument against this (hopefully I'm saying
>this right -- I only go his book yesterday and haven't put it down since!)
>is that the manure HAD to come from the soil at some other location. So
>there's still a net depletion of soil overall.
>
>Ok, enough hot air for one day. Back to playin' in the dirt!
>
>Matt Cheselka
>Cosmic Lettuce
>
>P.S. Paul -- you mentioned you're in the southwest. Where exactly are
>you? I'm in southeast Arizona.
>


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