permaculture

[Hugh Lovel <uai@alltel.net>]

Lawrence London writes:
>
>I get tired of hearing complaints about kudzu, Johnson grass, pigweed,
>morning glory (bindweed?) and other wonderful plants.
>So much of the public has been brainwashed into believing that these
>are generally bad, useless and a nuisance, when the opposite is true.
>Many have neither the interest or imagination to envision a world
>where these plants are respected and used in a multitude of ways. I
>have an old ag textbook, in fact several of them, that describe the
>culture and management of kudzu for animal feed,
>i.e. a standard, often used forage crop. If it were taken seriously
>for its value as an economic plant then management of it would also be
>taken seriously, i.e. not letting it become invasive. That is an
>interesting challenge for farmers. Of course the state of present day
>agriculture precludes this mostly because of the dominance of larger
>conventional farms and the pricing structure of farm products.
>Lawrence F. London, Jr.


This is ever so right-on Lawrence!

For example, travel where you will you NEVER see a pasture with animals in
it that has kudzu. Why? Because it is easily grazed to death and is the
very best of animal feed. If we managed it rightly, of course, we would
turn the animals in and graze it down a bit and then take them off again
for a spell so we didn't kill it. Everything from cows to rabbits loves it
and gets fat and shiny from eating it. It is one of the most beneficial
plants for the soil as where it grows for any length of time the soil
becomes rich, dark and crumbly. If the many, many acres in parks, roadsides
and waste/wild lands presently overrun in Kudzu were fences and grazed
instead of herbicided we would take a major step toward environmental
repair  in the world.

Johnson grass, water hyacinth, bamboo and many other despised plants should
be looked at in the same fashion. You are so right! So right! And also so
right on the current institutional arrangements being in the way of these
beneficial things happening. This is why I ran as the Green Party candidate
for Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture in 1998 and is why a vote for
either Gore or Bush in the latest election was a wasted vote.

Warm regards,

Hugh Lovel
Union Agricultural Institute
Blairsville, Georgia