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permaculture - [permaculture] Broadminded thinking?

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  • From: Mark <mpludwig@facstaff.wisc.edu>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] Broadminded thinking?
  • Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 12:40:59 -0600



I always thought in permaculture people would have a broader view.


--
Thilo Pfennig
http://www.alternativ.net/edv/

_

This has come up a few times in the recent past for me. Myself and another PC savy fellow got talking about agriculture and he stated that round up ready (glyphosphate herbicide tolerant) soybeans seemed to him to be the most sustainable method going for this crop. I have to say I agree with him, having grown the crop organically and made 2-3 times the trips across the fields to get the same yields. In another context I pointed out to one of our new PC group members who had posited organic farming as the only acceptable alternative in PC that this was too narrow. Organic fertilizer made from ground up ocean fishes and kelp may be far less "sustainable" than industrial by product based materials in our area (midwest USA). Furthermore spraying to kill turf to convert it to a garden yields less erosion, preserves soil structure better and burns far less fuel. It is essential to get passed our biases and look as clear eyed as possible at all system and be prepared to push past ideologies to really design sustainable system, or at least move toward the least harmful alternatives.


Mark P. Ludwig
Poultry Research Lab
University of Wisconsin -Madison
608-262-1730 WK
608-846-7125 HM





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