permaculture

[Marimike6@cs.com]

Keith,   

You ask "Can you direct us to the data about soil degradation due to palm and 
coconut production? thanks, "

A quick search of "oil palm soil" gives us this overview:

http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/ANTHRO/rwpark/WNB/SKeu%20Review%20of%20previous%20stu
dies.htm

Oil palm seems to be a nutrient-hungry crop, leaching soil nutrients quickly 
and requiring large quantities of fertilizer for sustained yield. But the 
more 
damning factor seems to be its lucrative nature. Large monocrop plantations 
have replaced the old village way of life in many tropical areas, and 
intensive 
cultivation of oil palm, coconut, cocoa, sugar cane and other cash crops have 
replaced every other use of the land. 

I don't know where this leaves you. By the same token you should stop eating 
anything with sugar in it, chocolate, bananas or rice. Large factory farms 
are 
a hallmark of our age. And like most other monoculture operations, the oil 
palm industry relies heavily on synthetic additives like herbicides and 
pesticides.

As we creak and groan from our present 6-1/3 billion to the estimated nine 
billion of us that will be living here by 2040 or so, and as the third world 
reaches precariously for first-world developement models, I quite expect to 
see 
more, not less, of this kind of development. As plantations are burned out by 
destructive and short-sighted methods, they will be abandoned and the 
remaining 
forests cleared to find the last patches of viable soil  beneath them. 

That's the way we've always done it and that's how we're likely to continue. 
Because the intelligence may be gathered by agronomists and soil scientists, 
but the decisions are made by the heads of large profit-seeking companies. 
And 
because it is they who decide how the nations are governed, they decide what 
laws are to be enforced.

But I could be wrong. Let's hope and watch. Or if you want to do something 
more dynamic, let's not just change our recipes so we don't buy their 
product. 
Their bottom line would notice not even a blip if every sustainable ag and 
organic family on earth decided to boycott palm oil. One would need to find a 
better way to gain their attention. IMO.