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  • From: trevor william johnson <john2116@msu.edu>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Advice for a corn farmer vexed by bugs nesting in clover?
  • Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:59:54 -0400

I just got done reading the article and seems well grounded in the effects of moving from green revolution farming to natural techniques. I dont have experience in growing acres of a single crop but i have a grounding in systems.

Farming is contextual. To say the bugs are from the cover crop does not take the whole system into account. He is going from a monocrop system where he "usually does not use pesticides" to a bi-crop system. Adding an element to the system adds niches and this one opened up an opportunity to host a bug from the surrounding area. This points out a lack of knowledge of his area. I bet if he had not sprayed the system he would have observed a predator to that particular pest. The system is growing in complexity and the first guest to the party happens to be a party pooper. Problems are opportunities

I think this article is great for those looking from the permaculture perspective. This fella points out perfect systemic issues in growing food. He needs nitrogen. The suggestion in the article to mandate composting and delivering it to the farm is logistically insane as he points out. However he does not continue to question and look from the angle of "how can we make this work". He simply acknowledges the criticism and points out that he has been farming the same land for 80 years. How much top soil has he lost????!!!

His closing quote is perfect:
And everything I know and I have learned tells me this: we have to farm "industrially" to feed the world, and by using those "industrial" tools sensibly, we can accomplish that task and leave my grandchildren a prosperous and productive farm, while protecting the land, water, and air around us.

To transition from industrial agriculture to a local and regional movement will take deep systemic thought to deal with the issues that will present themselves to us. This fella is on the cutting edge of that without the observation skills to make the difference to his system. He is straddling the industrial mindset and dipping a toe into the regional mindset and experiencing a mental short circuit....as anyone would.

My advice: stop being so certain and be ok with questioning, doubt and bad results. They are all opportunities. We all want to make a living. What we make ourselves dependent on will cause our success or failure. If i was a betting man I would put my chips on green (natural systems) and not black (oil and other forms of ancient sunlight). CONTINUE TO QUESTION AND EXPERIMENT!

Trevor
Ferndale, MI

On Aug 12, 2009, at 3:36 PM, sean forde wrote:

In Blake Hurst's article, "The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the
Agri-intellectuals" he complains that planting clover to produce nitrogen
had an unwanted side effect - bugs - and that forced him to use an
insecticide. Does anyone have any real world experience to help him out?

Here is an excerpt from the article (
http://www.american.com/archive/2009/july/the-omnivore2019s- delusion-against-the-agri-intellectuals
)

"A few other problems come to mind. The last time I planted a cover crop,
the clover provided a perfect habitat in early spring for bugs, bugs that I
had to kill with an insecticide. We do not normally apply insecticides, but
we did that year. Of course, you can provide nitrogen with legumes by using
a longer crop rotation, growing clover one year and corn the next. But that
uses twice as much water to produce a corn crop, and takes twice as much
land to produce the same number of bushels. We are producing twice the food
we did in 1960 on less land, and commercial nitrogen is one of the main
reasons why. It may be that we decide we would rather spend land and water
than energy, but Pollan never mentions that we are faced with that choice."
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