permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>]

fdnokes@hotmail.com wrote:
> Thanks, Lawrence, and yet I had some second thoughts.
> I've never been a fan of fertilizer, 

You need to be a big fan of natural pulverized/powdered rock phosphate 
ore, i.e. Idaho Black Rock Phosphate or the types that come form N.C. 
(black) Florida (white) or Tennessee (yellow). This is the single best 
way to get phosphate on your garden, market farm or broadacre farm.
Yoy can get phosphate in lesser amounts from other sources, plants that 
deep mine it and microbes that extract it from rock and soil particles 
and make it available to plants, feathers and bone meal, shells,
quarried rock dusts and other sources. You do not need to apply it as 
often or in the same quantity as you would nitrogen amendments but it is 
essential in adequate amounts to healthy plant growth, N _P_ & K = 
micronutrients.

and the permaculture movement is
> largely about supporting nature to create good soil,

Human intervention is required, often, if you are involved in medium to 
large scale production to feed a community or for income; less often if 
you are growing homestead food gardens and can recycle everything in 
sight, use cover crops, feed livestock and recycle their manure for 
NP&K; you have have less need of off-site inputs.

 but it does make sense
> to acknowledge that the current infrastructure that is responsible for 
> feeding the millions does rely on phosphorous.

Nearly all the phosphate ore that is mined is turned in phosphoric acid 
for industrial uses and to add to soft drinks and for however the 
monsanto types use it.

The lower analysis phosphate ore is made available to the farming and 
gardening community through wholesale and retail outlets and as 
value-added products like blended organic fertilizers. The best 
phosphate, Carolina Black is no longer available as a raw pulverized ore 
to the farming community. A Canadian company owns that mine.

> I feel so concerned about what is happening in this co-opted phase of the 
> environmentalist movement.
> I've completely lost faith in Canada's Green Party leader, having listened 
> (to what I could tolerate) of her speech in the debates (Munk Debates).
> Happy to have discovered Bjorn and hear the tone he set...
> Interesting how he cautioned against superlatives and queried the need for 
> the use, just before MonBiot rose to start off his speech with a 'preemptive 
> superlative'.
>
> I am heartened to see people like Bjorn,  (Canadian) constitutional lawyer, 
> Shawn Buckley, stand up and speak in dulcet tones of the need to maintain 
> our rights and our freedoms and our common sense...

Sounds like you have some good people up there in Canada; too bad about 
the Greens.