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  • From: David <david@h4c.org>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Growing Along Highway Margins
  • Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 15:46:31 -0700


Scott,

On 3/26/2010 2:56 PM, Scott Pittman wrote:
How about chicken tractors? Biofuels diminish the soil fertility as all
fertility is exported to make fuel, same with building materials. At least
with chickens you leave behind the manure to help replenish what is lost
through grazing.

Or ducks/geese, for that matter. However, I question your blanket statement that biofuels necessarily diminish soil fertility. Certainly it can often has, but it is by no means required to do so. Case in point somewhat to the south of Chris (in Corvallis), there is an organic farmer with 5,000 acres under cultivation who is using ag wastes to produce biogas, and returning the effluent to the land. He is covering all his electrical needs, and working on covering his fuel needs. Further, several studies have shown that, depending on the energy crop and the method of harvest, soil carbon can actually build, over the longer term. The breakover from exploitation to conservation tends to be between annual vs. perennial crops, but regardless, it is a matter of how the system is designed.

The same is true for growing building materials. Is there, in your view, no such thing as a sustainable forest from which wood is harvested?



d.
--
David William House
"The Complete Biogas Handbook" |www.completebiogas.com|
/Vahid Biogas/, an alternative energy consultancy |www.vahidbiogas.com

|
"Make no search for water. But find thirst,
And water from the very ground will burst."
(Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77)

http://bahai.us/




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