permaculture

[loren luyendyk <loren@sborganics.com>]

Nearly half of the world’s population owes its existence to food
 grown with industrial nitrogen fertilizer produced from natural gas. (1) 
In 2004, journalist Richard Manning published an intriguing, if somewhat 
controversial, article in Harpers magazine called The Oil We Eat: Tracing the 
food chain back to Iraq. Manning notes that growing our food under the usual 
practices requires about 10 calories of fossil fuel energy for every calorie 
of food energy.
  Preparing the soil to grow grains, especially corn and wheat, requires
 a lot of energy and maintenance to rip up the soil every year in order 
to exclude other plants and create a non-competitive environment for the
 seed to grow. In the case of no-till farming, energy is spent to make 
herbicides that, like the plow, block the natural process of ecological 
succession. 

full article:
http://blogs.agu.org/terracentral/2013/04/28/the-gas-we-eat/

Loren Luyendyk
(805)-452-8249
ISA Certified Arborist WE-7805A
www.sborganics.com
www.surferswithoutborders.org
www.globalpermaculture.com