permaculture

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

Well yes, agriculture is sometimes defined as the conversion of oil into 
food through the agency of land. And as long as oil is cheap what with all 
environmental costs being externalized and companies like Monsanto making 
sure that there is no way back to more environmentally sound systems that is 
likely to stay for a while. Until oil gets more expensive or until we become 
extinct whichever comes first.
Permaculture is our only hope really. I have never used artificial nitrogen- 
there are some 8 metric tons of nitrogen gas pressing down on every square 
meter of surface on the planet and with a little bit of good management 
there are plenty of soil organisms that can convert more than enough of this 
into plant useful food. Feed those organisms and you have all the nitrogen 
you could possibly want for free. Put out expensive artificial stuff and you 
kill them off. Simple to solve I would think.
John



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




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