permaculture

[Jay Woods <woodsjaya@gmail.com>]

The closest I've ever gotten to closing the loop is to use a rotating pattern 
of permaculture where the composting and working of the ground for high 
intensity crops is rotated through low intensity tree gardening. My current 
cycle takes 75 years and requires that part of the house be moved every year. 

On Monday, December 30, 2013 10:17:52 AM Toby Hemenway wrote:
> On Dec 30, 2013, at 9:43 AM, Pete Gasper, Gasper Family Farm wrote:
> > To me, fish food is a huge input, and one that is often unsustainable.
> > What
> > examples do you know of that do it without fish food inputs (or very
> > little)?
> > 
> > Pete
> 
> Yes, fish food inputs  are one weak point, for sure, just as are fertilizer
> inputs or farm-animal feed in manure-based farming. I've seen some systems
> that use compost to grow black soldier fly larva to feed insectivorous
> fish. Vegetable wastes are recycled from the growing beds to feed the
> larvae, but since the 2nd law of thermodynamics is in effect, they still
> need a few additional sources of food, though minor ones. And I've also
> seen algae and duckweed being grown to feed tilapia.
> 
> Feeding the animals that provide manure, or generating permanent compost for
> crops, is the hidden defect of all organic farming. John Jeavons and others
> have calculated that for every acre of food production, 4 to 6 acres of
> compost or animal-feed crops are needed to have a sustainable system.
> 
> One obvious open loop that remains to be closed is for the people being fed
> by these systems to recycle their urine and feces back into the aquaponics
> (or farms) in some way. That open loop exists for almost all western
> agriculture.
> 
> To me the biggest weakness of aquaponics is the high-density fish population
> needed to supply manure. This stresses the fish and makes them subject to
> disease, and I can't imagine they are happy at those densities. One
> solution might be to grow at lower fish densities and filter the
> manure-water to concentrate the nutrients before it goes to the plants, but
> then you are adding another layer of technology on the system.
> 
> Toby
> http://patternliteracy.com
> 
> 
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