"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message
...

The importation of exportation of ANY products on or off the land on which
it is raised or grown is mining. If you eat meat or vegetables that are
not grown on your own land, or wear clothes that are not produced from
your own land, you are involved in mining the fertility belonging to
someone else. We all do it and have done since time immemorial. I don't
know anyone who can only survive on the products of their own land or
return all their wastes to their own land.

If you have been reading this ng for some time, you may recall that at one
stage Otterbot made the comment that there is no such thing as
unproductive land. She was (generally) right because any land can be
made productive but it at the cost or mining somewhere else for
nutrients.

that's right, but can i point out: i use inputs that other people don't
WANT! (and are free as well :-)

so what you say is 100% right, & i'm getting off the track a bit, but i'm
profiting from other peoples' waste & more peeps would be better off to do
that (imho). it's amazing. frankly i think that as well as creating less
"waste" in future, we will all be learning about how other peoples' "waste"
is a goldmine.

Tree cropping is
perhaps the most "sustainable" form of cropping but it is dependant upon
the soil and I have no doubt that there are some areas of Oz that could be
very much depleted after a single tree harvest. I can't think of any area
off the top of my head but I don't know about all our timber growing
areas.

He also described in some length the salinisation of your soils. I knew
about it however the author described in length how the salt pans came to
exist, how irrigation can cause the salt level to rise and dryland
salinisation results from leaving productive land bare for much of the
year
allowing rain to wash salts through waterways or raise it to the surface.
The soluable salts then infest waterways.

If he wrote that about dryland salinity, then he doesn't know what he's on
about. Dryland salinity and salinity on irrigated land have differing
causes, as is perhaps the salinity of WA (which I have read has largely
been caused by millenia of onshore winds bringing in ocean salt which has
then settled on the land). That latter explanation could be pure crud,
but I've certainly read of that being an explanation for WA.

But having said that, European farming techniques did not suit most of
this country (and certainly not the dry interior) and it has taken till
recent decades for that fact to become evident. Dryland salinity is being
combatted effectively but slowly and it will be an ongoing battle for
decades. I know very little about salinity on irrigated land.

do do do read "back from the brink" by peter andrews. not least because he
explains this. it's a top read, i'm telling you :-)
kylie