In article ,
songbird wrote:

Don't put all your eggs into one basket. Start with
"A Farm for the Future" 03.

summarise please. i don't youtube...


songbird

I'll follow up with # 05 when I have time.

#3
harvesting winter grass for cattle is the largest expenditure of fossil
fuel on this farm.
WInter grazing at a neighboring farm is possible because of the mix of
grasses, which make the grasses strong enough not to get dug up by cow
hooves.
Grasses don't require fossil fuel.
Grasses inspired by woodland grass that grew naturally, without
encouragement.
Woodland grass grew on soil with biological diversity.
Plowing killed soil organisms.
Fossil fuel allows more plowing, and provides chemferts.
Fossil fuel is used to grow crops in soil that is essentially dead.
When fossil fuel runs out, we will need living soil.
Cattle require a lot of land, and for Britain to become self sufficient,
people will need to eat less meat, and farmers will need to raise other
crops as well.
Introduction of permaculture and permaculture expert Patrick Whitefield.
Three ways of farming, drugery, fossil fuel, and design.

#4
Woodland are the most efficient growing system for the British climate.
Farming based on natural ecology. "What we got to do is take the
principals of this (the forest), and think how far we can bend them
towards something more edible."
- Patrick Whitefield
The demonstration farm is a collection of small clearings in a massive
woodland.
Chris & Lynn DIxon produce all the fruit, vegetables, meat, and the fuel
they need to cook them, in return for a few days work per week. When
they started, 20 years before, the farm was degraded, marginal, pasture
land. The first thing that they did was let the land return to its
natural state, a chaotic woodland, but in its present state, the chaos
is very highly structured.
The gorse fixes nitrogen, the bracken collecting pot ash, and by
encouraging the birds, they are encouraging the phosphate cycle through
the system. Thus no need for sacks of fossil fuel fertilizers, it's all
provided by nature. Carkey Campbell (sp?)ducks provide insect
protection.
All the plants provides some service.
Willow Leyland Ash (tree) branches are fed to horses, cattle, and sheep.
Using the full height of trees and hedges, you can squeeze higher yields
out of the same piece of land. The leaf liter supplies nitrogen to other
plants.


http://www.shade-growing.com/permacu...uture-transcri
pt

http://transitionculture.org/2009/02...ure-essential-
viewing/
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html