In article
,
Billy wrote:
(snippety snip)
If it is even remotely, remotely even possible what you have driveled,
would you not think that the commercial growers might have listened?

(snip)
Baz

I doubt crainal-rectally inverted, such as yourself, would understand,
but here goes. Please excuse the paucity of invectives that I know you
rely on to communicate, and apologies for lack of any pictures that are
probably necessary to maintain your attention. This forum is usually
used by adults, but give it a go anyway. You have nothing to lose, but
your profound ignorance.

As I expected, you are a slow learner, but I know you don't want to be
ignorant all your life, so here's some more to choke on. It might help
if you take notes ;O)

The Fatal Harvest Reader by Andrew Kimbrell (Editor)
http://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Harvest-...dp/155963944X/
ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220837838&sr=1-1

pgs 19 - 23


Smaller farms rarely can compete with this "monoculture" single-crop
yield. They tend to plant crop mixtures, a method known as
"intercropping.' Additionally, where single-crop monocultures have empty
"weed" spaces, small farms use these spaces for crop planting. They are
also more likely to rotate or combine crops and livestock, with the
resulting manure performing the important function of replenishing soil
fertility. These small-scale integrated farms produce far more per unit
area than large farms. Though the yield per unit area of one crop ‹
corn, for example‹may be lower, the total output per unit area for small
farms, often composed of more than a dozen crops and numerous animal
products, is virtually always higher than that of larger farms.
Clearly, if we are to compare accurately the productivity of small and
large farms, we should use total agricultural output, balanced against
total farm inputs and "externalities,''' rather than single-crop yield
as our measurement principle. Total output is defined as the sum of
everything a small farmer produces ‹ various grains, fruits, vegetables,
fodder, and animal products ‹ and is the real benchmark of 'efficiency
in farming. Moreover, productivity measurements should also take into
account total input costs, including large-machinery and chemical use,
which often are left out of the equation in the yield efficiency claims.
Perhaps most important, however, is the inclusion of the cost of
externalities such as environmental and human health impacts for which
industrial scale monocultured farms allow society to pay. Continuing to
measure farm efficiency through single-crop "yield" in agricultural
economics represents an unacceptable bias against diversification and
reflects the bizarre conviction that producing one food crop on a large
scale is more important than producing many crops (and higher
productivity) on a small scale.
Once, the flawed yield measurement system is discarded, the "bigger is
better" myth is shattered. As summarized by the food policy expert Peter
Rosset, "Surveying the data, we indeed find that small farms almost
always produce far more agricultural output per unit area than larger
farms. This is now widely recognized by agricultural economists across
the political spectrum, as the "inverse relationship between farm size
and output."' He notes that even the World Bank now advocates
redistributing land to small farmers in the third world as a step toward
increasing overall agricultural productivity.
-----

The Fatal Harvest Reader

ARTIFICIAL FERTILITY by Jason McKenny p.121 - 129

THE BREAKDOWN OF A SYSTEM
We now know that the massive use of synthetic fertilizers to create
artificial fertility has had a cascade of adverse effects on natural
soil fertility and the entire soil system. Fertilizer application begins
the destruction of soil biodiversity by diminishing the role of
nitrogen-fixing bacteria and amplifying the role of everything that
feeds on nitrogen. These feeders then speed up the decomposition of
organic matter and humus. As organic matter decreases, the physical
structure of soils changes. With less pore space and loss of their
sponge-like qualities, soils are less efficient at retaining moisture
and air. More irrigation is needed. Water leaches through soils,
draining away nutrients that no longer have an effective substrate on
which to cling. With less available oxygen the growth of soil
microbiology slows, and the intricate ecosystem of biological exchanges
breaks down. Acidity rises and further breaks down organic matter. As
soil microbes decrease in volume and diversity, they less are less able
to physically hold soils together in groups called aggregates. Water
begins to erode these soils away. Less topsoil means less volume and
biodiversity to buffer

126 McKENNEY
against these changes. More soils wash away. Meanwhile, all of these
events have a cumulative effect of reducing the amount of nutrients
available to plants. Industrial farmers address these observed
deficiencies by adding more fertilizer. Such a scenario is known as a
negative feedback loop; a more blunt comparison is substance abuse.
The adverse effects of fertilizer use do not stop at the farm gate. All
plant-usable forms of nitrogen are very soluble in water. This is why
they are so transient and why they eventually end up in our watersheds.
WATER AND AIR POLLUTION
Every summer, rains carry eroded soils and fertilizer runoff out of
Midwestern fields draining 1.2 million square miles of watershed into
the Mississippi River, down to the Gulf of Mexico. For several years
now, researchers have monitored and studied the by-product of this grand
scale pollution. A huge dead zone, at times encompassing the whole water
column, forms off the coast of the delta estuary. The only marine life
able to survive in this nitrogen-choked, oxygen-depleted expanse are
certain forms of algae. It is a twisted irony that the oil pumped from
the bottom of the gulf is eventually returning energetically as runoff
that pollutes the marine ecosystem. The estuaries of the Chesapeake,
Massachusetts, North Carolina, San Francisco Bay, and nuinerous others
all regularly experience the ecological destruction this runoff brings.
Runoff of soils and synthetic chemicals makes agriculture the largest
non-point source of water pollution in the country. It is estimated that
only 18 percent of all the nitrogen compounds applied to fields in the
United States is actually absorbed in plant tissues. This means that we
are inadvertentiv fertilizing our waters on a gigantic scale. When this
runoff reaches waterways, it promotes robust growth in algae and other
waterbome plants, a process known as eutrophication in fresh waters and
algal bloom in oceanic systems. This unbalanced growth depletes the
level of oxygen dissolved into waters. Aquatic life of all varieties is
literally asphyxiated by the transformation. The additional algae blocks
the transmittance of light energy to depth, creating a less biodiverse
water column. Over time this addition of nitrogen changes the whole
structure and function of water

ARTIFICIAL FERTILITY » 127
ecosystems. Less aerobically dependent organisms prevail, which
compromises the productivity of fisheries. Many of these organisms
produce toxic materials as a by-product of their metabolism. Toxic "red
tides" and the resulting fish kills and beach closures are brought on by
excessive nitrogen levels. Pathogenic organisms such as Pfieste-ria and
Pseudo-Nitzschia also proliferate in these polluted waters.
Numerous farming communities in the United States have experienced
nitrogen pollution in their aquifers and drinking supplies. When
ingested by humans, nitrogen compounds are converted to a nitrite form
that combines with hemoglobin in our blood. This changes the structure
and reduces the oxygen-holding capacity of blood, which creates a
dangerous condition known as methemoglobinemia. Various communities
throughout the midwestem United States have suffered from outbreaks of
this condition, which is particularly acute in children.
A large quantity of the nitrogen compounds applied to fields volatizes
into gaseous nitrous oxides, which escape into the atmosphere. These are
greenhouse gases with far greater potency than simple carbon dioxide.
Elevated levels of these gases have been directly linked to
stratospheric ozone depletion, acid deposition, and ground-level ozone
pollution. In this way, our fertilizer use exacerbates the already
untenable problems of global air pollution and climate change.
THE DEBT IS DUE
All of these adverse effects of fertilizers result from their
application. It is equally important to consider the problems associated
with the production of fertilizers. The Haber process first made for the
direct link of fertility to energy consumption, but this was in a time
when fossil fuels were abundant and their widespread use seemed
harmless. The production of nitrogenous fertilizers consumes more energy
than any other aspect of the agricultural process. It takes the energy
from burning 2,200 pounds of coal to produce 5.5 pounds of usable
nitrogen. This means that within the industrial model of agriculture, as
inputs are compared to outputs, the cost of energy has become
increasingly important. Agriculture's relationship to fertility is now
directly related to the price of oil.

128 McKENNEY
This economic model made some sense throughout a farming
period in which we were mining the biological reserves of fertility
bound in soil humus. Now it is a crisis of diminishing returns. In 1980
in the United States, the application of a ton of fertilizers resulted in
an average yield of 15 to 20 tons of corn. By 1997, this same ton of
fertilizer yielded only 5 to 10 tons. Between 1910 and 1983, United
States corn yields increased 346 percent while our energy consump-
tion for agriculture increased 810 percent. The poor economics of this
industrial agriculture began to surface. The biological health of soils
has been driven into such an impoverished state at the expense of
quick, easy fertility that productivity is now compromised, and fertil-
izers are less and less effective.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in 1997
declared that Mexico and the United States had ³hit the wall" on
wheat yields, with no increases shown in 13 years. Since the late 1980s,
worldwide consumption of fertilizers has been in decline. Farmers are
using fewer fertilizers because crops are physiologically incapable of
absorbing more nutrients. The negative effects of erosion and loss of
biological resiliency exceed our ability to offset them with fertilizers.
The price of farm commodities is so low that it no longer offsets the
cost of fertilizers. We are at full throttle and going nowhere. Economic
systems assume unlimited growth capacity. Ecological systems have
finite limitations. It would be wise to recognize how the industrial
perspective of fertility as a mined resource drives us toward agricul-
tural collapse.
SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS
Certainly the adverse effects of fertilizer use come as no sudden
surprise
to farmers. Even those who manage the most chemically based agricultural
systems recognize the important roles of organic matter, microorganisms,
and crop diversity ill fertility maintenance. Unfortunately, under crush-
ing financial pressure most farmers are limited in the changes they
can afford to make.
Some of the greatest reductions in fertilizer use have come from
conservation practices and more careful applications. These represent
a savings for farmers. Better timing and less indiscriminate applica-
ARTIFICIAL FERTILITY € 129
tion of fertilizers reduce the adverse effect on soil biology and the
likelihood of environmental pollution. Equally important are conser-
vation tillage methods in which ground disturbance is minimized and
the decomposition of crop residues is promoted. Less tillage distur-
bance gives a greater opportunity for microorganisms to proliferate,
and more crop decomposition helps provide habitat and resources for
them. More water, nutrients, and soils are retained on the farm.
Organic farmers approach the management of fertility biologi-
cally rather than chemically. Most organic methods work to enhance
soil nutrient cycles by relying upon strategies of crop rotation and
cover-cropping to provide nutrient enrichment. Nitrogen-fixing and
nutrient-building crops are grown explicitly for the purpose of improving
soils, increasing organic matter and soil microbes, preventing erosion,
and attracting other beneficial organisms. Soil diversity is maintained
with crop plant diversity. Multiple varieties of different crops are
grown in successions, which maximize nutrient use by different plant
types and minimize pests and pathogens. Additional fertility is pro-
vided through organic sources. Naturally based organic fertilizers
include composted plant materials, composted manures, fishery by-
products, blood and bonemeals, and other materials which decay and
release nutrients, participating in rather than destabilizing the nutri-
ent cycle. Practiced well, organic methods establish a dynamic yet
stable fertility. Costs of outside inputs dwindle, while soil health and
overall fertility grows.
As an organic farmer myself, I have seen the overwhelmingly posi-
tive effects of these methods. In my experience, soils with an enhanced
organic metabolism have a greater productive capacity than that
offered by synthetic fertilizers. I am told over and over by all my cus-
tomers how my vegetables have flavors beyond what they have come
to expect. I believe that this is directly related to fertility as a
dynamic, interrelated biological process that we have only begun to
understand. Plants are far from simple machines with simple needs.
To understand them as such is to abuse them and, in turn, to deprive
ourselves of the nutrition and taste that we may derive from them.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_vN0--mHug
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyE5wjc4XOw