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It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
Sci Am, April 2010
Breaking the Growth Habit by Bill McKibben For the past quarter of a century, despite the rapid spread of massive-scale agribusiness farming, pesticides and genetically engineered crops, the amount of grain per person has been dropping. Serious people have begun to rethink small-scale agriculture, to produce lots of food on relatively small farms with little or nothing in the way of synthetic fertilizer or chemicals. The new agriculture often works best when it combines fresh knowledge with older wisdom. In Bangladesh a new chicken coop produces not just eggs and meat, but waste that feeds a fishpond, which in turn produces thousands of kilograms of protein annually, and a healthy crop of water hyacinths that are fed to a small herd of cows, whose dung in turn fires a biogas cooking system. In Malawi, tiny fishponds that recycle waste from the rest of a farm yield on average about 1,500 kilograms offish. In Madagascar, rice farmers working with European experts have figured out ways to increase yields. They transplant seedlings weeks earlier than is customary, space the plants farther apart, and keep the paddies unflooded during most of the growing season. That means they have to weed more, but it also increases yields fourfold to sixfold. An estimated 20,000 farmers have adopted the full system. In Craftsbury, Vt., Pete Johnson has helped pioneer year-round farming. Johnson has built solar greenhouses and figured out how to move them on tracks. He now can cover and uncover different fields and grow greens 10 months of the year without any fossil fuels, allowing him to run his community-supported agriculture farm continuously. I'm not arguing for local food because it tastes better or because it's better for you. I'm arguing that we have no choice. In a world more prone to drought and flood, we need the resilience that comes with three dozen different crops in one field, not a vast ocean of corn or soybeans. In a world where warmth spreads pests more efficiently, we need the resilience of many local varieties and breeds. And in a world with less oil, we need the kind of small, mixed farms that can provide their own fertilizer and build their own soil. -- - 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 |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
Billy wrote:
Sci Am, April 2010 Breaking the Growth Habit by Bill McKibben For the past quarter of a century, despite the rapid spread of massive-scale agribusiness farming, pesticides and genetically engineered crops, the amount of grain per person has been dropping. I assume this means the amount of grain per farm worker working to produce it, is that right? I had imagined that the productivity by this measure climbed very rapidly in the early 20th century and then the rate slowed down with little surges as bigger and more automated combine harvesters, irrigation gear, better strains of grain etc were introduced. So I expected that in the last quarter century it would have levelled off like a diminishing returns curve, I didn't expect it to start going down. Does the author provide any references to where and how this statistic is measured? Does this just relate to the absurdity of the USA corn belt or is it global? What are his reasons for the decline? Have you got the book? David |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
Are you seriously saying that you support fish that eat chicken shit?
Seriously... This is just one more reason why I consider you an idiot. "Billy" wrote in message ... Sci Am, April 2010 Breaking the Growth Habit by Bill McKibben For the past quarter of a century, despite the rapid spread of massive-scale agribusiness farming, pesticides and genetically engineered crops, the amount of grain per person has been dropping. Serious people have begun to rethink small-scale agriculture, to produce lots of food on relatively small farms with little or nothing in the way of synthetic fertilizer or chemicals. The new agriculture often works best when it combines fresh knowledge with older wisdom. In Bangladesh a new chicken coop produces not just eggs and meat, but waste that feeds a fishpond, which in turn produces thousands of kilograms of protein annually, and a healthy crop of water hyacinths that are fed to a small herd of cows, whose dung in turn fires a biogas cooking system. In Malawi, tiny fishponds that recycle waste from the rest of a farm yield on average about 1,500 kilograms offish. In Madagascar, rice farmers working with European experts have figured out ways to increase yields. They transplant seedlings weeks earlier than is customary, space the plants farther apart, and keep the paddies unflooded during most of the growing season. That means they have to weed more, but it also increases yields fourfold to sixfold. An estimated 20,000 farmers have adopted the full system. In Craftsbury, Vt., Pete Johnson has helped pioneer year-round farming. Johnson has built solar greenhouses and figured out how to move them on tracks. He now can cover and uncover different fields and grow greens 10 months of the year without any fossil fuels, allowing him to run his community-supported agriculture farm continuously. I'm not arguing for local food because it tastes better or because it's better for you. I'm arguing that we have no choice. In a world more prone to drought and flood, we need the resilience that comes with three dozen different crops in one field, not a vast ocean of corn or soybeans. In a world where warmth spreads pests more efficiently, we need the resilience of many local varieties and breeds. And in a world with less oil, we need the kind of small, mixed farms that can provide their own fertilizer and build their own soil. -- - 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 |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
In article ,
"Thos" wrote: Are you seriously saying that you support fish that eat chicken shit? Seriously... This is just one more reason why I consider you an idiot. No sense in explaining to the mentally myopic. Good luck with your life. "Billy" wrote in message ... Sci Am, April 2010 Breaking the Growth Habit by Bill McKibben For the past quarter of a century, despite the rapid spread of massive-scale agribusiness farming, pesticides and genetically engineered crops, the amount of grain per person has been dropping. Serious people have begun to rethink small-scale agriculture, to produce lots of food on relatively small farms with little or nothing in the way of synthetic fertilizer or chemicals. The new agriculture often works best when it combines fresh knowledge with older wisdom. In Bangladesh a new chicken coop produces not just eggs and meat, but waste that feeds a fishpond, which in turn produces thousands of kilograms of protein annually, and a healthy crop of water hyacinths that are fed to a small herd of cows, whose dung in turn fires a biogas cooking system. In Malawi, tiny fishponds that recycle waste from the rest of a farm yield on average about 1,500 kilograms offish. In Madagascar, rice farmers working with European experts have figured out ways to increase yields. They transplant seedlings weeks earlier than is customary, space the plants farther apart, and keep the paddies unflooded during most of the growing season. That means they have to weed more, but it also increases yields fourfold to sixfold. An estimated 20,000 farmers have adopted the full system. In Craftsbury, Vt., Pete Johnson has helped pioneer year-round farming. Johnson has built solar greenhouses and figured out how to move them on tracks. He now can cover and uncover different fields and grow greens 10 months of the year without any fossil fuels, allowing him to run his community-supported agriculture farm continuously. I'm not arguing for local food because it tastes better or because it's better for you. I'm arguing that we have no choice. In a world more prone to drought and flood, we need the resilience that comes with three dozen different crops in one field, not a vast ocean of corn or soybeans. In a world where warmth spreads pests more efficiently, we need the resilience of many local varieties and breeds. And in a world with less oil, we need the kind of small, mixed farms that can provide their own fertilizer and build their own soil. -- - 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...6515308172.htm l -- - 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 |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote: Billy wrote: Sci Am, April 2010 Breaking the Growth Habit by Bill McKibben For the past quarter of a century, despite the rapid spread of massive-scale agribusiness farming, pesticides and genetically engineered crops, the amount of grain per person has been dropping. I assume this means the amount of grain per farm worker working to produce it, is that right? I had imagined that the productivity by this measure climbed very rapidly in the early 20th century and then the rate slowed down with little surges as bigger and more automated combine harvesters, irrigation gear, better strains of grain etc were introduced. So I expected that in the last quarter century it would have levelled off like a diminishing returns curve, I didn't expect it to start going down. Does the author provide any references to where and how this statistic is measured? Does this just relate to the absurdity of the USA corn belt or is it global? What are his reasons for the decline? Have you got the book? David Unfortunatly, no. It came out in April and I am #24 on the waiting list. Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet by Bill McKibben, Apr 13, 2010 http://www.amazon.com/Eaarth-Making-...805090568/ref= sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282538531&sr=1-1 I'm in the middle of a movie (Vitus). I'll get back soon. But the answer is humus. -- - 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 |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote: Billy wrote: Sci Am, April 2010 Breaking the Growth Habit by Bill McKibben For the past quarter of a century, despite the rapid spread of massive-scale agribusiness farming, pesticides and genetically engineered crops, the amount of grain per person has been dropping. I assume this means the amount of grain per farm worker working to produce it, is that right? I'm speculating that number of consumers are outstripping production. "the observed figures for 2007 show an actual increase in absolute numbers of undernourished people in the world, 923 million in 2007 versus 832 million in 1995.[88]; the more recent FAO estimates point out to an even more dramatic increase, to 1.02 billion in 2009." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation I had imagined that the productivity by this measure climbed very rapidly in the early 20th century and then the rate slowed down with little surges as bigger and more automated combine harvesters, irrigation gear, better strains of grain etc were introduced. So I expected that in the last quarter century it would have levelled off like a diminishing returns curve, I didn't expect it to start going down. The other problem is that production levels are proportional to optimum humus levels in the soil. Falling humus levels require more and more chemical fertilizers to reach the same production levels. (I'll need to go through my books to come up with the citation, but I think I know where it is.) This is running a bit afield of my purpose in posting the various systems to maximize production. One reference I read said that Salatin grew an inch of top soil per year. A typical pine forest grows an eighth of an inch of top soil per 50 years. "in 2007, we used 13 million tons of synthetic fertilizer, five times the amount used in 1960. Crop yields, by comparison, grew only half that fast. And it's hardly a harmless increase: Nitrogen fertilizers are the single biggest cause of global-warming gases from U.S. agriculture and a major cause of air and water pollution -- including the creation of dead zones in coastal waters that are devoid of fish. And despite the massive pesticide increase, the United States loses more crops to pests today than it did before the chemical agriculture revolution six decades ago." "Another cause for concern is that industrial agriculture and genetically modified crops dangerously reduce biodiversity, especially on the farm. In the United States, 90 percent of soy, 70 percent of corn, and 95 percent of sugarbeets are genetically modified. Industrial farms are by their very nature monocultures, but diverse crops on a farm, even weeds, serve multiple functions: Bees feast on their nectar and pollen, birds munch on weed seeds, worms and other soil invertebrates that help control pests live among them -- the list goes on." http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/04/29/dont_panic_go_organic Does the author provide any references to where and how this statistic is measured? Does this just relate to the absurdity of the USA corn belt or is it global? What are his reasons for the decline? Look for the book at the usual places. http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/ was recommended for further reading by SciAm. Part of a Q & A with the author. SA: Is sheer size the culprit, or is it the complexity that size brings? You say that not just banks but more basic industries are "too big to fail." Should such institutions be broken up or disentangled somehow? McKIBBEN: The financial system, the energy system and the agricultural system share great similarities: a very small number of players, incredibly interwoven. In each case, cascading effects occur when something goes wrong; a chicken pot pie spreads botulism to 48 states. My house runs on solar panels. If it fails, I have a problem, but it doesn't shut down the eastern U.S. power grid. SA: So you're advocating a return to local reliance. But since E. F. Schumacher's 1973 book, Small Is Beautiful, dedicated people have been trying to implement local food and energy systems around the world, yet many regions are still struggling. How small is "local"? McKIBBEN: We'll figure out the size. It could be a town, a region, a state. But to find the answer, we have to get the incredibly distorting subsidies out of our current systems. They send all kinds of bad signals about what we should be doing. In energy we've underwritten fossil fuel for a long time. It's even more egregious in agriculture. Once subsidies wither, we can figure out what scale of industry makes sense. SA: Don't local products cost more? McKIBBEN: We would have more farms, and they might be more labor-intensive, but that would also create more jobs, and the farmier would reap more of the revenue. Economically, local farms cut out many middlemen. Buying vegetables from CSA [community-supported agriculture] farms is the cheapest way to get food. Meat might still be more expensive, but frankly, eating less meat isn't the end of rhe world. The best news in my book is the spread, in the past few years, of all kinds of smart, technologically adept, small-scale agricultural techniques around the developing world. SA: It sounds like the key to local agriculture, at least, is to teach people how to raise yields, without more fertilizer. McKIBBEN: Yes, and it depends on where you are. There will not be one system that spreads across rhe entire world, the way we've tried to spread industrial, synthetic fertilizer-based agriculture. The solutions are much smarter than that. Instead of spreading chemicals, which causes all kinds of problems, we are figuring out alternative methods and how to spread them. SA: Okay, even if local agriculture works, how does that support durability instead of growth? McKIBBEN: Probably the most important assets we can have for long-term stability, especially in an era of ecological upheaval, are good soilssoils that allow you to grow a good amount of food, that can absorb a lot of water becausc rainfalls are steadily increasing, soils that hold that rainfall through the kinds of extended droughts that are becoming more common. Good soil is precisely what low-impact, low-input, local agriculture builds, and, precisely what industrial agriculture destroys. SA: Local reliance sounds attractive, but how do countries like the U.S. get out of huge debt without growing? The U.S. Treasury Department says the only painless solution is growth. Do we need a transition period where growth eliminates debt, and then we embrace durability? McKIBBEN: Well, "painless" is just delay. You know: "Pay me now, or pay me later." The primary political question is: Can we make change happen fast enough to avoid all-out collapses that are plausible, even likely? How do we move these transitions more quickly than they want to move? www.ScientificAmerican.com April 2010 Have you got the book? David Later -- - 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 |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
"Billy" wrote in message
... Sci Am, April 2010 Breaking the Growth Habit by Bill McKibben For the past quarter of a century, despite the rapid spread of massive-scale agribusiness farming, pesticides and genetically engineered crops, the amount of grain per person has been dropping. Serious people have begun to rethink small-scale agriculture, to produce lots of food on relatively small farms with little or nothing in the way of synthetic fertilizer or chemicals. The new agriculture often works best when it combines fresh knowledge with older wisdom. In Bangladesh a new chicken coop produces not just eggs and meat, but waste that feeds a fishpond, which in turn produces thousands of kilograms of protein annually, and a healthy crop of water hyacinths that are fed to a small herd of cows, whose dung in turn fires a biogas cooking system. In Malawi, tiny fishponds that recycle waste from the rest of a farm yield on average about 1,500 kilograms offish. In Madagascar, rice farmers working with European experts have figured out ways to increase yields. They transplant seedlings weeks earlier than is customary, space the plants farther apart, and keep the paddies unflooded during most of the growing season. That means they have to weed more, but it also increases yields fourfold to sixfold. An estimated 20,000 farmers have adopted the full system. In Craftsbury, Vt., Pete Johnson has helped pioneer year-round farming. Johnson has built solar greenhouses and figured out how to move them on tracks. He now can cover and uncover different fields and grow greens 10 months of the year without any fossil fuels, allowing him to run his community-supported agriculture farm continuously. I'm not arguing for local food because it tastes better or because it's better for you. I'm arguing that we have no choice. In a world more prone to drought and flood, we need the resilience that comes with three dozen different crops in one field, not a vast ocean of corn or soybeans. In a world where warmth spreads pests more efficiently, we need the resilience of many local varieties and breeds. And in a world with less oil, we need the kind of small, mixed farms that can provide their own fertilizer and build their own soil. -- - 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 Thos wrote: Are you seriously saying that you support fish that eat chicken shit? Seriously... This is just one more reason why I consider you an idiot. It says: "a new chicken coop produces not just eggs and meat, but waste that feeds a fishpond, which in turn produces thousands of kilograms of protein annually" It is not the fish that 'eat' chicken shit it is the pond. I think you will find that the manure makes algae and/or water plants grow which in turn feeds the fish. You seem to be short on basic understanding of how nutrients are recycled in nature and the benefit that humans can and must get from coopting such processes. Manures are some of the best additives for a productive garden. Mushrooms grow on cow manure, do you despise them? Most of the phosphate that is found in commercial fertiliser came out of the bum of a bird or a bat, does the thought of that bother you? Rabbits regularly eat shit, does that mean they are forever banned from your life? If the fish did eat chicken shit (they probably wouldn't) why would it be such a problem? Seriously. David |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
"Thos" wrote in message
... Are you seriously saying that you support fish that eat chicken shit? Many vegetable plants 'eat' chicken shit (or horse shit or cow shit or many other types of shit) and they in turn are eaten by humans. Seriously... This is just one more reason why I consider you an idiot. "To each his own" said the old woman as she kissed the cow. "Billy" wrote in message ... Sci Am, April 2010 Breaking the Growth Habit by Bill McKibben For the past quarter of a century, despite the rapid spread of massive-scale agribusiness farming, pesticides and genetically engineered crops, the amount of grain per person has been dropping. Serious people have begun to rethink small-scale agriculture, to produce lots of food on relatively small farms with little or nothing in the way of synthetic fertilizer or chemicals. The new agriculture often works best when it combines fresh knowledge with older wisdom. In Bangladesh a new chicken coop produces not just eggs and meat, but waste that feeds a fishpond, which in turn produces thousands of kilograms of protein annually, and a healthy crop of water hyacinths that are fed to a small herd of cows, whose dung in turn fires a biogas cooking system. In Malawi, tiny fishponds that recycle waste from the rest of a farm yield on average about 1,500 kilograms offish. In Madagascar, rice farmers working with European experts have figured out ways to increase yields. They transplant seedlings weeks earlier than is customary, space the plants farther apart, and keep the paddies unflooded during most of the growing season. That means they have to weed more, but it also increases yields fourfold to sixfold. An estimated 20,000 farmers have adopted the full system. In Craftsbury, Vt., Pete Johnson has helped pioneer year-round farming. Johnson has built solar greenhouses and figured out how to move them on tracks. He now can cover and uncover different fields and grow greens 10 months of the year without any fossil fuels, allowing him to run his community-supported agriculture farm continuously. I'm not arguing for local food because it tastes better or because it's better for you. I'm arguing that we have no choice. In a world more prone to drought and flood, we need the resilience that comes with three dozen different crops in one field, not a vast ocean of corn or soybeans. In a world where warmth spreads pests more efficiently, we need the resilience of many local varieties and breeds. And in a world with less oil, we need the kind of small, mixed farms that can provide their own fertilizer and build their own soil. -- - 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 |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
On Aug 22, 11:37*pm, "Thos" wrote:
Are you seriously saying that you support fish that eat chicken shit? Seriously... This is just one more reason why I consider you an idiot. "Billy" wrote in message .... Sci Am, April 2010 Breaking the Growth Habit *by Bill McKibben For the past quarter of a century, despite the rapid spread of massive-scale agribusiness farming, pesticides and genetically engineered crops, the amount of grain per person has been dropping. Serious people have begun to rethink small-scale agriculture, to produce lots of food on relatively small farms with little or nothing in the way of synthetic fertilizer or chemicals. The new agriculture often works best when it combines fresh knowledge with older wisdom. In Bangladesh a new chicken coop produces not just eggs and meat, but waste that feeds a fishpond, which in turn produces thousands of kilograms of protein annually, *and a healthy crop of water hyacinths that are fed to a small herd of *cows, whose dung in turn fires a biogas cooking system. In Malawi, tiny fishponds that recycle waste from the rest of a farm yield on average about 1,500 kilograms offish. In Madagascar, rice farmers working with European experts have figured out ways to increase yields. They transplant seedlings weeks earlier than is customary, space the plants farther apart, and keep the paddies unflooded during most of the growing season. That means they have to weed more, but it also increases yields fourfold to sixfold. An estimated 20,000 farmers have adopted the full system. In Craftsbury, Vt., Pete Johnson has helped pioneer year-round farming. Johnson has built solar greenhouses and figured out how to move them on tracks. He now can cover and uncover different fields and grow greens 10 months of the year without any fossil fuels, allowing him to run his community-supported agriculture farm continuously. I'm not arguing for local food because it tastes better or because it's better for you. I'm arguing that we have no choice. In a world more prone to drought and flood, we need the resilience that comes with three dozen different crops in one field, not a vast ocean of corn or soybeans. In a world where warmth spreads pests more efficiently, we need the resilience of many local varieties and breeds. And in *a world with less oil, we need the kind of small, mixed farms that can *provide their own fertilizer and build their own soil. -- - 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...2816515308...- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Didn't know any in group see it as I do. Op wants us to go back to the days when 95% of us were farmers ;) |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
In article ,
says... Are you seriously saying that you support fish that eat chicken shit? Seriously... This is just one more reason why I consider you an idiot. http://www.google.ca/search?client=f...zilla%3Aen-US% 3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&source=hp&q=water+hyaci nths+purification&meta =&btnG=Google+Search Do some reading and then start backward engineering the system being described. sheesh |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
In article
, Billy wrote: In article , "David Hare-Scott" wrote: Billy wrote: Sci Am, April 2010 Breaking the Growth Habit by Bill McKibben For the past quarter of a century, despite the rapid spread of massive-scale agribusiness farming, pesticides and genetically engineered crops, the amount of grain per person has been dropping. I assume this means the amount of grain per farm worker working to produce it, is that right? I'm speculating that number of consumers are outstripping production. "the observed figures for 2007 show an actual increase in absolute numbers of undernourished people in the world, 923 million in 2007 versus 832 million in 1995.[88]; the more recent FAO estimates point out to an even more dramatic increase, to 1.02 billion in 2009." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation I had imagined that the productivity by this measure climbed very rapidly in the early 20th century and then the rate slowed down with little surges as bigger and more automated combine harvesters, irrigation gear, better strains of grain etc were introduced. So I expected that in the last quarter century it would have levelled off like a diminishing returns curve, I didn't expect it to start going down. The other problem is that production levels are proportional to optimum humus levels in the soil. Falling humus levels require more and more chemical fertilizers to reach the same production levels. (I'll need to go through my books to come up with the citation, but I think I know where it is.) My authority for the above is The Fatal Harvest Reader Edited by Andrew Kimbrell http://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Harvest-.../dp/155963944X /ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282583500&sr=1-1 This is a anthology of agricultural authors. Part 3 starts with ARTIFICIAL FERTILITY by Jason McKenny, p.121 - 129 p. 125 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 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. 127 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 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 crushing 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- 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 biologically 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 provided 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 nutrient cycle. Practiced well, organic methods establish a dynamic yet stable fertility. Costs of outside inputs dwindle, while soil health and overall fertility grows. snip A bit of over kill perhaps, but just to justify my assumptions about McKibben's article in the April, 2010 Scientific American. As a side bar to Frank's fear of finally having to do some work is the exchange between SciAm and McKibben in the Q & A ---- SA: The subtext here is that large, centralized, monolithic systems of agriculture, energy and other commerce drive growth. Are you saying big is bad? McKlBBEN: We built things big because it allowed for faster growth. Efficiencies were gained through size. That's not what we need now. We don't need a racehorse that is exquisitely bred to go as fast as possible but whose ankle breaks the minute there's a divot in the track. We need a plow horse built for durability. Durability needs to be our mantra, instead of expansion. SA: Is sheer size the culprit, or is it the complexity that size brings? You say that not just banks but more basic industries are "too big to fail." Should such institutions be broken up or disentangled somehow? McKIBBEN: The financial system, the energy system and the agricultural system share great similarities: a very small number of players, incredibly interwoven. In each case, cascading effects occur when something goes wrong; a chicken pot pie spreads botulism to 48 states. My house runs on solar panels. If it fails, I have a problem, but it doesn't shut down the eastern U.S. power grid. To put this in context, we are presently experiencing the recall of over 500,000,000 eggs (half a Billion eggs). http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100822/ap_on_bi_ge/us_tainted_eggs If these eggs had been produced by smaller producers, fewer people would have gotten sick. Smaller producers would create jobs that we sorely need right now. The jobs might be shoveling out chicken coops, but it would get Frank off the dole, and contributing to society. Always a pleasure Frank ;O) maybe you could get a job for your acolyte as well. He doesn't even seem to understand chook poo at all. In the meantime, for a full explanation from Bill McKibben, I must wait to be served by my library. I am 28th in the queue. At least it's not as bad as "The #1 Ladies Detective Agency". We started in 134th place with that one, and now we are down to 3rd. -- - 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 |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
Billy wrote:
I'm not arguing for local food because it tastes better or because it's better for you. I'm arguing that we have no choice. In a world more prone to drought and flood, we need the resilience that comes with three dozen different crops in one field, not a vast ocean of corn or soybeans. In a world where warmth spreads pests more efficiently, we need the resilience of many local varieties and breeds. And in a world with less oil, we need the kind of small, mixed farms that can provide their own fertilizer and build their own soil. Before the specialization trend that led to corporate agribusiness manure from the critters in the barn was not toxic waste because there wasn't too much of it. There was enough to spread on the fields as fertilizer without polluting the ground water. Written in gardening and small farming terms does it come across more like preaching to the choir on a gardening group? |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
In article ,
Bert Hyman wrote: In Billy wrote: I'm not arguing for local food because it tastes better or because it's better for you. I'm arguing that we have no choice. In a world more prone to drought and flood, we need the resilience that comes with three dozen different crops in one field, not a vast ocean of corn or soybeans. In a world where warmth spreads pests more efficiently, we need the resilience of many local varieties and breeds. And in a world with less oil, we need the kind of small, mixed farms that can provide their own fertilizer and build their own soil. Who's going to be the person to tell 2/3 of the earth's population that they're going to have to starve? That would be the fossil-fuel, industrial, corporate farmers, waving their price lists about for people to inspect. If you have followed the thread, Bert, you would have seen numbers that indicate that we are getting diminishing returns from industrial farming, and industrial farming is based on increasingly expensive fossil fuels (2200 lbs of coal for 5.5 lbs of nitrogen fertilizer?). Joel Salatin on his farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, yearly transforms his pastures into "40,000 pounds of beef, 30,000 pounds of pork, 10,000 broilers, 1,200 turkeys, 1,000 rabbits, and 35,000 dozen eggs. This is an astounding cornucopia of food to draw from a hundred acres of pasture, yet what is perhaps still more astonishing is the fact that this pasture will be in no way diminished by the processin fact, it will be the better for it, lusher, more fertile, even springier underfoot (this thanks to the increased earthworm traffic)." ----- He grows an inch of topsoil/year. ------ Like Salatin, in Bangladesh a new chicken coop produces not just eggs and meat, but waste that feeds a fishpond, which in turn produces thousands of kilograms of protein annually, and a healthy crop of water hyacinths that are fed to a small herd of cows, whose dung in turn fires a biogas cooking system. In Malawi, tiny fishponds that recycle waste from the rest of a farm yield on average about 1,500 kilograms offish. In Madagascar, rice farmers working with European experts have figured out ways to increase yields. They transplant seedlings weeks earlier than is customary, space the plants farther apart, and keep the paddies unflooded during most of the growing season. That means they have to weed more, but it also increases yields fourfold to sixfold. An estimated 20,000 farmers have adopted the full system. In Craftsbury, Vt., Pete Johnson has helped pioneer year-round farming. Johnson has built solar greenhouses and figured out how to move them on tracks. He now can cover and uncover different fields and grow greens 10 months of the year without any fossil fuels, allowing him to run his community-supported agriculture farm continuously. " . . . in a world with less oil, we need the kind of small, mixed farms that can provide their own fertilizer and build their own soil." ---- Monocultures, repeatedly planted in one area are highly susceptible insect and plant pests. These vast monocultures are grown because of tax-payer subsidies for grains (and tax payer subsidies to fossil fuel extraction companies). US agriculture is producing 3,900 calories/ person/day, which goes a long way towards explaining our obesity problems, our diabetes epidemic, and our poor nutrition. Our bodies have been developing for some 2,000,000 years. We have only been eating grains in significant quantities for 10,000 years, and it doesn't seem to agree with us. http://www.environnement.ens.fr/pers.../mistake_jared _diamond.pdf Buying from a "Community Supported Agriculture" farmer should be cheaper in the long run, because they cut out the middle men. The food isn't transported thousands of miles to your table, which saves fossil fuels. Eating produce in season, can be boring, which should be correctable with the right recipes, and the produce will be healthier and better tasting, fresh. Since crops can be rotated, they will require less "Integrated Pest Management" (IPM), and less pesticides. Thirty-five percent of the Earth's surface is already given over to agriculture, most of the rest of the land is unsuitable for farming. The most important question you can ask is: Is my food killing topsoil, or supporting it? More topsoil = more food. ---- The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability by Lierre Keith http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myt...ability/dp/160 4860804/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281718588&sr=1-1 p.250 "Peter Bane did some calculations. He estimates that there are a hundred million agricultural acres in the US similar enough to the Salatins' to count: "about 2/3 of the area east of the Dakotas, roughly from Omaha and Topeka east to the Atlantic and south to the Gulf of Mexico." Right now, that land is mostly planted to corn and soy. But returned to permanent cover, it would sequester 2.2 billion tons of carbon every year. Bane writes: That's equal to present gross US atmospheric releases, not counting the net reduction from die carbon sinks of existing forests and soils ... Without expanding farm acreage or remov- ing any existing forests, and even before undertaking changes in consumer lifestyle, reduction in traffic, and increases in industrial and transport fuel efficiencies, which arc absolutely imperative, the US could become a net carbon sink by chang- ing cultivating practices and marketing on a million farms. In fact, we could create 5 million new jobs in farming if the land were used as efficiently as the Salatins use theirs." ---- That's what we are talkin' about, Bert. -- - 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 |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
In article ,
Doug Freyburger wrote: Billy wrote: I'm not arguing for local food because it tastes better or because it's better for you. I'm arguing that we have no choice. In a world more prone to drought and flood, we need the resilience that comes with three dozen different crops in one field, not a vast ocean of corn or soybeans. In a world where warmth spreads pests more efficiently, we need the resilience of many local varieties and breeds. And in a world with less oil, we need the kind of small, mixed farms that can provide their own fertilizer and build their own soil. Before the specialization trend that led to corporate agribusiness manure from the critters in the barn was not toxic waste because there wasn't too much of it. There was enough to spread on the fields as fertilizer without polluting the ground water. That is exactly the case, Doug. With Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) the animals waste is pumped into foul smelling lagoons, waiting to be hauled to land fills. The animals are raised in filth and terror. They are in such tight spaces that they need antibiotics to keep diseases from killing the herd. The bacteria then develop resistance to the antibiotics, rendering the antibiotics useless to human beings. The killer E. coli, like 0157:H7 come from feed lots. Never existed before and are now a threat to human health. The conveyor belts move so fast at packing plants that the work is quick and sloppy (and extremely dangerous) and the meat comes out with fecal matter on it. Meat packers want to irradiate the meat to disinfect it, but as Marion Nestle has said,"Sterilized shit is still shit." In pastures steer manure, can make topsoil, and the entire operation would greatly reduce the need for antibiotics, and the animals wouldn't be covered in their own filth. Written in gardening and small farming terms does it come across more like preaching to the choir on a gardening group? We got all kinds here. Some (I know I'm leaving people out) like Pat and Emilie, seem to know everything, the rest of us know some, and are just trying to fill in the gaps. Everybody starts at the beginning. Welcome. -- - 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 |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
Bert Hyman wrote:
In Billy wrote: I'm not arguing for local food because it tastes better or because it's better for you. I'm arguing that we have no choice. In a world more prone to drought and flood, we need the resilience that comes with three dozen different crops in one field, not a vast ocean of corn or soybeans. In a world where warmth spreads pests more efficiently, we need the resilience of many local varieties and breeds. And in a world with less oil, we need the kind of small, mixed farms that can provide their own fertilizer and build their own soil. Who's going to be the person to tell 2/3 of the earth's population that they're going to have to starve? Will that be when oil becomes so expensive that it cannot be used to make fertiliser and the broadacre crops' yields drop to pitiful? You are right (if I understand you correctly) that we don't know how to feed the world sustainably yet. Altering how we do agriculture is only part of the solution. Unless we also deal with over-population all other resource problems will be exacerbated to breaking point. We will only go back to an agrarian economy if the present system has a catastrophic collapse, followed by a population collapse, and nobody wants to see that. The alternative is to work out how to do sustainable agriculture and reduce our population. We have to make that choice or nature will make it for us - and then the results won't be pretty. Whether McKibben has it right and this requires breaking production up into local units remains to be seen. I suspect that some degree of localisation will have to be part of the plan in order to reduce transport costs and that implies eliminating huge monocultures too. There are of course other reasons for doing that besides the transport difficulty. We need more people to work on making the conversion to a sustainable way of life a soft landing instead of a crash. Saying "we will all be ruined" and using that as an excuse to keep the present system will become self-fulfilling. David |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
Billy wrote:
In article , Bert Hyman wrote: In Billy wrote: I'm not arguing for local food because it tastes better or because it's better for you. I'm arguing that we have no choice. In a world more prone to drought and flood, we need the resilience that comes with three dozen different crops in one field, not a vast ocean of corn or soybeans. In a world where warmth spreads pests more efficiently, we need the resilience of many local varieties and breeds. And in a world with less oil, we need the kind of small, mixed farms that can provide their own fertilizer and build their own soil. Who's going to be the person to tell 2/3 of the earth's population that they're going to have to starve? That would be the fossil-fuel, industrial, corporate farmers, waving their price lists about for people to inspect. If you have followed the thread, Bert, you would have seen numbers that indicate that we are getting diminishing returns from industrial farming, and industrial farming is based on increasingly expensive fossil fuels (2200 lbs of coal for 5.5 lbs of nitrogen fertilizer?). Joel Salatin on his farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, yearly transforms his pastures into "40,000 pounds of beef, 30,000 pounds of pork, 10,000 broilers, 1,200 turkeys, 1,000 rabbits, and 35,000 dozen eggs. This is an astounding cornucopia of food to draw from a hundred acres of pasture, yet what is perhaps still more astonishing is the fact that this pasture will be in no way diminished by the processâıin fact, it will be the better for it, lusher, more fertile, even springier underfoot (this thanks to the increased earthworm traffic)." ----- He grows an inch of topsoil/year. I believe in the theory "The world is a zero sum gain". If food and population grows it is at the expense of nature. Predator vs Prey and so on. So Joel Salatin grows thousands of pounds of food and improves his soil. If this true where does he get thousands of pounds of material to go back into his soil? Does the amount of rain that falls on his land have as much substance that leaves his farm in food production? I bet he also buys "lime" and other soil improving substances as well. If he does buy lime and other soil improvements, is he really self sustaining? Or are using the term self sustaining in terms of economics? While I am posting this, I will download "Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet" A book some one recommend on this thread, looks like a good read. Enjoy Life... Dan Using an iPad |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
Dan L wrote:
Billy wrote: In article , Bert Hyman wrote: In Billy wrote: I'm not arguing for local food because it tastes better or because it's better for you. I'm arguing that we have no choice. In a world more prone to drought and flood, we need the resilience that comes with three dozen different crops in one field, not a vast ocean of corn or soybeans. In a world where warmth spreads pests more efficiently, we need the resilience of many local varieties and breeds. And in a world with less oil, we need the kind of small, mixed farms that can provide their own fertilizer and build their own soil. Who's going to be the person to tell 2/3 of the earth's population that they're going to have to starve? That would be the fossil-fuel, industrial, corporate farmers, waving their price lists about for people to inspect. If you have followed the thread, Bert, you would have seen numbers that indicate that we are getting diminishing returns from industrial farming, and industrial farming is based on increasingly expensive fossil fuels (2200 lbs of coal for 5.5 lbs of nitrogen fertilizer?). Joel Salatin on his farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, yearly transforms his pastures into "40,000 pounds of beef, 30,000 pounds of pork, 10,000 broilers, 1,200 turkeys, 1,000 rabbits, and 35,000 dozen eggs. This is an astounding cornucopia of food to draw from a hundred acres of pasture, yet what is perhaps still more astonishing is the fact that this pasture will be in no way diminished by the processâıin fact, it will be the better for it, lusher, more fertile, even springier underfoot (this thanks to the increased earthworm traffic)." ----- He grows an inch of topsoil/year. I believe in the theory "The world is a zero sum gain". Perhaps you mean "zero sum game". This is where there is only a fixed amount in the pot, the total gained by the winners must be made up by the total lost by the losers. I don't think it is true to say that of the world in general. It is true of fixed resources eg oil but much of the living world is not a fixed resource like that. For example while it is technically true that there is only a fixed amount of some plant nutrients (for example nitrogen) in the earth's biosphere humans only need a tiny fraction of it and if we recycle it well then it effectively becomes limitless. If food and population grows it is at the expense of nature. Predator vs Prey and so on. So Joel Salatin grows thousands of pounds of food and improves his soil. If this true where does he get thousands of pounds of material to go back into his soil? From air and rain. The great bulk of biomass comes from carbon dioxide in the air, nitrogen in the air and rainwater. Does the amount of rain that falls on his land have as much substance that leaves his farm in food production? Not exactly, see above and this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_cycle and this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle I bet he also buys "lime" and other soil improving substances as well. If he does buy lime and other soil improvements, is he really self sustaining? Or are using the term self sustaining in terms of economics? He probably does by some minor inputs such as lime. The aim in sustainable agriculture at this stage is not to produce a perfect closed system where nothing is lost so nothing needs to be input except sunlight - although some people are actually experimenting with that. The aim is to get away from reliance on fixed resources, especially energy sources like fossil fuels which are going to run out fairly soon. This is because if we don't our present system of agriculture will fall in a heap. In the future we may well have to worry about running out of lime or phosphate rock but those limits are not urgent now. It is going to be hard enough dealing with climate change, fossil fuel running out, water being used inefficiently and over population adding more pressure every day, let's get those out of the way first. David |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
In article
-se ptember.org, Dan L wrote: While I am posting this, I will download "Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet" A book some one recommend on this thread, looks like a good read. Enjoy Life... Dan Using an iPad ??????? -- - 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 |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
Billy wrote:
.... Joel Salatin on his farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, yearly transforms his pastures into "40,000 pounds of beef, 30,000 pounds of pork, 10,000 broilers, 1,200 turkeys, 1,000 rabbits, and 35,000 dozen eggs. This is an astounding cornucopia of food to draw from a hundred acres of pasture, yet what is perhaps still more astonishing is the fact that this pasture will be in no way diminished by the process it will be the better for it, lusher, more fertile, even springier underfoot (this thanks to the increased earthworm traffic)." these numbers do not look right. i don't think there's that many calories available on 100 acres of pasture for that many animals (figure the herd must be around 100 animals for cows alone). does the basic math add up right here Billy? songbird |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
In article ,
"songbird" wrote: Billy wrote: ... Joel Salatin on his farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, yearly transforms his pastures into "40,000 pounds of beef, 30,000 pounds of pork, 10,000 broilers, 1,200 turkeys, 1,000 rabbits, and 35,000 dozen eggs. This is an astounding cornucopia of food to draw from a hundred acres of pasture, yet what is perhaps still more astonishing is the fact that this pasture will be in no way diminished by the process it will be the better for it, lusher, more fertile, even springier underfoot (this thanks to the increased earthworm traffic)." these numbers do not look right. i don't think there's that many calories available on 100 acres of pasture for that many animals (figure the herd must be around 100 animals for cows alone). does the basic math add up right here Billy? songbird Sorry, I'm no a rancher. The above is a quote from The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan http://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dile...als/dp/0143038 583/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206815576&sr=1-1 p. 126 I see where he goes from pounds of beef to rabbits and turkeys, so he may be talking weight before slaughter and not weight of meat (maybe). Then you need to remember that the steers are eating the cellulose in the grass, and the chickens are eating bugs from the grass and the bovine poop, so they are each taking a separate slice of the pasture. For more information go to http://www.polyfacefarms.com/default.aspx SAVE THE FOREST MULCH -- - 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 |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
In article
, Billy wrote: In article , "songbird" wrote: Billy wrote: ... Joel Salatin on his farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, yearly transforms his pastures into "40,000 pounds of beef, 30,000 pounds of pork, 10,000 broilers, 1,200 turkeys, 1,000 rabbits, and 35,000 dozen eggs. This is an astounding cornucopia of food to draw from a hundred acres of pasture, yet what is perhaps still more astonishing is the fact that this pasture will be in no way diminished by the process it will be the better for it, lusher, more fertile, even springier underfoot (this thanks to the increased earthworm traffic)." these numbers do not look right. i don't think there's that many calories available on 100 acres of pasture for that many animals (figure the herd must be around 100 animals for cows alone). does the basic math add up right here Billy? songbird Sorry, I'm no a rancher. The above is a quote from The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan http://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dile...als/dp/0143038 583/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206815576&sr=1-1 p. 126 I see where he goes from pounds of beef to rabbits and turkeys, so he may be talking weight before slaughter and not weight of meat (maybe). Then you need to remember that the steers are eating the cellulose in the grass, and the chickens are eating bugs from the grass and the bovine poop, so they are each taking a separate slice of the pasture. For more information go to http://www.polyfacefarms.com/default.aspx SAVE THE FOREST MULCH If you got to http://www.polyfacefarms.com/default.aspx and click on "Principles" there are 3 videos to watch. In the first video "Mimic Nature", Daniel Salatin mentions that the turkeys get 20% of their feed from the pasture, so it isn't a closed system. Today on "Democracy Now" http://www.democracynow.org/ there are 2 reports on food production. One is on egg production and the other is on meat production. They both fit nicely into the discussion that we we having on the quality of food. They don't talk about increasing supply, but rather about maintaining quality. Since the food supply has become so integrated, just on supplier can screw up the system for many others. It's like the dog food scandal, where one supplier provided the cheapest source of protein powder, which turned out to be adulterated with melamine and cyanuric acid to give the appearance of higher levels of protein. -- - 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 |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:
Dan L wrote: Billy wrote: In article , Bert Hyman wrote: In Billy wrote: I'm not arguing for local food because it tastes better or because it's better for you. I'm arguing that we have no choice. In a world more prone to drought and flood, we need the resilience that comes with three dozen different crops in one field, not a vast ocean of corn or soybeans. In a world where warmth spreads pests more efficiently, we need the resilience of many local varieties and breeds. And in a world with less oil, we need the kind of small, mixed farms that can provide their own fertilizer and build their own soil. Who's going to be the person to tell 2/3 of the earth's population that they're going to have to starve? That would be the fossil-fuel, industrial, corporate farmers, waving their price lists about for people to inspect. If you have followed the thread, Bert, you would have seen numbers that indicate that we are getting diminishing returns from industrial farming, and industrial farming is based on increasingly expensive fossil fuels (2200 lbs of coal for 5.5 lbs of nitrogen fertilizer?). Joel Salatin on his farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, yearly transforms his pastures into "40,000 pounds of beef, 30,000 pounds of pork, 10,000 broilers, 1,200 turkeys, 1,000 rabbits, and 35,000 dozen eggs. This is an astounding cornucopia of food to draw from a hundred acres of pasture, yet what is perhaps still more astonishing is the fact that this pasture will be in no way diminished by the processâıin fact, it will be the better for it, lusher, more fertile, even springier underfoot (this thanks to the increased earthworm traffic)." ----- He grows an inch of topsoil/year. I believe in the theory "The world is a zero sum gain". Perhaps you mean "zero sum game". This is where there is only a fixed amount in the pot, the total gained by the winners must be made up by the total lost by the losers. I don't think it is true to say that of the world in general. It is true of fixed resources eg oil but much of the living world is not a fixed resource like that. For example while it is technically true that there is only a fixed amount of some plant nutrients (for example nitrogen) in the earth's biosphere humans only need a tiny fraction of it and if we recycle it well then it effectively becomes limitless. If food and population grows it is at the expense of nature. Predator vs Prey and so on. So Joel Salatin grows thousands of pounds of food and improves his soil. If this true where does he get thousands of pounds of material to go back into his soil? From air and rain. The great bulk of biomass comes from carbon dioxide in the air, nitrogen in the air and rainwater. Does the amount of rain that falls on his land have as much substance that leaves his farm in food production? Not exactly, see above and this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_cycle and this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle I bet he also buys "lime" and other soil improving substances as well. If he does buy lime and other soil improvements, is he really self sustaining? Or are using the term self sustaining in terms of economics? He probably does by some minor inputs such as lime. The aim in sustainable agriculture at this stage is not to produce a perfect closed system where nothing is lost so nothing needs to be input except sunlight - although some people are actually experimenting with that. The aim is to get away from reliance on fixed resources, especially energy sources like fossil fuels which are going to run out fairly soon. This is because if we don't our present system of agriculture will fall in a heap. In the future we may well have to worry about running out of lime or phosphate rock but those limits are not urgent now. It is going to be hard enough dealing with climate change, fossil fuel running out, water being used inefficiently and over population adding more pressure every day, let's get those out of the way first. David Thanks for the clarification, The term "closed system" is the key word that I was associating with "sustainable". -- Enjoy Life... Dan L |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
Billy wrote:
In article -se ptember.org, Dan L wrote: While I am posting this, I will download "Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet" A book some one recommend on this thread, looks like a good read. Enjoy Life... Dan Using an iPad ??????? I purchased a new toy called an iPad from apple computer. I put the phrase "Using an iPad" for my self to know which machine I was posting from. I forgot that my main computer setup puts a flower pot in the upper corner. I will remove the added catch phase because I doubt I will use the main computer for Internet use much longer in favor of the the new iPad, which is also a book reader also. -- Enjoy Life... Dan L |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
In article
-se ptember.org, Dan L wrote: Billy wrote: In article -se ptember.org, Dan L wrote: While I am posting this, I will download "Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet" A book some one recommend on this thread, looks like a good read. Enjoy Life... Dan Using an iPad ??????? I purchased a new toy called an iPad from apple computer. I put the phrase "Using an iPad" for my self to know which machine I was posting from. I forgot that my main computer setup puts a flower pot in the upper corner. I will remove the added catch phase because I doubt I will use the main computer for Internet use much longer in favor of the the new iPad, which is also a book reader also. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3uuJxZX7s4 -- Bill S. Jersey USA zone 5 shade garden globalvoicesonline.org http://www.davidmccandless.com/ |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
songbird wrote:
Billy wrote: ... Joel Salatin on his farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, yearly transforms his pastures into "40,000 pounds of beef, 30,000 pounds of pork, 10,000 broilers, 1,200 turkeys, 1,000 rabbits, and 35,000 dozen eggs. This is an astounding cornucopia of food to draw from a hundred acres of pasture, yet what is perhaps still more astonishing is the fact that this pasture will be in no way diminished by the process it will be the better for it, lusher, more fertile, even springier underfoot (this thanks to the increased earthworm traffic)." these numbers do not look right. i don't think there's that many calories available on 100 acres of pasture for that many animals (figure the herd must be around 100 animals for cows alone). does the basic math add up right here Billy? songbird The quote is accurate. It is misleading though as Pollan points out later (p222) Salatin does not claim this level of productivity because there is 450ac of woods as well as the 100ac of pasture. The woods make a sizeable contribution to the farm, it produces much pig feed and biomass that is used for a variety of purposes and assists in other ways. So to be more accurate the above production is from 550ac. I would be interested to know what can be done by conventional means. The comparison would be very difficult to make fair I think because the conventional system uses many external inputs and would have trouble matching that diversity of outputs. I suspect that just measured in calories per acre the intensive monoculture might win. The whole point of this is that you can only do that for a limited amount of time with many inputs and many unwanted side effects. Not to mention that man does not live by bread (or high fructose corn syrup) alone. David David |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
David Hare-Scott wrote:
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... Joel Salatin on his farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, yearly transforms his pastures into "40,000 pounds of beef, 30,000 pounds of pork, 10,000 broilers, 1,200 turkeys, 1,000 rabbits, and 35,000 dozen eggs. This is an astounding cornucopia of food to draw from a hundred acres of pasture, yet what is perhaps still more astonishing is the fact that this pasture will be in no way diminished by the process it will be the better for it, lusher, more fertile, even springier underfoot (this thanks to the increased earthworm traffic)." these numbers do not look right. i don't think there's that many calories available on 100 acres of pasture for that many animals (figure the herd must be around 100 animals for cows alone). does the basic math add up right here Billy? The quote is accurate. It is misleading though as Pollan points out later (p222) Salatin does not claim this level of productivity because there is 450ac of woods as well as the 100ac of pasture. The woods make a sizeable contribution to the farm, it produces much pig feed and biomass that is used for a variety of purposes and assists in other ways. So to be more accurate the above production is from 550ac. ah, ok, thanks, that makes a lot more sense. (it just so happens that i requested that book from the library interloan today when i was there so i'll read it all soon. :) ) I would be interested to know what can be done by conventional means. The comparison would be very difficult to make fair I think because the conventional system uses many external inputs and would have trouble matching that diversity of outputs. I suspect that just measured in calories per acre the intensive monoculture might win. The whole point of this is that you can only do that for a limited amount of time with many inputs and many unwanted side effects. Not to mention that man does not live by bread (or high fructose corn syrup) alone. lately i've been doing a close job of living by tomato alone. we surely didn't need two cherry tomato plants and 16 regular size... songbird |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... Joel Salatin on his farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, yearly transforms his pastures into "40,000 pounds of beef, 30,000 pounds of pork, 10,000 broilers, 1,200 turkeys, 1,000 rabbits, and 35,000 dozen eggs. This is an astounding cornucopia of food to draw from a hundred acres of pasture, yet what is perhaps still more astonishing is the fact that this pasture will be in no way diminished by the process it will be the better for it, lusher, more fertile, even springier underfoot (this thanks to the increased earthworm traffic)." these numbers do not look right. i don't think there's that many calories available on 100 acres of pasture for that many animals (figure the herd must be around 100 animals for cows alone). does the basic math add up right here Billy? songbird The quote is accurate. It is misleading though as Pollan points out later (p222) Salatin does not claim this level of productivity because there is 450ac of woods as well as the 100ac of pasture. The woods make a sizeable contribution to the farm, it produces much pig feed and biomass that is used for a variety of purposes and assists in other ways. So to be more accurate the above production is from 550ac. I would be interested to know what can be done by conventional means. The comparison would be very difficult to make fair I think because the conventional system uses many external inputs and would have trouble matching that diversity of outputs. I suspect that just measured in calories per acre the intensive monoculture might win. The whole point of this is that you can only do that for a limited amount of time with many inputs and many unwanted side effects. Not to mention that man does not live by bread (or high fructose corn syrup) alone. David David David, I'm surprised you didn't respond to "Peter Bane did some calculations. He estimates that there are a hundred million agricultural acres in the US similar enough to the Salatins' to count: "about 2/3 of the area east of the Dakotas, roughly from Omaha andTopeka east to the Atlantic and south to the Gulf of Mexico."5 Right now, that land is mostly planted to corn and soy. But returned to permanent cover, **it would sequester 2.2 billion tons of carbon every year**. Bane writes: **That's equal to present gross US atmospheric releases**, not counting the net reduction from the carbon sinks of existing forests and soils ... Without expanding farm acreage or remov- ing any existing forests, and even before undertaking changes in consumer lifestyle, reduction in traffic, and increases in industrial and transport fuel efficiencies, which arc absolutely imperative, the US could become a net carbon sink by chang- ing cultivating practices and marketing on a million farms. In fact, we could create 5 million new jobs in farming if the land were used as efficiently as the Salatins use theirs.4 The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability by Lierre Keith http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myt...ability/dp/160 4860804/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281718588&sr=1-1 p. 250 With the Salatin paradigm, the US could sequester its CO2 emissions, grow healthy meat on permanent pasture, and create 5 million new jobs. It's good not just for your inner environment but your outter environment as well. -- - 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 |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
Bill who putters wrote:
In article -se ptember.org, Dan L wrote: Billy wrote: In article -se ptember.org, Dan L wrote: While I am posting this, I will download "Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet" A book some one recommend on this thread, looks like a good read. Enjoy Life... Dan Using an iPad ??????? I purchased a new toy called an iPad from apple computer. I put the phrase "Using an iPad" for my self to know which machine I was posting from. I forgot that my main computer setup puts a flower pot in the upper corner. I will remove the added catch phase because I doubt I will use the main computer for Internet use much longer in favor of the the new iPad, which is also a book reader also. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3uuJxZX7s4 Cool, I saw Frank Zappa in concert three times. The last concert he replayed the older songs from Mother of Inventions. "Don't eat that yellow snow". It also tells you how old I am:) -- Enjoy Life... Dan L |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
David, I'm surprised you didn't respond to I didn't see it. "Peter Bane did some calculations. He estimates that there are a hundred million agricultural acres in the US similar enough to the Salatins' to count: "about 2/3 of the area east of the Dakotas, roughly from Omaha andTopeka east to the Atlantic and south to the Gulf of Mexico."5 Right now, that land is mostly planted to corn and soy. But returned to permanent cover, **it would sequester 2.2 billion tons of carbon every year**. Bane writes: This statement bothers me because it allows one to think that the quoted rate of sequestration can go on indefinitely.. Every land use will reach a different equilibrium in the amount of carbon that it can store. Forest stores more per acre than pasture which stores more than row crops according to my local agronomist. So it makes sense to say X amount is sequestered per year at a point in time while the biomass is growing. So if you convert an acre of row crop to forest it sequesters a given amount per year which slows to zero as it reaches its maximum storage when the forest matures. After that there is no net sequestration. I would need to know just what this bloke is talking about before commenting further. **That's equal to present gross US atmospheric releases**, not counting the net reduction from the carbon sinks of existing forests and soils ... Without expanding farm acreage or remov- ing any existing forests, and even before undertaking changes in consumer lifestyle, reduction in traffic, and increases in industrial and transport fuel efficiencies, which arc absolutely imperative, the US could become a net carbon sink by chang- ing cultivating practices and marketing on a million farms. In fact, we could create 5 million new jobs in farming if the land were used as efficiently as the Salatins use theirs.4 The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability by Lierre Keith http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myt...ability/dp/160 4860804/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281718588&sr=1-1 p. 250 I cannot read this site, I get a whole lot of blank rectangles, garbled text and IE complaining a script is taking too many resources. So who is Peter Bane? What are his qualifications? Where can we see his calculations and more importantly his assumptions? With the Salatin paradigm, the US could sequester its CO2 emissions, grow healthy meat on permanent pasture, and create 5 million new jobs. It's good not just for your inner environment but your outter environment as well. This may or may not be so. The whole issue of carbon sequestration has been greatly politicised and scrambled. I need to see all the details to have a view of whether this is reasonable. Of course carbon sequestration is but one aspect of any proposed change to land use and agricultural methods. David |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote: David, I'm surprised you didn't respond to I didn't see it. "Peter Bane did some calculations. He estimates that there are a hundred million agricultural acres in the US similar enough to the Salatins' to count: "about 2/3 of the area east of the Dakotas, roughly from Omaha andTopeka east to the Atlantic and south to the Gulf of Mexico."5 Right now, that land is mostly planted to corn and soy. But returned to permanent cover, **it would sequester 2.2 billion tons of carbon every year**. Bane writes: This statement bothers me because it allows one to think that the quoted rate of sequestration can go on indefinitely.. Every land use will reach a different equilibrium in the amount of carbon that it can store. Forest stores more per acre than pasture which stores more than row crops according to my local agronomist. So it makes sense to say X amount is sequestered per year at a point in time while the biomass is growing. So if you convert an acre of row crop to forest it sequesters a given amount per year which slows to zero as it reaches its maximum storage when the forest matures. After that there is no net sequestration. Well, in this case, it would be prairie grass (reflecting Salatin's pasture), creating, hypothetically, one inch of topsoil per year. That's the goal. The tree maxi-es out. The grass maxi-es out, BUT the topsoil keeps on growing (sequestration), one inch per year. If the guy is full of pucky, I'm listening, but it makes sense. The only question is where to put the decimal. I would need to know just what this bloke is talking about before commenting further. **That's equal to present gross US atmospheric releases**, not counting the net reduction from the carbon sinks of existing forests and soils ... Without expanding farm acreage or remov- ing any existing forests, and even before undertaking changes in consumer lifestyle, reduction in traffic, and increases in industrial and transport fuel efficiencies, which arc absolutely imperative, the US could become a net carbon sink by chang- ing cultivating practices and marketing on a million farms. In fact, we could create 5 million new jobs in farming if the land were used as efficiently as the Salatins use theirs.4 The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability by Lierre Keith http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myt...ability/dp/160 4860804/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281718588&sr=1-1 p. 250 I cannot read this site, I get a whole lot of blank rectangles, garbled text and IE complaining a script is taking too many resources. So who is Peter Bane? What are his qualifications? Where can we see his calculations and more importantly his assumptions? With the Salatin paradigm, the US could sequester its CO2 emissions, grow healthy meat on permanent pasture, and create 5 million new jobs. It's good not just for your inner environment but your outter environment as well. This may or may not be so. The whole issue of carbon sequestration has been greatly politicised and scrambled. I need to see all the details to have a view of whether this is reasonable. Of course carbon sequestration is but one aspect of any proposed change to land use and agricultural methods. David -- - 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 |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
"Billy" wrote in message
"songbird" wrote: Billy wrote: ... Joel Salatin on his farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, yearly transforms his pastures into "40,000 pounds of beef, 30,000 pounds of pork, 10,000 broilers, 1,200 turkeys, 1,000 rabbits, and 35,000 dozen eggs. This is an astounding cornucopia of food to draw from a hundred acres of pasture, yet what is perhaps still more astonishing is the fact that this pasture will be in no way diminished by the process it will be the better for it, lusher, more fertile, even springier underfoot (this thanks to the increased earthworm traffic)." these numbers do not look right. i don't think there's that many calories available on 100 acres of pasture for that many animals (figure the herd must be around 100 animals for cows alone). does the basic math add up right here Billy? Sorry, I'm no a rancher. The above is a quote from The Omnivore's Dilemma: Fascinating stuff Billy - lots of clips on You-tube where they explain how they do it. The one of killing and processing the chooks was particulalry interesting and impressive. They killed, dressed and prepared 417 birds in two hours. |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
Salatin does not claim this level of productivity because there is 450ac of woods as well as the 100ac of pasture. The woods make a sizeable contribution to the farm, it produces much pig feed and biomass that is used for a variety of purposes and assists in other ways. So to be more accurate the above production is from 550ac. I would be interested to know what can be done by conventional means. The comparison would be very difficult to make fair I think because the conventional system uses many external inputs and would have trouble matching that diversity of outputs. I suspect that just measured in calories per acre the intensive monoculture might win. The whole point of this is that you can only do that for a limited amount of time with many inputs and many unwanted side effects. Not to mention that man does not live by bread (or high fructose corn syrup) alone. Fair comment David, but then there is a much higher cost to the quality of life for the animals? I'm sure that you, like me, have seen intensive operations such a feed lots and caged chooks. I grew up on a poultry farm and my mother refused to have any cages on the place with the exception of a row of 10 where she used to put birds that were off colour and needed to be taken away from the bullying tactics of the rest of the flock. In the 50s and 60s when other poultry farmers were moving to cages and proud of it, we were free ranging. We once had a city person come back to us and complain about the eggs they bought off us. According to them, the eggs were 'off' and had to be thrown out because they had 'very yellow yolks'. |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
"Billy" wrote in message
Well, in this case, it would be prairie grass (reflecting Salatin's pasture), What sort of species are you talking about when you say 'prairie grass'? The reason why I ask is that the You-tube clips of Salatin's place doesn't look like anything I'd call a 'prairie'. He looks like he's got a farm on quite rich land in a well protected area. 'Prairies' to me suggest very open and exposed locations and the grasses there would, TMWOT, be much tougher and less nutritious than in good pasture land. I might be talking through my hat 'cos I haven't got a clue about US farms, but that's what I'd expect here in Oz if we were looking at farms of differing capacities. |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
FarmI wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message Salatin does not claim this level of productivity because there is 450ac of woods as well as the 100ac of pasture. The woods make a sizeable contribution to the farm, it produces much pig feed and biomass that is used for a variety of purposes and assists in other ways. So to be more accurate the above production is from 550ac. I would be interested to know what can be done by conventional means. The comparison would be very difficult to make fair I think because the conventional system uses many external inputs and would have trouble matching that diversity of outputs. I suspect that just measured in calories per acre the intensive monoculture might win. The whole point of this is that you can only do that for a limited amount of time with many inputs and many unwanted side effects. Not to mention that man does not live by bread (or high fructose corn syrup) alone. Fair comment David, but then there is a much higher cost to the quality of life for the animals? I'm sure that you, like me, have seen intensive operations such a feed lots and caged chooks. That was one of the side effects I had in mind. We have chook sheds for meat birds in the district. Ten thousand or twenty in a shed with a dirt floor with just enough room to move between the feed and the water. Lights on half the night to get them to eat more. The workers wear breathing apparatus to clean out the sheds and it will make you puke at 400m on a hot night. The eagles dine well on those who get trodden under. Nuff said. I grew up on a poultry farm and my mother refused to have any cages on the place with the exception of a row of 10 where she used to put birds that were off colour and needed to be taken away from the bullying tactics of the rest of the flock. In the 50s and 60s when other poultry farmers were moving to cages and proud of it, we were free ranging. We once had a city person come back to us and complain about the eggs they bought off us. According to them, the eggs were 'off' and had to be thrown out because they had 'very yellow yolks'. In those days it meant the chooks had a varied diet not just pellet chook food. A question that you would know, is the yellow yolk still such an indicator or is it emulated these days by diet additives? David |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
In article ,
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote: "Billy" wrote in message Well, in this case, it would be prairie grass (reflecting Salatin's pasture), What sort of species are you talking about when you say 'prairie grass'? The reason why I ask is that the You-tube clips of Salatin's place doesn't look like anything I'd call a 'prairie'. He looks like he's got a farm on quite rich land in a well protected area. 'Prairies' to me suggest very open and exposed locations and the grasses there would, TMWOT, be much tougher and less nutritious than in good pasture land. I might be talking through my hat 'cos I haven't got a clue about US farms, but that's what I'd expect here in Oz if we were looking at farms of differing capacities. OK, you got me walkin' on thin ice here. Having escaped the housing tracts of southern California, I'm long on book learnin' and short on experience, BUT the proposition was to create a carbon sink. Quoting from "The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability" by Lierre Keith http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myt...ability/dp/160 4860804/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281718588&sr=1-1 "Salatin's rotating mixture of animals on pasture is building one inch of'soil annually.4 Peter Bane did some calculations. He estimates that there are a hundred million agricultural acres in the US similar enough to the Salatins' to count: "about 2/3 of the area east of the Dakotas, roughly from Omaha and Topeka east to the Atlantic and south to the Gulf of Mexico."5 Right now, that land is mostly planted to corn and soy. But returned to permanent cover, it would sequester 2.2 billion tons of carbon every year. Bane writes: That's equal to present gross US atmospheric releases, not counting the net reduction from the carbon sinks of existing forests and soils ... Without expanding farm acreage or remov- ing any existing forests, and even before undertaking changes in consumer lifestyle, reduction in traffic, and increases in industrial and transport fuel efficiencies, which arc absolutely imperative, the US could become a net carbon sink by chang- ing cultivating practices and marketing on a million farms. In fact, we could create 5 million new jobs in farming if the land were used as efficiently as the Salatins use theirs."6 So were not talking about using the same pasturage (grasses), but using the same practices, i.e. chooks following steers into the pastures. Prairie grasses (grasses that supported the buffalo in the American midwest) created rich topsoil that was exploited (and consumed) by Europeans with ploughs. See http://ed.fnal.gov/entry_exhibits/grass/grass_title.html for a quick overview of prairies, and http://www.stockseed.com/prairiegrasses_default.asp for grasses. Switching from the idyllic setting of Salatin's farm to American "factory farming", we find that feed is a huge issue. DAVID KIRBY: We worry about what we eat, but we also need to worry about what we eat eats. And the quality of feed can be highly compromised in these factories, where the drive to lower costs and prices is so great, and the temptation to cut corners is there, and this is the result. And we have to remember that factory farming has produced not only salmonella, but also E. coli, also mad cow disease, also swine flu, I believe, and MRSA, the drug-resistant staph infection that now kills more Americans than AIDS. AMY GOODMAN: You say, "Swine flu. Bird flu. Unusual concentrations of cancer and other diseases. Massive fish kills from flesh-eating parasites. Recalls of meats, vegetables, and fruits because of deadly E-coli bacterial contamination." All as a result of animal factories, as you put them. DAVID KIRBY: Correct. Now, those diseases could conceivably emerge in any farm, even the smallest, most sustainable farm, but theyıre far more likely to emerge in these large industrial factories. And again, the scale is so much larger that when you have an outbreak, you have this massive problem thatıs going to cost millions and millions of dollars, just in terms of the lost eggs and productivity. And just to mention the workshops that you were mentioning earlier with the federal government, the Obama administration has vowed to try to even the playing field a little bit more, so that we have greater access to smaller, independently raised farms. And one way, I think, to do that is to address the subsidy issue. This farm got very cheap grain from a farmer who got millions, perhaps, of dollars in our money to lower the price of that feed. If DeCoster (one of the 2 egg companies involved in the present egg recall) didnıt have access to that cheap feed, he wouldnıt be able to operate in this way, and that would provide greater access to the market for smaller producers. AMY GOODMAN: And explain the significance of feed and whatıs in it. DAVID KIRBY: Well, feed is a huge issue. And for example, with the chickens that we eat, so-called broiler chickens, they often add arsenic into that feed to make the birds grow faster and to prevent intestinal diseases. Another thing we do in this country AMY GOODMAN: Arsenic? DAVID KIRBY: Arsenic, yes. AMY GOODMAN: Isnıt that poison? DAVID KIRBY: It is poison. Yes, it is poison. AMY GOODMAN: And how does it affect humans? I mean, the chickens eat the arsenic. Why do they grow faster? DAVID KIRBY: They donıt know. No one knows. The theory is that when you poison a chicken, it gets sick, so it eats and drinks more, consumes more, to try to get the poison out of its body. That makes a chicken grow faster, and it prevents intestinal parasites. The risk to humans, there have been studies done, and they have found residue of arsenic in some chickens. The real threat is in the litter that comes out the other end of the chicken. When that gets spread on farmland, people breathe in that arsenic dust. And thereıs a town in Arkansas where cancer rates are just through the roof. Thereıs been over twenty pediatric cases in this tiny town of Prairie Grove with just a couple of thousand people. AMY GOODMAN: Letıs go to Arkansas. Donıtletıs not shortcut this, because you have a very interesting book, where you look at families in several different communities. Arkansasdescribe what are the animal factories that are there and what happens to the people in the community. DAVID KIRBY: Most of them are so-called broiler operations. Tyson chicken is from Arkansas. The big operators, theyıre in northwestern Arkansas. Itıs justitıs chicken country. And with consolidation, youıve had the rise of these very large factory farms. And again, up until recently, Tyson was using this arsenic product in its feed, and the other companies were, as well. And around this little town of Prairie Grove, as an example, this stuff is dry spreadthe litter is dry spread on the cropland. And where the school was AMY GOODMAN: You mean the chicken manure. DAVID KIRBY: The chicken manure. And the dust has been found in the air filters of homes and schools in this town, and itıs been found with arsenic that has been traced back to the feed in the chicken. Something else we feed chickens that people donıt realize is beef products. And when those chickens eat that beef product, some of it falls into their litter. Well, we produce so much chicken litter in this country, because of these factory farms, and it is so rich in phosphorus and nitrogen, its land application uses are limited. So you have surplus chicken litter and nothing to do with it. What do they do with it? They feed it to cattle. So we feed beef cows chicken crap. That chicken litter often contains bits and byproducts of cattle. So we are actually feeding cattle to cattle, which is a risk factor for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, better known as mad cow disease. We actually feed cattle products to cattle in three different ways: chicken litter, restaurant scraps, and blood products on dairy farms. And all the mad cow cases in this country came from mega-dairies where, when that calf is born, they remove it from its mother immediately, because that motherıs milk is a commodity, itıs worth money, so instead they feed that calf a formula that includes bovine blood products, and again increasing the risk of mad cow disease. " The conversation winds on through beef, and pork production, to contamination of wild fish. http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/24/david_kirby_on_the_looming_threat A quick aside to David, when you consider inputs to monocultures you have to figure in the expense of the fossil fuels (exploration, production, delivery, pollution), and the greater reliance on pesticides that comes from growing the same crop, in the same place, year after year. There is a reason why gardeners are supposed to rotate crops. "IF" monocultures are more productive in terms of calories, you still need to subtract the calories lost in marine life due to the "dead zones" at the mouths of the big rivers, such as the Mississippi, where the dead zone is the size of the state of New Jersey. --- p. 125 "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 ğ 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. The Fatal Harvest Reader Edited by Andrew Kimbrell http://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Harvest-.../dp/155963944X /ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282583500&sr=1-1 -- - 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 |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
Billy wrote:
.... If you got to http://www.polyfacefarms.com/default.aspx and click on "Principles" there are 3 videos to watch. In the first video "Mimic Nature", Daniel Salatin mentions that the turkeys get 20% of their feed from the pasture, so it isn't a closed system. sorry, slow dialup, i don't watch video or youtube here... Today on "Democracy Now" http://www.democracynow.org/ there are 2 reports on food production. One is on egg production and the other is on meat production. They both fit nicely into the discussion that we we having on the quality of food. They don't talk about increasing supply, but rather about maintaining quality. yea, i read something the other day in the WSJ about eggs being recalled and new rules (FDA i think) that just went into effect. we'll see if they actually help. two producers and hundreds of millions of eggs. Since the food supply has become so integrated, just on supplier can screw up the system for many others. what ever happened to monopoly enforcement? It's like the dog food scandal, where one supplier provided the cheapest source of protein powder, which turned out to be adulterated with melamine and cyanuric acid to give the appearance of higher levels of protein. that was outright fraud. which is a moral and ethical issue apart from sustainable agricultural practices. i didn't follow up what happened back in China but i think there were comments about, "facing possible execution." songbird |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... If you got to http://www.polyfacefarms.com/default.aspx and click on "Principles" there are 3 videos to watch. In the first video "Mimic Nature", Daniel Salatin mentions that the turkeys get 20% of their feed from the pasture, so it isn't a closed system. sorry, slow dialup, i don't watch video or youtube here... Today on "Democracy Now" http://www.democracynow.org/ there are 2 reports on food production. One is on egg production and the other is on meat production. They both fit nicely into the discussion that we we having on the quality of food. They don't talk about increasing supply, but rather about maintaining quality. yea, i read something the other day in the WSJ about eggs being recalled and new rules (FDA i think) that just went into effect. we'll see if they actually help. two producers and hundreds of millions of eggs. Since the food supply has become so integrated, just on supplier can screw up the system for many others. what ever happened to monopoly enforcement? It's like the dog food scandal, where one supplier provided the cheapest source of protein powder, which turned out to be adulterated with melamine and cyanuric acid to give the appearance of higher levels of protein. that was outright fraud. which is a moral and ethical issue apart from sustainable agricultural practices. i didn't follow up what happened back in China but i think there were comments about, "facing possible execution." songbird Relax, he was executed. The dog food was feed to steers, pork, and fish. Feel better? "Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine" by Marion Nestle http://www.amazon.com/Pet-Food-Polit...520265890/ref= sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282796329&sr=1-2 She isn't the best of writers, but it is a good book. -- - 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 |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
FarmI wrote: "David Hare-Scott" wrote in message Salatin does not claim this level of productivity because there is 450ac of woods as well as the 100ac of pasture. The woods make a sizeable contribution to the farm, it produces much pig feed and biomass that is used for a variety of purposes and assists in other ways. So to be more accurate the above production is from 550ac. I would be interested to know what can be done by conventional means. The comparison would be very difficult to make fair I think because the conventional system uses many external inputs and would have trouble matching that diversity of outputs. I suspect that just measured in calories per acre the intensive monoculture might win. The whole point of this is that you can only do that for a limited amount of time with many inputs and many unwanted side effects. Not to mention that man does not live by bread (or high fructose corn syrup) alone. Fair comment David, but then there is a much higher cost to the quality of life for the animals? I'm sure that you, like me, have seen intensive operations such a feed lots and caged chooks. That was one of the side effects I had in mind. We have chook sheds for meat birds in the district. Ten thousand or twenty in a shed with a dirt floor with just enough room to move between the feed and the water. Lights on half the night to get them to eat more. The workers wear breathing apparatus to clean out the sheds and it will make you puke at 400m on a hot night. The eagles dine well on those who get trodden under. Nuff said. Indeed. I've been to a feed lot and I had the same reaction although this was probably one of the better run ones. I'd turn vegetarian if our local buthcer sourced his meat at places like that but I can see his 'feed lot' (for want of a better description as it's jsut his farm) from the road and his cattle have quite a nice spot for the final finish on feed before they take the trip to the abattoir. (sp?) I grew up on a poultry farm and my mother refused to have any cages on the place with the exception of a row of 10 where she used to put birds that were off colour and needed to be taken away from the bullying tactics of the rest of the flock. In the 50s and 60s when other poultry farmers were moving to cages and proud of it, we were free ranging. We once had a city person come back to us and complain about the eggs they bought off us. According to them, the eggs were 'off' and had to be thrown out because they had 'very yellow yolks'. In those days it meant the chooks had a varied diet not just pellet chook food. A question that you would know, is the yellow yolk still such an indicator or is it emulated these days by diet additives? That is one of those 'it depends' answers as in, it depends ont he feed. If you feed them on kitchen scraps (not recommended as that isn't nutritious enough) then free ranging (as opposed to keeping confined) will change the colour of the yolk. Pellets contain a yellowing agent, but apparently that yellow isn't carried through so that in baked goods show up the yellowing. Yolks that are yellow as a result of the feed they find outside does hang on through the baking process so that the baked goods (like say a butter cake) will appear more yellow. I've not done these tests myself but there was a long article on it (with comparative pics) in one of the 'Australasian Poultry' mags a couple of years ago. A great little magazine and as cheap as chips. |
It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore
"Billy" wrote in message
In article , "FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote: "Billy" wrote in message Well, in this case, it would be prairie grass (reflecting Salatin's pasture), What sort of species are you talking about when you say 'prairie grass'? The reason why I ask is that the You-tube clips of Salatin's place doesn't look like anything I'd call a 'prairie'. He looks like he's got a farm on quite rich land in a well protected area. 'Prairies' to me suggest very open and exposed locations and the grasses there would, TMWOT, be much tougher and less nutritious than in good pasture land. I might be talking through my hat 'cos I haven't got a clue about US farms, but that's what I'd expect here in Oz if we were looking at farms of differing capacities. OK, you got me walkin' on thin ice here. Having escaped the housing tracts of southern California, I'm long on book learnin' and short on experience, BUT the proposition was to create a carbon sink. Quoting from "The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability" by Lierre Keith http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myt...ability/dp/160 4860804/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281718588&sr=1-1 "Salatin's rotating mixture of animals on pasture is building one inch of'soil annually.4 Peter Bane did some calculations. He estimates that there are a hundred million agricultural acres in the US similar enough to the Salatins' to count: "about 2/3 of the area east of the Dakotas, roughly from Omaha and Topeka east to the Atlantic and south to the Gulf of Mexico."5 Right now, that land is mostly planted to corn and soy. But returned to permanent cover, it would sequester 2.2 billion tons of carbon every year. Bane writes: That's equal to present gross US atmospheric releases, not counting the net reduction from the carbon sinks of existing forests and soils ... Without expanding farm acreage or remov- ing any existing forests, and even before undertaking changes in consumer lifestyle, reduction in traffic, and increases in industrial and transport fuel efficiencies, which arc absolutely imperative, the US could become a net carbon sink by chang- ing cultivating practices and marketing on a million farms. In fact, we could create 5 million new jobs in farming if the land were used as efficiently as the Salatins use theirs."6 So were not talking about using the same pasturage (grasses), but using the same practices, i.e. chooks following steers into the pastures. Prairie grasses (grasses that supported the buffalo in the American midwest) created rich topsoil that was exploited (and consumed) by Europeans with ploughs. See http://ed.fnal.gov/entry_exhibits/grass/grass_title.html for a quick overview of prairies, and http://www.stockseed.com/prairiegrasses_default.asp for grasses. Hmmmm. I havent' a clue about the territory you're talking about however, a one size fits all approach often doesn't work in different areas. Often the same approach wont' work withing just a few kms. I think I'll have to get the book and read it. Switching from the idyllic setting of Salatin's farm to American "factory farming", we find that feed is a huge issue. DAVID KIRBY: We worry about what we eat, but we also need to worry about what we eat eats. And the quality of feed can be highly compromised in these factories, where the drive to lower costs and prices is so great, and the temptation to cut corners is there, and this is the result. And we have to remember that factory farming has produced not only salmonella, but also E. coli, also mad cow disease, also swine flu, I believe, and MRSA, the drug-resistant staph infection that now kills more Americans than AIDS. AMY GOODMAN: You say, "Swine flu. Bird flu. Unusual concentrations of cancer and other diseases. Massive fish kills from flesh-eating parasites. Recalls of meats, vegetables, and fruits because of deadly E-coli bacterial contamination." All as a result of animal factories, as you put them. DAVID KIRBY: Correct. Now, those diseases could conceivably emerge in any farm, even the smallest, most sustainable farm, but theyıre far more likely to emerge in these large industrial factories. And again, the scale is so much larger that when you have an outbreak, you have this massive problem thatıs going to cost millions and millions of dollars, just in terms of the lost eggs and productivity. And just to mention the workshops that you were mentioning earlier with the federal government, the Obama administration has vowed to try to even the playing field a little bit more, so that we have greater access to smaller, independently raised farms. And one way, I think, to do that is to address the subsidy issue. This farm got very cheap grain from a farmer who got millions, perhaps, of dollars in our money to lower the price of that feed. If DeCoster (one of the 2 egg companies involved in the present egg recall) didnıt have access to that cheap feed, he wouldnıt be able to operate in this way, and that would provide greater access to the market for smaller producers. AMY GOODMAN: And explain the significance of feed and whatıs in it. DAVID KIRBY: Well, feed is a huge issue. And for example, with the chickens that we eat, so-called broiler chickens, they often add arsenic into that feed to make the birds grow faster and to prevent intestinal diseases. Another thing we do in this country AMY GOODMAN: Arsenic? DAVID KIRBY: Arsenic, yes. AMY GOODMAN: Isnıt that poison? DAVID KIRBY: It is poison. Yes, it is poison. AMY GOODMAN: And how does it affect humans? I mean, the chickens eat the arsenic. Why do they grow faster? DAVID KIRBY: They donıt know. No one knows. The theory is that when you poison a chicken, it gets sick, so it eats and drinks more, consumes more, to try to get the poison out of its body. That makes a chicken grow faster, and it prevents intestinal parasites. The risk to humans, there have been studies done, and they have found residue of arsenic in some chickens. The real threat is in the litter that comes out the other end of the chicken. When that gets spread on farmland, people breathe in that arsenic dust. And thereıs a town in Arkansas where cancer rates are just through the roof. Thereıs been over twenty pediatric cases in this tiny town of Prairie Grove with just a couple of thousand people. AMY GOODMAN: Letıs go to Arkansas. Donıtletıs not shortcut this, because you have a very interesting book, where you look at families in several different communities. Arkansasdescribe what are the animal factories that are there and what happens to the people in the community. DAVID KIRBY: Most of them are so-called broiler operations. Tyson chicken is from Arkansas. The big operators, theyıre in northwestern Arkansas. Itıs justitıs chicken country. And with consolidation, youıve had the rise of these very large factory farms. And again, up until recently, Tyson was using this arsenic product in its feed, and the other companies were, as well. And around this little town of Prairie Grove, as an example, this stuff is dry spreadthe litter is dry spread on the cropland. And where the school was AMY GOODMAN: You mean the chicken manure. DAVID KIRBY: The chicken manure. And the dust has been found in the air filters of homes and schools in this town, and itıs been found with arsenic that has been traced back to the feed in the chicken. Something else we feed chickens that people donıt realize is beef products. And when those chickens eat that beef product, some of it falls into their litter. Well, we produce so much chicken litter in this country, because of these factory farms, and it is so rich in phosphorus and nitrogen, its land application uses are limited. So you have surplus chicken litter and nothing to do with it. What do they do with it? They feed it to cattle. So we feed beef cows chicken crap. That chicken litter often contains bits and byproducts of cattle. So we are actually feeding cattle to cattle, which is a risk factor for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, better known as mad cow disease. We actually feed cattle products to cattle in three different ways: chicken litter, restaurant scraps, and blood products on dairy farms. And all the mad cow cases in this country came from mega-dairies where, when that calf is born, they remove it from its mother immediately, because that motherıs milk is a commodity, itıs worth money, so instead they feed that calf a formula that includes bovine blood products, and again increasing the risk of mad cow disease. " The conversation winds on through beef, and pork production, to contamination of wild fish. http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/24/david_kirby_on_the_looming_threat Eeeeeew! I feel sick! A quick aside to David, when you consider inputs to monocultures you have to figure in the expense of the fossil fuels (exploration, production, delivery, pollution), and the greater reliance on pesticides that comes from growing the same crop, in the same place, year after year. There is a reason why gardeners are supposed to rotate crops. "IF" monocultures are more productive in terms of calories, you still need to subtract the calories lost in marine life due to the "dead zones" at the mouths of the big rivers, such as the Mississippi, where the dead zone is the size of the state of New Jersey. --- p. 125 "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 ğ 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. The Fatal Harvest Reader Edited by Andrew Kimbrell http://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Harvest-.../dp/155963944X /ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282583500&sr=1-1 -- - 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 |
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