It's not Just Joel Salatin anymore

[David Hare-Scott]

Different ecosystems work in different ways. In the case of tropical forests the very high rainfall leaches the soil and the biota has adapted to that reality.

Yes

Two reasons. One: that there are environments where building and maintaining topsoil is too hard (eg tropical rainforest) so the adaptive pathway has gone in other directions. Two: humans have been making topsoil disappear since we started agriculture. We now live in an age where so much is transmitted culturally instead of genetically you could call it the post-Darwinian era. This is gross simplification of course because natural selection still takes place as it always has but now many factors interfere with it.

Typically our cultures cannot deal with issues like topsoil because they take generations to see change. When motivation is dominated by the desire to eat today, to make a profit next month and to be elected again in 3 years time how can you spare any thought for problems that have taken thousands of years to develop and will take hundreds to fix?

The way things are heading nothing will be done on a large scale until over population, over consumption, resource limits and climate change form the perfect storm. People will then cry out to leaders saying "why didn't you do anything about it?" The majority of leaders will say "elect me again and I will fix it next year", the few honest ones will say "because you didn't want me to" and they will be the first trampled by the hungry mob.

David

[Billy]

Wot? A soapbox without anybody standing on it?

Since too many politicians are involved in making money, rather than politicking, it will have to be left to us sheep to change direction, if we can. Organic produce increases its rate of sales. year after year, not just in the U.S. but around the world. Since 1990, the market for organic products has grown at a rapid pace, to reach $46 billion in 2007. This demand has driven a similar increase in organically managed farmland. Approximately 32.2 million hectares worldwide are now farmed organically, representing approximately 0.8 percent of total world farmland.

Then there are organic gardeners. Organic Gardening Magazine's rate base will increase more than 5% to 275,00 from 260,000, the third increase for the magazine in four years and an overall jump of 28% from 2007. Organic Gardening's relaunch is in response to a changing mindset among Americans who are choosing to lead healthier, more environmentally conscious lifestyles.

Nutritious food, free of unnatural chemicals, has a strong appeal, and we as organic gardeners are its lobbyists. The world needs to return to a sustainable model, and it is up to us, at least for the time being, to engage in conversations about organic gardening, write letters to the Editor of our local papers, and even write to our Congress people to uphold organic standards, and to make subsidies, at least in part, dependent on stewardship of the land.

Natural ecosystems and organic farmers are the only creators of topsoil today.

[Doug Freyburger]

While true in general I wonder if there are exceptions here and there that are of interest.

There's a wildlife preserve in the Netherlands that forms a natural European grassland with herds of wild undulates and some natural predators. The idea is humans tend to view forest as the natural state of Europe without humans but how did the herding grass eaters like cows and horses evolve in a forest? It's a grassland that's not really natural but more of a deliberate immitation of natural.

Much of the previous discussion has been about ways to conduct small farming to build topsoil, but only in a specific geography. At first I easily imagined morphing the concepts regionally to acheive making topsoil in other regions with adapted methods.

Now I have started to wonder how herd management might be conducted so it grows topsoil instead of depleting it. Buffalo herds were a part of the North American grasslands and soil building in grasslands was discussed. Current herding methods deplete soil - How to change that so they build soil?

I recall the soil being pretty good in the small farm oriented dairyland where most of my relatives lived when I was a kid. Small herds of dairy cattle, crop rotation including legumes, some farms growing feed for the farms with the bigger herds. I wonder how such a model can be mapped to beef herding. What comes to my mind is - grass fed beef rather than lot fed beef, mixed with a smaller heard strategy where the feed is closer to local than it is with modern large beef cattle herds.

[Bill who putters]

Cover crop history.

Looks like we may be getting smarter now if only the department of defence owned up to being the department of war.

[Billy]

Actually this thread started with the observation that, besides Salatin, others have created intensive food producing systems. "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.

Then it morphed into CO2 and topsoil.

An assertion was made by Peter Bane

that using Joel Salatin's methods and converting existing farmland to permanent pasture would allow the U.S. to more than sequester the CO2 that we produce.

Salatins method employes the synergistic effects of steers and chickens caring for a pasture, and he is reputed to generate an inch of topsoil/year.

That is the ideal. Healthier for the animals and human beings. 70% of antibiotics are used in agriculture, so I'm sure you can guess where antibiotic bacteria come from. Plus, using the steers and chickens in combo, no fossil fuel is used in fertilizing the pastures. The chickens eat the bug, thus there is less fossil fuel based pesticides used, if any.

[Billy]

I'll look at this soon, when I have more time.

"While President Obama is claiming the war is ending, the US still maintains a large presence in Iraq. Fifty thousand US troops remain in Iraq to help with training and logistics. In addition, the US is keeping

4,500 special operations forces in Iraq to carry out counterterrroism operations. Tens of thousands of private contractors will also remain in the country."

"White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has said President Obama may also talk tonight about how the the US is expanding the war against al-Qaeda by carrying out strikes in Africa and other areas beyond the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq."

Robert Gibbs: "I think you have seen a commitment to taking our fight directly to the leadership throughout the world, all over the world, in different places, be it in and around Africa, be it in Southeast Asia. I think the President made a commitment to increase the tempo of that fight, and that¹s exactly what he¹s done."

So while the Iraqi War winds down, we will be ramping up the Obama/Bush wars in Africa and in Southeast Asia. Even if they have democratically elected governments.

I would have sworn that "peace" looked different than this.

[FarmI]

I think you might mean 'ungulates'. At least I assume you are but then there might be some sort of wavy beast about that I can't bring to mind?????

[David Hare-Scott]

Dancing with the stars?

D

[Billy]

You're obviously not drinking what I'm drinking. Wild undulates, I said that? I like it;o) I like it a lot. I like it too much!? I like it. Think I'll go slip into something drier. Feelin' a little humid.

[FarmI]

Unless it's non-alchoholic, then you're probably right. I'm always the duty driver 'cos I won't ever blow over the limit.

Wild undulates, I said

No, you didn't say that, Doug did. But I liked it a lot too.

I like it;o) I like it a lot. I like it too much!? I like it.

Perhaps an aspirin might help too?

[phorbin]

If you haven't, have a look at "A Farm for the Future" on youtube.

[Billy]

For me, or for you?

[Doug Freyburger]

Thanks for noticing my typo! Now I have visions of herds of wild grass eating caterpillars (which I had to look up in the dictionary to make sure I didn't make a similar spelling error ;^). When they all go into cocoons look out! We all know that their adult form is to replace humans with body snatchers. We're doomed.

[Bill who putters]

From above URL.

Romanticism Main article: Romanticism During the Industrial Revolution an intellectual and artistic hostility towards the new industrialisation developed. This was known as the Romantic movement. Its major exponents in English included the artist and poet William Blake and poets William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. The movement stressed the importance of "nature" in art and language, in contrast to "monstrous" machines and factories; the "Dark satanic mills" of Blake's poem "And did those feet in ancient time". Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein reflected concerns that scientific progress might be two-edged. [edit]

Look for Albion and Blake and Wagner for past transgressions :)))

[David Hare-Scott]

Most beef cattle in Australia are raised on grass although finishing them in lots is reasonably common. Like all farming it's hard work but it isn't impossible. Somehow they manage to do it economically so that our export beef competes so well on the USA market that Uncle Sam raises tarriff barriers against it. So much for friends and allies. The big ag lobby has much to answer for.

This industry does use synthetic fertiliser (Oz farmers just looove superphosphate) but there is some movement towards more sustainable systems. One reason super is entrenched is - guess what - government subsidy. For years the 'superphosphate bounty' made it easy not to think, just put on more super. Sure Oz has phosphate deficient soils in many areas. However over the years millions of tons of super has been applied, where has it gone? Probably growing water plants and algae in the rivers. It isn't in the soil or if it is it isn't available because in many cases they have to keep applying it.

David

[phorbin]

If you're responding to the link I posted, "Did you look up the video and watch all of it?"

If not, I have little to say except that I may be a romantic but not about gardens, farms, agriculture etc. ...and I've worked in industry and feel the the terms used to describe the machines, mills and factories in the wiki article and poetry don't do them justice.

I took lit crit in uni btw.

[Bill who putters]

[phorbin]

One of the reasons I suggested "A Farm for the Future" is that one farmer has been developing a grass/plant mix that protects the soil and allows him to keep his animals on wet pasture during a British winter.

As for the link you posted... I think we're past the point where we need to know anything but what we already know. Badness is coming our way, stupid technologies won't help us survive and we must be prepared for dry, wet, or both; with a plan A & B, knowledge, experience, seed and community.

Our year has been too dry and our summer, too hot.

[Bill who putters]

Was this on 1/5 or latter I gave up after 1/5 video. I'm not sure badness in the cards but fear sure seems to be about. Last time I looked fear inhibits movement. Much better to mimic good when you see it and get on. I've been making topsoil for over 45 or 50 years neighbors wonder why. But I consider it gold along with Good quality hand tools. My well that I drove with my dad 38 years ago may be failing due to well point rot. I'm told I can get a new well BUT the old one must be destroyed. I want a back up hand pump for power failure. Stinks but the health department want and controls the wells per dwelling. This in water rich S. Jersey.

[phorbin]

A local has a full copy from BBC with public showing rights so I've seen the whole thing as it's meant to be seen.

I forget exactly where it is in the video. ...To sum up the relatively short segment, it's possible to design pasture that builds and protects the soil so that you can overwinter animals in the pasture, even in the wet conditions of Britain.

Everyone I know does and feels the same about good quality tools though many don't get the need to have *sharpened* good quality hand tools.

I just shake my head when someone tries to hammer through a root with a dull garden spade or bludgeons the hell out of weeds with a blunt hoe.

The two maintenance tools everyone should have are a grinder to create sharp edges and a good file to maintain sharp edges while you work.

Geez... Can you apply for an exemption to that bit of law?