Replanting is an option, but not a simple one. The problem is similar to what the Greenlanders found. Once their cattle had grazed away the natural pastures, they didn't recover in any meaningful sense, because the weather was so cool. With the ground cover gone, there was erosion, and then the topsoil was gone, and their problems just cascaded.
Bird, can you reference this? Where do the amendments come from, and what do you mean they get run through the cow barn, the pigs, chickens? Are we talking feed, or soil amendments?
While its true that at Polyface our omnivores (poultry and pigs) do eat local GMO (genetically modified organism)-free grain in addition to the forage, the land base required to feed and metabolize the manure is no different than that needed to sustain the same animals in a confinement setting. Even if they ate zero pasturage, the land is the same. The only difference is our animals get sunshine, exercise, fresh pasture salad bars, fresh air, and a respectful life.
It has been charged that Polyface is a charade because it depends on grain from industrial farms to maintain soil fertility. First of all, at Polyface we do not assume that all nutrient movement is anti-environmental. In fact, one of the biggest reasons for animals in nature is to move nutrients uphill, against the natural gravitational flow from high ground to low ground. This is why low lands and valleys are fertile and the uplands are less so. Animals are the only mechanism nature has to defy this natural downward flow. Fortunately, predators make the prey animals want to lounge on high ground (where they can see their enemies), which insures that manure will concentrate on high lookout spots rather than in the valleys. Perhaps this is why no ecosystem exists that is devoid of animals. The fact is that nutrient movement is inherently nature-healing.
But, it doesnt move very far. And herein lies the difference between grain used at Polyface and that used by the industry: We care where ours comes from. Its not just a commodity. It has an origin and an ending, start to finish, farmer to eater. The closer we can connect the carbon cycles, the more environmentally normal we will become. Second, herbivores are the exception to the entire negative nutrient flow argument because by pruning back the forage to restart the rapid biomass accumulation photosynthetic engine, the net carbon flow compensates for anything lost through harvest. Herbivores do not require tillage or annuals, and that is why all historically deep soils have been created by them, not by omnivores.
------- So, the Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic's system isn't quite closed, but it is creating topsoil (soil with the highest concentration of organic matter and microorganisms), which other meat producers don't.
You have a reference for this?
Again, a reference, if you have it. Livestock is often fed harvested nourishment during the winter.
From their web site:
We havent . . . . planted a seed, own no plow or disk or silowe call those bankruptcy tubes. We practice mob stocking herbivorous solar conversion lignified carbon sequestration fertlization with the cattle. The Eggmobiles follow them, mimicking egrets on the rhinos nose. The laying hens scratch through the dung, eat out the fly larvae, scatter the nutrients into the soil, and give thousands of dollars worth of eggs as a byproduct of pasture sanitation. Pastured broilers in floorless pasture schooners move every day to a fresh paddock salad bar. Pigs aerate compost and finish on acorns in forest glens. Its all a symbiotic, multi-speciated synergistic relationship-dense production model that yields far more per acre than industrial models. And its all aromatically and aesthetically romantic.
I'd like to think that this is caused by extreme destitution, and employed to avoid starvation, but I can see that somewhere there are Ayn Rand-twisted "free market" house holds, where the head of household exploits the rest of the family. You'll have to excuse me for not considering it. It's a trifle alien to my view of family.
Corporations are obligated to make a profit for their investors. Any action that reduces earnings is considered illegal. They may be able to argue that some actions will avoid legal consequences which in the long run will increase earnings. In other words, being a good neighbor costs a corporation too much.
Non-profits are a different animal, except for where earnings are channeled into the managements pockets as compensation. When non-profits do try to mitigate a social problem, which reduce corporate profits, the corporations have more litigation power. Take farm cruelty for example.
Turns out he does (see above)
I suspect that the benefits of lignified wood comes from the amount surface area exposed.
Yup!
He does. Pigs acquire the intelligence of a 3 year old child. They are a very intelligent species. David Kirby in his book, "Animal Factory", recounts staying at a motel near a CAFO for pigs, and having to hear them scream all night long. The pig that Pollan shot, got to be a pig (raised by its mother, explore, have sex, and be free). I live about 30 min. from where he hunted, and there is lots of wilderness.
Ours are paper. I shop more frequently where stores give you more information about the food you buy, particularly produce.
I wanted to learn chemistry, and I had a college chemistry book, but nothing happened. Then I enrolled into the local college and was given more reading than seemed reasonable, and spent longer hours than I liked in the labs. I still have dreams of showing up for a class that I had been cutting, and being given a test that I wasn't prepared for, and waking up in a sweat. PTSD fer sure.
If I hadn't taken those classes, I'd never have gotten this far with chemistry.
My community is those that I see daily, or some of my neighbors, or those that I eat with.
I guess there are lulls in the fighting. We all need to be held, once in a while.
It has been shown that once a society reaches middle class, their birth rate drops. Presently Germany, and France can't maintain their population without immigrants.
War drought, or floods come to mind. I've read that we throw away 30% of the food that we buy. 30%!
That certainly is true for GMO corn.
I was getting at the over-population of our species. To me, it is madness not to offer birth control. As with the CO2, we need to slow it down, and reduce it. Then we will need a way for us geezers to bow out gracefully.
I think you mean extinct.
Aww!
I think this is where corporate greed comes into the picture again. If we stop consuming, they lose potential profits. Notice how many ads in the media pitch an image, and say very little about the product? PR works. Edward Bernais proved it. Lies can become reality.
Religion has meaning for many people, but for the fundamentalists, it is still manipulation. No more go forth and prosper, but wanting for the good ship "Rapture".
I thought you turned the soil. Good for you, if you don't. You're near a forest aren't you? Can't you gather leaves for mulch? Either way it would get the char out of sight.
Oy. The glare! Maybe we could just do white cars.
Sounds reasonable.
and I think that everyone with a smoke stack thinks it is too expensive, but it's something to tallk about while the greenhouse gasses increase.
Wood gas is a syngas fuel which can be used as a fuel for furnaces, stoves and vehicles in place of petrol, diesel or other fuels. During the production process biomass or other carbon-containing materials are gasified within the oxygen-limited environment of a wood gas generator to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide. These gases can then be burnt as a fuel within an oxygen rich environment to produce carbon dioxide, water and heat.
What is your reference here?
They'll have to grow fast to make up for all the forest that is being cut in the tropics.
My only doubt is with the conversion of the wood to fuel/char.
In 1923, the German chemists Alwin Mittasch and Mathias Pier, working for BASF, developed a means to convert synthesis gas (a mixture of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen) into methanol. A patent was filed Jan 12 1926 (reference no. 1,569,775). This process used a chromium and manganese oxide catalyst, and required extremely vigorous conditionspressures ranging from 50 to 220 atm, and temperatures up to
450 °C. Modern methanol production has been made more efficient through use of catalysts (commonly copper) capable of operating at lower pressures, the modern low pressure methanol (LPM) was developed by ICI in the late 1960s with the technology now owned by Johnson Matthey, which is a leading licensor of methanol technology.Europeans plant lots of poplar for firewood. Forests are so thick that you can't see 5 feet into them.
Obama will be gone. The profits will be in the bank. "Let somebody else worry about it", will be the attitude of the financial elites.
Seems like the most likely scenario.
And we won't have the time to learn how.
I hope to have early ripening, mid ripening, and late ripening tomatoes, i.e. a long tomato season.
That's why they're good for making sauce. You don't have to reduce them as much.
You'd be sorry ;O)
You may want to look at too.
It won't be either if it is poisoned with carcinogenic confetti of plastic.
Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.
-Lucy Parsons
Or moved up the food chain by its predator.
In the predator.
Right back a'chew,
Wild