Possible hybrid

[Bill who putters]

Someone once said you can't have one without the other.

[Billy]

And YOU are the great arbiter of rationality (who is and who isn't)?

And you say this, why? Could you indicate the suppositions and opinions that you take exception to, please.

Industrial agriculture has always achieved higher yields when growing monocultures. Interplanting (multiple crops grown in the same area) has alway produced higher yields than monocultures per acre.

Additionally, at 2:30 in Part 5 of A Farm for a Future it was noted that sweet chestnuts produce at about the same yield as rice, and have a similar nutritional profile.

I'm not asking that you take this on faith, but it would be helpful if you could supply in the form of citations that one can look at to make up their own mind, instead of of having to depend on your divine revelation of the truth.

Organic agriculture is about growing soil. For decades agricultural zones have lost top soil because of the lack of microorganism in the soil due to chemical fertilizers, whose excretions in the soil helps to bind the soil together. Over application of chemical fertilizers, used as crop insurance, results in the run-off of nutrients which end up creating dead zones in the oceans, which could have been sources of food for people. Large applications of organic materials (manure, lawn clippings) to agricultural land (not counting CAFOs which have added more animal waste than the land can carry) would have the same results, but I haven't hear of this happening outside of large gardens. Perhaps you can inform me as to where this happens.

Think about this. I have to be away for a few days, and then I can continue.

Again, your opinion, and you know what they say about opinions ;O)

How, objectively, do you determine that?

Such as yourself, right?

Yes, your clear opinion, but what source do you have to support that view?

And your source for this revelation is . . . . ? Citation, please.

Where's the beef? Do you have any facts, or is it all harangue?

We haven't even touched on GMO foods yet (the most used in monocultures), and the fact that there have been no feeding trials with them to ascertain health risks.

[David Hare-Scott]

As I read the article the comments were obtained by email by the blogger Revkin from one author (Foley). Whether or not they are in the main paper I cannot say since it is paywalled. What exactly are you so unhappy about?

Did you read the full paper or just the extract?

The quality of science reporting around the world is inadequate. Finding some amazing result in the headline that is not supported by the actual research is par for the course. But I still don't see what you are getting so excited about. You now seem to be saying the author Foley is to be distrusted as well as Revkin. Why is that?

Who is the idealogue here the Revkin or Foley?

So far all I see is scattershot criticism and nothing specific.

David

[phorbin]

For awhile.

In the farther short term and the long run, barring some new and non- oil/non-carbon/non-natural gas based technologies arising to drive farm tools and produce fertilizer etc., conventional ag. is a dead end.

The potential yield by using permaculture methods outstrips anything so- called conventional agriculture offers.

[songbird]

[white space is helpful :] ] ...

too busy lately to digest this well, suggest shredding and composting ASAP. ;)

songbird

[songbird]

Billy wrote: ...

from what i can tell, the past 40something years of observation, topsoil losses here are from bare dirt farming practices that leave fields empty to the wind for 6 or more months at a time, erosion by rain, plowing the fields right up to the edge of the ditch and the idiots who burn ditches.

safe journeys. :)

...

we are the feeding trial -- morbid obesity is the verdict.

songbird