I am not sure if anyone read this article or not, but it is pretty full of
'lies' and more lies. To refer to the main one. As far as inorganic
fertilizers are concerned, these are often finite. The supply of phophorus
is finite, and so is the supply of natural gas used in making nitrate and
ammonia.

Crop yields may be larger using some forms of nitrogen fertilizers than if
organic fertilizers are required, but the limiting factor usually in crop
production is not simply nitrogen but rather water. And water is the most
limiting factor currently. Interestingly the commentator remarks that

"...Swiss researchers did find some true benefits from organic farming,
including greater water retention by the soil and a higher presence of
beneficial insects."

If we were to actually assess where there are 'food shortages', then it
becomes rapidly apparent that it is in those regions where droughts occur
such as in Africa, India, and a few other areas. Secondly another major
cause of food shortages is war, economic strife, and other human caused
reasons.

The biggest problem with 'conventional' agriculture is that it makes soil
fertility less dependent on 'organic' matter, and therefore results in a
depletion of the humus content of the soil. Humus is a form of organic soil
which is also composed of a myriad of biological plant compounds such as
'poly-muccosaccharides', humic acid, and so on and so forth. The organic
soil with a high humus content looks 'black' when it is wet. This is because
the humus in the soil absorbs up to 150% of it's weight in moisture. Just
imagine a soil, a chernozem, or some brunisol, with 50 centimeters of this
soil, a Ao horizon. That amount in cubic meters per hectare is enough to
absorb and retain for plant growth well over one acre feet of water.

Unfortunately for conventional agriculture there is often a lack of humus,
and as a result the crop is much more dependent on irrigation, and as a
result of regular irrigation, and saturation with acidic forms of nitrogen,
soluble trace minerals are 'leached' out of the soil, resulting in plant
deficiencies which lead to great suseptibility to insects. When a drought
occurs and there is a shortage of irrigation water, then the conventional
crop often completely fails to produce, whereas the organic farming
techniques which have built up the humus in the soil, often produce adequate
crops. This has been proven time and time again, and during a recent drought
in the midwest, the organic producers were able to produce crops and get
good prices for the crops.

Contrary to the ideas presented in the article, it is not nitrogen, nor
phosphorus nor potassium which are limiting to food production but rather it
is water. And where there is a shortage of water, the conventional form of
agriculture fails to produce....

There are a whole bunch of other bits of false or exaggerated claims as well
regarding 'no-tillage farming' one of which is that this form of agriculture
uses environmental benign herbicides. The use of herbicides to replace
tillage results in higher levels of herbicide and inorganic nitrogen to
leach from the soil and disperse from surface flows during high
precipitation events. This transfer and release of herbicides which contain
surfactants (some are highly toxic to fish and amphibia) impact the
biological productivity of aquatic ecosystems; you also find
'eutrophication' of small wetlands, streams and even larger bodies of water,
causing them to fail to provide benefits to food production and ecosystems.
Ducks are often poisoned in farm wetlands as a result of toxic algae forming
from the large amounts of nitrogen or amonium that is injected into the
soil.

Coventional agriculture is really the 'lazy' persons short cut to economic
gains. But organic agriculture (and this is the dominant form of
agriculture) requires more direct labour, and more thought and practice.
When the "Green Revolution" occurred in Sri Lanka, there was a unique
agro-ecosystem in place. The rice paddies and irrigation ditches and ponds
were home to a variety of fish species. These fish species ate mosquito
larvae, and as a result there was little or no 'malaria' in the population.
There were many varieties of rice as well. Some for workers, one for
lactating mothers, and some for priests and nuns who like to fast. Each
variety of rice had specific trait selected for to enhance the needs of the
population.

Unfortunately the Green Revolution brough hybrids, inorganic fertilizers,
and pesticides. The pesticides and fertilizers killed off all but the
coarsest fish species, malaria became a serious problem, and many 'small
farmers' lost their lands because of the profits which the largest farmers
made....for a short time. The market for rice was saturated and the price
fell to a price which made it impossible for some farmers to grow rice
without use of pesticides, fertilizers, etc.

The problem with food is that it is poorly distributed and it is often grown
as a commodity to earn nothing else but cash. So when the markets for a
staple fall, then what happens is sometimes the market for another item is
much better, like pineapples, and other export items which are sold in
Europe and North America. Take a country like Mozambique for instance, and
it has a starvation problem now along with much of South Africa. Where do
you think the pineapples and other tropical foods that supply the US,
Canadian and European market are coming from this winter and summer?

Well in fact if drought is exasperating a distribution problem, then it is
not the fault of Mozambique, nor it's people, nor it's climate, but what is
exasperating the problem is a 'distorted market' which causes real hunger in
those populations which lack the money to purchase the food. Growing
pineapples is 'energy' and 'fertilizer intensive' and when you look at the
pineapple field it looks like rows and rows of identical pineapples growing
on a 'sandy red soil'. There simply is no humus of any sort, and that is
because the price of pineapples is so good at times that it 'pays' big time
to drench the fields with pesticides and fertilizers, and when the
pineapples are picked the residues are burned off the soil, leaving nothing
but sandy soil to bake in the sun. So...could any 'campesino' afford to own
a tractor, an irrigation system, and enough land to be able to afford a bank
loan, and buy plants, fertilizers, pesticides well in advance?

No the simple answer to that question is absolutely no. The campesino needs
to make the equivalent of about $600 - $700 US per month to be able to even
obtain a bank loan to build a modern home. Thus a lot of agriculture land in
Central America and in South America lies abandoned and the only use that
takes place on these deserts in the rainforest is cattle grazing, and it
often takes about 40 acres of depleted rainforest to supply forage for one
simple cow, which happens to be the Brahman cow....

A farmer and her family can live on less than one hectare in many areas of
tropical America, but the average NA family requires a much larger amount of
land, vastly more than that.

Even here in the north it is possible to grow enough potatoes to last one
year on 1/4 acre. And the potato is a complete food. There are accounts of
people living solely on potatoes for over 700 days and suffering no ill
effects.

chao

john foster

PS. It takes a number of years for the organic farmer to actually build up
soil that has been depleted by the conventional system of agriculture. Some
leguminous plants actually are very good at restoring organic matter and
nitrogen. One of the best is of course red clover, alfalfa (used in the
Andes to feed coy - guinea pigs), soybean, alders along the fence rows. A
fall sowed rye grass is really good because all that needs to be done here
is to dig it under in the spring, and what happens is that decomposing rye
kills the weeds in the soil. It really works well, and all organic gardeners
with practice use this method or one like it. Using mulch really works if
you the mulch is high in nitrogen: in fact too much can burn the soil just
like NPK fertilizers. Most soils also where there is 'weathering' have a
constant input of trace minerals, and in areas of recen glaciation or
volcanism (much of Africa, Central America, etc) have relatively high
amounts of trace elements.





----- Original Message -----
From: "Chirag Kasbekar" <[log in to unmask]>