Subject: Sustainable land use

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 17:34:45 PDT

Does anyone know of research comparing the producing capacity
per acre of organic crop output to the capacity using current
crop farming methods in America?  The answer to this question
has relevance not only to the quality of the rural environment
but also to the quality of future American life.

My folks live in farming country in the Midwest and I've noticed
a few things:

1. earthworms no longer live in most farm fields
2. more organic material is removed from fields than returned
3. much of soil in farm fields is acquiring more of a claylike
   texture
4. wind erosion from fall plowing is extensive
5. fish have disappeared from most streams and ditches due to
   chemical runoff from fields
6. summers in the Midwest seem to be growing more humid
7. very little animal or insect life remains in crop field soil
8. more rural acreage is being paved each year
9. rabbits and gamebirds have experienced greatly reduced
   population densities in wooded areas

I feel that if we feed the soil, that it will feed us in harmony.
I feel our government is subsidizing the exportation of our soil's
producing capacity to the Soviets each fall at the expense of our
children and grandchildren.
I feel the only sane policy for sustainable land use is to shift
into the producing capacity that the land itself can provide using
modern equipment but with organic methods.
I feel that our current major weather abberations are due to the
earth asking us to pay attention to its neglect.

---

From: [email-masked] (Keith Jin)
Date: 02 Aug 93 20:38:44 GMT

In his book "The One Straw Revolution", Fukuoka did compare 
his result, yield/acre with the yield of chemical farming. 
His yield is not lower than that of the chemical farming. But
the soil in his field is not depleted but improved every year.
This book was published, I think, twenty years ago. I heard it
was not in print. You might be able to find in a library. 

I feel that what has been done to the land can not be looked 
seperatedly from the man's metality toward the earth and nature. 
If you simply compare the way the land is used and the way our
body is treated, you will see there is not much difference. It
is the same metality: our body and our land is our utility; they
belong to us and we can do whatever to them for our benifit. 

Without changing this metality, I feel little can be changed. 
Man's intellegance is limited. We can not forsee the full 
consequence of our technologies and our inventions. If we only 
think the benifit of men (whether it is for this generation or 
the next), the actions we think are good now may be proven 
to be not that good in thirty years. 

What we should follow is the guidence of our heart. Out heart
knows when our mind is confused. It knows the earth is our
mother. It knows our body is our temple. When the heart is 
fully wakened and alive and when the mind and the heart are in 
a balance, the harmony between nature and men can be achieved. 

Keith