From gardenbetty@earthlink.net Thu Jun 11 23:10:19 1998 Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 19:43:44 -0400 From: gardenbetty@earthlink.net To: sanet-mg@shasta.ces.ncsu.edu Subject: Sustainable agriculture defined? Following this list for a bit now, I've noticed that there is a remarkably wide variance of what exactly sustainable agriculture means. In my little neck of the sa world, sustainable agriculture goes beyond organic, which has its own issues with soil erosion, nutrient pollution and constant outside inputs. To me, sus ag is agricultural technology works in complete harmony (symbiosis?) with nature and/or mirrors natural systems. It is ag. technology that regenerates and revitalizes soils, literally grows new topsoil faster than nature can, full of minerals and natural soil biota that fight disease, assist in and improve nutrient uptake by the plants, and provide organic matter and soil aeration. The sus ag I know strives to be 99% efficient economically (calculating ALL costs such as petroleum used in making fertilizers or transporting food, soil erosion, health care due to ag pollution, clean up of streams, etc.), environmentally (zero pollution, waste stream reduction, zero erosion, composting, etc.), and geographically (many small-scale farms, locally grown/sold produce, community involvement, cooperative decision making, etc.). At our Urban Oasis farm and greenhouse in DC we are using the Biointensive method of growing coupled with permaculture engineering of the land. Using these methods we have zero soil erosion and excellent natural soil fertility. We make all of our own fertilizer and seedling soil, save our seeds, grow some crops specifically to make compost with (e.g. vetch, wheat, corn) and add soil mass via root systems (cereal rye, alfalfa), and use intensive IPM and biodynamic pest/weed management in the greenhouse and in the field. We even will soon irrigate the field using swales and water catchement off the greenhouse roof. Our labor comes cooperatively from the very community who takes home the food. We further reduce the waste stream by involving the community in composting, by using cardboard boxes from stores as sheet mulch, and by collecting food waste for compost from local supermarkets and restaurants. Using all of these technologies (most of which were resurrected from ancient cultures), in the next 2-3 years, we expect to reach 2 to 10 times (crop depending) the productivity of both conventional and organic row culture using one fourth the space, and one tenth the water and fertilizer, with no soil erosion. We also expect by that time to have grown about an inch of topsoil, to no longer need gas-powered machinery and to be down to zero purchased inputs. We are already very close to these expectations now. In fact, once plans are complete, the place promises to almost run itself for free;) This to me is the beginning of sustainable. I guess my little corner of the sa world must be pretty small because I have been surprised to find such a wide interpretation of what exactly constitutes sustainable agriculture on this list. I am curious about the spectrum of belief about sus ag here and look forward to observing the discussion around this topic. food for thought, dawn gifford garden resources of washington (GROW) To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with "unsubscribe sanet-mg". To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command "subscribe sanet-mg-digest".