At 07:32 12/03/1999 -1000, you wrote:
>axel:
>>big chunks of the land
>>used for animals to eat and walk about? this is very stupid and mad, don=B4t
>>you think? you could grow trees, all sorts of vegetables, natural reserves,
>>reforestation, etc. yes there are areas that can not grow all this, but
>>many can.
>
>Your getting personal here, axel. We have six acres where we could grow
>nearly anything, plant or animal that doesn't have a chill requirement. It
>appears that our land will support over twenty sheep, a couple donkeys,
>hundreds of poultry of various types, extensive gardens and mostly
>orchards--somehwere down the line. We bring in some soil ammendments and,
>yes. some cheap grain mixtures to "control" the animals but they do or will
>mostly pasture. Their excrement helps to build soil. They turn the weedy
>vegetation under the fruits trees into humus lessening our need for outside
>fertilizers and ammendments. And they are a delight.
>

kirt, i am only talking about the general way conventional animal farming
works. of course properly done and small scale it can be fine.
i apologize for over-generalizing. it was not my intention to say "this is
the only way things are". rather "the general state of affairs in the world
seems to be like this".

>In a decade or so, we should have _way_ more food than we could eat (time
>to get some pigs ;)). If it was done even more intensively, I suspect
>several large families could be very nourished from this set up. Animals
>walking about and eating is not stupid or mad. It's part of the way it
>works.

sounds pretty cool!


>Besides, if you feel the world's population is too large, why would you
>want feed more human mouths with the grain that goes to cattle? The
>population would jump even faster, no?

i do not know, just many would not starve to death...

later,

axel makaroff