On Wed, 4 Apr 2001 00:02:57 -0700, Ingrid Bauer <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

I wrote:
>>As we are the 5000-fold of 1 million now, things get a little tighter.
>>Stone age agriculture reduced the space needs by a factor of 1000 (but for
>>good soils).
>>Organic agriculture today yealds some 3-10 fold more than this.
>>Chemical agriculture of today yields 2-4 fold of organic agriculture.

Jean-Claude:

>This ecological impact is also proportionnally  related to the raise in
>yield to the point that IN REALITY  and GLOBALY there is no gain at all ,
>just the appearance of a temporary and locally  made  improvment .

I agree.
For the "gain" chemical agriculture has. It's short term.

The neolithic stone age agriculture I think is free or nearly free from the
problems you see. I haven't read this book yet, but it shurely was close to
the wasanobu agriculture you praise.
No fertilizers, no waste.
And still this way of life brought the biggest reduction of land space need
(1000-1200 fold).
Do we really need the last 4-folding from chemical agriculture?

>Organic farming timidly try to adress the ecological impact but it is still
>serious  because it relie on many things coming from outside the system so
>depleting other aeras of the globe ( machinery , organic fertilisers ,
>irrigation , ...)
>Some organic schools like biodydamic agriculture or even better
>permaculture
>are closer to a closed system but there the yield fall per acre .

I don't know which schools of organic production you know of.
The farmer I got my numbers from is "naturland", one of the 4 leading in
south germany. He's working without animals, the only fertilizer is his own
compost and intermediate legumes.
The only thing from outside is the diesel for the tractor.
And it workes for some 20 years unchanged now.


>But there is a limit in that ratio of peoples to other species  We are soon
>to reach this limit thru desertification .Masanobu told us that a reduction
>of  5 percent more  of the total biomass will bring us in a irreversible
>stage of desertification. ..

>I will say  ,  in that perspective ,  that trying to improve yield is
>criminal and irresponsible  . Nature if left alone is allways at the most
>of it's potential.

I agree.

I note that in western countries very much of the crops from the yeald
pressed to the top goes to waste. In form of animal shit.
For example Germany, it consists to 1/3 of wood and is the most densely
populated bigger country of the world.
I've computed that the remaining agricultural soil is still about double as
what would be needed to sustain it's population in 100% organic manner (with
the original yealds numbers from my farmer). With grains.
But not if 50% of the grains are fed to cattle in a house (90%waste).


> So we come back to the
>starting point Hunting gathering . I found Natural way of farming as a
>perfect transition  mean to go there .

That would imply that only 80,000 instead of the 80 million Germans could
live in this country.

In the long term, there's no way around proper organic farming.

I'm not particularly fond of a densely populated country.
I like vast areas with wood, lakes, mountains and without houses.
But not at the cost of a drastic population decrease, what reason for ever.

Regards, Amadeus