Hi Lion,
I have seen some scientific studies showing that a virgin rain forest
actually can extract the highly diluted mineral salts available in
rainwater. So that the water going down river contains less minerals than
the rain. This must be seen of course over the total area of forest and the
total amount of rain falling. Even if the water runs a wee bit brown the
forest as actually gained from it.
A tropical rain forest is a bad example by the way when you want to explain
that mineral loss is made up by extraction from the soil. Most essential
minerals are circulating in the biomass. The living tissue of the forest
has, as you say, had millions of years to extract whatever can be extracted.
It is only in more moderate climates that minerals are stored in the soil.
Until recently the rainforest was sustainable because it was an almost
closed system. But in the last century human exploiters have had a rising
impact. Emerald miners are using power hoses to wash away river banks to get
at the stones, logging and road building all cause erosion. And the rivers
are running a good bit browner than ever before.
How long this will be sustainable is not yet clear. A good 20 % have so far
disappeared and already there are signs ( such as diminished rains ) that
the total system is in danger.
A small tropical rain forest is an inconsistency. There is a tipping point.
Once a certain value of damage is reached the system will further collapse
from itself without any further help from humans.
----- Original Message -----
From: Lion Kuntz <lionkuntz@email.com>
To: John D'hondt <dhondt@eircom.net>
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2000 10:00 PM
Subject: RE: Re: Fw:higher nutrient levels in organic food
> ---
> <John D'hondt> "How can one maintain mineral content in organic soils if
the first objective in
> (organic ) agriculture is to make a profit. The farmer exports his produce
and his minerals and he
> brings only money back, which has a notoriously low mineral content."
>
> <LION> Explain how the Amazon forests can maintain mineral content when
the soils are leached by up
> to 200 inches of rain per year? The rivers run brown exporting the organic
matter. Where does the
> replacements come from? You pose your question as a joke (about the low
nutrient value of money) but
> the reality is that not even money comes back to these rain-purged
forests.
>
> So is this a sustainable ecosystem? The evidence is that it has been
sustained over many hundreds of
> millions of years, operating just as we know it today for as far back as
we can trace. So what is
> the factor replacing these exported nutrients?
>
> ---
> <John D'hondt> "There are/were some countries were farming has proven
itself to be sustainable for
> at least a few thousand years. But there the farmers brought the bodily
wastes of their customers
> back to the farm together with a little money."
>
> <LION> You are aware of the repugnance most people view their wastes, and
it is not an option to
> place these wastes anywhere into the human food-chain. It apparently not
necessary either. There is
> another paradign which does not see imminent depletion of the base of the
food-chain, nor necessity
> of human offal as requirement for sustainability. You might give it a
thought some day.
John
O course I am aware that nowadays most people view their wastes with
repugnance. Every day the most vile obscenities are shown as a matter of
course on television and in films but I have never, NEVER seen anybody
perform this normal bodyly function on the screen.
I called it a taboo subject did I not. We should try to remember perhaps
that we are dealing here with a sisable embarrasment. Something to the tune
of a few million tons per day. And that this repugnant subject is causing a
good bit of damage to this worlds seas and oceans.
I must say that I use worm composting myself. But due to climate mainly they
are never so plentifull that they could be harvested to feed hens in any
quantity. The only place where they are plentifull enough is in the outher
layer of my hot compost heap, where they have the benefit of the extra
temperature.
Under our conditions it is a fact of life that if there is an insufficiecy
of Mg, S, Co, P or whatever in the soil that our worms are not going to
remedy that.
You are working with good agricultural soil without defficiencies to start
with and under an ideal climate. But if you keep it up the way you advocate
I would like to talk to you again in about a hundred years time. By that
time your situation should not be all that different from ours now.
> ---
> <John D'hondt> "How can one maintain mineral content in organic soils if
the first objective in
> (organic ) agriculture is to make a profit."
>
> <LION> Nature has made a profit, continuously except for five periods of
mass extinction which
> caused multimillion-year ripples in the growth charts, life has been
exploiting minerals for
> 3,700,000,000 years, flushing them down the benthic depths. All the life
you see today is believed
> to have started from one or a very few parent forms. I see no particular
reason to be concerned
> about the welfare of life from a mineral point of view. It is the habits
of the exterminator species
> which is a problem of much more concern to all of life.
>
> ------Original Message------
> From: "John D'hondt"
> To: wytze , sanet
> Sent: April 9, 2000 12:21:51 AM GMT
> Subject: Re: Fw:higher nutrient levels in organic food
>
>
> I can well believe this but one question springs immediately to mind. How
> can one maintain mineral content in organic soils if the first objective
in
> (organic ) agriculture is to make a profit. The farmer exports his produce
> and his minerals and he brings only money back, which has a notoriously
low
> mineral content.
>
> Farmers may have to do better than that or sustainability may be no more
> than a short lived fashion word.
>
> There are/were some countries were farming has proven itself to be
> sustainable for at least a few thousand years. But there the farmers
brought
> the bodily wastes of their customers back to the farm together with a
little
> money.
>
> Rather impossible to realize in this urbanized, efficient world?
> John
>
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