Someone say something

[Flo]

Is that heavy posters as in weight baldy or those who started lots of subjects/made lots of comments? Shall we put that down with Keith's suspenders?

[baldybloke]

There used to be people who posted frequently and prolifically. Just saying.

[Thomzo]

Sorry, I'm one of the offenders. I haven't been around for months. I used to be on the forum at least once a day, I would almost go so fr as to say I was addicted. If I couldn't log on, I got withdrawal symptoms wondering how everyone was getting on.

Then last year I extended my garden by buying some land next door. It was extremely overgrown with head height stinging nettles and ground elder. Since then I've spent every dry minute clearing the land, moving a greenhouse, laying out beds, planting veg. Got some new chickens. Every wet minute is spent working to pay for it. But it been great. I now have a massive vegetable plot with two greenhouses, a chicken run and a chicken tractor and a, still to be completed, fruit cage.

So I guess I have been living the dream instead of writing about it.

[sleepyowl]

My work life balance just isn't at the mo, more on the work less on the life which is sucking big time. Added with the fact there have been 5 deaths in the family within 12 months so have not been the chattiest of people of late.

[Flo]

Sometimes life gets in the way doesn't it? In Thomzo's case things are good even allowing for the ground elder (sooner nettles than that) and for sleepyowl, life can be difficult can't it? Do you need sympathy or could we do something more useful for you?

[Weedo]

I will throw something into the mix in the form of a question - perhaps it will spark some discussion.

I don't practice self sufficiency in terms of producing most of my own food etc.(yet) but I do attempt to move towards a higher level of sustainability - however I am no saint at this.. (actually I am currently working of financial self sufficiency so that I can biological self sufficient in my dotage)

By sustainability I mean living within our own resources with a long term negative impact. As an example, for me to produce 1tonne of wheat I will use up 22 Kg nitrogen, 3.8kg Phos, 4.7Kg Potassium, 2.2Kg Sulphur, 0.4Kg calcium and 1.4Kg Magnesium - the other 965 Kg is made up mostly of water and a few micro-nutrients. If I feed this to my own stock then roughly 60% will be returned to the soil eventually. However, If I export the grain and straw then I will need to replace most of this - but this is unsustainable within my property. Without importing these materials I will deplete the soil reserves in only a few seasons; I have to import materials to maintain production. I can mine the atmosphere for Nitrogen by using legumes in the system and by recycling equipment exhaust gasses but the others are mined elsewhere.

Experts will tell us that the average amount of land needed to provide each of us with a sustainable (vegetarian) food and fibre source (not including living, transport & recreation space or materials) is one acre (Westerners require at least 5 acres) If my 900 acre property is providing food for a conservative 150 people then somewhere in the world that 150 peoples worth of other land must be providing me with the materials I need to produce it for it to be globally sustainable in the relatively short term (for it to be truly sustainable extraction should only be at the same pace as the resource is renewed or recycled). Current world population growth means that we need to find another 1 acres with of food production every 0.75 seconds.

The Question - Is (or can) self sufficiency be ecologically sustainable in the modern world ?

[Green Aura]

Have you had a look at a place in the US called Polyface Farm? A guy called Joel Salatin owns it. He claims his method of farming is both sustainable and a joy to do.

Basically he's dumped the whole monoculture and feeding livestock grain ethos. Very simply he lets his cows eat grass (their natural diet) and when he moves them on to the next area he houses poultry in big chicken movable tractors on the same land - they spread the cow poo and forage for bugs etc (part of their natural diet - not grain) and re-fertilise the ground with both the cow dung and their own. His pigs follow another pathway and everything follows cycles so he's replacing what he's using without added fertilisers or pesticides.

I don't know how many people he feeds, what size land he has or what sort of yield he gets, although that information is probably available, but his farm looks fabulous with room for fields, hedges, insect habitats, woodland etc - all playing their own part in the cycle.

There are loads of videos of his talks and of the farm and I think he has written several books. I highly recommend a look.

[bonniethomas06]

Wow Zoe that sounds amazing! You have been busy!

Sorry to hear about your crappy year Sleepyowl, I sympathise on the work/life balance issue, now I can just about afford to indulge my ishy side but have no time because I am too busy working to pay for it! Craziness.

Maggie is that the same farmer who was on Food Inc the docufilm? If so he is utterly convincing to watch, talked a lot of sense. What world do we live in where traditional farming is revolutionary!?

[Green Aura]

I'm not sure. Bonnie - it's a while since I saw that, but it would be the sort of film that might feature him.

[Weedo]

Hi, Back again, been dealing with floods the past few days. The 'bidgee is having a big spring and decided to donate about 1,000 acre feet of water to my farming cause. Unfortunately most of it is on my oat and lucerne paddocks so probably no hay this year as it is rotting under water

Maggie, thanks for the note on the farming system - there are a few of these types, one being increasingly used here is Natural Sequence Farming which aims to reinstate the natural water / nutrient cycles by planting a range of species from trees down.

The point I was trying to make is that as long as we are removing nutrients from a site in any form, including our own bodies, wastes etc., we need to replace them or our sites are unsustainable. Virtually all our "productive" land now operates on an artificial nutrient regime rather than the natural open nutrient cycle which constantly shifts nutrients from site to site and within sites on a global scale.

While I used to grain harvesting example, I actually don't harvest cereals but only grow grazing varieties for green fodder and hay for on farm use. I also don't feed my animals grain; apart from feeding politicians it is the greatest waste of protein about. However, I do grow and harvest cows and they, per tonne, remove approx a similar amount of nutrient. A tonne of cow is about 2 yearling steers.

[Thomzo]

Sorry, I'm one of those former regular posters that hasn't been around for a while. In my case it's because I've been spending lots of time doing. I extended my garden 18 months ago and now have a lovely big vegetable patch that takes up most of my spare time. I've also found a new hobby called zentangle which takes up any dark or wet spare time.

Really interesting story about the drain, Kathy. I had a similar experience. My ex replumbed my laundry room, moving the washing machine and sink from the back of the house to the front. When I asked about the drainage, he said not to worry, he'd been able to join in to the drain at the front of the house. After he moved out, I noticed the laundry room wall getting damp. Investigation revealed that the 'drain' he'd joined into was just a soak away for the downpipe from the guttering which overflowed onto the drive and down onto the road. Every time I ran the washing machine water was overflowing out of that soak away, back into the wall or down the drive onto the road.

[KathyLauren]

The Question - Is (or can) self sufficiency be ecologically sustainable in the modern world ?

That is indeed the $7,000,000,000 question.

I get upset when people tell me that there is not a problem with food supply, that it is just a problem of distribution. They say that "green revolution" techniques can feed the 9,000,000,000 people expected on the planet by 2050. They can, but for how long? The "green revolution" depends on mined resources: fertilizers and petroleum-based pesticides. And mined resources, by definition, are unsustainable.

I like the idea that you are calculating the number of acres required to sustain your farm, including outside resources. But, because mined resources are consumed, not recycled, the footprint has to be measured in acres per year, not just in straight acres. That is what makes the "green revolution" unsustainable: eventually we will run out of minable resources.

Sustainability implies a net zero consumption: all consumables come (directly or indirectly) from waste products. Politicians use "sustainability" as a buzz-word to mean "Let's try to keep the damned environmentalists off our backs until after the next election." Almost no one talks about what it really means.

The most credible estimates I have seen are that the world can sustainably support a population of about 2 billion.