Selfsufficientish.com

Here's a quirk on organic produce here. (just putting it out there) There is still quite a lot of "undeveloped" land in the far west of NSW (and other parts of Oz) - mostly rangelands woodland that has never had a drop of pesticide or gram of artificial fertiliser put on it; its use has historically been cattle and sheep productiongrazing native grasses, forbes and shrubs, on very low stocking rates - avergage 3.0 DSE / Ha - equating to 1 dry sheep per acre or 1 dry cow per acre in an average season. These measures are related to only maintaining (not fattening) the beast in moderate condition. There is a growing trend properties in these areas certified as Organic which is very simple in these cases; not for esoteric reasons, just because they can make more money for organic produce. BUT, there is also a growing trend to "improve" these lands by tapping into underground water supplies and replacing the graze with improved pastures. The same in happening with grain, fruits and other production systems.

So, organic agriculture / horticulture can also be detrimental to the natural environment.

No, organic doesn't automatically mean good. I don't like those huge, industrial organic farms, either. As one in the know once told me: They don't ask - how can we change our methods so we don't have to spray, instead they ask - what can we spray if that particular spray isn't allowed!

Indeed. I think organic often ishorthand for "least worst". I'd go for permaculture grown or from small, local producer these days. There does seem to be a growing trend, albeit slowly and maybe it's a UK thing, towards small, mixed farming again. The problem then is that, being right on trend, a lot of its produce is prohibitively expensive.

Its not just being trendy that increases the price its the scale of production - economies of scale. The big guys can negotiate input material and equipment prices almost half of what I have to pay. Added to that, the processing volume they produce makes it cheaper per unit (eg. Kg of beef). If I was to enter the "farmer maket" arena for my product I would have to locate a competent local butcher to process the carcases who, in turn, has to pay significantly more per unit to maintain his small abbatoir (licencing, etc.) and for labour. add in packaging, marketing, storage, delivery etc. etc. I would have to charge much higher to cover costs.

I would love to see the return of the local processor sourcing high quality local produce

look at this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za2dsB0qrMg

https://www.greenbiz.com/article/inconv ... alth-diet

This popped up in my FB feed this morning. I found it quite a good critique of the aforementioned diet.

Oh, and some of the comments underneath made me laugh out loud.

I gotta say that much of the criticism of possible solutions to the problem of sustainability need to be addressed. I guess the way to best address the issues is to agree on what the underlying problem may be such that possible solutions are valid candidate solutions. A solution that fails to address the problem or a solution that does not address the needs of those who understand the problem is not a good solution. What is the problem that the suggestion that agri-business and agricultural depts of governments need to address? Is this problem a valid one - and if it is, how is it best addressed? If it is not a valid problem then why are we trying to resolve it? If what is being discussed is not the real problem but there is a different but related problem then what is THAT problem and if there IS a problem whether the one being discussed or a different one then what happens if we fail to resolve it? In other words is the problem global warming and so our carbon footprint or is the problem population growth and the increasing relative wealth of people who are now making larger demands on agriculture to provide more meat/animal protein per person per 100,000 people than ever before OR ???