Sustainable Agriculture.

[Gerald L R Stubbs]

The message <[email protected]>

It's a disgrace. But, like battery farming, customers agree that it's a
disgrace.
Yet still buy the stuff :-(

Of course they do. In the UK there must be forty million eggs consumed
every day. There just is not the land available to maintain an outdoor
flock that would produce that many eggs. Anyway, the usual free-range
eggs are the produce of hens that scratch around on dirt in messy
compounds. The eggs taste like shit and to my mind the birds are not
what I call free-range. They are just able to go outside if they wish.

My few hens are free range. They are not confined at all and go where
they like. They do a lot of grazing and have a high intake of insects.
It shows as the eggs actually have a good flavour and coulour. But eggs
like that cannot be bought in the shops.

 

[Gerald L R Stubbs]

The message <[email protected]>

Nothing - but why grow turnips (swedes?) on land which doesn't do it very
well?

Because it gives a bit of variety to potatoes and oats. Seriously, it
is winter feed for stock and is a plant that grows very well in our
northen latitude (58N) . The lack of boron is a local problem and not a
general Scottish one.

 

[Day Brown]

Ah - finance again.
But it might just tempt some into getting real.

I see that it has in my neck of Ozark woods. But still the population
here, and the wiser portion of it, are a small portion of a small state.

Maybe the hand of Fate; She has a sense of humor- that it will be the
organic farmers who first pick up on ethanol from switchgrass, which can
be even *more profitably* grown without petrochemicals. And because of
their abiding interest in alternative energy (I know one who already
converted his RV to run on alcohol), they will be making the modest
investment in the equipment, and then get to laff all the way to the
bank while the agribusiness dudes are sweating it out with their
suppliers to meet the spirialing costs of the way they operate.

Other economies of agribusiness methods are increasingly critical,
seeing hidden costs that they have to pay for, leaving more and more of
the economically desperate as a customer base... that is decreasingly
reliable and subject to revolution. If the long term result of the food
which agribusiness produces, which is low cost now, is also high cost in
terms of healthcare and mental deficits, then we'd expect, as we see,
more violence, crime, and corruption resulting in more failed states.

 

[Gerald L R Stubbs]

Don't be silly, Stubbsy, it doesn't become you.

I am not being silly. The man lives on a different planet to everyone
else. He is stuck in some sort of equivalence to an Amish timewarp (I
am safe there, aren't I, as there won't be any Amish reading this?)
only he is not quite sure when the cut-off date should be.

No he doesn't.

Sorry, but in one of the Independent's supplements there was a very
lengthy article on the heir apparent, extending to four or five pages.
Contained therin was a photograph of half a dozen young men on all-fours
weeding a crop of carrots. Why did you say that my statement was not
true ?

His products are sold, it's a commercial business. Profits go to The
Prince's Trust, which has helped two of our children and very many
others we
know to start their own businesses.

Bravo, and I think the Prince's trust is a commendable thing, but he
is only selling his stuff off the back of his name. Just because he
runs a worthwhile charity that does not mean that everything else he
does is worthwhile, viable, or even of the slightest interest to the
general public.

Which is a pity.

Is it ? Do you mean that you would like to go back to the days when men
were shot away physically when they were approaching the age of fifty
simply through having been made to work like beasts of burden ?, where
there was little mechanical help and the men who worked on the farms
were broken before their time through excessive hard labour. It makes a
romantic picture of horses and haystacks and the honest ploughboy of
Soper's paintings, but the reality was an awful, horrid grind through
life with little reward other than the labourer's pride in his work. He
had nothing else.

He is not mad.

Anyone who can finance the construction of a brand new village/town,
making it a pastiche of the real thing must be seriously off his
trolley. He also believes in what is nowdays called 'organic'
agriculture, believing that it is an equation that balances.

The Prince's products (Duchy Originals) are sold in all supermarkets.

And bought by who ? I would not buy anything that he produces.

Only those which allow it.

Oh, wonderful ! The Lord of the Isles, Duke of Cornwall, Prince of
Wales, leave my clothes lying all over the place for other people to
pick up after me, he will not allow the supermarkets to dictate to
Himself. The man is a billionaire standing doing nothing... He does
not have to do anything to put food on his table - he is not in the
position of most farmers struggling to earn a living and being put over
a barrel by supermarkets who use the tried and tested methods of Marks
and Spencer to crucify their suppliers.

Not so. I live in inner city, Leeds, with a small back garden and we grow
most of our own vegetables and fruit, along with a couple of banties which
provide eggs. If we can do it so could all the other people who live in
similar houses, which are the bulk of the housing stock in England.

Most people are not so obsessed with food as you are, Mary. Some of
them are interested in other things and regard food as something that
one eats three times a day, and so long as it is tasty and satisfies
them that is as far as they go. They do not go trucking all over the
country, as you do, to source food. They get it from the supermarket.

It could be if people were prepared to work.

Fine, but most people want a tenner an hour minimum to stay alive.
That will fire the cost of food through the roof. Well, it won't will
it, because the imported stuff comes in cheaper as it is. So what are
you saying, that people should work in the fields for next to nothing ?

That's offensive - bit it's what I'd expect from you, sadly.

How is that offensive. Wetbacks are Mexicans who have swum into the
States illegally. Eastern Europeans are , well..... Eastern
Europeans. Should I call them some more politically-correct name ?

 

[Gerald L R Stubbs]

The message <[email protected]>

No you can't.You really expect that from fucked up soil,from fucked up
GM seeds,grown on the fucked up air,with fucked up GM and fertilizer
procedures,you gonna pick the same tomato like your or my granddad did?
Now I *don't* know what or when went wrong.I am just seeing net effect
of it..Besides,being a farmer you can hardly be neutral in this whole
matter.I am not saying that you should as this touches life of you and
your family very directly.Just don't tell me this "you won't know
which is which" shit.

Here we go again. Forget the now and then, it is totally dishonest to
compare
wood strawberries with cultivars from any age. There has never been any
comparison between wild strawberries and cultivars. This has nothing to
do with conventional (organic) agriculture and modern agriculture.

The taste difference is always a varietal one.

 

[Gerald L R Stubbs]

The message <[email protected]>

http://home.earthlink.net/~alanconnor/contact.html
Other URLs of possible interest in my headers.

I thought to myself, who is this Alan Connor who has put one post into
this thread, slating me as some sort of troll.

I thought, if he has something to say about what I have said, that is
fair enough : but to slag me off out of the blue is a bit stange. So I
decided to follow the link in his sig, so that I could ask him where he
was coming from and why.

Follow the link yourselves, the man is nuts.

 

[Gerald L R Stubbs]

The message <[email protected]>

That causes his posts to be deleted from the Usenet Archives
at http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search
Now why would he do that? What is he trying to hide?

Are you nuts ? I am not hiding anything when I am posting publicly on
usenet, am I now ? The reason I have 'no archive' is because Google
copyrights everything that it archives. I dispute their right to do
that, so try to prevent them archiving anything I have written.

http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search
Gerald L R Stubbs
Results 1 - 13 of 13 posts in the last year
2 alt.energy.homepower
4 alt.energy.renewable
7 uk.business.agriculture

None of which should have been archived. Certainly 13 posts are a very
small percentage of total postings last year.

A troll's sockpuppet for sure. I'd be willing to bet that most or
all of the posts on this resurrected thread are from "Day Brown",
who is a _serious_ headcase.
He probably posts 400 times a day under numerous aliases and
through a dozen newsservers.
Never shuts his mouth long enough to learn anything.
Alan

Well, go to UKBA and ask the people there who I am. I don't know who
Day Brown is, but the folk at UKBA know me, some of them have met me
in the flesh. I have been posting there for some six years...

You are really a bit of a twat, because in the header that you quoted
is my email address. I also use my real name. You are not Pete, by
any chance, are you ?

 

[Gerald L R Stubbs]

On alt.energy.homepower, in <[email protected]>,
:
<article not downloaded:
http://slrn.sourceforge.net/docs/README.offline>
Phukwitted trolls are not allowed to send articles to
my newsreader via the Usenet.
Alan

You have not read and understood what I wrote about my bona-fides.
I am who I say I am, my address is genuine. It is not me who is hiding,
but you. Killfile-plink.

 

[digitalmaster]

Agreed; agricultural policy now is set by senators who have ranches, like
Bush, where they get to play cowboy with real horses. Thus, they do what
they can to minmize the cost of these hobby operations. At the expense of
family farmers.

Nor does modern family farming have to be the drugery of the 19th century.
Sure, I was out in the field in august to help with the oat harvest... for
5 days a year. And if we got the kids off the couch and replaced the
remnote with farming tools, they'd get some of the exercise they so badly
need to improve their 'self esteem' and intelligence.

Trying to compare modern agribusiness with 19th century farming is not the
issue. However it'd be stupid to ignore the lessons from the past.
Taking supplements is not nearly as good as getting them from the food in
the first place, which is how the hominids *evolved* to receive them.

The crop rotation we did with alfalfa was better for the land than simply
dosing it with chemicals every year. Alfalfa sends down deep roots that
deliver trace minerals from the subsoil to the surface... which are
gradually hauled away by continuous cropping. And now we have the lab
reports to show how important they are to maximal mental development, and
can see how the lack resulted in the alarming rise of autism, ADD, ADHD,
and Ritalin prescriptions.

I have noted an alarming rise in the number of parents, teachers ,and
doctors who diagnose ADD,ADHD when what the problem is is lack of
discipline.Spare the rod spoil the child.There are legitimate cases of add
adhd but it has become fashionable to use this as an excuse for hard to
control children.



And while my critics dont

 

[digitalmaster]

I can believe that but I still don't have one even through they're
incredibly cheap.

I've never felt the need for one, I prefer real cooking for my real food.

Mary

real cooking???real food???
that microwave popcorn i had seemed real to me...and it really popped
too....or.......................maybe i was imagining things.

 

[digitalmaster]

First of all, humans need at least 52 elements for our nutrition, and
plants need only 15 or 16. The other 37 elements are along for the ride,
but we need to get them all from our food if we are to remain healthy.
Farmers generally add only 3 or 4 nutrients to the soil each year, and
occasionally a few trace minerals, but generally only when it interferes
with yield. Many of those 52 critical elements that we need have been
mined out of the soil long ago. The alternative is to keep using
supplements, which few of us know how to do properly, nor often enough.
The other disadvantage is that it costs far more to supplement our food
with minerals and vitamins than to have them naturally occurring. Besides
that, the food tastes better when they're naturally occurring..

I had a chat earlier this year with Dr. Ross Welch from Cornell
University, who pioneered the research that showed that serious nutrient
deficiencies are common in our population due to improper nutrition. It's
nothing short of a national crisis, if his research is to be believed.

Other countries, such as Finland have instituted higher standards for food
nutrition years ago, mandating things like minimum levels of selenium in
wheat, and the decline of some diseases like cancer since that time has
been nothing less then startling.

perhaps we should all go back to nature.....we can survive hunting and
gathering the natural way ...and live to the ripe old age of 33 or 34 years
like cave men did.naturally

 

[Terry Collins]

This is not true. Modern agriculture is more efficient

Only because "modern agriculture" defines how efficeny is measured and
it is basically very narrow and short term.

Definitely not sustainable because it relies greatly on external inputs
that are heavily sussidised by the rest of society.

 

[Day Brown]

People back then didn't die at 33 or 34, they generally lived as long
as anyone else through history. Their average lifespan may have been
in the mid 30's but that includes a lot of infant mortality and a lot
of old people.

It mite be instructive to consider the lessons from the graveyard at
Varna Bulgaria, which dates from the mid 4th mil BCE. In stark contrast
to the rest of the world, the women there *averaged* in their early 40's
and the men in their late 30's. They didnt find any graves of children,
and the skeletons of the adults dont show signs of malnutrition while
growing up. Such longevity was not seen again until the end of the 19th
century.

Varna was at the tail end of a remarkable set of cultures which farmed
the riverine floodplains of Slavic Europe for 4000 years without ever
destroying the fertility of the land, clearcutting the forests, or
driving *any* species to extinction. It is the most sustainable
agriculture that has ever been found.

The whole show was run by witches. Part of the reason that the
Transylvanian mountains were so spooky, is that the witches were still
in power, and may be still back in the boonies for all I know.

 

[Mary Fisher]

The message <[email protected]>


Because it gives a bit of variety to potatoes and oats.

Indeed - there are plenty of others.

Seriously, it
is winter feed for stock and is a plant that grows very well in our
northen latitude (58N)

But you said that there were problems ...

Mary

 

[Mary Fisher]

The message <[email protected]>


Smoked eel is almost the best thing one could eat.

A personal observation ...

Mussels are not
smoked

I've seen them smoked, come to think of it, but haven't tasted them.

as they want to be eaten absolutely fresh.

Oysters do smoke,
but in my opinion they are best not mucked about with as they are so
good that way.

Oh - drool - I remember how enormous oysters were presented when I was in
Puget Sound ...

I love most shellfish but am concerned about how they're produced nowadays.

Mary

 

[Mary Fisher]

The message <[email protected]>



Of course they do. In the UK there must be forty million eggs consumed
every day. There just is not the land available to maintain an outdoor
flock that would produce that many eggs.

But we don't NEED to eat as many eggs as that!

Anyway, the usual free-range
eggs are the produce of hens that scratch around on dirt in messy
compounds. The eggs taste like shit

I bow to your greater experience, I haven't tasted it. Our hens' eggs taste
very good but they don't live in a messy compound. When it rains they
scratch around in wet ground but it isn't what I'd call messy. That is,
until they scratch the wet soil onto the paths. But it's easily swept when
it's dry..

and to my mind the birds are not
what I call free-range. They are just able to go outside if they wish.

Yes, there are concerns about the definition of commercial 'free-range' and
'organic'.

My few hens are free range. They are not confined at all and go where
they like.

Ours can't go beyond the garden boundary because we have urban fox so have
to confine the hens in the garden and the fox outside. At the moment one hen
and three chicks are confined in a large run to protect them from magpies.

They do a lot of grazing and have a high intake of insects.
It shows as the eggs actually have a good flavour and coulour. But eggs
like that cannot be bought in the shops.

They sound like ours.

Mary

 

[Mary Fisher]

Well, go to UKBA and ask the people there who I am. I don't know who
Day Brown is, but the folk at UKBA know me,

I'll vouch for that.

some of them have met me
in the flesh.

I haven't but know some who have.

I have been posting there for some six years...
Yes.

... I also use my real name.
Yes.

You are not Pete, by
any chance, are you ?

Pete really does get everywhere. I wonder if he has a real life.

Mary

 

[Mary Fisher]

I am not being silly. The man lives on a different planet to everyone
else.

No he doesn't. He lives on Earth, like you and me. Even in UK, like you and
me.

He is stuck in some sort of equivalence to an Amish timewarp (I
am safe there, aren't I, as there won't be any Amish reading this?)
only he is not quite sure when the cut-off date should be.

No he doesn't.

Sorry, but in one of the Independent's supplements there was a very
lengthy article on the heir apparent, extending to four or five pages.
Contained therin was a photograph of half a dozen young men on all-fours
weeding a crop of carrots.

Oh, well, if it was in the paper it must be true

Bravo, and I think the Prince's trust is a commendable thing, but he
is only selling his stuff off the back of his name.

That's what most companies do.

Just because he
runs a worthwhile charity that does not mean that everything else he
does is worthwhile, viable, or even of the slightest interest to the
general public.

I didn't say that it was. And you're the one who seems to be interested -
you brought it up

Is it ? Do you mean that you would like to go back to the days when men
were shot away physically when they were approaching the age of fifty
simply through having been made to work like beasts of burden ?, where
there was little mechanical help and the men who worked on the farms
were broken before their time through excessive hard labour. It makes a
romantic picture of horses and haystacks and the honest ploughboy of
Soper's paintings, but the reality was an awful, horrid grind through
life with little reward other than the labourer's pride in his work. He
had nothing else.

No idea who Soper is but men were still working on farms in my youth - as in
yours no doubt - and some are still around, in their nineties. There's more
to breaking a man that hard work, in Yorkshire we say that hard work never
killed anyone.

Anyone who can finance the construction of a brand new village/town,
making it a pastiche of the real thing must be seriously off his
trolley.

That's a personal opinion, not a proven fact.

He also believes in what is nowdays called 'organic'
agriculture, believing that it is an equation that balances.

So do I, am I off my trolley?

And bought by who ?
Customers!

I would not buy anything that he produces.

I might not buy the same things you buy but that proves nothing.

Oh, wonderful ! The Lord of the Isles, Duke of Cornwall, Prince of
Wales, leave my clothes lying all over the place for other people to
pick up after me,

You know, Stubbsy, you're letting your prejudices show. Hyperbole has never
become you.

Most people are not so obsessed with food as you are, Mary. Some of
them are interested in other things and regard food as something that
one eats three times a day, and so long as it is tasty and satisfies
them that is as far as they go. They do not go trucking all over the
country, as you do, to source food.

er - what makes you think I do that?

They get it from the supermarket.

And that's good?

Fine, but most people want a tenner an hour minimum to stay alive.

LOL! Spouse and I live very well, thank you, on £5,000 p/a.

That will fire the cost of food through the roof. Well, it won't will
it, because the imported stuff comes in cheaper as it is.

It doesn't have to be bought.

So what are
you saying, that people should work in the fields for next to nothing ?

No, the labourer is worthy of his hire. You're in hyperbolic mode again.

It's fun baiting you, Stubbsy - it always works, as others on uba have said

How is that offensive. Wetbacks are Mexicans who have swum into the
States illegally. Eastern Europeans are , well..... Eastern
Europeans. Should I call them some more politically-correct name ?

You can call them what you like, just don't expect others to respect your
attitudes in that area - in the same way as you don't respect those of many
others.Mary

 

[Robert Sturgeon]

Ah. You had me right up to that point. I agree with everything you
_argued_, then you throw that silliness into it. Though you can make food
with the same nutritional value either way; much of what is not allowed
in "organic" farming is indistinguishable from that used in "inorganic"
farming; and, some "organic" practices are as hazardous as "inorganic"
practices (specifically, I'm thinking of the use of untreated human
waste) - that still doesn't mean that "organic" as a whole is a fraud.
People have valid concerns about pesticide residues, for instance.

Sure they have concerns, but they aren't "valid." The
pesticides we use are extensively tested and pose no
significant hazard to the public. A good example of these
"valid" concerns was the phony ginned-up Alar scare, pushed
by celebrities who had no understanding of the issues
involved. Alar is a very safe pesticide. An expert in the
field, Dr. Bruce Ames (and you really should read up on the
career of Dr. Ames) started out his research convinced him
that pesticides are a thoroughly Bad Idea. But the more he
studied their use and properties, as well as the properties
of food in general, the more convinced he became that they
were a Good Idea. His reasoning was that they allow a much
more abundant and inexpensive supply of fruits and
vegetables to the market. And fruits and vegetables are
extremely valuable for their nutritional and health
enhancing properties, so the minor pesticide residues are
more than offset by the increased intake of fruits and
vegetables allowed by pesticides. About Alar, he said he
preferred HIS apples to come WITH Alar, because Alar retards
the growth of mold on apples, and that mold is much more
dangerous than the Alar which retards the mold growth. The
total "load" of carcinogens existing on Alar-treated apples
is less than the load of carcinogens on untreated apples.
ALL food is, to some extent, carcinogenic. Plants produce
their own pesticides, which are more toxic than the
pesticides people put on them. Cooked meat also is
carcinogenic, but not as dangerous overall to people as
uncooked meat, because of the pathogens cooking kills.

Things really aren't as simple as "pesticides bad, untreated
produce good." Lots of inexpensive produce, with slight
traces of highly tested and regulated pesticide, are better
for the public than a little "organic" produce, at much
higher prices, would be. Of course, if you grow your own,
and don't mind a lower yield and poorer quality in exchange
for having absolutely no man-made pesticides, that's a
different matter. But if you think pesticides negatively
affect the general public, you are mistaken. They are a
positive factor in the general public's overall health.

 

[Robert Sturgeon]

I can't believe what you just said.

Why? It's true.

Has someone cut your tongue and
ears and picked your eyes and forgot to tell you about it?
No? Then WTF? You really believe yourself when you say that
synthetic genetically mutated pesticide screwed jelly excuse for
strawberries has something in common with the with strawberries you
have had when you were kid?

Yup - same species.

Hell then my forest strawberries would
probably make you loose consciousness.You people have been eating that
same tasteless food for so long,that now it doesn't even taste so bad.
I am sorry if I am being rude,but after hearing this nonsense I am so
pissed of right now

Being extremely upset can affect your powers of reasoning.

Can't believe that you are being duped so successfully that you forgot
how the food used to taste.Ooh,how can this be?

Living as I do in Central California, I have plenty of
opportunities to buy fresh, locally-grown strawberries. If
they are "organically" grown, they certainly aren't
advertised as such. They are delicious!

Sometimes I don't even bother with say that fucked up scam for salad
you call tomatoes.They just screw up entire meal.I don't care what yo
gonna do with these tomatoes.You can cook them,you can broil them,you
can grill them,Jamie fucking Oliver can sprinkle them for you with
Acceto balsamico di fucking Modena,*and* they still gonna taste like
some no good jelly shit.OTOH when I manage to get some of that real
farm tomatoes shit,I don't even bother with rest of the meal.A little
bit of feta cheese,olive oil,few capers and there you go man,enjoy.Or
you just eat it like you eat an apple.What ever you do with them,you
can't really go wrong.

Fresh, vine-ripened tomatoes are MUCH better than tomatoes
picked green for the market. That has nothing to do with
them being "organic."

No you can't.You really expect that from fucked up soil,from fucked up
GM seeds,grown on the fucked up air,with fucked up GM and fertilizer
procedures,you gonna pick the same tomato like your or my granddad did?
Now I *don't* know what or when went wrong.I am just seeing net effect
of it..Besides,being a farmer you can hardly be neutral in this whole
matter.I am not saying that you should as this touches life of you and
your family very directly.Just don't tell me this "you won't know
which is which" shit.

Well, if it's now impossible to grow truly "organic"
tomatoes, why do people do it, and adverise the fact? If
they can do it, you can do it. And then you can run that
taste test and see if you can tell the difference. But it
has to be a true "blind" test, because if you know which is
which, you'll be biased and your test will be compromised.