Holy Shit: The Secret Behind Creating Truly Sustainable Food

http://www.alternet.org/food/149065/holy_shit%3A_the_secret_behind_creating_truly_sustainable_food/?page=entire

interview with Gene Logsdon
author of Holy Shit: Managing Manure to Save Mankind

website
http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/holy_shit:paperback%20with%20french%20flaps

looks like one for the "book list"

Gene Logsdon's still alive and kicking?  Good for him!

I Austin Texas our municipal waste water treatment facility produces and sells a product called "Dillo Dirt".  Dillo is short of armadillo here in Texas and it's got a cute lil picture of an armadillo on it.  Every year there's a massive three day outdoor festival that takes place in a place called Zilker Park.  A couple years ago before the festival happened the entire area was resodded and they used Dillo Dirt.  It poured buckets that year the entire place became a mud fest.

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/health/entries/2009/10/15/dillo_dirt_rash_call_health_de.html

My partner and I had a conversation last night while preparing dinner - would we prefer local over organic? Farmer's market to support local businesses, or big supermarket for the organic version?

When I read the linked article, I liked what Gene had to say:

"Why not just tell one's customers exactly how you produce your food including when, if ever, you use non-organic materials. Then let the customer decide. This can work effectively on a small scale where a farmer is selling his or her own personal food to his own regular customers. As soon as the larger company is selling food from many sources, that kind of verification is not trustworthy to me no matter how many rules and regulations are supposed to be in effect."

dave brenneman wrote:
My partner and I had a conversation last night while preparing dinner - would we prefer local over organic? Farmer's market to support local businesses, or big supermarket for the organic version?

When I read the linked article, I liked what Gene had to say:

"Why not just tell one's customers exactly how you produce your food including when, if ever, you use non-organic materials. Then let the customer decide. This can work effectively on a small scale where a farmer is selling his or her own personal food to his own regular customers. As soon as the larger company is selling food from many sources, that kind of verification is not trustworthy to me no matter how many rules and regulations are supposed to be in effect."

Local and organic can go hand in hand. I think there is much thought that needs to go into shipping and transportation of food in the near future. Currently it requires too many oil calories.

And more on the poop at hand, it makes me sick when I think of the millions of tons of waste that must flow out to rivers, lakes, and the sea each day. The land and the people pay a heavy price for our wasteful treatment of waste.

   More manure less irrigation.
        People talk about manure as a source of nitrogen, which it is but chemical nitrogen can be used to replace it.
        what I would like to emphasis its importance as a holder of water  because with  organic material in the soil the soil absorbes and retains more water reducing the need to irrigate.
      We need to irrigate less farmers use more water than any other collective if i remember right.
       Humic acids, the end product of the break down of humus, behave like a jelly absorbing many times their wieght in water.

       Manure with its organic matter better the texture of soil helping increase water retention on the land.
        Clay absorbes lots of water but then it becomes water logged and stops absorbing,  if the clay soils can pass water to deeper levels of the earth more easily because it has more organic material in them the rain will wet deeper. Chemical fertilisers cannot take the place of this part of manures role in the soil.

       Manure feeds fungus whose hypha hold water in the earth. No manure, less fungus in the soil, though all plants except those grown inside laboratories grow with beneficial mycorrhyzal fungi on their roots according to paul stamets, brassias cabbages and such dont have micorrhyzal fungi, so where there is a crop there is always some fungi in the soil.
  We need all the water we can save we need manure on the land.  agri rose macaskie.
       

Poo also feeds earthworms, who make rich soil.

If all that poop was Vermicomposted, just think how much rich compost would result !

  I have just said that we needpoop mashed enzymed and digestive juiced, vegetable matter to reduce the irrigation but often lack of organic matter due to over pasturising leads to land that has no organic matter in it and there fore no nutrients so people say it is deserted as if it lacked water but it is barren it lacks nutrients. and so there are no plants where there is enough rainfall for plants.
  an example is th photo i add here.
   The green hills are not cuiltivated, i have walked them , they are covered in oaks and junipers so it is impossible to suppose they have been watered no one waters these plants. The desertified hills ones beyond the green ones cannot be in the state they are from lack of water there is enough rain for th ehill in front of them, they are desertified from lack of nutrients, put a lot of pop on that land and vegetation will grow, always remembering that in ht ecase of this hill the problem is not  lack of nutrients in the soil, the lack of nutrients has lead to a lack of vegetation for so long that the soil has been blown away. agri rose macaske.

I like to buy the organic AND locally grown stuff at the farmers market.

      I have just seen a film of shepherds in the north of spain on pastures covered in grass.
      It sometimes seems that everyone will look for th  one exception so as to prove me wrong.
          I know there is more grass in the North of Spain, I even know Gredos in the centre of Spain but where the land is at a greater altitude than the parts i know in Guadalajara and in Gredos the ground is also covered with grass but in Guadaljara the incredible lack of grass is what i see. and the incredible prelevance of moss between the time bushes and my excperience is that moss grows were herbicides have been used. An aunt of mine argues that you put herbicides on lawn to get rid of moss, I looked it up and indeed you do but speccial moss herbicides.
        The japanese say the use of herbicides is one way to get moss they lioke a lot of moss in their garden
          This is what vegetation looks like when its just suffered from herbicides

n the second year after the apearance of bvegetation of the aspect of the last fotos moss appears.

  the next two are photos of the aspect of much of the land pastured in the village one down the mountaqin from me with gorse bushes and time bushes but hardly any grass.
the small bushes are time or lavender. it is possible to have pl3enty of grass here in all timesw of year that are not summer. My idea is that the grass is supressed for the extreme fear they have of suñmmer fires the idea that there is esxtreme caution about fires is not an idea of mine it is information i have recieverd from a lot of people. agri rose macaskie.