First some background. In the past I have done the following:<\/p>\n

\n
• Bought a grass fed cow and had it butchered.<\/li>\n
• Belonged to a food coop.<\/li>\n
• Belonged to a CSA.<\/li>\n
• Bought organic foods.<\/li>\n
• Shopped at a local farmers market (will continue to do so).<\/li>\n
• Bought farm eggs (will continue to do so).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  So I could be mistaken for a “sustainable farming” aficionado. \u00a0However this would be wrong. \u00a0I did these things for taste and quality. \u00a0I don’t make any claims besides my personal taste preference (and scrambled farm eggs are nice and meaty tasting) about these types\/styles of food, nor would I ever require the government to force people to do these things. \u00a0You pay a lot more (except butchering a cow).<\/p>\n

  With that in mind I’d like to write about the “sustainable farming” fraud. \u00a0Check out this picture:<\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

  Note the dark green patch. That is wheat that has been fertilized with ammonia during planting. \u00a0The tan on the hills and the yellow road side grass should be considered “sustainable”. \u00a0These grasses are clearly nitrogen limited. \u00a0Can you imagine the loss in yield if the wheat looked like that?<\/p>\n

  Now some say you can add nitrogen with legumes. \u00a0You can, assuming you plow the crop back into the field. \u00a0So you would have to plant clover, then plow it in at the end of the season. \u00a0This will add nitrogen, but you cut productivity in half.<\/p>\n

  One way you could do it would be to graze cattle on a clover and alfalfa pasture. \u00a0This would allow you to “harvest” nitrogen annually. \u00a0On the downside you’d have to be very careful about bloat, so you could probably use a grass\/legume mix.<\/p>\n

  Unfortunately besides meat production, you are screwed with grains and vegetables. \u00a0And then we get into potassium, phosphorous, and trace minerals. \u00a0You simple have to add those chemical some way to your field or you will deplete the soil.<\/p>\n

  Another trick I’ve seen is to run chickens on the pasture. \u00a0I’ve noticed that those chickens are given feed, and that is how you are adding minerals to your field (via chicken droppings).<\/p>\n

  Another trick I see is the “sustainable” farmer capturing a niche market. \u00a0Usually they will slaughter free range chickens (with cheap Mexican labor), and possibly pigs. \u00a0For a small niche market it is definitely a business idea that works, but it won’t feed a country.<\/p>\n

  Bottom line if you harvest you will deplete the soil. \u00a0The only exception would be nitrogen harvesting using a legume\/grass mix and cattle, however you still lose the other constituents and have to add it back some way.<\/p>\n

  Again I like the products and buy them from time-to-time, but there is no way you can feed 350 million people doing these things.<\/p>\n

   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  First some background. In the past I have done the following: Bought a grass fed cow and had it butchered. Belonged to a food coop. Belonged to a CSA. Bought organic foods. Shopped at a local farmers market (will continue to do so). Bought farm eggs (will continue to do so). So I could be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"none","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"mini","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"50","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"200","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"top","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"[]","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":255,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}