HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dc_ags@ac.nsac.ns.ca (Don Christie)
Subject: Re: Cassava (was Re: malthus)
Reply-To: dc_ags@ac.nsac.ns.ca
Organization: Nova Scotia Agricultural College, Nova Scotia, CANADA
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 16:09:08 GMT

In article <1992Nov6.011546.13112@samba.oit.unc.edu>, Bruce.Scott@launchpad.unc.edu (Bruce Scott) writes:
>dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:
>
>>Cassava is, to a first approximation, starch (and water).  You
>>may be more familiar with its processed form: tapioca.
>>
>>What little protein it has is of poor quality (deficient in
>>methionine, like many vegetable proteins; it scores a 22 on a protein
>>quality scale where egg proteins are 100, milk 85, beef 83, oats 79,
>>soy flour 73, white flour 47, cornmeal 42.)
>>
>>A diet of just cassava is inadequate for survival.
>
>Eben. If the millions who depend on it for food had enough food in an
>actual sense, then they would not depend on cassava as a staple. Since
>they plainly do, then it follows that there exist people who have
>populated their region to a greater extent than is reasonably
>sustainable, even by the most primary of standards.

But doesn't this also apply to other crops, say, potato... right here in
North America?? Potatoes do not provide enough nutrition by themselves to
sustain us, but we still consider it a staple food. I don't think that this
could considered "populating our region to a greater extent than is reasonably
sustainable" at all. 

There is also another dimension to this that I think needs to be expressed: 
people who live in regions where cassava is grown PREFER this starchy material
over others like cereals and potatoes. In some cases, I understand, they 
can't or won't eat things like wheat because it is too foreign to their usual
diet.

At the start of this thread, the discussion hinged around the fact that a 
superior variety of Cassava had been developed and was showing good promise...
I think that plant breeding as an approach to sustainable agriculture has more
promise than most, and I applaud it. As I have said a few times on this
newsgroup, there isn't any single change to our food production system that is
going to make it sustainable... there are many areas that have to be addressed,
and we have to make use of our advantages, wherever they present themselves.
Any success, however small it may seem, puts us one small step closer to
sustainability.



//Don
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who ELSE could have written The Adventures of Wild Bill Groady??
From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture
Subject: Real-world solutions
Distribution: world
Date: Mon, 09 Nov 92 04:06:08 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <1992Nov6.205926.13602@ncsu.edu> ssouther@ent1.ent.ncsu.edu writes:

 > I agree with Don's comments.  Faculty (especially but not limited to
 > Extension faculty) at most land-grant institutions with which I am
 > familiar are very nearly overwhelmed by input from the end-users of
 > technology.  Some examples of the type of interactions include: 1)
 > working with growers, householders, etc. to diagnose and solve problems,
 > 2) discussion sessions with commodity groups to review programs, 3)
 > grant applications to commodity groups, industry, etc. 4) interaction with
 > citizen advisory panels set up to provide direction to Extension
 > programs - we have over 25,000 citizens on state and local advisory
 > committees here in N.C., 5) tests and demonstrations on commercial farms with
 > grower help and input - many dozens of locations annually, 6) educational 
 > sessions - with feedback - for farmers.   As a part-time administrator, I
 > can assure you we spend a great deal of time answering to individual
 > farmers, commodity associations, legislators and others as to the
 > real-world value of our research and educational programs.  

Anything further along these lines you would like to post would be
very welcome indeed at this end.

Gil

--
Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
   * * Sustainable Community Development & Environmental Education * *
Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture
From: thomat@vccnw06.its.rpi.edu (Todd Michael Thomas)
Subject: Sustainable Architecture AND Agriculture
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 02:10:40 GMT

f.y.i. .... RPI's school of architecture is remodeling its base programme to
be a 'leader' in Sustainable Architecture (including as in my present design
studio course, the need for local agriculture; both large and small scale; in
all sustainable systems).  What i am looking for is suggestions  from anyone
on what to include in our 'programme' or basic theory as far as environmental
and agricultural concerns go. I would welcome any posts to the net (i know that
its $$$space to someone, but i believe that in order for us to progress as a
species we need to re-broaden our horizons and take in the whole picture).
Anything goes, but try to keep concise because i would like to take this before
our Dean and show some non-architectural perspectives on a topic that we do 
need to consider when we design and build.
-todd thomas--rpi school of architecture---------------------------------------
-email to ---> thomat@rpi.edu
From: bj368@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mike E. Romano)
Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture
Subject: Re: Returning nutrients to the soil
Date: 11 Nov 1992 12:59:22 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


   Cathy Woodgold has brought out some important issues in
 connection with a truly sustainable agriculture.

 Recycling of organic matter can be greatly improved in all
 areas of this country.  Much is wasted and not recovered.
 The larger commercial farms which grow hundred or 
 thousands of acres of the same crop face the greatest
 problems as far as replenishing the soil.
 Overall the figure in the U.S. for depletion of topsoil
 since the beginning of the century is about 25%.
 Through history, the most efficient natural farming has
 been in parts of the world where there is great population
 density in relation to amount of arable land.
 In China, all organic waste has been reused very efficiently
 in cultivation of intensive food gardens with great
 diversity of crop planting arrangements.  A fascinating
 book on this subject is Farmers of Forty Centuries
 written by F.H. King who was chief of the USDA in the
 early 1900's.  He toured China and Japan and wrote in
 great detail about their farming methods.
 Certain fish are efficient intermediators in the processing
 of animal and human waste.  Catfish for example can be
 raised on such material and catfish farming is a growing
 industry in the southern U.S.  The carp species can
 feed on various waste such as duck and other poultry
 manures; the tilapia of that species is gaining 
 popularity here in the U.S., already being widely
 eaten in other parts of the world.


-- 
Capt. Kirk: let's head for that planet, third from the sun, it
            looks promising.... |-)
From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture
Subject: Cassava (was Re: malthus)
Distribution: world
Date: Mon, 09 Nov 92 03:27:36 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <1992Nov6.011546.13112@samba.oit.unc.edu> Bruce.Scott@launchpad.unc.edu writes:

 > Eben. If the millions who depend on it for food had enough food in an
 > actual sense, then they would not depend on cassava as a staple. Since
 > they plainly do, then it follows that there exist people who have
 > populated their region to a greater extent than is reasonably
 > sustainable, even by the most primary of standards.

Discussion of the problems giving rise to over-population has been
emerging with greater frequency on the Internet lately; the concensus
being that too many people is a defence against invading armies quite
despite the fact that they may have little to eat. All they are trying
to do is just to survive, "even by the most primary of standards"

Even in the West a post-WW2 baby boom caused unemployment and welfare
problems we still have policy in place to ammeliorate. And I should
point out that in the case of Germany and Japan massive investments
under the Marshall Plan, not currently available to the "Third World"
in the wake of the Cold War, did in fact allow those two "First World"
countries to recover quickly, within one generation.

The fundamental difficulty associated with available nutrition does not
usually arise until the military threat is withdrawn, where instead of
the people breeding so much in attempting to keep their natural rate
of replacement at least on a par with the risk of slaughter, they are
now breeding to keep their natural rate of replacement on a par with
the risk of starvation. In neither situation are people able to feel
sufficiently secure to get back to their gardens and grow enough of
the right kind of properly nutritious food again.

It really would have been better had war not destroyed their economy
to start with, particularly the type of high-tech, scorched earth war
waged among "First World" powers on someone else's patch, yes?

--
Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
   * * Sustainable Community Development & Environmental Education * *
Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture
From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev)
Subject: Re: Real-world solutions
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 12:47:07 GMT

In article <1992Nov10.224641.17906@cal.isac.ca> jameson@cal.isac.ca (Kevin Jameson) writes:
>How can any agricultural system that's as heavily dependent on fossil
>fuels  as ours is make any reasonable claim of being sustainable?  Our

Fossil fuels can be replaced by a variety of energy from renewable and
portable sources, from hemp-derived fuel to hydrogen to electrical.  If
our civilization does not rapidly develop some sort of alternative
source of energy, in a century or two we will run out of oil, coal and
natural gas.

It will be interesting to see how Cuba deals with its current version
of drastic shortage of fossil fuels.  So far the prospects seem grim.
Cubans will have to revert to an 18th century early-industrial division
of farm/industrial labour, something like 90% of the population
farming.  Compared to the current US model with 4% of the population
farming, it would seem obvious that the sustainable technological level
of the former ratio will be far below the modern low-percentage farm
employment, cottage nanotechnology and Libertarian utopia notwithstanding.

One consolation is that if we revert back to pre-industrial levels,
nobody is likely to start a nuclear war.  We may get bored in the evenings
without TV and USENET, but we'll last a lot longer as a species.
-- 
Oleg Kiselev at home			...use the header to find the path
From: camerons@NAD.3Com.COM (Cameron Spitzer 764-6339)
Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture
Subject: Re: Organic Farming: As good as they say?
Date: 12 Nov 92 19:29:36 GMT
Reply-To: camerons@NAD.3Com.COM

In article 26442@nstn.ns.ca, dc_ags@ac.nsac.ns.ca (Don Christie) writes:
>
>Anybody can redefine the word and print `ORGANICALLY PRODUCED' on packaging
>if he/she thinks someone will buy it. Many do already.
>
 
In California there is a certification program.  It's illegal to label
produce "organic" that's not.  The certification criteria are simple and
well understood, and were developed by a coalition of growers and consumers,
not by the government.

Cameron
From: london@calypso.uucp (Larry London)
Subject: Internet-based agricultural information
Organization: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 02:03:44 GMT


From: yanoff@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Scott A. Yanoff)
Newsgroups: alt.internet.services,comp.misc,biz.comp.services,alt.bbs.
+           internet,news.answers
Subject: Updated Internet Services LisFollowup-To: poster
Date: 3 Nov 1992 19:43:49 GMT

 -Agricultural Info.
     telnet psupen.psu.edu or telnet 128.118.36.5  
     PENpages                              (Login: PNOTPA)
     telnet caticsuf.csufresno.edu or telnet 129.8.100.15
     CSU Freso ATI-NET                     (Login: super)
     telnet eureka.clemson.edu or telnet 130.127.8.3
     CUFAN (Clemson U Forestry & Ag. Net.) (Login: PUBLIC)
     ftp ftp.sura.net (get file pub/nic/agricultural.list,
       it contains agricultural email lists & services.)
     +mail almanac@oes.orst.edu
      body-of-message: send guide  also: send mail-catalog
      offers: Agricultural info (livestock reports, 
      current market prices, etc.)  

=====
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Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture
From: dc_ags@ac.nsac.ns.ca (Don Christie)
Subject: Re: government organic food purchase
Reply-To: dc_ags@ac.nsac.ns.ca
Organization: Nova Scotia Agricultural College, Nova Scotia, CANADA
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 14:11:26 GMT

in Article <1dneboINNfhj@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, bj368@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mike E. Romano) writes:
>
>Mr. Campbell gave me permission to post this which was originally
>on alt.activism   (from    acampbell@peg.pegasus.oz.au  )
>
>
>Does anyone out there think it is a worthwhile issue to take up
>with an aim of achieving this change to the extent of a stated
>political intention within say three years?

It certainly would be _worthwhile_... but is it realistic? One point that
you don't seem to mention is that farmers are business-people. They make
their living by selling meat and produce to the rest of the population...
if the cost of production exceeds the price they receive for their commodities,
then they wind up going out of business. 

In the three-year scenario you present many ambitious goals. All would be
achievable if the will (and the money) were there. Even if the technologies
you describe were fully developed (which they are NOT), the transition from
current production practises to more sophisticated methods is going to take
time and money... and farmers have neither. We're talking billions of dollars!

How would you address this problem?

//Don
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who ELSE could have written The Adventures of Wild Bill Groady??
From: bj368@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mike E. Romano)
Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture
Subject: Re: Organic Farming: As good as they say?
Date: 10 Nov 1992 11:15:42 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


  Gil Hardwick states that discussions concerning conversion
to organic fertilizers should not be too hasty, since after
all, agriculture as it is, is feeding great numbers at a
time, especially in urban areas.
I am sorry to have been misread in my reply to what seemed
to be a simplistic approval of all things agrochemical by
Mr. Kilen.
I would never suggest converting to organic ==overnight==;
that would indeed disrupt the economy too much, cause
unemployment, etc.
It seems unlikely, to say the least, that such a conversion
could take place in less than several years, but we must
begin somewhere.
It is urgent.  This problem is not a theoretical one, that
of cancer causing chemicals in the food we eat.
I believe there is already evidenced on this newsgroup a
significant interest in both the more theoretical aspects
of the sustainable agricultures systems and the more
day to day side, specifics of food types and food production
that may prove to be innovative in a sustainable way.

I have a list of pesticides which have been banned here
in the U.S. and yet are still being produced in U.S.
factories, and other data on pesticides but perhaps I
will give it a pause.

The organic movement is a rapidly growing one and I
believe the tide will continue to increase by a public
which may not yet understand the concepts of sustainable
agriculture, but know they want wholesome food.
For those on the newsgroup who are undergraduates or
in similar curricula and are considering study of
sustainable agriculture, specific information on these
programs will be helpful.
As described in the recent posting describing the
program in sustainable agriculture at UC Santa Cruz,
the crux of the matter amounts to going into the
garden and experimenting with growing methods.
I would like to see such a program at many more
colleges and universities since I believe a basic
skill in organic gardening should be part of the
general course requirements for undergraduates.


-- 
Capt. Kirk: let's head for that planet, third from the sun, it
            looks promising.... |-)
From: fahole@cc.usu.edu
Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture
Subject: Re: Organic Farming: As good as they say?
Date: 10 Nov 92 15:36:41 MDT
Organization: Utah State University

In article <1doeasINNtt@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, bj368@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mike E. Romano) writes:
 
>  However, when I apply for work on one of those
>  models of community, the kibbutz, (and I am 
>  serious about this), I request plenty of cows,
>  and absolutely no hormones, antibiotics, 
>  and supplemental viruses, thank you.

What, all that methane (bovine belches...so to speak) going to fuel global
warming?

While I agree that sustainable agricultural systems are important to our
long term survival, I am more concerned about sustainable urban systems.
The urban environments are resulting in orders of magnitude more health
threatening pollutants and toxins than any agricultural systems, yet I
hear very little about sustainable cities.
-- 
David Hole                  Wheat Breeding/Genetics
Utah State University       FAHOLE@CC.USU.EDU
Logan, UT                   Just say snow!
Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture
From: rjsalvad@iastate.edu (Ricardo J Salvador)
Subject: Re: Organic Farming: As good as they say?
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 22:59:29 GMT

In article <1992Nov12.153957.764@nstn.ns.ca> dc_ags@ac.nsac.ns.ca writes:

>In short, even a modest `average citizen' is a serious polluter. And yet,
>when we hear about pollution and environmental degradation, it is usually
>in an agricultural context.
[...]
>Urban dwellers are quick to look at the agricultural sector and moan about
>the grief that farmers are causing THEIR environment... but they don't give
>very much thought to the damage they themselves are causing to the 
>agricultural sector.

And on this note, readers of the newsgroup may be interested in 
"EnviroAccount" software that purports to do a "complete analysis of an
individual's impact on the earth's resources."  Aside from providing
this information, it helps users to set goals for environmental impact
and personal behavior.  Available for both IBM and Macintosh users at
$29.95 with 30-day $ back guarantee and annual updates by
calling 1-800-688-9006.  I don't endorse, am not related in any way
to the company, just thought it might be relevant to the topic.

-Ricardo


Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture
From: dc_ags@ac.nsac.ns.ca (Don Christie)
Subject: Re: Returning nutrients to the soil
Reply-To: dc_ags@ac.nsac.ns.ca
Organization: Nova Scotia Agricultural College, Nova Scotia, CANADA
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 15:22:07 GMT

>Chemical fertilizers replace a few specific minerals, but there
>are many minerals necessary to human health (and which may or may
>not be useful to the health of the crops, too) and people don't
>usually fertilize their soil carefully with all of them.  

Plants bio-synthesize what they need from inorganic ions... (the source
of the ions may be organic, but they are absorbed as inorganic ions at
the roots of a plant). These ions, when metabolized by plants using
energy from sugars (produced by photosynthesis) allow the plant to manufacture
all the complex organic carbon compounds that constitute the structure of
the plant. A term which describes this is `autotroph'... plants are autotrophs.

Members of the animal kingdom, on the other hand are classed as heterotrophs...
in short, they depend on other organisms to produce the complex organic
compounds they require, such as sugars, amino acids (which form proteins) and 
lipids (which are fats). This explains why we have to eat other animals and
plants in order to survive. (I know some would argue that we don't need to
eat animals, but that's another question altogether)

  

>Another way
>to do it would be to list ALL the minerals needed for plant
>and human health, decide on reasonable proportions of them to 
>use, and grind up and mix together rocks containing those minerals,
>and use that as fertilizer.

That, Cathy, is exactly what is already being done. The list of essential
nutrients for plants is well-known, and the formulation for fertilizers is
based upon our knowledge of plant nutrition. 


//Don
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who ELSE could have written The Adventures of Wild Bill Groady??
Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture
From: hembergea@woods.ulowell.edu
Subject: Re: Programs in Sustainability
Organization: University of Lowell
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 21:42:10 GMT

Regarding academic programs in sustainability, please note that
there is a graduate program in Sustainable Systems at Slippery Rock
University (along with affiliated ALTER Project), Slippery Rock,
Pennsylvania  16057-1326.  412 738-0606.
ALso, bi-monthly newsletter The Alternator, for info on sustainable
argiculture, energy, and lifestyles.
AHem.

Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture