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David West
Nov 2, 2014, 2:30:26 PM11/2/14
to mekon...@googlegroups.com
Hi All
This is the first letter from the Sustainable farming forum of the greater Mekong basin. We are still sending out invites to individuals and organisations whom we personally know, but we would appreciate it if you could invite others whom you feel may be interested in this topic.
So we are going to start by asking you to respond to our survey so we can provide the connections to others who are struggling /succeeding with similar issues.
Please write a little bit under the following headings
What I hope to learn about.
What I have knowledge about that you would like to contribute
List any people you can think of that could be interested in the forum
Are you running or planning to run a farm/garden in the future
What do you know about Permaculture?
What other sustainable systems are you aware of?
Thank you for your participation
=========================================
One of the books that has taught me a lot, is “One Straw Revolution” written by Masanobu Fukuoka. He was working for the Japanese government as a plant disease technician from the nineteen thirties till the end of the war.
Born in 1914 he has been described by Mother Earth News as “one of the most far sighted radical farmers of his time” and his book as “Zen and the art of farming”.
One of the many things, I like about this book is he writes about his failures as well as his successes, and is a humble man.
He is a man who had no interest in hard work, yet he produced over 5 tones per hectare in his rice paddies with no tilling, no chemical fertilizers, and no pest or weed killer.
As we have this book on file (one hundred pages) we are happy to email it to you for no charge. Send request to dgw...@gmail.com
===================================
We have called this the Sustainable Forum as there are a number of disciplines that have been followed over the years such as Permaculture, Natural farming, New Theory Agriculture (developed by the present king of Thailand), Agroforestry, Agroecology, Organic, Kyusei and Korean natural farming. The thing that struck me while reading all these different methods is actually how similar they are. What they all have in common is that they let the laws of nature teach us how we should grow crops and look after animals. Whereas the big agricultural companies, look at how many kilos of whatever they are growing can they produce at the lowest price for the consumer. They seem to have little interest in the nutritional content of the food or the net effect on the soil.
A good example of this is the now defunct Twinkie that was sold for less than a carrot in the US. For those who don’t know what a Twinkie was, it was a very technical complicated sweet roll that was loaded with just about everything you should not eat. It was cheaper than a carrot because of all the subsidies the US government hands out to farmers who grow certain crops.
Well that’s it for first letter. I am just starting with my own farm (outside Pakxan Laos) this month, so by the next letter I will be writing about irrigation systems among other things.
Hopefully, will have some inputs from other members as well.
Regards
Chris
The only other message received so far is from Doug re Seed balls.
You can send invitations to your contacts
This is the first letter from the Sustainable farming forum of the greater Mekong basin. We are still sending out invites to individuals and organisations whom we personally know, but we would appreciate it if you could invite others whom you feel may be interested in this topic.
So we are going to start by asking you to respond to our survey so we can provide the connections to others who are struggling /succeeding with similar issues.
Please write a little bit under the following headings
What I hope to learn about.
What I have knowledge about that you would like to contribute
List any people you can think of that could be interested in the forum
Are you running or planning to run a farm/garden in the future
What do you know about Permaculture?
What other sustainable systems are you aware of?
Thank you for your participation
=========================================
One of the books that has taught me a lot, is “One Straw Revolution” written by Masanobu Fukuoka. He was working for the Japanese government as a plant disease technician from the nineteen thirties till the end of the war.
Born in 1914 he has been described by Mother Earth News as “one of the most far sighted radical farmers of his time” and his book as “Zen and the art of farming”.
One of the many things, I like about this book is he writes about his failures as well as his successes, and is a humble man.
He is a man who had no interest in hard work, yet he produced over 5 tones per hectare in his rice paddies with no tilling, no chemical fertilizers, and no pest or weed killer.
As we have this book on file (one hundred pages) we are happy to email it to you for no charge. Send request to dgw...@gmail.com
===================================
We have called this the Sustainable Forum as there are a number of disciplines that have been followed over the years such as Permaculture, Natural farming, New Theory Agriculture (developed by the present king of Thailand), Agroforestry, Agroecology, Organic, Kyusei and Korean natural farming. The thing that struck me while reading all these different methods is actually how similar they are. What they all have in common is that they let the laws of nature teach us how we should grow crops and look after animals. Whereas the big agricultural companies, look at how many kilos of whatever they are growing can they produce at the lowest price for the consumer. They seem to have little interest in the nutritional content of the food or the net effect on the soil.
A good example of this is the now defunct Twinkie that was sold for less than a carrot in the US. For those who don’t know what a Twinkie was, it was a very technical complicated sweet roll that was loaded with just about everything you should not eat. It was cheaper than a carrot because of all the subsidies the US government hands out to farmers who grow certain crops.
Well that’s it for first letter. I am just starting with my own farm (outside Pakxan Laos) this month, so by the next letter I will be writing about irrigation systems among other things.
Hopefully, will have some inputs from other members as well.
Regards
Chris
The only other message received so far is from Doug re Seed balls.
You can send invitations to your contacts
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