We have only one Earth and it matters a lot, how we treat it.
For years, mankind has worked to “master” the ecology of the planet, where our needs as a species have taken precedence over good practice without regard for the ultimate loss of habitability that happens when a species depletes the resources of the place where it resides.
We have not paid attention to what history teaches are the outcomes that occur when a civilization puts a greater demand on the land than it can support.
Ultimately those civilization fail or fade away, leaving the legacy of their folly for the scientists of today to document.
We are not beyond the reach of such failures.
Our agricultural lands are depleted of the nutrients needed to grow crops, unless these nutrients are supplied by the addition of chemical fertilizers.
Along with those fertilizers, come the herbicides and a vicious cycle of fertilization and further depletion and ultimately the sterilization of the soil result.
There is another way to do this and much of the knowledge of how to do it has already been developed.
That method goes under the banner of “Sustainable Agriculture” and is something that I hope Fare Thee Well will become a standard bearer in support of the concept.
Why Fare Thee Well and not just a farm or a large commercial grower as the standard bearer?
Fare Thee Well is not a “grower” but that is a good thing for the following reason; no grower will risk experimentation with Sustainable Agriculture and run the risk or perceived risk that they will lose yield if they withhold chemical fertilizers.
This is a very real fear and unfortunately completely justified based on the experiences of people trying to move from “Chemical to Organic” farming.
So why is Fare Thee Well dabbling in that world of growers and organic farming?
For what I hope is a very good reason and that is that among the group that comprises Fare Thee Well, there are people with the skill set to actually make the transition to sustainable farming a transition without financial hardship.
I am one of those people, being a grower, a chemist and now a patent holder in a US Patent that potentially solves the biggest drawback in sustainable farming with that being the decreased yield issue brought on by not applying chemical Nitrogen fertilizer.
I have found a way to use natural bacteria to supply all the needs of a crop even at the incredibly demanding Nitrogen feed rates needed in commercial agriculture.
The amazing thing about it, is that it is done with natural bacteria and not with genetically modified organisms.
This is all good of course, but I want people to work on this project in their gardens and in Fare Thee Well’s gardens to learn how to use these bacteria that can and will replace chemical fertilizers.
In other words, I want community involvement in this project and want the knowledge of how to do this correctly, to be distributed to the community so that everyone can benefit and not have it locked up in some corporate profit structure.
The beauty of this sustainable process is that it works on all plants including trees in the forest and hay in the fields and does not require any additional fertilizers as long as some of the nutrients needed such as Phosphorous or Potassium are present, even if they are “locked up” in the soil because the bacteria will make them available to the plants as needed.
I will add that if the soil were seriously deficient in a macro nutrient other than Nitrogen, then that nutrient would still need to be applied but not Nitrogen, as that is amply provided by the bacteria.
One very interesting effect of not using chemical Nitrogen fertilizer is that it eliminates the NOx (Nitrogen Oxide) emissions from the soil and these emissions are equivalent to three tons per acre per year of CO2 equivalents. That, spread over millions of acres of crops, is a mind boggling number in terms of Climate Change emissions reductions.
Anyone who might have an interest in working with us on this project, please let me know.
Dave Demarey