[Terrapreta] USDA organic certification standards

[Sean K. Barry]

Kurt,

Jeez, you make some good points.  I think that charcoal application to farm fields would be repetitive event, like harvesting at the end of a growing season.  That may be annually, or more or less, depending on the length of the growing seasons for a single crop, I suppose.  But, if its takes an industrial facility to make enough charcoal to sow onto a single farm, then I'd say you are correct, that individual farmers are not going to make the capital investment to make that happen on their farms.  I think then, that Co-ops would be the way to go in that instance.

You might know the frustration that many farmers feel with industrial agriculture?  That is what getting rid of the middle men is about, I think.

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: rukurt at westnet.com.au<mailto:rukurt at westnet.com.au> 
  To: Jeff Davis<mailto:jeff0124 at velocity.net> 
  Cc: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 9:32 PM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] USDA organic certification standards


  Jeff Davis wrote:
  >>     
  >
  > Dear Kurt,
  >
  > It always seemed that the farmer had too many middle men cutting into
  > his/her profits:
  >
  > How does the saying go? Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a
  > farmer how to make Terra Preta and he grows produce for a live time!
  >
  >
  >
  > Just a thought,
  >   
  Don't know about that. Here, in Aussie, we had the fertilizer 
  manufacturer about 100km away and we had the Farmers Co-op selling the 
  fertilizer. If you wanted semitrailer loads, they arranged it.
  Middle men??? Heck we owned the Co-op and paid the feller behind the 
  counter.

  The point is, if the farmer needs 100 tons of charcoal, how is he going 
  to make it? Unless he has a huge farm and a heap of dough to set up the 
  factory he will need to make that much, which will then lay idle when he 
  doesn;t need any charcoal. There's a reason for middlemen.

  When I was buying crocodile skins off the natives in New Guinea, I 
  bought them packed them and put them on the ship. The money for each 
  consignment came from a mob in Melbourne, who financed the 25,000 odd 
  bucks the consignment was worth (every three month). That was more cash 
  than I had. The skins went to a big wholesaler in Singapore who had 
  warehouses with millions of bucks worth of skins stored in them. The 
  Tanneries from Belgium went to him and bought  hundreds of thousands of 
  bucks worth of skins to make into luggage and the like. We all made our 
  cut. Without us there would have been no trade in them.

  Now, in the food industry, the farmer is a middleman between the soil 
  and the wholesalers. It's the gardner who grows and eats his own.

  Kurt
  who was only a small farmer

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