[Terrapreta] city and farm

[lou gold]

Hello All,

I've been trying to confront the issue of whether the new agrichar
technologies
will be directed primarily toward energy or toward restoring soil qualities.
Isn't
this just a new version of the question of productivity vs sustainability?

The high tech discussion at the level of agribusiness seems to focus on
using
agricultural wastes for more energy efficiency -- either integrated
cogeneration
or producing more marketable fuel end-product. Profit/loss is based on a
relativley
short term. Economics and ecology get separated. The result has not been
good for the earth.

Where did this separation come from? I suspect that it is because the farm
and
the city got separated. As the technological reach of civilzation expanded
so did
the dysfunctions production without sustainabilty.

Would it be a useful path to start considering how the logic of Terra Preta
might heal the city-farm separation? How? Perhaps by seeing the waste as
located
in the city and thinking about turning this waste into an agrichar form that

would be sent back to the farm to restore the soil? Maybe it could be a
modern
version of what was taking place in Amazonian Indian times.


Might it be possible to reconnect city and farm ECOLOGICALLY?

What do you think?


-- 
http://lougold.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/visionshare/sets/
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