"since the 1930s industrialized agriculture has been increasingly promoted by the industrial mind. but now a small but growing minority realizes that high energy destroys information of both the cultural and the biological varieties. this approach not only pollutes landscapes, it rooster-tails the finite supply of nutrients from our agricultural lands into the supermarkets, into the kitchen sinks, onto the chopping boards, onto the tables, and into the human gut, and, once there, more or less head only one way, downstream into the sewers and graveyards." wes jackson. "becoming native to our places"____________________________________________________
entropy has taken on may meanings... in the second law of thermodynamics it is the process by which energy is changed from more to less dense mostly through the process of combustion...the energy source is simplified...goes from more to less complex...by extension then i going to say ( as others have said before me...wes jackson included ) that industrial agriculture is entropic in nature in that it simplifies the soil...extracting nutrients that are not returned to the soil but are replaced by anhydrous ammonia which kills earthworms and soil bacteria ( like the rhyzobia bacteria i inoculated my cowpeas with last year and with which i will inoculate my fall planting green manures this autumn ) sterilizing the soil and making it a "growth medium"...the nutrients ( or what's left of them ) disappear into the maw of the food processors never to return...the corn crop behind the big box store is a sterling example...turned into high fructose corn syrup to sweeten the mountain dew or used as a base for the extrusion for hot pockets...( or, possibly. ethanol to power the motor vehicles we all must have to prosper here )...even the stalks are ground into feed for cattle...leaving stubble and the odd ear of industrial feedstock the combine missed to be turned under next spring...cold comfort to starved soil...this is a disheartening picture to contemplate..time to start another compost pile.
"since the 1930s industrialized agriculture has been increasingly promoted by the industrial mind. but now a small but growing minority realizes that high energy destroys information of both the cultural and the biological varieties. this approach not only pollutes landscapes, it rooster-tails the finite supply of nutrients from our agricultural lands into the supermarkets, into the kitchen sinks, onto the chopping boards, onto the tables, and into the human gut, and, once there, more or less head only one way, downstream into the sewers and graveyards." wes jackson. "becoming native to our places"____________________________________________________
entropy has taken on may meanings... in the second law of thermodynamics it is the process by which energy is changed from more to less dense mostly through the process of combustion...the energy source is simplified...goes from more to less complex...by extension then i going to say ( as others have said before me...wes jackson included ) that industrial agriculture is entropic in nature in that it simplifies the soil...extracting nutrients that are not returned to the soil but are replaced by anhydrous ammonia which kills earthworms and soil bacteria ( like the rhyzobia bacteria i inoculated my cowpeas with last year and with which i will inoculate my fall planting green manures this autumn ) sterilizing the soil and making it a "growth medium"...the nutrients ( or what's left of them ) disappear into the maw of the food processors never to return...the corn crop behind the big box store is a sterling example...turned into high fructose corn syrup to sweeten the mountain dew or used as a base for the extrusion for hot pockets...( or, possibly. ethanol to power the motor vehicles we all must have to prosper here )...even the stalks are ground into feed for cattle...leaving stubble and the odd ear of industrial feedstock the combine missed to be turned under next spring...cold comfort to starved soil...this is a disheartening picture to contemplate..time to start another compost pile.
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