Hi Hakan >Keith, > >I am not sure that rape seed is industrialized monocrop in Europe, most >farms that I know of, grow it in a rotation scheme. I thought that the >rotation schemes with resting periods, was a part of maintaining soil >quality, but I am not an expert on this.
Yes, that too, even quite often, and the same with soy in the US. It doesn't make much difference though. Simply rotating crops with some intervening fallow periods is not enough to maintain soil fertility, all it can do is reduce some of the strain. As you say, it's just a part, and since it's usually the only part (if even that), bridging the ever-widening gap is as usual a matter of chemicals and fossil fuels and dubious sustainability, if any. It's still industrialised. There are some good posts in the archives from real organic farmers doing this properly, with lower costs, equal or higher yields, better quality, and they're getting premium prices. One said they're laughing all the way to the bank. Sustainable methods are not less efficient, less productive, less profitable, or more difficult. Best wishes Keith >Hakan > >At 06:42 24/07/2004, you wrote: > >Hello Rob > > > > >I heard an interesting story on the BBC World Service "Europe Today" > > >program broadcast on July 23. They interviewed a spokesperson from a > > >British company with a patented technology to generate electrical power > > >from rapeseed oil and WVO. > > > > > >The process involves virgin oil and waste vegetable oil. The rapeseed > > >is pressed to extract the virgin oil for fuel. Then the soild remains > > >from the pressing is mixed with waste vegetable oil and burned in a > > >turbine. In this way, the entire rapeseed is used to generate > > >electricity. > > > >The rapeseed plant itself, not the seed but the rest of the plant, is > >said to contain 13% oil, which people have said goes to "waste". It's > >certainly not "waste" if the crop residues are ploughed back into the > >soil to provide fertility for the next crop to grow. That's very much > >a consideration for this technology as well, one that energy people > >often forget, though that might not stop them using the "renewable" > >and "sustainable" labels. It can be neither of those things if soil > >fertility maintenance is not attended to first. That can't be done by > >substituting chemicals for the crop residues and organic matter that > >make humus - it doesn't work for one thing, and chemicalised > >monocrops are heavily fossil-fuel dependant anyway, so the product > >would hardly be sustainable, nor renewable. > > > >That said, the last 80 years have seen a revolution in crop-waste > >recycling and fertility maintenance technology, and if it's done > >properly a little can be made to go a very long way, especially if an > >integrated approach is taken. But energy people often aren't very > >good at that either. This can be done well, the whole operation, and > >then this and other, similar, technologies can play a truly > >beneficial role. Otherwise it's too likely to be the same old story > >with problems concerning babies and bathwater and "unforeseen > >side-effects" rearing their ugly heads when it's too late. > > > > >According to the interview, the technology could produce electricity for > > >one thousand homes for one year using crops planted in an area of 1 > > >square mile (2.5 sq km). Based on the rapeseed crops planted in the UK > > >now, there is enough to supply five percent of the UK power needs. > > > >Rapeseed is currently an industrialised monocrop. There are other, > >better, ways of doing this that could not only reduce the fossil-fuel > >inputs, potentially to zero, but also make it a truly sustainable > >production system, also with potentially a much broader product > >range, and probably with improvements to those supply figures too, > >especially from an eco-footprint point of view. > > > >You might find these earlier messages interesting: > > > ><http://archive.nnytech.net/sgroup/BIOFUELS-BIZ/1395/>http://archiv >e.nnytech.net/sgroup/BIOFUELS-BIZ/1395/ > >How much fuel can we grow? > > > ><http://archive.nnytech.net/sgroup/BIOFUELS-BIZ/1801/>http://archiv >e.nnytech.net/sgroup/BIOFUELS-BIZ/1801/ > >Re: Biofuels hold key to future of British farming > > > >Best wishes > > > >Keith ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
