Dear Robin, I think you'd find exceptions, such as some of the biodynamic and organic coffee farms where the coffee tree is grown back in its original place as a forest under story tree. A Large exception is affoot as the result of the work of one of the speakers at Allan's conference, Howard Shapiro. Maybe some sof the other attendees can tell you of his work restoring caccao to is place in a cultivated forest diversity of a wide variety of species, many of commercial value, which combined can raise caccao farmer's incomes by roughly 300%. Enough to send the kids to college or to invest in a farm for them when they wed.
Best, Hugh Lovel >All, > >Of course not! Transformation of forests to agriculture has been a >disaster all over the world. This is because industrial agriculture >systems are slaves to chemical and genetic industries. Thanks to Monsanto, >and others... Forests converted to chemical agriculture is the main thing. >Chemical agriculture to organic agriculture is the 'newer' sustainable >thing, and organic to Biodynamic is the spiritually sustainable thing. Or >something like that... > >Yes, you can find some examples of good management, and proper >forest-to-agricultural conversions, but they are mostly the local initiative >of earth loving people, such as Biodynamic practitioners, or other cultures >such as the first nations of north America. Have a look at the C-Dar World >Forest Foundation http://www.c-dar.com. They are both converting a forest >to an agricultural land, and developing a method for bringing BD to >forests... (that parts in the making...). > >Again... sustainability is subjective and a question of tradeoffs. What >values do we want to sustain? Who is we? > >Cheers, > >Robin > > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Roger Pye" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: 13 octobre, 2002 04:16 >Subject: Re: forest to farm > > >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> >> >Sure, we been doing that for three hundred and fifty years in the usa. >> > >> But with what long-standing - sustainable - success? >> >> roger >> >> Visit our website at: www.unionag.org
