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I think it's a generally good "news item" written on the op-ed page of the NYT. Bittman above all else is a food critique. He tends to delve into areas he is not an expert in and gets his foot in his mouth because of it. However, IMO, he is fairly good on this issue and, it is food related, even if it's about how to grow food and not cook or eat it. Still pretty good. There was a recent article on climateandcapitalism.com with a link posted here I think. Titled "Why avoiding meat and dairy won’t save the planet" the link again, is here: http://climateandcapitalism.com/2018/06/26/why-avoiding-meat-and-dairy-wont-save-the-planet/ and this will give a far better, science-based explanation of what the Bittman editorial is trying to say. "Agroecology" is on term among many others that seek to use the millions of yeas of R&D nature has already done to return our soil, our food, and our ties to how we raise our food back on an even footing. Among the other terms, used more extensively in N. America than it is in Asia or Africa are "Holistic Agricultural Management" (developed over the last 50 years by Allan Savory), Restorative Agriculture, Permaculture, Regenerative Agriculture, etc etc.. They all have a few things in common though their approaches are often very different. The *common* thread is the us of animal husbandry to provide the needed link between restoring the depleted organic matter (carbon, specifically) and fertility by managed intensive rotational grazing of rudiments (sheep, cattle, and to a lesser extent, pigs, goats and chickens). This "mob grazing" mimics nature by forcing animals to herd closer, eat a more diverse mix of grasses, leaving their dung in more usable (by nature) area, and by *not* eating plants all the way down to the roots but leaving enough to stimulate more growth. The Asian variety of Agroecology doesn't rely on this as much or at all but employs somewhat different, but also holistic methods. Another common area is the use of cover crops to keep the soil "armored" against the sun, the sun that dries out soil immediately when it is exposed but does even more harm by destroying the necessary bacteria in the soil that can actually *create* top soil and increase the organic matter in the soil. The last commonality is the elimination of the plow...a 7,000 year or older device that may of been the bane of advanced civilization collapse by destroying the soil by turning it over. What all the above methods have in common is the technique (catching on very quickly among farmers in the U.S.) is "no-till" agriculture where ground is never plowed by, instead, "drilled" with a small disk to allow a seed to be dropped in thus keeping the integrity of the soil. All these methods of non-commerical/factory farming end up *sequestering* GHG emissions instead of increasing them. David _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
