Dear editor,
Historically, presently and in the future, the role of agriculture is to produce enough food to feed oneself and sell the excess to others. This is what led to division of labor and our ability to pursue other endeavors.
Unfortunately the green revolution which has occurred since World War II, has led to the demise of the biology in the soil, creating a dependent use of fertilizers and other chemicals. This situation has led farming to become unsustainable. Some of us involved in agriculture are becoming very aware that a growing number of large scale and small scale farmers are following principles of regenerative agriculture, restoring the biology in their soil, thus significantly reducing their cost of production by eliminating fertilizers and chemicals, producing healthier crops with similar and better yields. Nothing short of a miracle for our future.
In permaculture solutions, there is a concept that the problem is the solution. We don’t have enough farm income. Perhaps the problem has been created slowly over time. We didn’t recognize the trend, the degradation of the soil by the loss of biological factors that fed and watered the crops. The soil that no longer accepts rain like a sponge repels water to flow over land, causing 100-year floods every other year or two. The creek, now over full, with the force of water, carves soil from vertical eroded banks and sends it in solution downstream. We see brown water in the creeks after every rainfall and accept that as normal, but it is a symptom of the soil that no longer absorbs the water. Not understanding what has been happening, is now robbing our community of a viable agriculture that once was. The soil that no longer absorbs rainfall is in a drought only a few days after the rainfall.
Springs that were charged with underground water are long forgotten. Problems associated with dysfunctional soil become a litany of social problems that affect us all; lack of clean water, floods, droughts, dust storms, wildfire, inability to feed population, lack of diversity of wildlife surrounding agriculture, presence of beneficial insects, declining bird populations, decline of the environment, social unrest, mass migration, lack of nutrition in the food produced compared to food produced before chemical agriculture. The world is full of deserts that were once thriving civilizations after their soil was degraded.
Collectively, we want big fixes to quickly solve big problems.
The solution to the challenge we have in agriculture is not by covering it up with a network of solar energy systems. Solar produces a small amount of intermittent energy at high cost spread out over many acres of prime farmland. We don’t know yet what the health and environmental costs will be. The established electrical grid does not have the infrastructure to accept all the solar energy systems that have been permitted to be built.
These vast sums of dollars sought to be collected from signing contracts with solar companies will be funded by electric consumers. Similarly the same taxes to be collected on solar installations, comes from the same pockets of consumers. Please consider that if we need more power, it must come from sources that can produce large amounts of reliable electricity. At this time solar has a place only for small amounts of power. Please support efforts to promote a healthier and more sustainable future by protecting the prime farmland that we have.
Lynn Chaney
May’s Lick
