Who's out there & chew on this..

[Richard Siggs]

In a recent post to sci.environment, I asked if there were other people
interested in the broad area of 'Natural Agriculture'. I think that
topic covers a vast area, but, if it 'rings a bell' to you, then I guess
you can call yourself interested, I have no definition for 'Natural
Agriculture' & perhaps it doesn't need one.. Anyway, here's a reply I received:

From: barry at dgbt.doc.ca (Barry McLarnon DGBT/DIP)
Subject: Re: Natural Agriculture.>
> OK, I'm one!  I'm on the coordinating committee of an organization
> called Canadian Organic Growers, which consists of a sizeable number
> of farmers and home gardeners who are practitioners and promotors of
> {organic, natural, sustainable,...?} agricultural techniques.  I would
> be very interested in communicating with like-minded individuals via
> the net - perhaps we could set up a mailing list?
>

My reply, which might as well go here was:

        Excellent! I think a mailing list is a great idea? How would you like
to implement it? How many people do you know of? I haven't received much
interest in Aust. as yet, but I'm doing some publicising (and a bit of
'stirring') to see who's interested here. One project I have in mind at the
moment, is to help some of the farmers in South Australia, who are having their
machinery re-possessed by Banks, due to the continual failure over the last few
years to produce any reasonable 'cash-crop'. One solution I'm looking at is
getting these people interested in tree growing & other natural, low-intensity
argiculture. There have been some amazing developments in a university in
Queensland (are you familiar with Australia's states? Queensland is the North-
Eastern state of Aust.) to do with a tree derived from a fast & straight
growing tree in China, but, through cloning & some genetic selection, they've
managed to produce a tree that can replace the traditional softwoods & some
paper pulp timbers, the best thing, is that it grows to full maturity in 5
years!! Amazing! I'm going to investigate that further, but are there people
who you know who may have some comment on this kind of thing. ie: not just the
tree, but the idea of getting farmers to switch from highly intensive, yearly
or twice yearly 'cash-crop' farming, to other methods?

Well, there you have it, anyone got ideas/comments?


	==============================================================
				Richard Siggs
	Computer Science Dept.,	 Adelaide University, South Australia.
			Net: richard at cs.adelaide.edu.au

	Q. Does Permaculture work?	A. Do trees grow?