Food Security in Clark County, Part 3 - Deston Denniston

Once again, I am pleased to bring you the latest installment in Deston Denniston's series of articles on Food Security in Clark County. Here's a teaser and a click on the link at the bottom of this post will take you to Deston's blog and the entire article.

Food Security in Clark County, Part 3

“The history of every nation is eventually written in the way in which it cares for its soil.”
-Franklin Roosevelt

Every farmer knows that the health of the soil is the key to productivity in the long run. Most are aware that industrial practices such as tilling, fertilizing, and bio-cide spraying, lead to the decline of soil health. However, lack of funds and free time to experiment with holistic methods keeps them trapped in negative feedback practices: in order to produce marketable goods, farms must provide volumes which are demanded by produce distributors and market collectives. If the farmer's volume is low, or the price high, these buyers will pass the farmer, and so force his or her hand to commit to practices which are known to be undesirable, even degenerative. The cumulative effects of this trend show up in our riparian zones and fisheries as silt, in our forests and fields as erosion, and in our production units as lower profit margins and losses. It shows up in our children as weak immune systems, and in our elders as cancer. It shows up in our air as pollution from the fossil fuel consumption and in our pocketbooks as a gouge.

You can read the rest of the article by clicking here.