sustainable agriculture

[caption id="attachment_23760" align="alignleft" width="279" caption="Graphic credit: Sylvia Bernstein"] Buy gentamicin eye drops online without prescription, [/caption] By any account, American agriculture is a tremendous success story.  The problem is that this success is precariously balanced on a set of three crumbling ‘pillars’ whose degradation could reverse this course and put us on the path to less, rather than more food production and security.

Much has changed about American agriculture – and enabled vast increases in productivity and profitability - since the Great Dustbowl that inspired the iconic American Gothic painting.  In fact, according to Cornell University, buy gentamicin eye drops us, in the 25-year period between 1950 and 1975, Gentamicin eye drops overnight shipping, while “… the acreage in farming dropped by 6 percent and the hours of farm labor decreased by 60 percent, farm production per hour of on-farm labor practically tripled, and total farm output increased by more than half.”  New forms of farm mechanization drove less need for labor and greater existing farm hand productivity.   The discovery of DDT and other effective pesticides increased the amount of saleable crops per harvest.  The use of chemical fertilizers doubled between 1940 and 1944, buy gentamicin eye drops online australia.

Sounds great, Buy cheapest gentamicin eye drops on line, so what is the problem?   Unfortunately, our impressive agricultural success has been built on three pillars, and those pillars are in trouble, gentamicin eye drops no prescription.
Cheap oil – Farmers and our food distribution system use oil in every aspect of modern agriculture, Buying generic gentamicin eye drops, from powering the tillers and seeding machines that plow the earth and plant the seeds, to petroleum based fertilizers and pesticides that feed and protect the crops, to fueling the trucks that transport the harvest over hundreds and thousands of miles to the grocery store.   As our oil supplies dwindle and the price of oil increases, buy gentamicin eye drops in us, these oil-dependent inputs will be increasingly seen as economically impractical. Order gentamicin eye drops, Unlimited, pure water – Currently in the United States, 80% of the water we use goes to irrigate our crops, gentamicin eye drops in bangkok, and in some Western states that number reaches 90%.  The problem is that this water is becoming dangerously scarcer, Gentamicin eye drops in malaysia, as well as more polluted by the very agriculture that it seeks to nurture.  In early 2009, then California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared that California, arguably the most productive farming state in the country, buy cheapest gentamicin eye drops online, was facing an unprecedented water crisis.  “No matter what we might want, Buy gentamicin eye drops in canada, it is very likely that there will continue to be serious constraints on the volume of water available to all California users, including agriculture.” This is not a problem that is going to go away.??Groundwater reserves, such as the massive Ogallala Aquifer, gentamicin eye drops drug, supply 40% of the water we use to irrigate our crops.  But according to a recent GeoJournal issue titled “Water and Agriculture” , Order gentamicin eye drops without prescription, “The accelerated use of agricultural chemicals over the past 20 to 30 years has profitably increased production but has also had an adverse impact on ground water quality in many of the major agricultural areas. The pollution of ground water, related to nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides, from widespread, routine land application, as well as point sources has become a serious concern…  Such widespread pollution is of real concern because of the potential for long-term and widespread exposure to the public of toxic substances through drinking water, buy gentamicin eye drops online without prescription. While there are many uncertainties, agriculture must move forward toward solutions through better management.”

Fertile soil – We are simply wearing out the fertility of our soil.  Soil compaction from mechanized equipment has caused a loss of as much as 25 – 50% of yield and 74% of the agricultural land in North America has been defined as “degraded.  Pesticide use on U.S, gentamicin eye drops internet. farms has risen ten-fold over the past 40 years as agriculture has intensified. Where to buy gentamicin eye drops, These pesticides are killing not only plant-harming insects (although increasingly less effectively) but also critical, living elements of the soil ecology that help it to naturally regenerate, i.e, compare gentamicin eye drops prices online. bacteria, Cheap gentamicin eye drops pharmacy, fungi, worms, and beneficial insects, gentamicin eye drops buy online.

The good news is that we have a proven agricultural system in use today that provides the solution to all of these issues…and more.  It is a called aquaponics Buy gentamicin eye drops online without prescription, .

Aquaponics is a technique that grows freshwater fish and plants in a symbiotic, Gentamicin eye drops order, nearly closed loop system.  Aquaponic systems come in many varieties but in all of them, fish live in tanks that are interconnected with beds that house the plants.  The fish create waste that is largely comprised of ammonia, which is highly toxic to them and needs to be filtered from their water.  The water containing this waste flows to the soil-less plant-growing beds where the ammonia is converted by naturally occurring bacteria into nitrates.  The nitrate compounds are excellent plant food and provide nearly all the nutrients the plants require.  The mineralized solid waste provides the rest.  The extraordinary beauty of this system is that the plant beds with their beneficial bacteria populations become the bio-filters for the fish, order gentamicin eye drops no prescription required, transforming the toxic fish waste into plant food which the plants then extract from the water.  The cleansed water returns to the fish free of their own waste.    It is beautiful.  The fish feed the plants and the beneficial bacteria and plants provide clean water to the fish, Gentamicin eye drops online sales, just like nature does in any healthy pond.  The net result is a bountiful source of both plant produce and fish available for harvest.

So, how can aquaponics solve the three problems noted above, gentamicin eye drops side effects.

Cheap oil – Growers can construct Aquaponic systems entirely out of recycled materials. Buy gentamicin eye drops from india, Further, the operating systems require no oil-based inputs.  They run entirely on a small amount of electricity which can be generated through currently available renewable energy methods.  Further, because there is no need for weeding, gentamicin eye drops vendors, watering or fertilizing; aquaponic farms can be run by a single person without the need for gas-powered equipment.  Because an aquaponics system does not come in contact with the ground, Online gentamicin eye drops, there are far fewer insect problems and thus far less need for pesticides.  As an added incentive, the system must remain free of petroleum based pesticides to avoid harming the fish.  Finally, there is obviously no need for petroleum-based fertilizers since the bacteria-converted fish waste feeds the plants with organic, order gentamicin eye drops no prescription, natural plant food.

Unlimited, pure water – Because aquaponic systems are recirculating, the only water they use is either within the plants themselves, transpires through their leaves, or evaporates from the top of the fish tank.  These minimal “loss” points are the reason that aquaponics is generally thought to use less than one tenth of the water of traditional agriculture for the same crop output, buy gentamicin eye drops online without prescription. Cheapest gentamicin eye drops prices, Plus, because aquaponic water is never exposed to fertilizers or pesticides, there is no chance of polluting the groundwater systems with chemicals, cheap gentamicin eye drops overnight delivery.

Fertile soil – While aquaponics can’t restore the results of past agricultural practices, Buy cheap gentamicin eye drops internet, it can side-step the problem.  Because aquaponic systems use no soil themselves and because they can be built on any surface, they can be erected anywhere there is level ground and a source of sunlight or artificial grow lights.  This includes land that is poisoned beyond repair, urban settings like parking lots and warehouses, gentamicin eye drops india, and home environments like patios, Buy gentamicin eye drops once daily, decks, basements, and garages, discount gentamicin eye drops without prescription.

In addition to these potent benefits for American food production, Buy gentamicin eye drops from canada, I would like to highlight one more …

Fish are a healthy, efficient, and safe alternative to meat – It seems that every week we see a news item about an E coli outbreak or a story about the harm that the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are doing to the animals, fda approved gentamicin eye drops, the environment and the safety of the resulting meat products.  By contrast, Buying gentamicin eye drops online, fish, are cold-blooded animals and therefore cannot harbor E coli (unless, of course, gentamicin eye drops non prescription, they are contaminated with the pathogen from an external source during processing).  In addition, Gentamicin eye drops free sample, one must remember that an aquaponic system is an eco-system in which all the living inhabitants depend on each other.  Thus, aquaponic growers never add antibiotics, growth stimulants, gentamicin eye drops for order, and other medicines because such additives would reach not just the fish but also the plants, Buy gentamicin eye drops overnight delivery, bacteria and worms that live in the system (growers add worms to the plant grow beds to help convert solid fish waste into plant food);  thereby threatening the health of the entire system.   Plus, in the U.S. livestock is responsible for an estimated 55% of erosion and sediment, 33% of pesticide use, and 50% of antibiotic use.  Finally, it only takes one and a half pounds of feed to produce one pound of fish, vs. Buy gentamicin eye drops online without prescription, eight to ten pounds of feed to produce one pound of beef.   Fish farming is a far more efficient use of our feed crops than growing meat.

Aquaponics is not the answer to all of America’s future food supply and environmental issues.  Grains and root crops, for example, will probably always be most efficiently grown in the soil.  But for above ground, vegetative crops and animal protein, there simply isn’t a better growing technique for our country’s future food security.

For more information please contact:

Sylvia Bernstein, President, The Aquaponic Source, Inc., Email: Sylvia@theaquaponicsource.com

Website - http://theaquaponicsource.com/

The Book - http://aquaponicgardening.com/

Bio
Sylvia Bernstein is the author of “Aquaponic Gardening: A Step by Step Guide to Growing Fish and Vegetables Together” and the President and Founder of The Aquaponic Source, the leading U.S. based company focused entirely on the home aquaponic gardener.  She also runs the Aquaponic Gardening Community, the largest online community site dedicated to aquaponic gardening in North America, and the U.S. Chapter Chairman of the Aquaponics Association.  She writes the Aquaponic Gardening Blog and teaches and speaks extensively about aquaponics and its exciting potential.

Resources
http://psep.cce.cornell.edu/facts-slides-self/facts/mod-ag-grw85.aspx
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/WaterUse/
http://www.springerlink.com/content/g426q75740542vr2/
http://soils.usda.gov/use/worldsoils/papers/land-degradation-overview.html
http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/EB9/eb9.pdf
http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/03/28/livestocks-long-shadow-by-david-shawla/
http://www.pacinst.org/reports/california_agriculture/final.pdf.

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