by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
The Amish
Whether or not we agree with the world view and he religious outlook of the Amish, in the sustainability department we would all do well indeed to look to them for how things are done and can be done.
The Amish are, so I understand, basically the only ones who can actually make profit from their farms (and other operations) and all of their operations are non-oil-based.
The Amish do not use any tractors, as in oil-powered, nor do they use any oil-based chemicals, whether for pest control or as fertilizers and still, or better because of it, their farms are highly productive.
Yes, it is true that they are complete family operations and all the children – of which they tend to have many – are made to do their share in that work, and in some places this would immediately be frowned upon as “child labor”. That still does not, in general, explain their efficiency. The fact that their farms' soil, though, is hight fertile and active compared to soil treated again and again by chemicals. With chemical fertilizers the fertility of the soil, in fact, is destroyed and only the plants themselves are fed.
Oil-based fertilizers do nothing for the soil. In fact they leach the goodness, so it would appear, out of the soil and through expensive studies it has recently been “discovered” what the Amish and our ancestors have known for ages; namely that organic matter must be put back into the soil to keep its fertility up.
Allotments
Your ordinary little allotment holder gardener, the Schrebergaertner, as the Germans would call them, or Kleingaertner, also, in the main, follows that kind of procedure of using natural materials rather than oil-derived chemicals and most produce real bumper harvests of produce that often they cannot even make use of all.
Only, primarily, human labor is used and very little if any gasoline powered machinery for digging and maintaining the gardens in good order to produce well and abundantly. While there are some in that field that may use chemicals for pest control and in the way of fertilizers most do not.
Organic farming
In this case – unless they also use horses – some oil is still being used despite the fact that they have done away with oil-based fertilizers and pesticides and other such chemicals. While organic farming goes some way to a non-oil based farming it does not do without the oil altogether and at present few smallholdings and others are there, aside from the Amish, who are completely oil-less.
So far, only the Amish in the Western World, and some communes of other faiths or no faith, follow a non-oil based faming practice but this will be the one we all need to get to in the not so distant future, of that I am sure.
And not only farming will by needs have to go down the non-oil based path. Forestry will be another one here and horses to drag out timber are already in use again in many locations in Britain and also elsewhere.
In all instances this will lead back to giving people employment and it will also lead back to much smaller operations, whether in size of farms of forestry operations.
Food growing, as per market garden and home allotments is something that can be done without oil-based chemicals and fuels anyway if we but try. We did before and we can again. In fact, well will have to do so.
Soil fertility is not created by use of oil-based chemicals and -fertilizers any way. Only organic matter, as in compost and manure, actually improve the soil, The chemical fertilizers are but “plant food”. This means they feed the plant but give nothing back to the soil. In fact they deplete and drain the soil.
The Amish are known to take over farms that the big companies abandon because the soil is depleted and has lost its fertility and within a couple of years they change those lands around by simply using the old methods of using organic matter to fertilize the soil.
So, it can be done and again it will have to be done again all over, and that rather sooner than later.
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