Chapter 1: Pattern of the Crisis
Chapter 2: The End of Civilization
I hope you find this as interesting and important as I have,
~ ronjon ]
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41
Chapter 3
SOIL: THE BASIS OF LIFE
SOIL: THE BASIS OF LIFE
The Organic Rights
All beings of the earth, from microbes to elephants
exist in a web of organic energy flows. Everything in
the material world is food and everything is excrement.
Everything is part of the energy flow. Even edges of
tectonic plates slide down into the magma, which is
then spouted out of volcanoes. When the flow of energy
comes from the sun to be consumed by the plant, this
begins a succession of energy transformations called
the food chain. Beings eat each other. This flow of solar
energy undergoes many transformations. In addition
to these connections in the food chain there are many
more energy connections that are of a cooperative and
contributory nature. Beings provide many services for
one another that have nothing to do with eating each
other. Bees pollinate flowers, birds transport and deposit
seeds. Fungi combine with the root hairs of plants and the
ensemble generates food for both plants and fungi that
otherwise neither would be able to absorb. Each being,
because it lives according to its nature, contributes to
the smooth functioning of the whole.
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Wm. H. Kötke
There are beings such as elephants, tigers, humans
and others whose consciousness is such that the
intellectual function is well developed but the organic
memory is not highly developed such as it is in animals
like the earthworm or frog. Earthworms and frogs do
not need to be taught what they are, their identity, they
simply know what their nature is. The elephant, tiger or
human, on the other hand have to be taught their culture
by their parents or clan. This is shown by the fact that
these animals, if raised in captivity and turned loose in
their natural habitat, will starve, because they have not
learned their culture. Many civilized people have starved
in the midst of abundant food that native people utilize
with ease. These beings, deprived of knowledge, do not
know their organic identity.
For two to three million year’s humans lived in clans
and tribes as forager/hunters. In that culture we learned
our personal identity within the clan and we learned that
we had an organic identity as one among many beings
of the earth. We learned of the other beings and their
habits of life. We learned of life and the conditions for
the growth of life.
This organic right, to know who and what we are and
that we are located within a web of living energies must
be a birthright of all humans. The earthworm conducts
its life and contributes its excrement to help create the
valuable humus of the soil. The bird visits one oasis in
the desert and then transports seeds to another oasis. All
beings must act responsibly and do their part for the world
to function. For life to persist they must act according
to their natures. For a being such as the human who
can be so constructive or destructive this is important,
important for the continuance of the human species
so that they do not ignorantly destroy that which feeds
them. All beings of earth have a vital interest in humans
knowing their organic place in nature, because when
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humans do not know, they become organic psychotics
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and wantonly destroy other beings.
If the human species intends to exist in perpetuity,
children must be provided with these organic rights.
Most people in civilization grow up in boxes. Artificial
environments and designer landscapes are most
children’s’ formative, environmental experience. Even
farm children do not have a sense of the beauty and
complexity of a completely natural and unaltered
environment. In order to give the human species a
chance of survival, all children should have a right to the
organic knowledge that they are an integral part of the
life of earth. They need this knowledge in order to make
rudimentary ethical and survival decisions. Children
should at least be taught fully what soil is. Soil is the
foundation of life of the planet, only the uninformed
think of it as dirt, they pave it over, they dump poisons
on it and they strip the vegetation so that the soil runs
away without even realizing what they are doing.
Children should be told that soil must receive
sustenance. This factor, the decline of the soil’s food,
applies to all of the land mass where civilization exists,
not just farm fields but ballparks, golf courses, wetlands
that are drained, houses, yards, pastures and any other
place that has had the climax ecosystem removed.
Anytime biomass is removed from the land in the form
of cattle, logs, corn, vegetables or even grass clippings;
the soil is deprived of that amount of feed.
Because civilized people do not know what they are,
they talk politics, religion, and science and pursue
material wealth while the basis of their life on earth, the
soil, slips away beneath their feet.
The Soil
Soil is the gut of the earth, the principal digestive
organ of planetary life. Soil is partially composed of
rock chips, clay, sand, minerals and organic detritus,
but it is also an interdependent living community of
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Wm. H. Kötke
micro-organisms, insects, worms, small animals,
reptiles and other organisms (even some birds) which
live in, contribute to and feed on components of the soil.
Like the bacterial community in the human gut that
predigests the human food, the soil is a living community
of organisms which produces the necessary conditions
for the plant communities to exist. The excrement of the
gut community feeds the human, and the excrement
of the soil community feeds the vegetative community,
which lives on the soil. Plants do not absorb earth.
Plants absorb nutrients that are in solution in the
soil moisture.
These nutrient solutions are the result
of many energy transformations as they pass through a
number of organisms.
The creation of soil begins with an inert and infertile
subsoil of clay, sand, rock chips and rocks. When the
first pioneer or “first aid” plant germinates it begins to
thrust its roots down into the hard compacted earth. It
pumps moisture and minerals up from the earth to its
stems and leaves. It drops its leaves and stems on the
surface. The decomposers, small insects and microbes
that live in the soil, eat the organic material that the
plant has dropped.
The organic material, by covering the raw earth begins
to shade it from the evaporative and oxidizing effect of
direct sunlight. Moisture retention improves the habitat
for small creatures that burrow, opening up the earth
to more moisture and to oxygen that will allow more
microorganisms to exist.
Porousness and organic build-up on and in the soil
help increase the soil’s fertility. The organic material on
the surface feeds the soil community and other beings
eat primary soil ingredients such as rock chips, roots
and other micro beings, both dead and alive. As roots
die and leave micro tunnels and as earthworms and
others create tunnels, passageways are created for
the infiltration of water and oxygen, two vital needs of
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the soil community. As the soil increases its fertility it
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becomes more porous, it retains more moisture and the
temperature extremes are moderated.
As the soil builds, the richness and diversity of the
habitat increases. More varieties of beings can find niches
in the web of life. As the soil is opened up a succession
of plants follow the pioneer species and find it easier
to get their roots down into the soil. Bill Mollison, in
his definitive work on Permaculture, Permaculture: A
Designers’ Manual, says of the living component in a
typical soil: “50 per cent is fungi, 20 per cent is bacteria,
20 per cent yeast, algae, and protozoan, and only 10 per
cent the larger fauna such as earthworms, nematodes,
arthropods and mollusk fauna (the micro-and macro-
fauna), and their larvae.” He adds that, “Such classes
of organisms are found in soils everywhere, in different
proportions.”1
The activities of the fungi are especially interesting.
The body of the fungus stretches itself through the soil
like a giant spider web. When the time comes for sexual
reproduction most varieties of these fungi thrust up
out of the soil, and produce what we call a mushroom.
This is the sexual organ of the underground body. The
web strands underground grow toward the root hairs of
plants. As the threads of the fungi touch the root hair,
the cells of the fungi invade the cells of the plant root.
The fungus does not have the ability to translate solar
energy into biomass (photosynthesis) but it can receive
foods from the tree. The tree itself begins to absorb food
from the cells of the fungi. Sir Albert Howard who wrote
the historic treatise on organic agriculture, The Soil and
Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture; explains that:
“Here we have a simple arrangement
on the part of Nature by which the soil
material on which these fungi feed can be
joined up, as it were, with the sap of the
on the part of Nature by which the soil
material on which these fungi feed can be
joined up, as it were, with the sap of the
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Wm. H. Kötke
tree. These fungous threads are very rich
in protein and may contain as much as 10
per cent of organic nitrogen; this protein is
easily digested by the ferments (enzymes) in
the cells of the root; the resulting nitrogen
complexes, which are readily soluble, are
then passed into the sap current and so
into the green leaf. An easy passage, as it
were, has been provided for food material
to move from soil to plant in the form of
proteins and their digestion products,
which latter in due course reach the green
leaf. The marriage of a fertile soil and the
tree it nourishes is thus arranged. Science
calls these fungous threads mycelium..., the
whole process is known as the mycorrhizal
association. This partnership is universal
in the forest and is general throughout the
vegetable kingdom.”2
The soil breathes through the sponge-like passages in
it. One cause of air movement is the lunar gravitational
attraction. Just as the moon causes tides, it also pulls
on aquifers and soil water. This water movement exhales
and inhales air in the soil. Differentials of high and low
pressure zones in the atmosphere passing overhead also
effect the earth’s breathing in the same way. As noted
by Mollison, even such things as the bodies of worms
pushing through the tubes, effect earth respiration.
As the soil becomes what we might call “mature”
or climax, it is porous; it holds more water and air. As
its diversity and richness increase, the vegetative cover
grows richer and more diverse, thus feeding the soil
more. Trees move in. They put out their feeder roots
horizontally in the soil and the taproots deep into the
subsoil. From the subsoil they bring up water that is
transpired, improving the local microclimate. Minerals
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are also brought up from the deep, which go into leaf
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structure and finally end up on the soil surface. When
the trees die, their decaying root systems leave deeper
cavities. Within this enriching soil, the burrowing animals
are working, churning the soil/subsoil, as other plants
are growing and dying to deposit their dead bodies on
the surface as food for the community. In this way the
soil circulates toward increased fertility.
Mollison points out the high value of soils by reminding
us that the only place that soils are conserved or increased
are: in uncut forests, in the muck under quiet ponds or
lakes, in prairies and meadows of permanent plants
and where we grow plants with mulched or non-tillage
systems.3
The general rule of thumb used by ecologists
is that three hundred to one thousand years are
required to build one inch of topsoil.
This means that thousands of years of production can
easily be wiped out in a season.
The Process of Soil Collapse
Soil injury and death is a severe health problem
for the earth. Natural processes that severely injure or
destroy soil over large areas are rare. They occur in
geologic time spans such as the ice ages, vast climatic
changes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the
movement of tectonic plates. On a smaller scale, intense
fires, landslides, or floods can damage local soils. The
history of “rapid” and large-scale soil injury is actually
the history of the activities of civilization.
The process of soil collapse and destruction is
essentially the reverse of soil build-up. When soil builds,
it opens up, breathes and accumulates moisture. More
and more niches are provided to expand the diversity
of the soil community. As soil deteriorates these factors
decline and soil degenerates toward a solid clay-like
impervious mass that inhibits life activities.
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Wm. H. Kötke
Soil Exhaustion
The soil is in a continuous cycle that must be fed
organic detritus continually. If this cycle is stopped,
the primary food of the community ceases. If the food
ceases and the plants continue to feed on the soil, as in
a corn field, the soil will become exhausted. When cattle
graze, they remove essential elements from the cycle.
A ton of beef has depleted the soil of approximately 26
pounds of calcium, 54 pounds of nitrogen, 3 pounds of
potassium, 15 pounds of phosphorus and many other
trace elements.
This same situation obtains in a forest where the
biomass is hauled away in the form of logs. Anything that
detracts from the circulation of essential elements injures
the soil. Any decline in the climax vegetation will cause
a decline in the health of the soil community because of
the decline of flow in the nutrient cycles.
When a forest is cleared or a prairie is plowed, soil
health is impaired. The first growing season on this land
may be highly productive, but after several years even with
manuring and fallow periods, the soil can function only
at a level considerably below its optimum. Agricultural
soils that can be maintained over centuries, are generally
heavy clay soils but even these erode, lose humus and
become compacted. These soils must be maintained
with great care to maintain sustainability at their greatly
lowered level of health.
Unless large amounts of organic material are added
each year, the soil will decline, because the soil community
continues to feed, consuming the available organic and
the biological nutrients until there is no more. At this
point we have what farmers call “farmed out” land.
On a small piece of land near Willits, California a
group of experimental gardeners called Ecology Action
began to build soil on a hillside that was considered
of “intermediate” value for grazing. They report that it
was difficult to get a shovel into the original soil. After
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seventeen years of intense work, they have created a soil
that will support luxurious plant growth through a method
that they call “biointensive gardening.” To increase soil
fertility, they leave three-quarters of the soil in fallow
crops of sunflowers, vetch, fava beans, wheat and rye.
This experiment is deliberately a closed system, with
no organic material being imported for compost (which
would deprive other soils). This experiment gives us a
rough standard to judge how much must be done to keep
a soil sustainable and increasing in fertility. It means that
three-quarters of the soil must be planted with plants
that build up the soil while one-quarter are used by
plants that feed on the soil and are then removed.4
A test conducted for 41 years, between 1894 and
1935 by the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station at
Wooster, Ohio, demonstrates the soil loss and yield on
three sets of experimental plots devoted to continuous
corn cultivation. This test shows the effect on the soil of
“normal” farming methods.
| Crop
Every Year |
Soil
|
Soil Loss in Inches
|
% of Original
|
Average Annual Yield Measured in
|
Average Annual Yield Measured in
|
| corn | none | 10.3 | 37% | 26.3
|
6.5 |
| corn |
Artificial fertilizer
|
11.1 | 35% | 44.4 | 28.9 |
| corn |
Manure
|
9.5 | 53% | 43.1 | 30.0 |
(The table is taken from the Yearbook of Agriculture, 1938,
USDA, p.102)
(10-5-10 is 10 nitrogen, 5 phosphate and 10 lbs. Potassium per 100 lbs. Total ingredients)
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Wm. H. Kötke
This study demonstrates that even with manuring,
the soil suffers. In order to complement the nutrient
cycle fully; so that the soil does not become depleted,
even larger amounts of organic matter need to be applied.
This is part of the problem of civilized agriculture. Where
does the organic matter come from? In pre-industrial
days, fallow periods were used. Plants were grown on the
fields and then plowed into the soil. Manure from draft
animals- cattle, pigs and chickens, was also applied
to the soil. This slowed the depletion of the soil. Then
came the tractor. The draft animal manure was lost. The
land that was used to grow feed for the draft animals
was turned to other crops. Vast fields of corn, wheat,
soybeans or other monocrops were put in and fertilized
artificially.
In the above table, the greatest loss of organic
matter occurred with the use of artificial fertilizers. The
artificially fertilized soil lost even more than the plot
with no treatment. This happens because the artificial
fertilizers do spur plant growth and this in turn draws
more energy out, thus causing the soil to lose even more
organic matter.
This study points out a crucial, but seldom-noticed
fact. Everywhere in the world where the industrial
agricultural system and the “green revolution” have
spread, this process is happening to the soil. Farmers
physically take biomass off the soil and this breaks
the nutrient cycle. But even though the soil health is
declining, crops continue to be raised because artificial
fertilizer is injected into the soil. To industrial agriculture
the soil itself is irrelevant. In fact, many modern farmers
say that all they need the soil for is to “prop up” the plants
while they artificially inject the nutrients. While this is
true, it is equally true that this process is masking the
actual biological deterioration of the planet’s soils. The
short-term gain might be large, but if artificial fertilizers
become too costly to purchase, or if easily extracted
51
petroleum energy from which artificial fertilizers and
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agricultural poisons are generated, becomes exhausted,
the world will face starvation because the soils are dead.
The final yield on the top line of the chart where no
help was given to the soil shows about where the world
population will be when the petroleum fueled fertilizer
plants shut down. A billion and a half people in the world
are now fed simply because of the added increase made
possible with chemical fertilizers. If chemical fertilizers
were eliminated, world agricultural production would
drop by at least one-third.5
Soil Compaction
Compaction of soils is another common injury that
occurs on and off the farm. Anytime weight is put on soil;
the pores tend to be crushed. This causes the moisture
holding ability to decline and decreases soil breathing.
This also inhibits plant growth because plants must
expend more effort in order to get their roots down into the
soil. As compaction increases, less water infiltrates and
more water runs off, which increases the erosion of the
topsoil. Plowing causes compaction because it requires
heavy equipment. Trampling by confined livestock also
creates soil compaction.
The plow is probably the cause of more soil death
than any other factor. When the iron bottom plow was
invented, a great change occurred in agriculture. Light
soils had earlier been worked with wooden plows, but
when the iron bottom plow was created, deep, heavy,
clay soils could be worked and this greatly expanded the
area of civilized agriculture. Finally the moldboard plow
was created which completely overturns the soil because
of its increased curvature.
The plow historically has been associated with Indo-
European field agriculture. It is associated with the
Indo-European cultural value of increasing production
and as such was used by the Roman Empire in their vast
agricultural enterprises. Digging stick and hoe, often in
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slash and burn plots in forests had done prior planting.
Wm. H. Kötke
This method had minimal interference with the soil and
usually the cover vegetation of small plants was not
eliminated. With the plow it is possible to completely
clear the land and in this way much more land can be
worked. Plowing also has the result of burying the cover
vegetation. When the open fields are disced or harrowed
after plowing, which break up clods and level the soil,
the planting can be much more “efficient” and therefore
much more land can be farmed.
Plowing breaks up and collapses the soil pores and
water/air passageways. When the soil is overturned
the entire soil community and their relationships are
overturned. After a forest is cleared and the land is first
plowed, the soil still maintains its crumbly, granular
nature. It is soft and friable. After a few seasons the
crumb structure has broken down and the clay aspect
of the soil begins to predominate. The plowing, which
creates chunks and clods, impairs the soil’s ability to
receive soil moisture which “wicks” upward by capillary
action.
Edward H. Faulkner who wrote the classic treatise,
Plowman’s Folly, has shown how plowing disturbs the
capillary action and how the moldboard plow by completely
overturning the soil, reinforces this disturbance.
After plowing, the layer of surface vegetation comes
to lie upside down in the soil. Thus, a layer of loosely
pressed organic matter is compressed under the soil
surface. This breaks the capillary action. The capillary
action occurs when moisture evaporates from the surface
and draws moisture upward.6
The plowing of soil often results in the creation of a
hardpan just below the bottom of the plow. As the plow
goes through the soil year after year the layer created
just below the foot of the plow becomes more and more
compacted until it becomes an impervious layer. This
allows water to accumulate and build-up to the level
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of the plant roots where it can drown the plants and
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kill the soil community by salinization. The layer of
hardpan traps minerals held in the water so that they
concentrate as the water slowly evaporates. Eventually
this creates a dead soil that can only be reclaimed with
great difficulty.
When the soil is plowed, the deeper layer that contains
soil moisture is overturned and exposed to wind and
sun. This dries out the soil. The effect of direct sunlight
on raw soil is very destructive. The sunlight oxidizes the
soil. When the soil oxidizes, chemicals combine with
oxygen and decrease their use to the soil community.
The effect is to dry it out and lessen its fertility. All of
this prepares the soil to be carried away by the wind
and water.
As the plowed soil deteriorates, its clayey nature
begins to predominate. The surface becomes more and
more impermeable. Less moisture infiltrates to the ailing
soil community. Water running off soil is the beginning
of the end. As water runs off, it begins to carry soil with
it. As the more friable top layers go, lower layers with
less water absorbency are exposed so that the water
runs off faster. As this occurs even more soil is carried
away. Even in an undisturbed environment there is
some erosion of soil off the land but it is much less than
the volume of soil build-up. The following figures show
the comparisons of erosion in the same area that has
different types of soil cover:
“In Ohio it was reckoned that 174,000
years would be required to remove from
7 to 8 inches of top-soil by runoff in a
forested area, 29,000 years in a meadow,
100 years if the soil is wisely planted with
crop rotation and 15 years if corn alone is
planted ” (Bennett, 1939).7
years would be required to remove from
7 to 8 inches of top-soil by runoff in a
forested area, 29,000 years in a meadow,
100 years if the soil is wisely planted with
crop rotation and 15 years if corn alone is
planted ” (Bennett, 1939).7
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The phenomenon of leaching is a pivotal factor in
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soil conditioning. Rainforest soils are leached constantly
by the heavy rains. The large volume of water carries
minerals from the topsoil down into the subsoil, but
in desert environments, soil moisture evaporates more
rapidly than it can be leached downward. This results in
a higher level of nutrient/mineral buildup, which can be
exploited by irrigators. They can utilize the sandy soils,
which have a relatively low concentration of humus but
nonetheless are nutrient rich and grow substantial crops
if water can be obtained. But buildup of nutrients in
desert soils happens over a long period of time and soil
can be exhausted quickly unless artificial fertilizers are
applied. Organic feed for the soil could be applied, but in
a desert environment the production of organic material
is limited. In the formerly forested areas of Lebanon,
now degraded to a semi-arid desert environment, people
collect manure from the goats that graze the sparse
brush in the mountains and transport it to Beirut and
the coastal city, Tripoli, to the north, to fertilize orange
and banana plantations.8
Soil Erosion
Soil can become exhausted in place and soil can
be removed by erosion. Plow agriculture leads to soil
erosion but there are also other civilized practices that
create soil erosion. Grazing by livestock, deforestation,
mining, and many other human activities all lead to
erosion.
There are three basic types of erosion; these are gully,
sheet and wind. Gully erosion results in the familiar
“erosion canyons” that we see on hillsides. Sheet erosion
is a more camouflaged type in which large areas of a
hillside slowly creep downhill to a “slump” at the foot of
the slope. This type of erosion is sometimes only apparent
when closely examined or when a “slump” can be seen
at the bottom of a hill. Sheet erosion is generally found
on inclined, plowed fields and steeper grazed pastures.
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Wind erosion occurs when the soil simply blows away. In
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some areas, especially flatlands, this type of erosion can
become the predominate source of deterioration.
Soil impermeability, the failure of rainwater to be
absorbed and seep into the soil is the beginning of erosion.
Deforestation, overgrazing, plowing, or other stripping of
the vegetative cover lessens the possibility that rain will
be slowed down and stopped so that it may seep into
the soil, subsoil and the underground waterways. As
more soil is carried away, the more impermeable subsoil
layers are exposed which causes more volume of water to
run off faster. Because the less fertile subsoil is exposed,
the vegetation that is adapted to the topsoil has less
chance to re-establish itself. This is the reason that the
downward spiral, once triggered, is self-perpetuating.
The rains continue to come, and continue to erode, but
once the plants can no longer get a foothold the process
will simply continue until it reaches bedrock or other
impervious layer.
The failure of water to infiltrate to the level of the lower
groundwater effects the hydrology of the entire region.
Even in a semi-arid region, if the topsoil is intact and the
vegetative cover exists to absorb a large percentage of the
rainfall, the water will seep in to collect in the subsoil.
There it will be held away from the heat and evaporative
effects of the sun for the deeper plant roots. The water
that drains further into the earth will come to reside in
underground aquifers. In many cases these aquifers
will drain out in springs in lower elevations, providing
a slow dependable flow that energizes local ecosystems
and creates a slow dependable year around stream flow
in the area.
When soils are abused and the spiral of deterioration is
triggered, the familiar flood/drought cycle begins. When
the water runs off rapidly rather than infiltrating, floods
are created. In the other half of the cycle, because the
water is not retained by absorbent topsoil and as subsoil
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water, the springs dry up, the streams dry up and there
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is less vegetation to transpire moisture. Transpiration
of moisture creates a more salubrious microclimate
for small micro-ecosystems under trees and in thicker
patches of vegetation.
As the unnatural floods begin, and increase in
severity, erosion canyons are torn out of the earth.
Narrow streambeds with well-vegetated banks are torn
out and stream courses are widened. Anywhere that
wide, primarily dry streambeds exist that are filled with
boulders, gravel and large, dry sandbars, severe erosion
is taking place. This is the image of a stream that has
suffered flooding because of upland abuse.
As the floodwaters rush down carrying sterile sand and
gravel from an abused watershed, the erosion material
begins to bury fertile lower elevation floodplains with this
debris. The aquatic ecology of the stream is impaired or
destroyed along with the fertile riparian (stream side, or
canyon bottom) habitat. This is the history of civilization
from China, to India, to the Caucuses of Central Asia, to
Europe and now to the whole world. Civilization equals
aridity.
The stark reality of this spiral of deterioration can be
seen now in areas of India and in Southern Mexico where
areas that were formerly rainforests are now desert in
spite of occasional, heavy rains.
Researchers Anders Wijkman and Lloyd Timberlake in
their study, Natural Disasters: Acts of God or Acts of Man?;
find that drought and floods are the “natural” disasters
that effect by far the largest number of people around the
planet. As the planet deteriorates, the numbers rapidly
increase. In the 1960’s 18,500,000 people were effected
by drought: in the 1970’s 24,400,000 were effected. In
the 1960’s, floods effected 5,200,000 people and in the
1970’s floods effected 15,400,000.9
Soil erosion is not an esoteric matter. Anywhere
one is, it can be seen. It is possible to view any area
57
and roughly conclude the erosion rate. In an uninjured
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climax condition, most waterways of the earth are, or
were, clear. The discoloration of any stream or river
means that the watershed is being abused. If the color
of a body of water is green, it indicates that nutrients are
eroding into the water causing a population explosion of
plant organisms. If the color of the water tends toward
brown, it is simply from gross movement of the soil and
subsoil into the water.
Soil erosion is not a “glamour” issue with the world
media but it is one of the most life- threatening problems
on the planet. Erosion hot spots are U.S. grain lands,
Eastern Mexico, Northeast Brazil, North Africa, Sahel,
Botswana-Namibia, Middle East, Central Asia, Mongolia,
Yangtze River watershed of northern China, Himalayan
foothills, Baluchistan, Rajasthan and Australia. This
listing is of regions with present erosion emergencies, it
does not list for example, regions already lost to erosion
such as the southeastern U.S. or most regions which are
experiencing, not emergency depletion, but serious and
steady erosion. In addition to exhaustion of the soil, half
of all arable land on the planet is experiencing erosion
over and above any build-up of soil.10
Erosion is a contributory mechanism in the loss of
arable land on the earth.
Erosion, desertification, toxification, and non-agricultural
uses will eat up one fifth of the world’s arable land between 1975 and 2000. Another one fifth will go by 2025.
These figures are for arable land and do not include the general
erosion and degradation of lands all over the earth from
human activities such as deforestation, overgrazing, fire,
and other injudicious human occupancy.
Soil Abuse by Grazing: Herding the Hoofed Locusts
The herding of animals is the lowest possible
productive use of the land, yet it is done over much of
the planet. If the purpose were to feed people, rather
than to pay off bank loans or make profits in the money
58
economy- or in the pastoral, nomadic cultures, to inflate
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herd size and patriarchal egos- much better use of most
lands could be instituted immediately.
The authors of Forest Farming, a permaculture
textbook, report that herders can get an average of 200
pounds of meat from an acre of optimum grazing land.
That same area of land could produce one and one-half
tons of cereal grain, seven tons of apples, or 15-20 tons
of flour from the pods of honey locust trees. Although
there is no commercial market for it, honey locust flour
is superior in nutritional value to any cereal grain.11
Much of the grassland, savanna, steppe-type area
of the earth has evolved with wild grazing animals. The
vegetation and the grazers perform many services for
each other. The grazing animals act as seed transport
and manuring agencies. When a herd of herbivores
occasionally comes over an area their hooves churn up
the topsoil, aerate it and press seeds into the soil so
they can germinate. The hooves create small pockmarks
in the soil where organic debris and water can collect-
this is especially helpful in semi-arid areas. Given this
moisture and the water or wind-borne mulch in the
pockmark to retain water and to retard desiccation, the
grass seed will have a good chance of germination. It is
said that one could follow the bison herds of the Great
Plains on their migration routes by tracking the kinds
of grasses that they preferred. As the bison would travel
these “highways of grass” each year they would also
replant their preferred grasses.
Natural herbivores migrate, following the abundance
of vegetation. With free-roaming animals in a natural
setting there is no danger of overgrazing because when
the vegetation is sparse in one area they simply move
to another. Though this migration might appear to be
casual, the life of the herbivore/vegetation association,
evolving through tens of thousands of years, is a natural,
59
potentiative system where all of the beings contribute to
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their collective survival.
The original herbivores in the Western U.S. were bison,
elk, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, mule deer, blacktail deer,
some small animals and some insects. Nancy and Denzel
Ferguson, in their exposé of overgrazing, Sacred Cows
at the Public Trough, write:
“Originally, between 5 and 10 million
bison roamed the plains of Montana,
Wyoming, Colorado, and the intermountain
valleys and mountains of the West. Today
the 11 western states (excluding Montana)
support 495 bison—less than one ten-
thousandth of the original number. Original
pronghorn populations in the 11 western
states numbered between 10 and 15 million
compared with about 271,000 today, which
is about 2 or 3 percent of the original number.
Bighorn sheep have dropped from an
estimated 1 to 2 million to 20,400 (perhaps
1 percent of the original number). Original
populations of mule deer and blacktail deer
are estimated at about 5 million (which may
be high) as compared to about 3.6 million
today. Finally, pristine populations of elk,
which probably numbered about 2 million,
have dwindled to about 455,000, a decline
of about 75 percent.”12
Each of these herbivores ate different varieties of
bison roamed the plains of Montana,
Wyoming, Colorado, and the intermountain
valleys and mountains of the West. Today
the 11 western states (excluding Montana)
support 495 bison—less than one ten-
thousandth of the original number. Original
pronghorn populations in the 11 western
states numbered between 10 and 15 million
compared with about 271,000 today, which
is about 2 or 3 percent of the original number.
Bighorn sheep have dropped from an
estimated 1 to 2 million to 20,400 (perhaps
1 percent of the original number). Original
populations of mule deer and blacktail deer
are estimated at about 5 million (which may
be high) as compared to about 3.6 million
today. Finally, pristine populations of elk,
which probably numbered about 2 million,
have dwindled to about 455,000, a decline
of about 75 percent.”12
plants. As they roamed, they cropped the land evenly.
When these animals were replaced with domesticated
cows (and sheep), the ecosystem began to go downhill,
and the topsoil began to go down the river.
In Africa, it has been shown that when cows are
inserted in grasslands and the multiplicity of herbivores
60
occurring naturally is eradicated, the production of meat
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goes down. According to a recent study, “... an untouched
savanna is capable of an annual production of 24 to 37
tons of meat per square kilometer in the form of wild
animals, while the best pasture-cattle systems in Africa
can yield only eight tons of beef per square kilometer
per year. Yet in the name of agricultural progress and
the imperative of control, many ungulates are being
threatened with extinction, and other herd sizes are
being substantially reduced.”13
The above comparison underlines a basic point. The
insertion of civilized agriculture into natural systems
always lowers the net photosynthetic production,
simplifies the environment and in many cases the
amount of food civilized systems realize is much lower
than could be realized by forager/hunters from the very
same area.
The reason that the natural system is so much more
productive in terms of grazing animals is that the natural
animals can migrate, sometimes long distances, to crop
the most abundant growths. They also crop different
types of plants in the same area. That is, the elk with
its wide mouth is primarily a grass grazer, the deer
with it narrower mouth pokes about in the brush and
trees for food, the pronghorn is a grass grazer though
its preferred grasses are different than the elk’s. The
mountain sheep prefers a different set of plants, as do
the rabbits, rodents and other herbivores. In the natural
setting the entire range of vegetation is grazed. In the
cow-sheep operation, a few species of annual grasses
are the predominate target, and the natural animals are
killed off or driven away.
Livestock have species of plants that they prefer.
These confined animals will graze their preferred grasses
until they are all gone, after which they will then start
on their second preference, and so forth. As the annual
and perennial grasses are grazed out, pioneer plants,
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tough grasses, forbs and brush that are acclimated to
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more arid conditions, move in to rescue the situation as
soil erosion increases.
The damaging characteristic of the cow, to graze its
preferred grass until it is gone, is one of the reasons that
the natural mix of grasses in an ecosystem is so severely
altered by grazing of domesticated animals. Even where
there is an abundant stand of grass it may be grass that
has succeeded because it is not favored by the cow. This
is damaging to the ecosystem because this alters the
food availability of the natural herbivores (if any have
survived) and alters the ecology of the entire area.
The confined cattle alter the mix of native vegetation
and eliminate species. They trample vegetation and
compact soil. Historically, the cow and sheep have been
used to graze land that has some ecological health. Later
when the land is driven to more arid conditions with little
grass and a predominance of woody forbs and brush, the
goat will be brought in to crop that vegetation. Finally
the land can be driven to the point that the goat can no
longer benefit from it. There are millions of acres of the
planet that began as forests or grasslands and are now
in this condition of being so poor that they cannot even
support goats.
The United States government, which controls most of
the rangeland in the western United States, is standing
by while the ranchers overgraze and destroy the lands
of the American west. Because of overgrazing, millions
of acres of the U.S. west have been invaded by exotic
plants, which colonize the bare ground where native
grasses formerly grew. One of these grasses is “cheat
grass,” also known as feathery brome.
Cheat grass is an annual that has invaded from Asia,
possibly transported in the gut of an imported animal or
brought in by some misguided herder. It has a peculiar
strategy for preparing its habitat. It is a fire- adapted
plant; that is, it uses fire to spread itself. With its fine
62
lacy leaves and stems, it is considered to be 500 times
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more flammable than native grasses. The plant greens
up early in the spring for about six weeks, sets seed and
dies, covering the ranges with highly flammable material.
Once it ignites, it burns rapidly, eliminating any other
grass and vegetation that is not fire adapted. In this way
other plants are burned off and new areas are opened
for the spread of cheat grass. As with the exotic grasses
planted by range management people such as crested
wheat grass, few natural beings in the ecosystem are
able to utilize cheat grass. Cows and domestic sheep
can eat cheat grass for only about six weeks in the
spring, when the plants are green. The bristle- like,
spear-pointed covering of the seed of the cheat grass
plant, called the awn, is designed to stick to animals
and birds for transportation. If an animal grazes on the
dried grass, there is danger of the seedheads of this
grass imbedding themselves in the jowls of the animals
and even in their ears and eyes. This causes infections
and sometimes death.
Some of the damage caused by overgrazing in the U.S.
west is readily apparent. One can observe the differences
in grasses between the roadside right of ways and the
grazed pastures. It is hard to miss the huge erosion
canyons throughout the west. It takes considerable study
however, to realize how many of the native and proper
plants, which fit the natural array of the ecosystem, have
disappeared. Many of the plants now covering western
rangelands are either part of the pioneer “first aid team”
of native plants which has come in to save the area or
are exotics from other continents invading the greatly
degraded ecology.
As overgrazing triggers erosion the familiar syndrome
of drought/flood begins as the entire hydrology of the
area changes for the worse.
Today, domesticated animals are grazing 70 per cent
of the landmass of the 11 U.S. western states. Only 17 per
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cent of land that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management
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manages in the west is described as being in good to
excellent condition- by the BLM’s own “in house” study.14
Given the predilection of government agencies to inflate
estimates of their own good works, there is no doubt
that the land is in even worse shape that this dismal
assessment indicates. Nonetheless, we may take this
as an indication of the condition of private lands and of
other public lands in the western U.S., including wildlife
refuges, military bases, wilderness areas, and national
forests, all of which are grazed.
In Australia large herbivores never existed until
Europeans imported them. Recently, aborigines decided
to get away from populated areas and back to their lands
in the outback near Ernabella and Papunya in the semi-
arid area of the continent. They found that 60 per cent of
the food plants for which they traditionally had foraged
were extinct, and the rest were greatly diminished in
numbers. Overgrazing by unnatural herbivores that
have gone wild has caused this destruction. Feral cattle,
brumbies (wild horses), donkeys, camels, goats and
rabbits are destroying Australia’s interior.15 Because
these animals and the domesticated herbivores such as
sheep and cattle are exotic; there are few pre-existing
ecological relationships that they fit. For example, in
areas that naturally host large grazing animals there are
insects and microbes which inhabit and eat herbivore
dung, break it down, bringing it into the food chain
and into the soil as nutrient. In Australia none of this
network has developed because there have never been
large grazing animals. Every year, the nitrogen and other
nutrients contained in many millions of tons of manure
evaporate into the Australian air instead of enriching
the soil, due to this lack, even though the introduction
of these insects and micro lives has been attempted a
number of times.16
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In the semi-arid region of the Middle East, the stock
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population, consisting primarily of goats and camels,
continues to eat up the remaining life. In their study of
desertification, Spreading Deserts - The Hand of Man,
Eric Eckholm and Lester Brown observe:
“The rangelands of northern Iraq, forage
specialists figure, can safely sustain only
250,000 sheep without degradation — a far
cry from the million or so that are currently
eating away this resource base. Likewise,
Syria’s ranges currently feed triple the
number of grazing animals they can
safely support. In the initial stage of such
degradation, inferior plant species replace
more useful varieties. Then, sheep pastures
become suitable only for the hardiest
goats and camels. Finally, in the words of
Ibrahim Nahal, ‘In the advanced stage of
deterioration the plant cover disappears as
it is apparent in many of the steppe zones
in Syria, Jordan, Iraq and the United Arab
Emirates, etc., where the rangelands have
turned into semi-arid deserts covered with a
layer of gravel or into semi-sand deserts.”17
Eckholm, in Losing Ground, documents land
specialists figure, can safely sustain only
250,000 sheep without degradation — a far
cry from the million or so that are currently
eating away this resource base. Likewise,
Syria’s ranges currently feed triple the
number of grazing animals they can
safely support. In the initial stage of such
degradation, inferior plant species replace
more useful varieties. Then, sheep pastures
become suitable only for the hardiest
goats and camels. Finally, in the words of
Ibrahim Nahal, ‘In the advanced stage of
deterioration the plant cover disappears as
it is apparent in many of the steppe zones
in Syria, Jordan, Iraq and the United Arab
Emirates, etc., where the rangelands have
turned into semi-arid deserts covered with a
layer of gravel or into semi-sand deserts.”17
deterioration in the Rajastan, a semi-arid area of
northwestern India, which has experienced the severe
pressure of the human population explosion familiar
throughout the world:
“The practical consequence of this
pressure has been the extension of cropping
to sub-marginal lands fit only for forestry
or range management, helping to make
this perhaps the world’s dustiest area.
pressure has been the extension of cropping
to sub-marginal lands fit only for forestry
or range management, helping to make
this perhaps the world’s dustiest area.
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Meanwhile, as the land available for grazing
shrinks, the number of grazing animals
swells—a sure-fire formula for overgrazing,
wind erosion, and desertification. The area
available exclusively for grazing in western
Rajasthan dropped from thirteen million
to eleven million hectares between 1951
and 1961, while the population of goats,
sheep and cattle jumped from 9.4 million to
14.4 million. The livestock population has
since continued to grow, while during the
decade of the sixties the cropped area in
western Rajasthan expanded further from
26 per cent to 38 per cent of the total area,
squeezing the grazing even more.”18
The experience of the Rajastan follows the basic
shrinks, the number of grazing animals
swells—a sure-fire formula for overgrazing,
wind erosion, and desertification. The area
available exclusively for grazing in western
Rajasthan dropped from thirteen million
to eleven million hectares between 1951
and 1961, while the population of goats,
sheep and cattle jumped from 9.4 million to
14.4 million. The livestock population has
since continued to grow, while during the
decade of the sixties the cropped area in
western Rajasthan expanded further from
26 per cent to 38 per cent of the total area,
squeezing the grazing even more.”18
pattern occurring on the grazed lands of the Earth.
Despite all of the ballyhoo in the United States and other
First World industrial nations about professional range
management, technical expertise and technical solutions,
grazed land everywhere is suffering. The overgrazing of
the earth has nothing to do with range management, but
has everything to do with money, political power and the
values of empire culture.
Desertification
Deforestation and overgrazing eventually produce
desertification. While the natural undisturbed deserts
of the Earth are healthy, thriving, diverse ecosystems
with many types of plants and animals, deserts created
by poor land use are much more depleted of life. This
is because the ecosystem has been shredded, unlike
a natural desert where the organisms have mutually
proliferated over tens of thousands of years.
The desertification of the planet is proceeding rapidly.
Each year millions of new acres fall within the definition
of “desert” to add to those already created. Destroying
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the vegetation of formerly semi-arid lands usually
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creates deserts but deserts are sometimes the result of
deforestation.
The total drylands of the world are 3.2 billion hectares
(7.9 billion acres). Of this area 61 per cent are desertified.
This is defined as a loss of more than 25 per cent soil
nutrient and the consequent decline of the productivity
of biomass. In 1980 the percentage of some dryland
areas that had become desertified were; Mediterranean
Europe-30 per cent, N. America-40 per cent, S. America
and Mexico-71 per cent, Southern Africa-80 per cent,
Mediterranean Africa-83 per cent, West Asia-82 per
cent, South Asia-70 per cent, (Asia) former U.S.S.R.
area-55 per cent, China and Mongolia-69 per cent. The
UN Environment Program estimates that desertification
threatens one-third of the earth’s land surface.19
While deforestation and devegetation caused by
clearing land for the plow contribute to desertification, as
does firewood gathering, the chief culprit is overgrazing.
In every area of the world where herding is a significant
industry, desertification is spreading. One thinks of the
goats of the Middle East and the devegetation of the
Sahel in Africa but in all semi-arid ecosystems on the
planet, deserts are spreading.
A Council on Environmental Quality report, published
by the U. S. government in 1981 states:
“Desertification in the arid United
States is flagrant. Groundwater supplies
beneath vast stretches of land are dropping
precipitously. Whole river systems have
dried up; others are choked with sediment
washed from denuded land. Hundreds of
thousands of acres of previously irrigated
cropland have been abandoned to wind or
weeds. Salts are building up steadily in some
of the nation’s most productive irrigated
States is flagrant. Groundwater supplies
beneath vast stretches of land are dropping
precipitously. Whole river systems have
dried up; others are choked with sediment
washed from denuded land. Hundreds of
thousands of acres of previously irrigated
cropland have been abandoned to wind or
weeds. Salts are building up steadily in some
of the nation’s most productive irrigated
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soils. Several million acres of natural
grassland are, as a result of cultivation or
overgrazing, eroding at unnaturally high
rates. Soils from the Great Plains are ending
up in the Atlantic Ocean.
“All total, about 225 million acres of land
in the United States are undergoing severe
desertification-an area roughly the size of
the 13 original states.”20
In many areas of the world, firewood gathering is
grassland are, as a result of cultivation or
overgrazing, eroding at unnaturally high
rates. Soils from the Great Plains are ending
up in the Atlantic Ocean.
“All total, about 225 million acres of land
in the United States are undergoing severe
desertification-an area roughly the size of
the 13 original states.”20
contributing greatly to deforestation, devegetation and
desertification. In many Third World nations, most of the
people must rely on wood as the source of their heat and
cooking. As the population explodes and urbanization
rises, huge bare spots spread out for many dozens of
miles from the cities as the country is gleaned of any
combustibles. In many countries now the purchase of
firewood takes a large share of the family income, in both
rural and urban areas.
As a consequence of firewood shortage, people begin
to use animal dung for fires. In the Andes, llama dung
is used and in other areas sheep and cattle manure.
As this dung is not returned to the soil, it represents
another deprivation of the soil’s fertility. “Between three
hundred and four hundred million tons of wet dung—
which shrink to sixty to eighty million tons when dried—
are annually burned for fuel in India alone, robbing
farmland of badly needed nutrients and organic matter.
The plant nutrients wasted annually in this fashion in
India equal more than a third of the country’s chemical
fertilizer use.”21
Evapotranspiration is the phenomenon of moisture
evaporation off the land. This moisture evaporates
from soil and plants also transpire it. Bill Mollison, in
his Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual, says that soil
moisture varies from 2 per cent to 40 per cent of soil
68
volume.22 It should be noted also that the tons-per-
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acre of micro-organisms in soil, contain water in their
bodies and this contributes to soil water retention if the
soil is healthy and has a high level of micro-organisms.
As the natural cycles proceed, this moisture rising up
from the land helps charge rain clouds by providing
minute droplets of water which atmospheric moisture
can condense around in the colder, higher altitudes.
All of the fertile topsoil, worldwide, is a tremendous
reservoir of water. The loss of topsoil and the progress
of desertification lessens rainfall. As topsoil loss and
desertification proceed the land itself becomes drier and
a more desert type of plant regime becomes established.
Civilization equals aridity.
Irrigation Projects: Green Today, Gone Tomorrow
Farmers, government bureaucrats and bankers love
irrigation projects. They usually appear to give everybody
something for nothing except the taxpayer who finances
them and who often pays the subsidy to grow the food
on the irrigated land. Large dams, irrigation projects and
the modern industrial farming methods that have come
with them have swept the world.
Water loss caused by evaporation from dams in
semi-arid regions averages 50 per cent. As the water is
impounded in a dam and then runs for sometimes many
miles through canals, the salts and minerals in the water
are continually being concentrated. More evaporation
takes place when the water is spread across the earth. As
irrigation water is spread over the fields, the water that
is not taken up by the plants sinks toward the subsoil.
In many cases this excess water fills the subsoil aquifers
under the fields and the groundwater begins to rise
toward the plant roots. Once these saline water hits the
plant roots, they die. The rising water table evaporates
through the surface of the soil by capillary action in a
kind of “wick effect,” leaving the characteristic snowy
salt covering of the “alkali flats.”
69
Another contributing factor in creating waterlogged,
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salinized soils is the buildup of fine silt, which is brought
into the fields by the irrigation water. This clay- like
material often collects into an impervious layer well
below the surface. When this “hard pan” effect occurs
water will build up on top of it and begin to drown the
plant roots.
Irrigators manage to keep the concentrated salts and
minerals from killing their cultivated plants by running
enough water through the system to “flush” the fields,
draining the runoff into some lower-elevation area. In
modern irrigation projects this often involves digging
deep under the field to place perforated pipes that drain
the subsoil water out of the area. This expensive solution
can only be used in selected high-profit areas that can
justify the cost, or in areas where taxpayer subsidy is
available. Where funds are not available for drainage and
the land is subject to waterlogging, the land is eventually
ruined. These problems effect tens of millions of acres
of the planet.
Irrigation runoff water from modern systems contains
all of the chemicals used in industrial agriculture
including nitrates from fertilizers as well as concentrations
of heavy metals, in addition to the salts and minerals
concentrated from the soil. These poisoned waters have
been responsible for the epidemic deaths of many animals
and birds in wetlands where it collects. As irrigation water
runoff goes back into the streams and rivers it adds to the
destruction of the ecology of these bodies of water. It also
adds to the problems of other irrigators downstream who
must try to irrigate with water that is more saline than
normal and contains unknown quantities of fertilizer
and poison. Runoff water from irrigated fields is often
drained into natural wetlands and into low-lying “waste”
areas. In these areas, the former life of the land tries to
survive amid the whole inventory of life-killing effluent
of industrial agriculture. The fish, frogs, birds and other
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life develop cancers, open sores, mutations, and other
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deadly afflictions. A recently-publicized case in point is
the Kesterson Wildlife Refuge in the San Joaquin valley
of California where wildlife, especially waterfowl, have
been dying from concentrations of selenium and other
poisons in the agricultural runoff that drains into the
adjoining wetland refuge. Game officials have now closed
the refuge and are trying to drive migrating waterfowl
away from the area.
The San Joaquin valley in central California produces
a large share of U.S. farm produce. A 1981 U.S.
government publication states, “Today about 400,000
acres of irrigated farmland in the San Joaquin are
affected by high, brackish water tables. Ultimately, by
the year 2080, 1.1 million acres of San Joaquin farmland
will become unproductive unless subsurface drainage
systems are installed.”23 Many areas in the U.S. are
losing land to salinization. As salinization increases,
the land produces smaller and smaller crop yields over
time. Eventually, when the soil community is completely
destroyed, all farming will cease in these areas.
Irrigation projects are very expensive. In order to
justify irrigating a new area, the entire mass production,
mass marketing system must be brought in. In Third
World countries, especially, this means eliminating
subsistence farmers and indigenous tribal people. The
industrial agriculture methods of the Green Revolution
are inherently centralizing. They need large areas of
land to which machines and industrial methods can be
applied. This has the effect of strengthening the national
elites and the hold of the transnationals in the countries
where these methods are used.
The modern industrial practice of using wells for
irrigation, which is now spreading worldwide with the
Green Revolution, is fraught with problems. In the
first place, most of these systems require motors that
use fossil fuel which is in short supply and due to run
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out. Modern well irrigation salinizes the soil just as do
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other methods. But the most serious problem is that in
many cases the irrigation well system is pumping the
underlying aquifers dry. In some of these cases the land
is subsiding, that is, it is cracking open in huge chasm
rifts, or suddenly sinking a number of feet.
In the U.S., one fifth of the irrigated cropland is above
the Ogallala aquifer that runs down the east side of
the Rocky Mountains from South Dakota to Northwest
Texas. The Ogallala contains water that was accumulated
during Pleistocene times, fossil water. Since that time
little additional accumulation has taken place. This
aquifer is one half-gone under 2,223,900 acres. It is
calculated that it will be substantially gone sometime
early in the next century.
European countries currently use three times more
water than returns to natural sources. In North America
the groundwater outtake is twice the replenishment
rate.24 In areas of Northern China, Tamil Nadu, India,
Israel, Arabian Gulf, Mexico City, Southwestern Soviet
Union, Europe, and in North America on the Great Plains,
southern Arizona, and California, the ground waters are
dropping precipitously.25
While the underground waters decline, the soil on the
surface suffers from salinity and waterlogging.
In Pakistan, according to Georg Bergstrom:
“An estimated area of over two million
hectares, a fifth of the annually cultivated
area of the Indus Plain was severely affected;
either yields were significantly cut by
waterlogging and/or salinity, or production
had ceased altogether. As many as forty
thousand additional hectares were falling
into that category each year, a good share
of them lost to cultivation altogether. And
the productivity of many more millions of
hectares, a fifth of the annually cultivated
area of the Indus Plain was severely affected;
either yields were significantly cut by
waterlogging and/or salinity, or production
had ceased altogether. As many as forty
thousand additional hectares were falling
into that category each year, a good share
of them lost to cultivation altogether. And
the productivity of many more millions of
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hectares was well below its potential level
due to saline soils. Pakistan was losing a
hectare of good agricultural land every
twenty minutes, but gaining a new claimant
on that land by birth every twenty-four
seconds.”26
Like the one-third of the arable land in Iraq that is
due to saline soils. Pakistan was losing a
hectare of good agricultural land every
twenty minutes, but gaining a new claimant
on that land by birth every twenty-four
seconds.”26
still salinized and unusable from the Sumerian Empire,
many currently irrigated acres will be permanently
destroyed. Roughly one-third of the world’s irrigated
land is presently in danger.27 Eckholm, quotes Soviet soil
scientist V. Kovda, who estimates:
“60 to 80 percent of all irrigated
lands are, due to inadequate drainage or
canal lining, becoming gradually more
saline and, hence, infertile. By (Kovda’s)
calculations, twenty to twenty-five million
hectares of land have been laid waste
over the centuries after the introduction
of improperly managed irrigation, and
two hundred thousand to three hundred
thousand additional hectares—out of a
total worldwide irrigated area of nearly
two hundred million hectares—pass from
cultivation each year due to waterlogging
and salinity.”28
Although touted as a “solution” to world food
lands are, due to inadequate drainage or
canal lining, becoming gradually more
saline and, hence, infertile. By (Kovda’s)
calculations, twenty to twenty-five million
hectares of land have been laid waste
over the centuries after the introduction
of improperly managed irrigation, and
two hundred thousand to three hundred
thousand additional hectares—out of a
total worldwide irrigated area of nearly
two hundred million hectares—pass from
cultivation each year due to waterlogging
and salinity.”28
problems, irrigation has only short-term benefits and
many long-term problems. The large-scale dams central
to many irrigation projects are already causing some
major problems.
The Damn Dams
No dam will last indefinitely. Sooner or later, they
will all silt up. The industrialists who profit by building
73
them never mention this fact. Some dams in eroding
The Final Empire
watersheds in Latin America have an expected life of
ten to fifteen years; others built in more ecologically
stable areas may be expected to last as long as several
hundred years. Silted up dams become wetlands or
simply large banks of earth. Since the present dams
are now constructed in the most optimum places on
each river, there is little chance their benefit can be
replaced by building more dams in less desirable sites.
As the dams fill up with erosion material their use for
hydroelectric generators is lessened because the flow of
water cannot be maintained.
Large dams are such a bonanza- such a massive
physical (if temporary) answer to immediate problems-
that everybody recommends them, even though the dams
of the planet will eventually choke much of the aquatic
life flow system. Not only do dams feed the industrialist,
the banker, the politician and the temporary laborer, but
they are also an instrument of cultural transformation.
The whole mass production regime of industrial
agriculture with its fuels, fertilizers, and machines must
be inserted with them. This means markets, profits,
and realization of political strategies, centralization of
power, and the continued marginalization of the poor.
With enough money and guns, industrialists can ignore
any consideration of the people, earth or cosmos —for
awhile.
The water in freshwater lakes above the Panama
Canal is used to regulate the level of the locks in the
canal. Deforestation and destruction of the rainforest
watershed above these lakes is causing them to silt up
so that there is not enough volume to even out the wet/
dry cycles. Eventually there will only be water during
the rains. Ultimately, there will not be enough water to
fill the locks of the canal during the dry season. This
is an example of the types of problems that develop
74
with large-scale waterworks when large-scale ecological
Wm. H. Kötke
destruction is occurring.
The Aswan Dam in Egypt shows other problems with
large-scale waterworks. For millennia the annual flooding
of the Nile has refertilized the fields of the Egyptians.
Its biological circulation is so rich that even after the
ancient Egyptians destroyed the watershed’s incredibly
rich natural wetland ecology; an empire has been able
to exist in this area for thousands of years. The huge
Aswan dam, built in modern times by engineers of the
former U.S.S.R., is finally succeeding in depleting and
destroying what remains of Egypt’s survival systems.
The engineers planned two results of the $1.3 billion
dam that halted the flooding of the Nile: irrigation and
hydroelectric generation. Though the dam project is hailed
for producing half of the country’s electrical “needs,” the
authors of Gaia: An Atlas of Planet Management report
on some of the problems it has created:
“Over one hundred tons of silt, clay, and
sand, which once fertilized downstream
fields during periods of flooding, are now
silting up Lake Nasser, forcing increased
imports of fertilizers. This lock-up of silt
also hit downstream industries, starving
Cairo brickmakers of a vital raw material,
while the offshore sardine fisheries, which
depended on the flow of nutrients from
the Nile, were early casualties. The Nile
Delta itself is in retreat. Simultaneously,
problems of soil salinity and waterlogging
have been accentuated. An FAO (Food and
Agricultural Organization) study concluded
that 35 per cent of Egypt’s cultivated
surface is afflicted by salinity and nearly
90 per cent by waterlogging. To crown all
this, the water-based parasitic disease
sand, which once fertilized downstream
fields during periods of flooding, are now
silting up Lake Nasser, forcing increased
imports of fertilizers. This lock-up of silt
also hit downstream industries, starving
Cairo brickmakers of a vital raw material,
while the offshore sardine fisheries, which
depended on the flow of nutrients from
the Nile, were early casualties. The Nile
Delta itself is in retreat. Simultaneously,
problems of soil salinity and waterlogging
have been accentuated. An FAO (Food and
Agricultural Organization) study concluded
that 35 per cent of Egypt’s cultivated
surface is afflicted by salinity and nearly
90 per cent by waterlogging. To crown all
this, the water-based parasitic disease
75
The Final Empire
schistosomiasis has exploded among people
living around Lake Nasser.”29
An investigation revealed that the sandstone bottom
living around Lake Nasser.”29
of Lake Nasser, the artificial lake created behind the dam,
did not seal but allowed considerable seepage through
the lake floor. Evaporation from the surface of the 200-
mile long Lake Nasser, and from the extensive system
of irrigation ditches is high and there is less total water
available for use than before the dam was built.
Worldwide, an estimated 250 million people are
infected by schistosomiasis. The parasite that causes
the disease, a blood/liver fluke, lives in snails part of
its life cycle but lays its eggs in humans. The mature
parasite, a fork-tailed worm, affixes itself to humans
when the people enter the water of irrigation ditches or
the river. The worm bores into the human and seeks
out the liver where it lays its eggs. The eggs pass from
the person by excretion. As they enter the waterways,
they are ingested by the snails in the form of larvae.
The parasites drain their human hosts’ physical energy.
Persons infected in these agricultural countries are able
to work only a few hours each day.
The alternate flooding and drying of the land near the
Nile formerly controlled snail populations who host part of
the worms’ life cycle. The flooding washed them out to sea.
Since the building of the dam, the snails have multiplied.
It is estimated that 70 per cent of the population of Egypt
is now infected with schistosomiasis.
Sharp declines in agricultural production among a
population with one of the worlds’ low ranking, average
annual incomes, already close to starvation levels, forced
the Egyptian government to use a part of the electrical
power produced by the new dam to operate fertilizer
plants. The application of chemical fertilizers has, to
some extent, temporarily offset the losses, but yield is
still 20 per cent less than in pre-Aswan days.
76
A result of the new industrial agricultural techniques
Wm. H. Kötke
has been to inject herbicides, insecticides and chemical
fertilizers into the now nutrient-poor Nile, through
irrigation runoff. This effluent plus the lack of nutrient
flow once provided by the river has damaged the five
shallow lakes in the Nile Delta. One of these lakes alone
formerly yielded 15,000 tons of fish annually for this
protein-starved nation. The lakes themselves were
created when sediments carried by the flooding river
created sandbars in the delta, which in turn caused the
large shallow lakes behind them. Now that the annual
deposition is filling Lake Nasser rather than flowing
downstream, the ocean is eroding the sandbars and
soon there will be no lakes. Nineteen thousand people
live in this area and are dependent upon the fishing
industry in those lakes.
For many years, a sizable fishing industry had existed
off the Mediterranean coast of Egypt. Nearly half of the
18,000-ton annual catch consisted of sardines. When
the nutrients of the Nile ceased to be injected into the
marine ecology, the Egyptian fish exportation dropped
by one-half and the sardine catch went down 500 tons.
Now that the waters of the Nile are either evaporating
from Lake Nasser or seeping into its sandstone floor,
the Mediterranean is deprived of an important fresh
water supply. Because of this, the salinity of the entire
Mediterranean is rising and threatening all fishing
industries of the area.30
In this review of irrigation we see that in many areas
it is only a short-term gain. The long-term deficits will
arrive in the next decades for us to deal with just as
the exploding human population is overwhelming food
supplies.
77
Notes
1. Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual. Bill Mollison.
Tagari Pub. Tyalgum, Australia. 1988. p. 205.
2. The Soil and Health; A Study of Organic Agriculture.
Sir Albert Howard. Schocken Books. New York.
1975. p. 24.
3. Mollison, op. cit. p. 183.
4. Mother Earth News. “John Jeavons: Digging Up The
Future.” Pat Stone. Jan/Feb. 1990. #121. pp.45-51.
(Seed Catalogues and books on Biointensive
methods may be ordered from: Bountiful Gardens,
19550 Ridgewood Road, Willits, California 95490.)
5. State of the World 1985. Lester R. Brown, et. al.
W.W. Norton & Co. New York. 1985. p. 29.
6. Plowman’s Folly. Edward H. Faulkner. U. of
Oklahoma Press. Norman, Oklahoma. 1943.
7. Before Nature Dies. Jean Dorst. Houghton Mifflin
Co. Boston. 1970. p.134.
8. Man and the Mediterranean Forest; A History of
Resource Depletion. J.V. Thirgood. Academic Press.
New York. 1981. p. 102. (sourced as Rollet, 1948).
9. Natural Disasters; Acts of God or Acts of Man?.
Anders Wijkman & Lloyd Timberlake. New Society
pub. Santa Cruz, CA. 1988. p.24.
10. Gaia: An Atlas Of Planet Management. Norman
Myers, General Editor. Anchor Books. Garden
City, New York. 1984. p.40.
11. Forest Farming: Toward A Solution To Problems of
World Hunger and Conservation. J. Sholto Douglas
& Robert A. de J. Hart. Rodale Press. Emmaus, Pa.
1978. p. 5 (nutrition- p.37).
12. Sacred Cows at the Public Trough. Denzel & Nancy
Ferguson. Maverick Pub., Drawer 5007, Bend,
Oregon 97708. p. 116.
78
13. Ecosystems, Energy, Population. Jonathan Turk,
Janet T. Wittes, Robert Wittes, Amos Turk. W.B.
Saunders Co. pub. Toronto. 1975. p. 123.
14. Free Our Public Lands. Lynn Jacobs, P.O. Box 2203,
Cottonwood, Arizona 86326. pp.3,4.
15. Arid-Land Permaculture: Special reference to Central
Australian Aboriginal Outstations. Bill Mollison.
Tagari Community, P.O. Box 96, Stanley, Australia.
7331. November, 1978. pp.2,18.
16. The Hungry Planet; The Modern World at the Edge of
Famine. Georg Borgstrom. Collier Books. New York.
1972. p.196.
17. Worldwatch Paper #13. Worldwatch Institute.
Washington, D.C. p.12.
18. Losing Ground: Environmental Stress and World
Food Prospects. Erik P. Eckholm. W.W. Norton &
Co. New York. 1976. pp.63,64.
19. World Resources 1987: An Assessment of the Resource
Base that Supports the Global Economy. A Report
by The International Institute for Environment and
Development and The World Resources Institute.
Basic Books. New York. 1987. p.289.
20. Desertification of the United States. David Sheridan.
Council on Environmental Quality. U.S. Government
Printing Office. #334-983/8306. 1981. p.121.
21. Eckholm. Losing Ground. op. cit. p.105.
22. Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual. Bill Mollison.
Tagari pub. Tyalgum, Australia. p. 203.
23. Sheridan. Desertification of The United States. op.
cit. p.31.
24. Too Many: An Ecological Overview Of Earth’s
Limitations. Georg Borgstrom. Collier Books. New
York. 1969. p.144.
25. Brown. State of the World 1985. p.53.
26. Eckholm. Losing Ground. op. cit. p. 120.
27. ibid. p.124.
28. ibid. pp. 124,125. 79
29. Myers. Gaia. op. cit. p. 132.
30. The Last Days of Mankind: Ecological Survival or
Extinction. Samuel Mines. Simon & Schuster. New
York. 1971. pp. 10-12.
31. The Hungry Planet: The Modern World at the Edge of
Famine. Georg Borgstrom. Macmillan. New York.
1972. pp. 499-501