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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chosun Juan" data-source="post: 3322372" data-attributes="member: 92780">Arrrrrgggggh!   "dig irrigation ditches"   Gawd!  Please, Noooooooooooooo !!!!I agree, that proxy wars, militia's, persecution, exploitation, and resource theft are significant contributors to misery in the 3rd world, but don't ignore the elephant in the room ........ desertification.Basically what we see are lands being farmed and grazed unsustainably - trading on the fertility of the past, of functioning woodland, wetland systems, and/or fertile volcanic, or alluvial deposits.  Most agricultural practices have one major flaw - unsustainable soil and fertility loss.  Think of it as like living in your house and continually breaking significant bits of it off to burn and keep you warm - not a rosy future is it?A significant portion of observed temperature rise, and drying out of the land, is in fact caused by vegetation loss, micro-climate functioning destruction, and associated water table, and hydraulic functioning degradation.  Key in this destructive process is the erosion and cutting-in of waterways, thus drying the top layers of the soil, and destroying the life and fertility therein.Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth. It evolved to largely contain the water "in" the soil, under the shade of vegetation, and with rivers and creeks running "on top of the land". That's right, on top of --  not like drains in cut-in channels.  It is magnificent water and fertility recycling at it's finest.  It is also the opposite of agricultural practice with irrigation channels cut into the land.What's needed is more biomimickry of this natural soil and fertility building cycle. More multi-species sustainable rotational grazing - and keep the house intact!Ownership of seeds by multinationals, GM modification to allow increased pesticide use (supplied by those same multinationals) seems like proliferation of fission nuclear power to solve so-called climate change .......DUMB!  The wrong solution to the wrong problem - no more effective in the long term than shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.Soil, Mega-fauna, and Biodiversity loss has borne the brunt of the madness so far.  We need to turn this ship around.Here's some visionary intuition, research, and practice on how:-<a href="http://www.nsfarming.com/" target="_blank">http://www.nsfarming.com/</a><a href="http://www.watershedartisans.com/#" target="_blank">http://www.watershedartisans.com/#</a>Chosun  :gh:</blockquote>

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