Imagine there is a small island, like Malta, and the ecosystem has no external inputs (no fertilizer delivery, etc).
What does a sustainable plant based agriculture system look like? Are there already existing examples?
I’m very interested in how top soil is maintained without external fertilizer inputs?
One area of concern, I have, with modern monocrop farming techniques is the depletion of top soil, with something like 60 crop cycles left before we are current system falls over.
That looks really cool. Thanks for the great references.
I watched a couple videos about it, and I think I understand the major themes. Where does the biomass come from that’s being referenced? Is external fertilizer needed after the food for us to set up? Is it self-sustaining, or does it need external inputs?
Referenced where exactly? Biomass in humanure comes from… well, your rear end. Biomass in syntropic agriculture is formed through photosynthesis, either in the plants deliberately grown on the farm or in native species used for chop-and-drop.
Unless the soil is severely depleted of micronutrients (e.g. calcium, magnesium, trace minerals), no external fertiliser should be required. Carbon comes from photosynthesis, nitrogen comes from microbial fixation, and phosphorus and potassium are usually not the limiting nutrients, but even in areas where they are, the only fertiliser needed to replenish them is ash. All of the people destroying the forest for fuelwood and charcoal are making plenty of fertiliser for you to use! (I’m not familiar with Malta specifically, but there seems to be some of this happening there as well.)
Ideally, a syntropic farm should cycle nutrients similarly to natural forest. Is a forest ecosystem self-sustaining, or does it need external inputs?