From Raymond=Meyer%BHR.OFDA.SA14%AIDW@usaid.govFri Apr 7 22:03:23 1995 Date: Fri, 7 Apr 95 14:58:41 EDT From: Senior Program Manager -- PMP To: sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu Subject: re: biodynamics Ann, thanks. I don't know that governmental funding is going for the short- term more than in the past or that the long-term has been cut more and therefore the short-term is proportionately greater. In my opinion, the emphasis on the economy is part of it but also the difficulty of anyone in the media or Congress to spend enough effort to understand the more complex and difficult is the greater. I think looking at our current congressional actions indicates almost the complete inability to consider longer-term aspects whether ag, space, health, welfare, environment, or whatever. For me, it is interesting that the major foundations aren't more interested in the longer-term questions, particularly in ag - or maybe I should say the lower tech stuff involving more "management" and interaction with social systems and societal needs. Jonathan, thanks for your comments. I've probably missed some of the previous discussion as I'm not quite sure what some of the commments have to do with the viability of a biodynamic farm. I was inferring the "farm" success or viability rather than chemical mechanisms. Let me also pose a question. Where is the evidence that ten years (maybe 5 years on some soils) of composting on a field will not increase the availability of potassium and phosphorus, improve the soil nitrogen dynamics for better plant growth, and reduce soil pathogens? Whether composting improves the bioavailability of nutrients from the plant material is an additional question or could be a component of the same question? I believe that some of the work done by Sharon Hornick and others on bioavailability raise some very interesting scientific questions that can be addressed in the more traditional ag research manner or as regularities in nature. Some of the work that Parr, Papendick, and others have done on the organic side also raises unanswered traditional research questions. I'll be out for a week, but thanks for the interest. Ray