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Requiring farms to have ponds/wells could be a way to create a distributed solution. Joel Salatin has been teaching about the value of ponds for decades now. f
by maerF0x0 3y ago
Requiring farms to have ponds/wells could be a way to create a distributed solution.
Joel Salatin has been teaching about the value of ponds for decades now. for example here's a video of him talking about ponds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o82ar51eIsE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o82ar51eIsE
This will require the water boards to rethink things like not allowing capture of rainwater/flow.
The evaporation of ponds becomes somewhere else's rainwater (potentially further inland creating a virtuous cycle). And you can use depth to control the capture vs evaporation ratio -- deeper ponds evaporate slower and hold more precipitation.
But this all goes against our very reductionistic thinking -- this quarter section is for corn, nothing else.
- ganoushoreilly 3y agoOwning property with a pond has it's own issues. In many of those farms run off can be detrimental. We have a 3/4 an acre pond and while we don't farm anywhere near it, the few springs that feed it all touch a lot of farm lands. So far we're lucky, but just a quarter mile down the road, our neighbors have a pond that won't sustain life, which we suspect is due to runoff from their crops. There's also the issue of excess evaporation and creating unusable land. There's solutions out there but they're not all cut and dry with just placing ponds.
- candiddevmike 3y agoWould organic farming help here? Seems like there are studies [1] showing nitrate leaching is less with it. Probably reducing cattle/chicken counts too, as those shit pits are a big source of it. 1 - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167880920301493 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01678...
- ganoushoreilly 3y agoOh most definitely it would, but you run into trade offs with production / productivity. That's at least what most of my local farmer friends argue. We proactively add some good bacteria to our ponds monthly to reduce waste by products and things as well, so it's possible that they could fix some of the biome issues.
- markdown 3y agoThe problem is that organic farming can only feed 2 and a half families. It's not a feasible way to live unless you already have the privilege of wealth or alternate sources of income.
- coryrc 3y agoOrganic farming is typically done just like "conventional" farming but with pesticides derived from a plant instead of oil. Permaculture, OTOH, would make a difference. With robotics it may even become reasonable in cost.
- docandrew 3y agoUnfortunately it’s illegal to dig ponds on your property without a permit and the appropriate water rights in some areas. There’s a whole field of law around water rights and these sorts of permits, it’s really wild. You need an engineering plan with the expected evaporation rate and then need to describe how you’d replace the water you took from some downstream, more senior rights holder.
- bequanna 3y agoWhich states? I think this is heavily dependent on the size of pond, size of waterway you’re impeding and the jurisdiction.
- docandrew 3y agoColorado, for one: https://www.cpr.org/2021/02/18/arkansas-river-basin-water-rights-illegal-ponds/ https://www.cpr.org/2021/02/18/arkansas-river-basin-water-ri...