RobW, you've got it barse-ackwards re. yields from organic farming.

In terms of resources -- land area, water, fuel, chemicals -- organic farming has very high yields, quite comparable to industrial agriculture.

The only thing that makes organic farming more expensive than extractive agribusiness is that it is labour-intensive. In a high-wage economy it needs premium prices to compete, and only a few will pay. As chemical feedstocks dwindle and fuel prices soar, the cost of the big monocultures will rise to match, and we'll see small farms coming into their own again.

Caring for a farm requires real intimacy with the land; you can't get that from the cockpit of a cropduster or a combine harvester.

Thanks Forest. Note how the author has used the plantation growth rates from high quality high rainfall sites to justify planting trees on marginal agricultural land?

This is the same scam that Aila Keto and Rod McGuinnes pulled in justifying the closure of 800,000 hectares of Qld State Forest. They said it would only take 10,000ha of plantation to replace that wood supply, based on an average of 25m3/ha/year. A year or two later the same dudes called for an additional 40,000ha of plantation but didn't bother to admit that the original claims were complete bull$hit.

To seriously think one can get anywhere near that yield on 600mm country (without stealing someone else's ground water) is either complete delusion or criminal deception.

And my advice to any landholder being encouraged to convert even marginal country to forest is, "NEVER, EVER, DO BUSINESS WITH SPIVS".

Did you know the gas used in your vehicles airconditioning system,
134a, can become extremly dangerous in the presence of heat, Flame, extremely hot metal i.e exhaust, the gases that can be formed in this instance are:

Phosgene Gas
Carbonyl flouride
Hydrofluoric acid
Take the time to google these and see how scary they are.

HFC 134a refrigerant also has a greenhouse warming potential of 1300
that means releasing one tonne of 134a is the same as releasing 1300 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

there is no known way to stop this gas leaking from your vehicles airconditioning system.