Gunnar, while you are doing some writing about our food could you write about the overused of Soya beans in everything. Especially for chickens as it may seem like a high protein but to get what the chickens need in amino acids you over feed which results in ammonia being produced which harms the chickens and the handlers. We discovered that heritage chickens survive quite well on the grains we produce.
This article is well written and outlines what we know but knowing what to do about it more of a problem. All of our food is organically grown on our farm but as you note the water source can be a problem for us at the farm. We are surrounded by conventional farm which use glysphosate for everything and our small stream certainly contains these chemicals which we drink.
Having worked hard on getting good soil has made a big difference on our increased yield and in fact too much in our hay this year!!!
Thank you for this. Here in Brittany we have toxic algae on the beaches as a run-off from nitrates used in intensive pig farming. I'm currently writing a vegan cookbook and have myself been struggling to address the whole issue of nitrogen fertilisers in current conventional farming models. This is helpful.
Did some math recently. I cut the worldwide production of beef in half divided it by 8 billion, approximate world population and the result - 0ne quarter pound of beef per person per week. Would be more for most beef eaters when you factor in non beef eaters, vegetarians and infants. I did the same for sea food, one four ounce serving per week, milk was a cup a day. I think the pork/ chicken/ goat/ lamb portion was a half pound a week, eggs were only 2 a week. Sufficient animal protein for a healthy diet.
And much of that animal protein is produced by grain and soybeans. Much land could be released to grow food for direct human consumption making it possible to grow enough food even if per acre yield drop because of the non-use of nitrogen fertilizers. With best practices and equitable distribution the earth could healthily produce enough food for the larger population we will have before the predicted decline in population due to lower birth rates.
Hi – I'm currently finishing writing a vegan cookbook. In it I have the research (from eg Harvard and Oxford) to show that we could feed all humans, significantly reduce land and water use, rewild, greatly reduce chemical usage, climate change and pollution, and create more balanced soil, if we moved away from eating animals, and that's before we talk about organic farming and soil nutrition.
For instance, 1 kg of beef is remarkably inefficient at converting the calories eaten by said animal into protein for human consumption.
Here are a couple of brief examples from the relevant chapter outline:
1 calorie of beef requires the input of 37 plant calories
1 calorie of pork, 12 calories of plants
1 calorie of chicken 9 plant-calories, and
1 calorie of dairy 6 plant calories, as with eggs too.
Meat & land use: 82% of the world’s starving children live in developing countries where they produce cash crops such as corn and soy to be fed to animals to feed us in the affluent West. Globally it takes 75% less land to feed someone on a plant-based (vegan) diet than it does to feed a meat-eater since the crops are consumed directly instead of being used to feed animals.
Meat & water stress: the production of one pound of beef — just four quarter-pounders— requires twenty-five hundred gallons of water. That’s more water than the average person drinks in over twenty-eight years. The environmental impact in terms of emissions, land use and water use of dairy milk is significantly higher than all plant milks, despite e.g. almond milk using more water than other plant milks
I agree with BeardTrees comment regarding the misleading water figures for beef. There is clearly som ecologically unsound livestock production, including most chicken and pork and some of the beef and milk. However, animals fed on grass and by-products have a very important role in the food system. It is no coincidence there has never been a vegan agriculture system.
See my reply to BeardTree. In Europe, almost all the meat and dairy animals are kept indoors for a large proportion of their lives, and fed pumped water from aquifers and rivers.
Herbivores do indeed have a very important role. Given that only 4% of all mammals now are wild and free-living, my answer would be let some of the farmed herbivores die out, and allow some wild ones to return.
Clearly agriculture only came in during the Neolithic specifically to produce food animals, as plant foraging produced 80% of the diet in the Paleolithic, with a small quantity only of hunted meat/fish/birds.
There are many more of us now working towards a vegan revolution! And there are small scale vegan farms springing up everywhere (see Tolhurst Veganics as a classic model in England); and we ourselves here in France are putting that into practice. We use green mulches and green manures and of course legumes to feed the soil, and are working on building it up naturally via a dynamic circular/closed loop system rather than with any bought-in fertilisers (such as nitrogen).
I wonder if you know the wonderful book about Bec Hellouin farm in Normandy? (Charles & Perrine Hervé-Gruyer.) They've just brought out a 3-book set called La Vie En Terre (translated into English bit by bit). They are not vegan but use only natural methods such as permaculture (and needless to say no bought-in nitrogen fertiliser), and are the subject of much research and international studies as their land worked in this way is actually in the main MORE productive than current conventional farming methods.
I agree the industrial meat production system must stop for the good of the earth along with the industrial nitrogen fertilizer based crop production, but ecological, good for the earth meat production is possible which would mean a lower per capita consumption of meat of course. I disagree that veganism is the only path forward or even the primary one. I was raised in the closing days of small Midwest farms in the USA in a family that farmed since the 1600’s. I am quite familiar with all aspects of agriculture and horticulture industrial and organic and biodynamic was trained in biointensive horticulture in California.and know that plenty of food may be raised in ways that benefit the biosphere
You should note that also today on a global scale, plants represent 80% of the diet as an average. Even in countries with rather high animal share in the diet it is seldom more than 1/3 - for Sami, Mongols, Masaai and Inuits it is obviously higher.
As for conflict with wild life, I would argue that the growing of crops have more problems with that coexistance than grazing animals, both from my own experience as a farmer with VERY MUCH wildlife in the area, and my experiences from many countries in the world where I worked. For grazing animals, predators is clearly a big thing, but for crops there are so many more eating them.... https://gardenearth.substack.com/p/can-cow-and-deer-co-exist
I agree pork and chickens are a loss as they require grain and soybeans for large producton of meat. But I don’t see that same problem for ecologically managed grazing in the case of goats, sheep, cattle utilizing landscapes not suited for cultivation and eating crop residues not suitable for human consumption or plants that are part of a balanced crop rotation system. These animals then become part of healthy agriculture ecosystems resulting over time in carbon sequestration and healthy soils. I have seen examples of this. Also well managed fisheries can produce food without damage to the biosphere.
I think your beef water statistic is a misrepresentation (not your fault, as you are probably quoting someone else’s statistic) A steer raised by grazing vegetation ecologically is eating food produced by rainfall not water pumped from the ground. Let say it takes 3 acres of grazing to raise the 500 lbs of meat you get from a typical steer. At 30 inches of rain a year that would be 7.5 acre feet of water or around 2.5 million gallons of water. I get 1,250 gallons per quarter pounder. But that water also supports the vegetation and other life forms including the soil organisms in that three acres and the cattle if managed well are improving the soil and ecosystem - after all nature has herbivores and predators, in this case humans are the predators. Of course the acreage and water per steer (or goat or sheep) would vary in reality dependent on the nature of the local ecosystem. What is needed is more wisdom and love. Meat consumption is not inherently negative.
I wonder whether things are different in other parts of the world? I live in Europe where the largest percentage of meat animals are intensively farmed indoors, where rainwater is not an option (and increasing drought is a huge problem) and rivers and aquifers are being drained for irrigating those animals and the crops they eat; as happens also in the US, as far as I know – usually via outdoor barren confined feedlots. So I would contend that 'A steer raised by grazing vegetation ecologically is eating food produced by rainfall' is a very small percentage of the livestock produced for human consumption.
Personally, while I accept the 'humans as predators' concept, a) it isn't necessary to prey on other animals for our own existence; and b) no other predator has taken the planet and other species to the very edge of existence (as far as we know).
Also I accept that there is an argument for small-scale mixed farming, but we are way beyond that unless people seriously reduce their reliance on animal protein.
Although the Knepp estate in the UK is practising something along the lines of what you speak of here: 'But I don’t see that same problem for ecologically managed grazing in the case of goats, sheep, cattle utilizing landscapes not suited for cultivation and eating crop residues not suitable for human consumption or plants that are part of a balanced crop rotation system', it has been described as another inefficient way of producing meat from land that would be better rewilded (properly).
In the UK, if we removed cattle and especially sheep from upland areas not suitable for crop production, reforestation could happen at a far greater level than is currently possible, with all the biodiversity, carbon sequestration, hydrological balance etc that would entail. I'd love to see the Scottish mountains thick with forest instead of utterly denuded by over-grazing.
Each to their own and I realise we're a long way off being vegan as a species, but as someone who has kept animals all her life I personally find it hard to square love and compassion with eating them. But yes, a good life outdoors with a FEW other herd members would be a step in the right direction. It's just not how it usually happens these days.
Roselle, things are indeed very different in different parts of the world. And global averages are not very helpful. In any case almost no people eat animal products for their energy, but for protein, fat an many other nutrients. I believe these three articles will give you some more perpsectives:
Thank you Gunnar, and I'll follow those links through.
Of course, a well-thought-out vegan diet will also supply all the protein, fats and other nutrients one might need; it's just easier to compare calorific input with the same.
Meantime here's one for you: I am not a scientist but a writer (and organic smallholder) passionate about the land and other-than-human species, but I think you will find, if you scroll down, that we have some things in common.
Nice piece Roselle. Apparently we have very much in common in our view of farming and the impact of the prevailing economic system.
In my view, diets are a result of the farming system rather than the other way round. And the current farming system is a product of capitalism. Therefore, I am quite skeptical to efforts of changing the farming system by changing diets. But I am all in for efforts of taking food out of capitalism by a number of means. Diet will follow and adapt to the local conditions as it has all through history. In Sweden where I live, that means a diet with a rather high share of milk, beef and mutton. In other parts it means other things.
Teaching people how to cook many different things is good - in my previous farm we published a vegetable cook book some 40 years ago, so I am all in for that! I have never seen any need to pose plants and animals agains each other, they are parts of the same ecosystems and they need each other in many ways.
Gunar, have you read The Ideal Soil v2.0 by Michael Astera, based on William Albrecht's efforts from the last century.
He makes an interesting argument for the use of synthetic nitrogen as the N source in an otherwise fully organic re-mineralization approach. He primarily juxtaposes synthetic N against seed meals (e.g. rape seed, cotton seed, soybean meals) that are often used as an N source in organic fertilizers. He claims the are tainted with hexane and other substances used to separate the oils from the meal. Or we have blood meal and the like that bring to mind other ethical consideration. In short they are part of the broader industrial ag system we all know needs to change. So locally made synthetic N carefully blended in compost reduces emissions of transport, mining, etc. of other sources as well as eliminating possible introduction of toxins and ethical considerations. From a narrow boundary view this argument makes some sense, but from a longer term, wider boundary view re-mineralization in general, and synth N specifically, are unsustainable. That said it seems remineralization would be a good approach for improving soils while we have the resources available to do so.
I really worry about how little we tend to talk about the quality of the nutrition, aka nutrient density, coming from many soils. We talk organic vs conventional as if that is the only meaningful comparison. My grandmother lost all her teeth before 30 years, and there is good evidence that was likely due to eating a local diet from the leached soils of the Ozarks in Missouri, US, where she grew up. And that had nothing to do with synthetic fertilizers as they weren't in use when she was young. A future of local eating would likely include many areas where health is severely compromised by naturally or artificially deficient soils. I know your focus is on Nitrogen in this series, but this seems like an interesting topic that is worthy of more discussion.
I look forward to your next post on limited N use. It really is the toughest nut to crack here.
Josh, I have not read The Ideal Soil v2.0, not even heard about it. Will look up. I know there are issues with micronutrient deficiencies in some local soils, it is perhaps more expressed in livestock these days as most people do eat a considerable share of their food from other than local sources. Where I lived before goats had selenium deficiency. That was also linked to vitamin W if I remember well. Bringing in some algae or seaweed fertilizers may be a solution to that? Also, I expect that sourcing som wild foods from the forest might help.
It is broader than micronutrients as I understand the argument. Proper balancing of Ca Mg, K, P etc. is required for the minerals to be available in the plant at higher level or for protein, amino acid, anthocyanins, etc creation. Albrecht in the US focused on the evapotranspiration rate and found negative health correlations on more leached soils, e.g. my grandmother in the Ozarks. Another author who has written on remineralizations is Steve Solomon but he covers most of the same ground at Astera and is derivative of Albrecht.
Seaweed and other locally sourced inputs could definitely be part of the solution but if you have a potassium or magnesium deficiency from years of haying or grazing or low calcium from leaching then its probably going to take something more.
I recently learned that Irish fisherman on the western coastal islands "made soil" by bringing seaweed up on the land and crushing the limestone to mix with it. I was well aware of seaweed use for soil amendment but was surprised that folks would crush rocks. That's a lot of labor and not something I can imagine people doing manually today. I suspect that kind of farming coupled with fishing made for a tolerably nutritious diet.
Gunnar, while you are doing some writing about our food could you write about the overused of Soya beans in everything. Especially for chickens as it may seem like a high protein but to get what the chickens need in amino acids you over feed which results in ammonia being produced which harms the chickens and the handlers. We discovered that heritage chickens survive quite well on the grains we produce.
mat
This article is well written and outlines what we know but knowing what to do about it more of a problem. All of our food is organically grown on our farm but as you note the water source can be a problem for us at the farm. We are surrounded by conventional farm which use glysphosate for everything and our small stream certainly contains these chemicals which we drink.
Having worked hard on getting good soil has made a big difference on our increased yield and in fact too much in our hay this year!!!
Thanks for such good work.
mat
Thank you for this. Here in Brittany we have toxic algae on the beaches as a run-off from nitrates used in intensive pig farming. I'm currently writing a vegan cookbook and have myself been struggling to address the whole issue of nitrogen fertilisers in current conventional farming models. This is helpful.
Did some math recently. I cut the worldwide production of beef in half divided it by 8 billion, approximate world population and the result - 0ne quarter pound of beef per person per week. Would be more for most beef eaters when you factor in non beef eaters, vegetarians and infants. I did the same for sea food, one four ounce serving per week, milk was a cup a day. I think the pork/ chicken/ goat/ lamb portion was a half pound a week, eggs were only 2 a week. Sufficient animal protein for a healthy diet.
And much of that animal protein is produced by grain and soybeans. Much land could be released to grow food for direct human consumption making it possible to grow enough food even if per acre yield drop because of the non-use of nitrogen fertilizers. With best practices and equitable distribution the earth could healthily produce enough food for the larger population we will have before the predicted decline in population due to lower birth rates.
Hi – I'm currently finishing writing a vegan cookbook. In it I have the research (from eg Harvard and Oxford) to show that we could feed all humans, significantly reduce land and water use, rewild, greatly reduce chemical usage, climate change and pollution, and create more balanced soil, if we moved away from eating animals, and that's before we talk about organic farming and soil nutrition.
For instance, 1 kg of beef is remarkably inefficient at converting the calories eaten by said animal into protein for human consumption.
Here are a couple of brief examples from the relevant chapter outline:
1 calorie of beef requires the input of 37 plant calories
1 calorie of pork, 12 calories of plants
1 calorie of chicken 9 plant-calories, and
1 calorie of dairy 6 plant calories, as with eggs too.
Meat & land use: 82% of the world’s starving children live in developing countries where they produce cash crops such as corn and soy to be fed to animals to feed us in the affluent West. Globally it takes 75% less land to feed someone on a plant-based (vegan) diet than it does to feed a meat-eater since the crops are consumed directly instead of being used to feed animals.
Meat & water stress: the production of one pound of beef — just four quarter-pounders— requires twenty-five hundred gallons of water. That’s more water than the average person drinks in over twenty-eight years. The environmental impact in terms of emissions, land use and water use of dairy milk is significantly higher than all plant milks, despite e.g. almond milk using more water than other plant milks
I agree with BeardTrees comment regarding the misleading water figures for beef. There is clearly som ecologically unsound livestock production, including most chicken and pork and some of the beef and milk. However, animals fed on grass and by-products have a very important role in the food system. It is no coincidence there has never been a vegan agriculture system.
Hello Gunnar
See my reply to BeardTree. In Europe, almost all the meat and dairy animals are kept indoors for a large proportion of their lives, and fed pumped water from aquifers and rivers.
Herbivores do indeed have a very important role. Given that only 4% of all mammals now are wild and free-living, my answer would be let some of the farmed herbivores die out, and allow some wild ones to return.
Clearly agriculture only came in during the Neolithic specifically to produce food animals, as plant foraging produced 80% of the diet in the Paleolithic, with a small quantity only of hunted meat/fish/birds.
There are many more of us now working towards a vegan revolution! And there are small scale vegan farms springing up everywhere (see Tolhurst Veganics as a classic model in England); and we ourselves here in France are putting that into practice. We use green mulches and green manures and of course legumes to feed the soil, and are working on building it up naturally via a dynamic circular/closed loop system rather than with any bought-in fertilisers (such as nitrogen).
I wonder if you know the wonderful book about Bec Hellouin farm in Normandy? (Charles & Perrine Hervé-Gruyer.) They've just brought out a 3-book set called La Vie En Terre (translated into English bit by bit). They are not vegan but use only natural methods such as permaculture (and needless to say no bought-in nitrogen fertiliser), and are the subject of much research and international studies as their land worked in this way is actually in the main MORE productive than current conventional farming methods.
I agree the industrial meat production system must stop for the good of the earth along with the industrial nitrogen fertilizer based crop production, but ecological, good for the earth meat production is possible which would mean a lower per capita consumption of meat of course. I disagree that veganism is the only path forward or even the primary one. I was raised in the closing days of small Midwest farms in the USA in a family that farmed since the 1600’s. I am quite familiar with all aspects of agriculture and horticulture industrial and organic and biodynamic was trained in biointensive horticulture in California.and know that plenty of food may be raised in ways that benefit the biosphere
I wrote this piece already 12 years ago, and little has changed since then. https://gardenearth.substack.com/p/does-vegan-farming-work
You should note that also today on a global scale, plants represent 80% of the diet as an average. Even in countries with rather high animal share in the diet it is seldom more than 1/3 - for Sami, Mongols, Masaai and Inuits it is obviously higher.
As for conflict with wild life, I would argue that the growing of crops have more problems with that coexistance than grazing animals, both from my own experience as a farmer with VERY MUCH wildlife in the area, and my experiences from many countries in the world where I worked. For grazing animals, predators is clearly a big thing, but for crops there are so many more eating them.... https://gardenearth.substack.com/p/can-cow-and-deer-co-exist
I agree pork and chickens are a loss as they require grain and soybeans for large producton of meat. But I don’t see that same problem for ecologically managed grazing in the case of goats, sheep, cattle utilizing landscapes not suited for cultivation and eating crop residues not suitable for human consumption or plants that are part of a balanced crop rotation system. These animals then become part of healthy agriculture ecosystems resulting over time in carbon sequestration and healthy soils. I have seen examples of this. Also well managed fisheries can produce food without damage to the biosphere.
I think your beef water statistic is a misrepresentation (not your fault, as you are probably quoting someone else’s statistic) A steer raised by grazing vegetation ecologically is eating food produced by rainfall not water pumped from the ground. Let say it takes 3 acres of grazing to raise the 500 lbs of meat you get from a typical steer. At 30 inches of rain a year that would be 7.5 acre feet of water or around 2.5 million gallons of water. I get 1,250 gallons per quarter pounder. But that water also supports the vegetation and other life forms including the soil organisms in that three acres and the cattle if managed well are improving the soil and ecosystem - after all nature has herbivores and predators, in this case humans are the predators. Of course the acreage and water per steer (or goat or sheep) would vary in reality dependent on the nature of the local ecosystem. What is needed is more wisdom and love. Meat consumption is not inherently negative.
I wonder whether things are different in other parts of the world? I live in Europe where the largest percentage of meat animals are intensively farmed indoors, where rainwater is not an option (and increasing drought is a huge problem) and rivers and aquifers are being drained for irrigating those animals and the crops they eat; as happens also in the US, as far as I know – usually via outdoor barren confined feedlots. So I would contend that 'A steer raised by grazing vegetation ecologically is eating food produced by rainfall' is a very small percentage of the livestock produced for human consumption.
Personally, while I accept the 'humans as predators' concept, a) it isn't necessary to prey on other animals for our own existence; and b) no other predator has taken the planet and other species to the very edge of existence (as far as we know).
Also I accept that there is an argument for small-scale mixed farming, but we are way beyond that unless people seriously reduce their reliance on animal protein.
Although the Knepp estate in the UK is practising something along the lines of what you speak of here: 'But I don’t see that same problem for ecologically managed grazing in the case of goats, sheep, cattle utilizing landscapes not suited for cultivation and eating crop residues not suitable for human consumption or plants that are part of a balanced crop rotation system', it has been described as another inefficient way of producing meat from land that would be better rewilded (properly).
In the UK, if we removed cattle and especially sheep from upland areas not suitable for crop production, reforestation could happen at a far greater level than is currently possible, with all the biodiversity, carbon sequestration, hydrological balance etc that would entail. I'd love to see the Scottish mountains thick with forest instead of utterly denuded by over-grazing.
Each to their own and I realise we're a long way off being vegan as a species, but as someone who has kept animals all her life I personally find it hard to square love and compassion with eating them. But yes, a good life outdoors with a FEW other herd members would be a step in the right direction. It's just not how it usually happens these days.
Roselle, things are indeed very different in different parts of the world. And global averages are not very helpful. In any case almost no people eat animal products for their energy, but for protein, fat an many other nutrients. I believe these three articles will give you some more perpsectives:
https://gardenearth.substack.com/p/we-cant-all-live-on-grass-fed-beef-but
https://gardenearth.substack.com/p/are-pigs-eating-our-food
https://gardenearth.substack.com/p/feed-use-in-swedish-livestock-production
Thank you Gunnar, and I'll follow those links through.
Of course, a well-thought-out vegan diet will also supply all the protein, fats and other nutrients one might need; it's just easier to compare calorific input with the same.
Meantime here's one for you: I am not a scientist but a writer (and organic smallholder) passionate about the land and other-than-human species, but I think you will find, if you scroll down, that we have some things in common.
https://roselle1.substack.com/p/the-peasants-revolt
Nice piece Roselle. Apparently we have very much in common in our view of farming and the impact of the prevailing economic system.
In my view, diets are a result of the farming system rather than the other way round. And the current farming system is a product of capitalism. Therefore, I am quite skeptical to efforts of changing the farming system by changing diets. But I am all in for efforts of taking food out of capitalism by a number of means. Diet will follow and adapt to the local conditions as it has all through history. In Sweden where I live, that means a diet with a rather high share of milk, beef and mutton. In other parts it means other things.
Teaching people how to cook many different things is good - in my previous farm we published a vegetable cook book some 40 years ago, so I am all in for that! I have never seen any need to pose plants and animals agains each other, they are parts of the same ecosystems and they need each other in many ways.
Gunar, have you read The Ideal Soil v2.0 by Michael Astera, based on William Albrecht's efforts from the last century.
He makes an interesting argument for the use of synthetic nitrogen as the N source in an otherwise fully organic re-mineralization approach. He primarily juxtaposes synthetic N against seed meals (e.g. rape seed, cotton seed, soybean meals) that are often used as an N source in organic fertilizers. He claims the are tainted with hexane and other substances used to separate the oils from the meal. Or we have blood meal and the like that bring to mind other ethical consideration. In short they are part of the broader industrial ag system we all know needs to change. So locally made synthetic N carefully blended in compost reduces emissions of transport, mining, etc. of other sources as well as eliminating possible introduction of toxins and ethical considerations. From a narrow boundary view this argument makes some sense, but from a longer term, wider boundary view re-mineralization in general, and synth N specifically, are unsustainable. That said it seems remineralization would be a good approach for improving soils while we have the resources available to do so.
I really worry about how little we tend to talk about the quality of the nutrition, aka nutrient density, coming from many soils. We talk organic vs conventional as if that is the only meaningful comparison. My grandmother lost all her teeth before 30 years, and there is good evidence that was likely due to eating a local diet from the leached soils of the Ozarks in Missouri, US, where she grew up. And that had nothing to do with synthetic fertilizers as they weren't in use when she was young. A future of local eating would likely include many areas where health is severely compromised by naturally or artificially deficient soils. I know your focus is on Nitrogen in this series, but this seems like an interesting topic that is worthy of more discussion.
I look forward to your next post on limited N use. It really is the toughest nut to crack here.
Thanks again for you good works!
Josh, I have not read The Ideal Soil v2.0, not even heard about it. Will look up. I know there are issues with micronutrient deficiencies in some local soils, it is perhaps more expressed in livestock these days as most people do eat a considerable share of their food from other than local sources. Where I lived before goats had selenium deficiency. That was also linked to vitamin W if I remember well. Bringing in some algae or seaweed fertilizers may be a solution to that? Also, I expect that sourcing som wild foods from the forest might help.
It is broader than micronutrients as I understand the argument. Proper balancing of Ca Mg, K, P etc. is required for the minerals to be available in the plant at higher level or for protein, amino acid, anthocyanins, etc creation. Albrecht in the US focused on the evapotranspiration rate and found negative health correlations on more leached soils, e.g. my grandmother in the Ozarks. Another author who has written on remineralizations is Steve Solomon but he covers most of the same ground at Astera and is derivative of Albrecht.
Seaweed and other locally sourced inputs could definitely be part of the solution but if you have a potassium or magnesium deficiency from years of haying or grazing or low calcium from leaching then its probably going to take something more.
I recently learned that Irish fisherman on the western coastal islands "made soil" by bringing seaweed up on the land and crushing the limestone to mix with it. I was well aware of seaweed use for soil amendment but was surprised that folks would crush rocks. That's a lot of labor and not something I can imagine people doing manually today. I suspect that kind of farming coupled with fishing made for a tolerably nutritious diet.