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Re: David Leonard's definition of what is organic



How dare you call slash and burn an organic method! 

 Outrageous!

That is pure slander against a well knonw-well understood term: organic,
utilized by Sir Albert Howard and J.I. Rodale.

I grew up where slash and burn was the only way the inhabitants knew how
to grow anything other than rice.  My father showed real organic
method--making compost in huge pits, large enough for whole trees, and
with using manure, etc.  The inhabitants never were willing to go to that
much trouble, trying to re-use burned over land with true organic methods
that he demonstrated.

It was easier to just burn off more forest--the marvelous Madagascar
forest that has more indigenous plants than anywhere else.

Even in the semi-arid south of the island, he demonstrated organic method.
Right alongside the river, he built up a berm of soil, strengthening it
with reeds. Inside that bulwark, he had a "sunken" garden, (where the soil
was dug out to make the berm), where he grew spectacular crops. I was 19
and still able to curl up inside the outer cabbage leaves.

For fruit trees, he dug cone-shaped pits  (the point of the cone down) and
planted the tree at the bottom of that hole. Around the perimeter of the
cone, he inserted cuttings that would quickly root, grow leafy and shade
the tree down below.  He had so much of vegetables, that he could send
them out to the coastal town of Ft. Dauphin, where anyone could almost
effortlessly have a good garden.

Slash and burn is the worst possible destruction in the tropics, as it
engenders terrific soil erosion.

Organic method does everything possible to protect soil, to build it up
with massive amounts of valuable soil organisms.

You should be more careful with what you say. 

B. Rateaver



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