[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
A old approach New Approach in Agriculture
First this is just my humble opinion as I read the new approach ideas. I
feel it is wrong to think organic farmers are not using reduced tillage
methods because they are and the number increases every year... reduced
tillage promotes higher soil quality and that is what we organic farmers
are looking for. Some of us mulch,sheet compost, cover crop and we do not
use herbicides and chemical that end up in the water table. Also population
growth means more hands to help grow organic thus organic is more
sustainable with large population who cannot afford the high money imputs
it takes to be a pesticide,herbicide, gene-altereding farmer . The more
hands the better when you are organic. Also some organic farmers produce
more than conventional so that concept that we need more land is wrong
.Organic farming has come a long way with bio-controls and a better
understanding of soil life. Look at the methial bromide strawberry fields
sure the farm advisor said use soil fumigants and grow more strawberry but
now they understand that they were wrong and that there is a better way to
get just as many strawberry with out killing soil life called sustainable
agriculture.I know with the cost of land you need every strawberry but it
can be done in a more sustainable way. Just take a soil assay of soil life
and if you find little or no soil life you are doing something wrong and
that soil is not sustainable. Sustainable agriculture to me means
sustainable soil life because that is where it is at. If these tinkers were
researching the soil life that we have now naturally we would be way ahead
of the game. Why make new arthropods,plants,insects,animals etc. and
change dna when you don't yet understand what we have here now. The longer
one keeps going the wrong way the longer it will take to get back if you
can get back. I understand that if forest soils lose their
fungal-dominance it is not possible to re-establish seedlings. I like this
new approach to agriculture called sustainable agriculture and I think
folks will find the closer we get to sustainable the more sustainable looks
like organic farming.
An Organic farming homepage
http://www.rain.org/~sals/my.html
sals@rain.org