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Re: Is Organic Food Better?
In article <961125135209_1251868413@emout06.mail.aol.com> YankeePerm@aol.com writes:
>
>The nutritional matter needs to be looked at more closely. I recall reading
>USDA statistics that nutrient content was measured to be higher in the 20's
>and 30's, when there was only organic farming, than today. That could be due
>to differences in growing practices, varieties grown, measurement methods,
>and of course the general decline of soils due to cultivation practices in
>general and fertilizing with salts in particular.
I think you'll find that chemical fertilizers and pesticides were in
general use much earlier than you suggest. FIVE ACRES AND
INDEPENDENCE (1935) discusses chemical fertilizers and pesticides as
if they'd been around forever, and the other day I was leafing
through Bulletins of the Oregon Agricultural Station between roughly
1900 and 1920 in which the word "arsenic" showed up in almost every
paragraph about pest control. I didn't key on fertilizers,
particularly (I was really looking for poultry bulletins), but the
word "arsenic" does draw the eye!
I would not be surprised if the differences you noted lay mostly in
vegetables (rather than grains). To make an unsupported speculation,
the vegetable farming of the '20s and '30s was much more intensive
and sustainable than now, and this may account for the difference.
The basic model for vegetable farming wasn't ten zillion acres in the
Central Valley, it was ten acres within a few miles of a market. All
of the several small-farming book I've read (published between 1900
and 1950) emphasized vegetable, small fruit, orchard, and greenhouse
produce done on small acreage. The books were unanimous in their
praise of cover crops, healthy soil, and manure.
Since I enjoy reading old farming books, I get this strange feeling
of deja vu whenever I read anything about modern farming. For
instance, dairy farmers in the Pacific Northwest are discovering that
cows can get the majority of their food needs on pasture! This
apparently is a big revelation to many dairymen. Me, I hadn't
realized that anybody DIDN'T rely on pasture for their milk cows.
Silly me, I overlooked fifty years of "progress."
Similarly, I've found that all the best books on poultry were written
before WWII.
-- Robert
--
Robert Plamondon, President/Managing Editor, High-Tech Technical Writing, Inc.
36475 Norton Creek Road * Blodgett * Oregon * 97326
robert@plamondon.com * (541) 453-5841 * Fax: (541) 453-4139
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