Subject: FYI
From: [email-masked] (Bruce Bowman)
Date: 18 Jul 94 16:40:00 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture

[Well, it appears the mail from FidoNet is making it into email, but not the 
other way around. I am posting this into Fido so that those in SUST_AG can 
benefit from it. I do not plan to do so routinely.
My apologies to those on the mailing list/newsgroup for the dupe. -- Bruce]

From:   MCDEV1::IN%"[email-masked]" 15-JUL-1994 22:44:49.43
To:     IN%"[email-masked]"
CC:
Subj:   RE: Organic Ag

In article <psmith.774205587@superior>, [email-masked] (Peter
Smith) wrote:

>

> It is also interesting, to me, to note how many market gardeners in my
> area farm more or less organically, yet have no certification
> whatsoever and don't claim that their food is organic.  They just
> don't want to deal with a lot of toxic material.

Yes, Peter, I do think this is an interesting and important development in
the move towards more sustainable "organic" methods.  The fact that organic
produce claims a higher price is an indicator that it is seen as something
rare and special, rather than the way it should be.
                        More and more farmers are realizing the "bill of 
goods"
petro-chemical industry to the worlds farmers.  Farms are the resource base
that will stabilize our economies and quality of life once we recognize
their potential for providing all the needs of civilization, both energy
and food.  American farms have lots of room for decentralizing and opening
up local source to consumer loops in the economy.  These maintain a healthy
cash flow, as well as a feeling of connectedness to life source energies
that provide a sense of completeness and purpose. IMHO it is the removal
from the agricultural sources of our very lives, that creates the current
anomy prevelant in our urban centers.  Market gardens, low impact surburban
plots cared for by families, are a reality outside of urban centers in
Europe.  This form of developing agriculture (on this continent at least)
deserves the support of our govermental agencies and research labs.  We
truley must figure in the external costs of our currrent mono cropped, big
machine, centralized agricultural policies.  To pooh Pooh "organic
practices" is to Pooh Pooh the histry of all agricultural developments
prior to 1900.  All of our evolutionary development ocurred prior to "green
revolution" techniques.  French intensive, Oriental no till, Andean
terracing;  all over the world communities have been feeding themselves
well, for millenia before the methods promulgated in the earlier post were
even developed.  Maybe there is good there that the use of chemical
additives is incompatable with.  Maybe we shouldn't think of food
production in such "warlike" and militaristic ways, [Us and them..bugs and
weeds against world hunger, etc.].

However you see it,  it must be obvious that these are legitimate choices
worthy of at least preservation, if not consideration.  Farmers choosing to
farm in ways that have lasted for hundreds of years sounds right to me.

Let's be reasonable......

The War on Drugs (W.O.D.) is a Civil War....
        Which side are you on?
Relegalize and repeal prohibition, for freedom and democracy.

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