[Sdpg] ORGANIC FARMING AIN'T NO HULA-HOOP

[Sprinkraft at aol.com]

Jim Wells wrote an editorial in the LA Times you might have seen. You may 
derive what he said through my rebuttal, which may be published since an 
accomplice has a pipeline to the ed desk.

Wells' headline was:  To Feed World's People, Modern Practices Must Supplant 
Organic Fads

And then he regurgitated the Avery's crapola for 400 words.

Steve

ORGANIC FARMING AIN'T NO HULA-HOOP

While reading Jim Wells' admonitory editorial in the Times ( 4 June 02) 
suggesting that we collectively shun organic farming as if it was some 
flash-in-the-pan, I realized that Mr. Wells, former Director of Pesticide 
Regulation for the State of California, seems to be, well, if not scared, 
shall we say overly concerned? By the way, why is a former regulator on the 
pro-chem bandwagon after retirement?

Has the bitty organic mouse got the big old chemical farming behemoth on the 
run? Why do folks like Wells and a few other unabashed promoters of synthetic 
farming inputs continue to thunder away at that little mouse? The 
agricultural materials manufacturers (and their champions) are usually those 
that are most outspoken, not the conventional farmers. However, after the 
recent spate of pro-organic headlines, the chemical sector was somehow due 
their rebuttal time. But one rarely reads or hears of an organic farmer 
blasting the conventional agricultural producer sector, mainly because those 
are farmers we're talking about, and be they organic or not, knowing what we 
do about the risks and rigors of farming, we farmers tend to not demean one 
another.

One potential revelation is that lot of conventional farmers who now have 
significant acreage devoted to certified organic production are generally 
happy with the non-chemical results and utilize organic methods and materials 
on their conventional ground as well. Many other conventional farmers have 
adopted organic practices and consider that they are nearly organic (in terms 
of total volume of inputs), and have done so merely because its safer for 
them and their neighbors, frequently more cost effective, and because its 
plainly a lot less troublesome than to file intent-to-spray documents with 
the county, buy, truck, store and use dangerous toxic chemicals, and get 
dressed up in a full-length moon-walking suit when its 94 degrees. 

With neighborhoods and agriculture increasingly sharing the same space, 
perhaps it might be a good idea to teach non-synthetic agricultural 
principles. We also are astonished to see that Mr. Wells recycled that 
dubious data about sulfur and copper use-is that all you can come up with to 
scare us? That data was proven to be self-serving the moment that the Hudson 
Institute published it. The fact is that these elemental pesticides are used 
to a greater degree on conventional farms, and has been documented. 

What is more interesting is that curious and independently minded farmers 
have reduced their synthetic inputs, usually only employing conventional 
fertilizers and perhaps a modest amount of herbicide. Generally, while 
conventional farmers are concerned that pesticide regulation will continue to 
prohibit numerous chemicals, they also are learning a few new tricks 
(actually old tricks) that will allow them to continue to farm when those 
chemicals are no longer allowed. 

I apologize if such practices are now codified in the National Organic 
Program ( USDA), in California law, and widely adopted internationally,  but 
feel free to call them something else and use them without shame.

To surmise Mr. Wells' motive might do him a disservice. And if I do him harm 
it is no less than he has done to organic farmers. By risking such editorial 
comment, his unjust criticism and hyperbole leveled at the organic farming 
sector actually aims to directly harm our commerce. I use the word harm 
repeatedly and with cause. It's a legal term.  

Nonetheless, I am curiously pleased to see the dire predictions paraded 
before us again, with the vaunted Hudson Institute ( is that spelled with two 
pillars or just one?) serving as the authority, because at the very least  
this proves once again that we have your attention. Glad to see that.

We organic cultists are just as concerned as Mr. Wells and other 
humanitarians, like Dennis and Alex Avery at the Hudson are, about feeding a 
growing population, and share with them a determination to not have more land 
converted to agriculture when it is best left as wilderness. We also believe 
that one way to save the land already devoted to intensive agriculture is to 
not subject it to practices or materials that will eventually render it 
useless. We've lost thousands of acres to the kind of farming Mr. Wells 
supports. We can underscore that fundamental error by including the water 
resources fouled by those same agricultural chemicals.

On the other hand, I have seen much acreage on conventional farms that was 
actually rescued through organic management and put back into profitable 
production. I farmed some land myself which had been damaged by herbicides 
and its rehabilitation took three years. Eventually the place was featured in 
Sunset magazine, so you may draw your own conclusions as to how it looked 
thereafter.
Much new research indicates that organic production is so close to the 
average production on conventional ground that there is little reason to 
argue about superiority. Please refer to the website of the Organic Farming 
Research Foundation <ofrf.org> for all references and citations. 

I would also say that what is not clearly stated in the organic-versus 
conventional discussion is how broad the acceptance is for organic farming 
practices in institutions and in government. Our recent gains in the federal 
Farm Bill may have reinforced our position. It took us quite a long time to 
finally obtain the massive sum of $15,000,000 for USDA research in organic 
farming ( compared to the billions given to conventional agriculture): oops 
there is that mouse again. Many agricultural scientists are drawn to organic 
farming because they are allowed to study nature as it is, not genetically 
engineer what is perhaps best left alone. There is job security in nature, 
compared to the roller coaster that is GMO. 

The real problem for the synthetic chemical sector is not the needlessly 
demeaned environmental sector, nor the unjustly characterized chicken-little 
sector of the populace that prefers food not grown with synthetic chemical 
poisons (  they're the ones that are crazy?), but the fact that a growing 
number of unbiased scientists and policy makers find that organic farming 
deserves respect. We organic cultists say: don't take on the whole program at 
once, just mix in crop rotations, beneficial insect habitat management and 
some hardcore soil science for a start. 

We never meant you any harm. If the chemical input sector crumbles, it 
crumbles because of its own excesses, not because hundreds of professional 
restaurant and hotel chefs prefer to use organic ingredients-but, hey what 
kind of experts in taste are they anyway?  The sector will crumble because 
they poisoned the people who live near West Helena, Mississippi, just like 
the poor folks down-wind from Bhopal, India. You see, it's not just that 
using chemicals or even eating them on food is paramount, even thought 
evading them is a good idea. 

What is probably most frightening is  that huge facilities make these 
materials by the freight-car load, haul them beside sleeping neighborhoods 
and on bridges lain over municipal drinking water supplies, and then park 
them nonchalantly in huge, carelessly managed piles at your local hardware 
store or mega-retailer. That is a bit more unnerving. So please leave us 
alone and give us a chance to feed people without contributing to those kinds 
of threats to our security. 

Before there were chemicals everyone farmed organically, de facto. Now we 
observe that the improvements wrought by chemicals had too high a price, and 
instead  the innovations of the past-aided by new and responsible technology 
appear more sustainable and predictably safer. We have to get off the 
chemical treadmill sooner or later. Organic farming ain't no hula hoop, it's 
the wave of the future.
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