Organics and the Science of Farming

[marmar]

from YES! Magazine:



Organics and the Science of Farming
Some say that organic farming means going "backwards." These farmers think otherwise.

by John Cavanagh, Robin Broad
posted Feb 15, 2011

One of the biggest myths about organic farmers is that they are “unscientific” and “backward.” After time in the southern Philippines with Danilo and Carlito, we learn something quite different.

Danilo is slight in build, with a deep tan and a shy but engaging smile. We stand at the edge of his hectare of neat, nearly mature, green rice stalks, our gaze drawn to Mt. Apo, the Philippines’ largest peak, rising majestically in the southwest. “It is all ‘zero-chem,’ that is to say organic,” Danilo tells us proudly.

It was the simple economics of organic farming that won Danilo over. He calculates that his costs have fallen from about $400 each planting-to-harvest cycle to roughly $160, and that his yields have dipped only a bit. Bottom line: he is making a lot more money each harvest. Every organic farming family we talked to reported lower costs and, as a result, liberation from the debts that haunted their lives. Health is also a key factor: Danilo describes the spells of dizziness that he used to suffer when spraying chemical pesticides before his switch to organic rice.

As we talk, “farmer scientist” Carlito pulls up on his motorcycle, dressed in a white racing jersey and dark glasses. Carlito works for a local citizens group called the Davao Provinces Rural Development Institute (DPRDI) that is helping farmers shift from chemical to organic rice and providing continued support after they do so. Carlito is not a formally trained agricultural scientist; he is largely self-taught and he scoffs at the chemically oriented mindset of the agricultural schools. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/john-cavanagh-and-robin-broad/organics-and-the-science-of-farming

[truedelphi]

1. As mold levels on the GMO crops

Exceed market limits, and therefore the Monsanto-based farming sometimes costs the farmers money, organics will finally get its due.

Of course, the poisoning from the herbicide RoundUp will remain in the soil for a good two to three years. So returning back to basics will prove a hardship not only for farmers, but for all Americans.

Many of us are now suffering from acid reflux, intestinal distress, stomach cancer and other ailments that would be attributable to RoundUp were we living in a nation where due diligence with respect to scientific study was required.

But none of these ailments are officially attributed to the GM crapola we are forced to be eating - Mike Taylor created the doctrine of "Similarity" and so his word becomes science. No other nation on earth lets a prostitute, oops, a lobbyist, oops, I meant a government-appointed official who has spent none of his life in a lab, decide the health and safety of food based merely on industry-approved "say-so.".

[Indydem]

2. Great!

We can all go farm our 2.47 acres of crops, reject scientific advancement, and watch as half of the human race starves to death.

Organic farming is fine, but it can't produce enough food to feed half the people on this planet.

Oh, but wait, that's the point right? Prove the population explosion BS is right by regressing to outmoded forms of farming and starving the world back to bronze age populations?

Ugh.

EDIT: And for the record, those who starve to death will be those who can't afford their 2.47 acres, can't buy the seeds, and don't have the knowledge or skills necessary to farm (or can't pay someone to do it). So in short, the genius plan of starving half of the world's population to death will kill the poor, the elderly, and the uneducated. Eugenics at it's finest.

[handmade34]

3. you are negative

and you are wrong! The brainwashing is very powerful