Mike Lyle wrote in message
. ..

Must I then take it that organic food == food grown with nice tasting
chemicals and ordinary food == food grown with nasty tasting chemicals?

I wish I knew why these discussions always go round in the same
circles. It's perfectly straightforward: you can feed plants on
relatively pure chemical nutrients prepared in a factory, and they'll
grow. You can also feed plants on impure chemicals such as bone-meal,
dried blood, rotted farmyard muck, etc, and they'll also grow.

What we call "organic", and the French call "biological" systems are
just that: systems. I'm not telling anybody anything they don't know
already when I say these techniques involve replicating as closely as
possible, and where necessary magnifying, the very complex processes
of nutrition under which plant life has evolved. These include, among
many other features, encouraging the organisms, micro- and not so
micro-, which live in and on naturally-formed soils in order to
provide a wide range of nutrients and a balanced ecology in which
organisms harmful to plants don't usually gain the upper hand. The
effect of plant disease is reduced by, among other things, paying
attention to the selection of resistant varieties appropriate to the
area in which they are grown; biological control of pests and the
thoughtful use of relatively simple chemical compounds for pest and
disease control aim at the reduction of environmental pollution.

The advantages of biologically-based systems include stable and
healthy soils with a long-term future, a reduction in our reliance on
the dwindling and increasingly expensive resource of petroleum, and
better animal welfare including that of wildlife; sometimes there is
also an advantage in table quality, and perhaps in nutritional value.

I don't quite see why people always comb through policy statements
like the above to see if they can find something to disagree with --

The trouble is not 'combing through' policy statements, the trouble us what
happens when policy statements like that above
meet the real world. In the real world of commercial organic
apple growing, frequent large applications of copper-based fungicides are
used. For non-organic commercial apple
growing, smaller less frequent fungicide applications are used.
Which of these two roads leads to,
"stable and healthy soils with a long-term future,
a reduction in our reliance on the dwindling and increasingly expensive
resource of petroleum,
better animal welfare including that of wildlife;
an advantage in table quality, and perhaps in nutritional value."?
Meantime, poor plonkers in supermarkets are buying Organic
(tm) produce that's been flown half-way round the planet, in
order to save the planet!

I have great respect for those who wish to garden without
chemicals, especially those who swam against the tide decades
ago when the white heat of the technological revolution
dictated that modern=good, traditional=bad. However, I have no respect for
those who dictate that their non-chemical
gardening methods are the only legitimate way to do it, and I
scorn those who scream 'poisons' about synthetic chemicals
and ignore all natural poisons.

and if they can't, will introduce bizarre distractions such as the
inadvisability of drinking ****, or the sad effects the neighbour's
oak-leaves may have had on their gardens, or -- the best yet --
"water's a chemical, you know".

I further have no respect for those who wilfully misunderstand the point or
twist others words.

It's as though some people find
organic cultivation some sort of threat to be countered. Maybe it
depends who you work for.


I have been saying for some time that the organic movement, in
my humble opinion, is allowing the public to remain under the
impression that organic supermarket produce is chemical-free
and good for the planet. Eventually there will be a series
of issues which come to the public's awareness, and the
resulting crash in demand for organic produce will do alot
of harm to small 'really' organic growers who will be tarred
with the same brush. That will be a pity.

The organic movement is only one among a variety of approaches for those
who wish to sit lightly on the planet,
and foster health and vitality in us and our surroundings.

--
Anton