Torsten Brinch wrote in message . ..
On 6 Jun 2004 09:20:43 -0700, (ta) wrote:
Torsten Brinch wrote in message . ..
On Sat, 5 Jun 2004 20:01:30 -0400, "ta" wrote:
rick etter wrote:
And that means also not cruelty-free. Just what I've been saying...
"...some organic pesticides have mammalian toxicities that are far
higher than many synthetic pesticides..."
http://www.cgfi.org/materials/key_pu...oxic_Tools.pdf
Wow, I can't *believe* CFGI, which is funded by the right-wing think tank
Hudson Institute, could possibly be promoting information that supports
their big agribusiness clients like Monsanto, ConAgra, and Archer Daniels
Midland, who have everything to lose by the success of organic farming.
But to be fair, I can't answer the specific charges as I'm not an expert, so
I'm expanding the thread to get a wider range of input.
The quoted statement is rather vacuous, ta, but not controversial..
Of course, you're right. I wasn't referring to the claim about the
toxicity of non-synthetic pesticides per se; everyone knows that
organic farming employs non-synthetic pesticides. I was referring to
CFGI's critique of organic farming in general, as laid out in the
referenced PDF file.
It is crude propaganda (as so much is, that come out of the Averys
at Hudson Institute.) Nancy Creamer has an article on it in OFRF
Information Bulletin, summer 2001, which you may be interested in
reading.
http://www.ofrf.org/publications/news/IB10.pdf
Very good, thank you. FYI, here is some more information I came
across:
"In Drinkwater and colleagues' conventional, high-intensity system,
pesticides and mineral nitrogen fertilizer were applied to a
maize/soybean crop rotation just as on typical farms. Two 'organic'
alternatives represented partial returns to traditional agriculture,
and neither synthetic fertilizers nor pesticides were used. One of
these alternatives was a manure-based system in which grasses and
legumes, grown as part of a high-diversity crop rotation, were fed to
cattle. The resulting manure provided nitrogen for periodic maize
production. The other system did not include livestock; instead,
nitrogen fixed by a variety of legumes was incorporated into soil as
the source of nitrogen for maize.
Amazingly, ten-year-average maize yields differed by less than 1%
among the three cropping systems, which Drinkwater et al. say were
nearly equally profitable. The manure system, though, had significant
advantages. Soil organic matter and nitrogen content — measures of
soil fertility — increased markedly in the manure system (and, to a
lesser degree, in the legume system), but were unchanged or declined
in the conventional system. Moreover, the conventional system had
greater environmental impacts — 60% more nitrate was leached into
groundwater over a five-year period than in the manure or legume
systems."
http://tinyurl.com/2lpvs
and . . .
"some 223,000 farmers in southern Brazil using green manures and cover
crops of legumes and livestock integration have doubled yields of
maize and wheat to 4-5 tons/ha;
* some 45,000 farmers in Guatemala and Honduras have used regenerative
technologies to triple maize yields to some 2-2.5 tons/ha and
diversify their upland farms, which has led to local economic growth
that has in turn encouraged re-migration back from the cities;
* more than 300,000 farmers in southern and western India farming in
dryland conditions, and now using a range of water and soil management
technologies, have tripled sorghum and millet yields to some 2-2.5
tons/hectare;
* some 200,000 farmers across Kenya who as part of various government
and non-government soil and water conservation and sustainable
agriculture programmes have more than doubled their maize yields to
about 2.5 to 3.3 t/ha and substantially improved vegetable production
through the dry seasons;
* 100,000 small coffee farmers in Mexico who have adopted fully
organic production methods, and yet increased yields by half;
* a million wetland rice farmers in Bangladesh, China, India,
Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam who
have shifted to sustainable agriculture, where group-based
farmer-field schools have enabled farmers to learn alternatives to
pesticides whilst still increasing their yields by about 10%."
http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/article2.htm