paghat wrote:

In article , sherwindu
wrote:

If we stopped spraying insecticides now, we would have a world famine.

Provide a REAL citation for that fatuous chemical industry propoganda
slogan, the blurting out of which indicates nothing but that you're a
hopeless case.

Oh, so people in Africa are not starving and they are not having massive
crop failures from weather and insects. Programs like National Geographic
must be giving me some of that propaganda. Shame of them.

You demanded citations from me & got them though obviously
you never really wanted them & still could not care any less about the
truth.

Your so-called documentation is worthless.

You persist in this kind of merely political myth-making -- still
being that suicidal nutcase who no matter how many reasons to live he is
given, always has one more excuse why you should even so shoot yourself in
the head, taking down as many others as with you as you can.

I prefer that you shoot yourself in the mouth.



Your knowledge of the causes of famine is way down there in the zero range
with much else you've been mistaken about this week. Get this if you get
nothing else:

Chemical dependency leads to environmental degradation leads to famine.

Talk about propaganda!


Organic farming is sustainable.

I will follow up with my usual complete overview, but if you're capable of
learning, all you need is the above two sentences to be much less foolish
than you've been up to now.

I don't think I can learn anything from you. All you know is how to insult
people.



In some regions starvation has resulted because the best land has been
turned over to coffee bean production or sugar cane or some similar crop
to be shipped to the west, all land & profits gained by the land belonging
to a ruling wealthy minority, & no aerable land is available to peasants.
In other places it is due to patterns of drought & cataclysmic climate
changes such as the expansion of the Sahara. In others it is due
exclusively to warfare or to scorched-earth campaigns. In others it is due
to concentrations of populations due to migration to finite areas,
resulting from drought & desert expansion or even more commonly from
warfare. In the distant past there have been famines caused by dependency
on single crops & those single crops became diseased, & there is some
worry that this may recur in the future due to agribusiness's reliance on
decreasing numbers of species & strains of those species. In India which
many years ago undertook an unfortunate transition toward chemical
dependency for nationalistic reasons has increased the amount of land
that can no longer be farmed at all because toxic salts have built up from
continuous use of chemical boosters & pesticides -- this land is being
abandoned by rich agriculturalists but it is no longer useful for peasants
to farm.

So there are many causes of famine.

You did not mention crop destruction by swarms of locusts, etc.



Organic farming has never been one of them.

As reported by the Soil Association in SOIL: The Importance & Protection
of Living Soil (2001), chemical & biotech dependent crops have been
leaching soil to death, & are will lead to famine. They recommend a
return, in both Europe & Africa, to organic farming methods which are the
only sustainable methods in the long run, besides producing a higher
quality of produce in the short run.

Even if SOME crops could be increased with chemical dependency, that issue
has no relevance in improverished parts of the globe which cannot afford
the chemicals. Whereas improving upon their own traditional methods can
increase crop yields 200 to 300% without resorting to chemicals. While
chemical fertilizers & pesticides deplete soil over time & kill its
essential living microorganisms, improving organic methods increases soil
richness & increases microorganism population, hence SUSTAINABLE increases
in crop production WITHOUT chemicals.

While the CHEMICAL and BIOTECH (GM) companies have undertaken a world-wide
campaign to promote the idea that organic growers in Europe & the USA are
"criminal" for turning more & more to organic farming, because they could
otherwise be growing much more chemical-dependent crops & send the excess
to famine-stricken countries. This of course is completely fatuous since
growers in the west can even be paid to grow NOTHING due to overproduction
driving costs down. At any hour, this very hour, world hunger would end if
all it took was to distribute more food from the west to countries where
drought or warfare or peasant lack of access to aerable land has caused
starvation. Blaming organic gardening

I'm not blaming organic gardening for anything other than a naive concept
that it can completely control our pest problems.

for any of it is on the surface
completely loony -- you swallowed it because you already convinced
yourself of a lie before someone handed you a greater lie to reinforce
your first one.

The reality is that organic farming for orchard crops & many annuyal
crops produces the same or more produce than chemical dependent farming,
does so more cheaply, in a manner that protects the soil for future crops.
Even those annual crops that CAN be increased in yield with chemical
dependency deplete soil at such a rapid rate that land is soon depleted;
in Brazil the answer to this problem is to take a load of chemicals deeper
into the jungle, slash & burn so that nothing of the jungle remains, &
start over with a very few years of high-yield crops ending in land that
can never be used again. The chemical biotech industrialists expertly
trumpet "High Yield Non-Organic Farming" with no underlying science to
support what is purely a POLITICAL campaign so that a very few biotech &
chemical giants can control the production of food in third-world
countries.

Yes, its all a conspiracy to get us.



In villages where traditional methods are still practiced, yields are low
but meet the local needs. When it becomes necessary to buy chemical
fertilizers & pesticides or special herbicide-resistant grains, the
expectation is not to feed people better but to have a salable excess
beyond local need; unfortunately, even if "greed is good" it is not good
in this situation. Profitable excess never happens in regions where the
main feature to overcome is limited water resources. Even in the fewer
cases where profitable short-range profits do occur from momentary high
yelds, the soil is rapidly depleted & the short-range gain ends in
long-run losses -- & famine. By then the soil may take years to restore if
it ever is restored, & the interuption in the use of traditional methods
results in extinction of sustainable seed strains, making it difficult to
return to the sustainable organic methods.

As oil-based products skyrocket in price, chemical-dependent crops become
less & less economically feasible.

I see the opposite. In my garden centers, the organic stuff costs way more
than the chemical stuff.

There are no chemical-dependent farming
methods that have ever been shown to increase production in regions with
limited water resources, & if the Hopi became non-organic farmers
tomorrow, their corn strains would soon become extinct. And indeed, one of
Monsanto's great goals is to drive desert-hardy, fertile, & sustainable
corn crop strains to extinction, in favor of their own seed alleged to
provide super-crops (impossible in desert conditions) which produce crops
that are sterile so that no percentage of the seed can be held back for
future crops. The purpose is NOT being to feed starving people but to make
starving people perpetually dependent on agribusiness for their seed. No
cash for the next year's seed, say hello to famine.

There's the same conspiracy theory again.



The governments of Kenya , Uganda & Tanzsania, in order to fight famine by
the best means, have undertaken nations-wide campaigns to re-establish &
upgrade sustainable organic farming methods. The chemical companies'
successful intrusions to do away with organic farming practices have been
a direct contributor to the destruction of croplands.

The BETTER system would have been, & still is, to share advances in
organic methods that may improve on localized primitive agricultural
systems without doing away with those traditional systems. Just one
example: the use of compost toilets can make an entire village a source of
organic fertilizer, breaking the cycle of dependency on chemical
fertilizer to prop up depleted soils; the use of the organic compost will
reverse soil depletion caused by the use of chemicals, thus resulting in
better more sustainable produce. Every problem has an organic answer that
in every case does indeed turn out to be the superior choice.

You accuse me of picking up e-colli laden fruit from under my trees, but you

are pushing the recycling of human waste, which in many cases contains a
wealth of harmful bacteria, and I wouldn't trust composting to kill it all.



-paghat the ratgirl

some random quotes from others:

"If you apply organic principles and you take care of the soil in the
proper way, you can very much increase your yield. This is the most
sustainable way, not only for the export market but also for food
security." [Thomas Cierpka, executive director, International Federation
of Organic Agricultural Movements]

"Contrary to what its opponents sometimes suggest, organic farming is not
in the least anti-science and looks to biological science particularly
for assistance in dealing with fertility, crop pests and diseases.
Although research institutes in Europe have done much pioneering work and
several new centres are coming on-stream, Cuba probably has more
scientific resources employed in organic farming research than the rest
of the world combined. It had to - otherwise there could have been famine
back in the '90s when it was largely abandoned by its major supporter,
the USSR." [Grace Maher, Agriculture & the World Summit on Sustainable
Development, Sept 2002]

"Output levels in organic farming can match and exceed that of chemical
farming - eg see Teagasc, Johnstown Castle, recent report. And where they
don't, decent research funds would undoubtedly raise productivity. There
are many more studies - I'd be glad to cite them if requested. But, at a
practical level, take even my own humble case; I grow garlic, organically,
about 40,000 plants, and get yields over 100% more than the European
commercial average. Furthermore, a study I made on potatoes shows,
remarkably, that modern agriculture still hasn't equalled the output
levels achieved in Ireland before the 1840's Famine

Why did they have a famine? Wasn't it because of some blight that wiped
out their crops? Maybe the right chemicals would have saved more of
their potatoes.

. .... Chemical farming
has left us a legacy of a degraded environment, mountains and lakes of
surplus produce, factory farming of animals, decreased employment and
profits in agriculture, and, of course, food contamination. Directly add
the costs of these effects to our conventional food (which we pay for
indirectly anyway) and we'll see the real price of food. The men in white
coats are scraping the bottom of the barrel for arguments to bolster a
losing case. Again, a pro-GM scientist (Conference on GM food,
Skibbereen, Feb '99 ) said - almost with a giggle! - that, 'organic
potatoes are poisonous and you organic farmers here should throw them all
away.'" [Jim O'Connor, Ireland, from a widely circulated letter in the
Irish Times]

Organic farming and gardening is a fine goal to aim for, but there is still
a need
for chemicals to keep pests under control. Some places can rely more
heavily
on organic methods, but other's need the chemicals. In my case, a high
priority
for me is the very best tasting fruit with the least damage. I don't think
I can go
completely organic in today's world. If and when the organics are developed
to
do the job, I am ready to convert over. I don't like spraying these
chemicals,
but for now, there are no good alternatives.



--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com