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Banned Herbicides & Pesticides
"Franz Heymann" wrote in message ...
"sw" wrote in message ... martin wrote: On Wed, 13 Aug 2003 20:20:10 +0000 (UTC), "Franz Heymann" wrote: Gardeners should realise that they frequently get their knickers in a twist through the misuse of terms which have prior definitions differing from those they *think* are correct. It has, for instance, occurred in this very thread. "Organic" itself is a case in point. There is a great tendency to call "beneficient" chemicals "organic" and others "inorganic". It helps to sell organic food at vast prices to the naive, who think that they are getting something clean and natural, rather than just more stuff sprayed with approved "organic" chemicals. Possibly. But some of us are capable of distinguishing between the chemicals used on conventional crops and those used on Organic crops. 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 -- 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". It's as though some people find organic cultivation some sort of threat to be countered. Maybe it depends who you work for. Mike. |
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