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Banned Herbicides & Pesticides
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 |
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