- Are Organic Veggies Better for You? Maybe, or maybe not. Either way, it’s a useless debate. Yay!
- Agroecology, Small Farms, and Food Sovereignty. Yay!
- “Study after study show that organic techniques can provide much more food per acre in developing countries than conventional chemical-based agriculture.” Define organic.
- Fashionistas driving desertification in Mongolia.
Inorganic farming
In the NYT article I just blogged about, there is a toxic aside:
The strength of the disease has shocked hardened farmers: topical copper sprays, a convenient organic preventive, have been much less effective than in past years.
Convenient organic preventive?
Organic farming has a few dirty secrets. This is one of the worst. For some reason, it is ok to spray inorganic copper, a toxic heavy metal, on organic crops. A farmer who cares about the environment, health, or whatever good thing organic farming stands for should not use it. Buyers of organic tomatoes in the northwest of the USA are being duped.
Towards an ecologically-informed agriculture
What we’ve tried to do on a couple of occasions is look at conferences or publications of perhaps only slight overall agrobiodiversity interest and highlight the little bits that do fit here. So it’s nice when someone does it for us. The Ecological Society of America‘s 94th Annual Meeting is currently on in Albuquerque, New Mexico and, among all the other stuff, there’s a session presenting “ideas on how our agricultural practices can take lessons from natural environments.” Fortunately, EurekAlert is there, with summaries of presentations on turning annual crops into perennials, landscape diversity and pest enemies, and reduced tilling and soil microbe diversity. ESA has a blog, EcoTone, as well as a stable of journals. Nature’s blogger is also at the conference.
Nibbles: Drought resistant rice, Bees, Bison, Coffee in Kenya, Cassava in Africa, Pigeon pea, Chickens in Uganda, Green ranching in the Amazon, Climate change, Dates, Museums and DNA, Organic, Ecology meet
- “Sahbhagi dhan is drought-tolerant and can survive even if there are no rains for 12 days.”
- Keeping bees in cities. Not as crazy as it sounds.
- More on the problems of the European bison. What is it with the BBC today?
- Coffee berry borer coming to Kenya. Not boring at all.
- Cassava helping Cameroonians and Ugandans.
- ICRISAT pigeon pea a hit in Kenya.
- Ugandan fishermen crying fowl. What is is with allAfrica today?
- No trees were harmed in the making of this beef.
- “How many of the changes we see happening around us are really attributable to climate change.” Pretty good question. In two parts, be sure to catch both, agrobiodiversity comes into the second.
- How to get a date.
- “By using museum specimens to look back in time, we can potentially assess … [human] impact in detail.” And genebanks, don’t forget genebanks, Olivia.
- Organic better after all. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.
- Fisheries not as bad as was thought after all. But still pretty bad.
- For best results, use perennials in diverse landscapes and no tilling.
Farmer takes a shot at agri-intellectuals
Blake Hurst is a farmer in Missouri, and something of an anti-Pollan:
…we have to farm “industrially” to feed the world, and by using those “industrial” tools sensibly, we can accomplish that task and leave my grandchildren a prosperous and productive farm, while protecting the land, water, and air around us.
The argument is made very engagingly, with hard numbers as well as telling anecdotes, and a real passion for farming:
Young turkeys aren’t smart enough to come in out of the rain, and will stand outside in a downpour, with beaks open and eyes skyward, until they drown.
But sadly, as ever, the debate is framed as either/or, black or white, organic or industrial, no grey allowed, no nuance:
I deal in the real world, not superstitions, and unless the consumer absolutely forces my hand, I am about as likely to adopt organic methods as the Wall Street Journal is to publish their next edition by setting the type by hand.
And yet Mr Hurst admits to some organic-like practices, such as rotations and the use of manure, on his unashamedly “industrial” family farm. I can’t help thinking, not for the first time, what a step forward it would be if we tried not to think in mutually exclusive dichotomies all the time. Anyway, read the whole thing at The American.
LATER: USDA explores the unexplored potential of biotech crops in an organic setting. Talk about shades of grey.