From: dc_ags@ac.nsac.ns.ca (Don Christie)
Subject: Re: Organic Farming: As good as they say?
Reply-To: dc_ags@ac.nsac.ns.ca
Organization: Nova Scotia Agricultural College, Nova Scotia, CANADA
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 15:01:17 GMT


>The organic movement is a rapidly growing one and I
>believe the tide will continue to increase by a public
>which may not yet understand the concepts of sustainable
>agriculture, but know they want wholesome food.

Organically produced food is _NOT_ the only kind of wholesome food. Although
some organizations and even some governments have developed some kind of
definition of what exactly constitutes `organic', there is no generally-
accepted definition to the whole world. 

Anybody can redefine the word and print `ORGANICALLY PRODUCED' on packaging
if he/she thinks someone will buy it. Many do already.

>For those on the newsgroup who are undergraduates or
>in similar curricula and are considering study of
>sustainable agriculture, specific information on these
>programs will be helpful.

As has been pointed out on this newsgroup already, there are plenty of programs
where students can learn the principles you describe. Institutions offering 
these programs also offer courses in other areas of interest as well, and my
position is that students should examine ALL these areas and form their own
conclusions. Organic certainly is `Politically Correct' in some circles, but
in others it is not. 


>As described in the recent posting describing the
>program in sustainable agriculture at UC Santa Cruz,
>the crux of the matter amounts to going into the
>garden and experimenting with growing methods.

give us a break! The practises and procedures a person would implement to 
produce a garden don't even begin to deal with the problems you would 
experience when producing a commercial crop. Grain, potatoes, vegetables and
forages are examples of crops produced on a scale which is so much larger
than _ANY_ garden that gardening principles no longer apply. To give an 
example, let's look at weeds. In a garden, you hoe weeds. NO question about
it... you don't use herbicide, because it simply isn't necessary... a hoe will
do the job just fine, and there is no environmental damage. In a potato field,
on the other hand, you cannot hoe weeds. If anybody doubts this, then my advice
is to actually go out into the center of even a modest-sized potato field
(say 10 acres or so) and stand there with a hoe in your hand.... look around
you... it'll take WEEKS to get it all hoed. By the time it is done, the weeds
will have reduced yields to the point where there aren't enough spuds to 
pay for putting them in the ground. In this scenario, I'm also assuming that
the person (or persons) doing the hoeing will do it without pay. By paying
for labour like this, the economic problem is made even worse.

In summary, sending someone out into a garden with the objective of learning
principles which lead to sustainable agriculture is going to produce results
which are no better than those we are getting now by using agrichemicals. 

It is not just the production side of the equation that has to adjust... it is
also the consumer whose concept of society and their place in it that must
also change.

//Don
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Who ELSE could have written The Adventures of Wild Bill Groady??