ORGANIC AGRICULTURE
by Dr.
Lawrence Wilson
© August
2019, LD Wilson Consultants, Inc.
All information in this article is
solely the opinion of the author and for educational purposes only. It is not for the diagnosis, treatment,
prescription or cure of any disease or health condition.
Contents
Definitions
Four Levels Of Organic Food
Why Organic Agriculture?
II. BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ORGANIC
FOOD MOVEMENT
III. MORE DETAILS ABOUT THE GREEN
REVOLUTION
GMOs
Food Irradiation
Raising Livestock Naturally
****************************
NOTE: This article does
not do justice to the subject of organic agriculture. That would require many articles explaining the theory,
practice, problems, politics and much more about agriculture.
This article is a
brief introduction to the subject only.
For much more on the subject, the reader may wish to consult the list of
books available from ACRES USA at http://www.acresusa.com
and other sources of agricultural information.
Definition of organic agriculture. A
general definition is that organic agriculture is the raising of crops and farm
animals without the use of toxic chemicals. The chemicals include pesticides and insecticides used on
the soil. It usually also includes
toxic chemicals used to raise livestock such as medical drugs such as hormones,
antibiotics, and other drugs.
Other
definitions. Different organic
food certifying agencies have very precise legal definitions of organic
agriculture that are based on the amount of pesticide residues found in soil
tests. A separate article contains
definitions for many other words used in connection with modern agriculture, Definitions In Agriculture.
Today, people are using many other words that refer
to improved agriculture. Among
these are:
Sustainable agriculture
Eco-agriculture
Regenerative agriculture.
These terms roughly mean agriculture that does not
destroy the soil. The words can
mean the same as organic agriculture, but they are not legal terms, as is
organic agriculture.
Biodynamic agriculture is a European variant of organic agriculture that
is based on the work of Dr. Rudolf Steiner. It is a more involved way of using various mineral
preparations, enzymes to break down compost, and other methods to enhance the
soil and the crops grown on that soil.
They do not use any superphosphate fertilizers. The food grown by this method is of excellent
quality.
Development agriculture. This
is a term we have coined to mean agriculture based on the development
method. It is described in more
detail below.
Warning. Organic
standards have been lowered in the United States and around the world due to
pressure by large growers who say they must use some pesticides, at times, to
maintain their crops.
We think this is just cheating, but they
have succeeded in lowering the organic standards to allow some use of chemical
pesticides on supposedly organic food.
This has resulted in several levels of ÒorganicÓ food:
TYPES OF ORGANIC FOOD
1. Commercial organic. This is not really organically grown,
although it is usually plastered with organic labels. This is the organic food found in supermarkets and in most
health food stores.
This food is heavily dependent
upon the use of superphosphate fertilizers or N-P-K soil amendments to increase
the yields. It does produce
inexpensive food, however.
The Brix level of this food is between 3 and 10, as
a general rule. We consider this
poor to medium-quality food because we are aware of development science and we
know we can increase the Brix to about 25, which is where is should be.
What is Brix? Brix is a quick and
simple measure of the total dissolved solids of a plant leaf. You can buy a simple refractometer and
make the measurement yourself.
Leaf solids are mainly minerals and sugars the plant makes by photosynthesis. The Brix reading is considered a rough
measure of photoshynthesis and therefore a measure of the health of a plant.
For comparison, the Brix level of chemically-grown
vegetables and fruit is about 2 or 3.
These plants require fertilizers and pesticides to survive.
2. Natural organic food. This food is better and found in some
health food stores and at some farmerÕs markets if the farm is organic.
Organic certification. Farms
need not be Òcertified organicÓ, which actually means very little. The reason is that one can get by
without a lot of chemicals, but still have fairly poor quality soil. Getting certified is costly and it is
really difficult for any certifying agency to check carefully to prevent
cheating by the farmer. These are
the problems with organic certification.
The Brix level for this food is
between 12 and about 20. This is
definitely better food for your health and for the farmerÕs family and others
who must work with the soil. Most
of the time, it does not require chemical pesticides to control insects and
other pests. They are simply not
attracted to these plants as much and the small amount of losses to insects do
not interfere much with the output of the farm.
3. Biodynamic organic agriculture. This is the Rudolf Steiner method of
agriculture. It is superior in
that it does not use N-P-K or superphosphate fertilizers, which are basically
growth stimulants and which damage the soil. Yields tend to be a little lower, so this food is usually
more costly.
The Brix level of this food is usually high,
roughly 18 to 22 or 23. The reason
is that without chemical pesticides and without N-P-K additives, if the soil is
not very good, little will grow.
4. Development organic. Some day in the future we hope to have
a type of organic food specifically designed to promote development. We think it will require improving the
soil using the development method.
For details, read The Development Method Of
Agriculture.
WHY ORGANIC AGRICULTURE?
The impact of twentieth
century changes in agriculture on our health is at least as profound as the
effects of such inventions as cars, television and computers. This article explains why our food today is far less
nutritious, far more toxic with pesticides, insecticides and other agricultural
chemicals, and the soil is also much less healthy. The organic agriculture movement is a response to this rape
of our soils and food supply.
Specific reasons for the need for organic
agriculture are:
1. To stop horrendous pollution of the
soil, water and air of the entire planet with toxic pesticides, insecticides
and other agricultural chemicals. This pollution is affecting the soil, livestock, wildlife,
fish and the oceans, as well as human life on planet earth.
Polluting chemicals are not only
the synthetic insecticides, but also the N-P-K chemical fertilizers.
2. To be able to feed more people on earth. Oddly, chemical or bio-tech agriculture
is promoted as the way the feed more people on earth. However, the promise of bio-tech and chemical agriculture is
fading.
Bugs that eat the crops are becoming more resistant
to agricultural chemicals. Also,
repeated application of chemicals is destroying the soil. This is causing a reduction in the crop
yields, even with the use of N-P-K and other growth stimulants.
A key principle is that pests leave healthy food
alone. This is known in
agriculture and is not open to debate.
A related principle is that the ÒjobÓ or role of
agricultural pests – bacteria, viruses, fungi, insects, grasshoppers and
many others – is to remove and destroy weak, sick plants.
(This is completely analogous to the principle that
disease germs do not attack healthy human bodies.)
In agriculture, if one does not want these
organisms and creatures to destroy oneÕs food crops, then one must improve the
quality of the plants. To do this,
one needs organic agriculture to restore the soil, produce healthy crops and
keep crop yields high by reducing losses to pests and plant diseases.
3. To improve the nutritional quality of our food
and thus improve human and livestock health. Quality food is required
for excellent health and organic agriculture is the only way to produce it.
Organic food tends to have much higher levels of
vital nutrients than commercially grown food. This is well-documented, although some still claim it is not
true.
The food is also much less toxic because it does
not contain the residue of farm chemicals. This has also been well-documented
and makes good sense. Never believe
anyone who says there is no difference between organic and non-organic food!
4. To save the topsoils of the planet. This
is a very serious problem worldwide.
Our lives literally depend upon the first 12-24 inches of topsoil upon
which all plants and grasses live.
Standard Ògreen revolutionÓ agriculture always
leads to soil erosion and destruction of farmland. This occurs because toxic chemicals and other foolish
farming practices kill soil microorganisms that keep the soil aerated and give
the soil structure. Without
them, the soil more easily dries out and loses its structure. Then when it rains or the wind blows,
the topsoil washes away or blows away.
Organic agriculture methods produce soil that is
more drought-resistant, more freeze-resistant and more wind-resistant. For example, organic farming methods
tend to make the soil more porous, so that when it rains it absorbs a lot more
water. This helps reduce water
runoff, flooding, and topsoil erosion.
Organic agriculture also produces plants higher in
sugars that move from the plants to the soil. It makes the soil more hygroscopic, which means able to hold more
water. This helps prevent runoff
and erosion. Soil that is higher
in sugar also has a lower freezing point, which helps keep crops alive in cold
areas.
5. To improve the health of farmers, their families
and others who work in the agricultural industry.
Farming areas have become among the most toxic and unhealthy areas to
live and work thanks to chemical agriculture. This needs to change if we want a healthy agricultural
sector of the economy.
Agricultural workers includes migrant workers who
pick crops, those who work in the food processing, transport, storage and other
areas of the agricultural sector of the economy.
6. To improve and protect the health of all
wildlife on earth. Residues of toxic agricultural chemicals find their
way into the ocean and all water supplies of the earth. They have decimated species of birds,
bees, bugs, fish and every other life form on earth. This needs to stop!
7. Other. Organic agriculture is the only way to
restore harmony and balance to planet earth. Spreading toxic chemicals has the opposite effect on the
planet.
Organic agriculture is also the only way to
maintain topsoil that is rich in humus and other compounds that absorb
radiation much better from nuclear disasters such as occurred at the Fukushima
nuclear reactor in Japan (see Acres USA Magazine, Vol. 41, #5, 2011, page 5).
What about organic agriculture for fighting climate
change? The earth is hit by meteors, comets, asteroids and space
debris day and night. Without
help, any of these impacts could knock the orbit of the earth out of
balance. This would quickly freeze
or burn up the planet. Without
continuous correction, the planet would not last a month.
The earthÕs climate is carefully controlled by advanced
beings who continuously correct the earthÕs distance from the sun, the
temperature, wind conditions, the tilt, the speed of rotation and other things
to keep the climate correct for all the creatures of earth. For details, read Climate
Change.
II. BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ORGANIC/
SUSTAINABLE/REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE MOVEMENTS
DESTRUCTIVE FARMING METHODS
In
most of the world, agriculture is done poorly and often stupidly. Often, farmers mix a little chemicals
and fertilizers into their soil, plant seeds and hope for the best. Many times the crops do not grow well
and/or plant diseases or pests arrive and the result is a poor quality
harvest. As a result, starvation
is still a major problem on earth, although it is probably less prevalent than
in past centuries.
Soil mining. In nations where there is a lot of land, farmers often plant crops for a number
of years until the soil becomes depleted. Then they abandon the land and move
on to a new area with more fertile soil.
This is the least costly method of farming. However, it leaves a trail of deserts, and causes massive
soil erosion, dust bowls and other problems.
AGRICULTURE IS A SCIENCE
In
fact, the only way to avoid the mistakes above is to realize that agriculture
is a science and one must do it right or it does not work well. Whim is not a good way to proceed, just
as whim is not a good way to decide what to eat or how to do most things.
THE GREEN REVOLUTION
The
so-called Green
Revolution was and is the application of modern chemical science to
agriculture. It began in the late
1800s and early 1900s with the discovery of superphosphate fertilizers. These are chemical fertilizers that
stimulate plant growth and can increase crop yields. They are combination of nitrogent, phosphorus and potassium
compounds, for which reason they are also called N-P-K fertilizers.
Using these new chemicals, food production can
be increased up to 10 fold. This
was hailed as a great revolution in agriculture that would end world starvation
and help the farming sector of the economy by allowing farmers to grow much
more food.
Superphosphate problems. Unfortunately, superphosphates harm the structure and life
forms in the soil. They also harm
plants, making them much more yin in macrobiotic terms.
Also, while the crops are
higher in carbohydrate, they are lower in protein. They are also much lower in minerals because farmers rarely
put back on the soil the same amount of minerals as they remove with their
superphosphate-fertilized plants.
The result of these problems is much less
healthy plants, much less healthy animals and people who consume the
plants. This is our situation
today and one reason we require so many vegetables to restore health and cause
development. For details, read Superphosphates.
MECHANIZATION
At about the same time that
superphosphate fertilizers were invented,
motorized tractors and other motorized farm implements became
available. This made it possible
for one man to farm a much larger area than in the past.
This helped gave rise to
mega-farms that depend on the use of a lot of mechanized equipment. This led to lower prices for food and
put a lot of old-style family farms out of business because they could not
compete with the new mega-farms.
The new equipment and
superphosphates also gave rise to large-scale monocrop farming. This means raising just one crop in a
field because the crop is suited to tilling and harvesting by a large
machine. It is basically mass
production of food.
PESTICIDES
Those who favored the green
revolution said that the sick crops were not an insurmountable problem. They used the new science of chemistry
to invent a whole series of chemicals that kill worms, bugs, parasites,
bacteria, fungi and the other things that were starting to infect plants grown with
superphosphates.
At the same time, the pharmaceutical
industry was growing and inventing drugs to take care of the diseases that the
superphosphate-fertilized food was causing in livestock and human beings. This, too, is our situation today. Literally thousands of toxic chemicals
are used on the farms, on the ranches and in the medical offices in an attempt
to counteract the harm done by eating food fertilized with superphosphate
fertilizers.
AGRIBUSINESS
It is
important to understand who owns and operates the agricultural system of most
nations today. In fact, a few
enormous companies own or control most of the farmland in many nations.
In the early part of the
twentieth century, large companies began moving into the agricultural
sector. Today, just a few such as
Cargill, ADM, Monsanto and very few others own or control vast amounts of
farmland. They have huge,
expensive farm machinery and use the latest scientific methods to increase crop
yields.
They also have powerful and
well-funded lobbyists in Washington, DC and the capitols of most other nations
that protect their interests from competition. While they must respond to the buying habits of the
population, they have corrupted the organic standards in some nations, and have
infiltrated many farming organizations to make sure they do not interfere with
their business.
Most of
these companies own the entire food chain. This means they produce fertilizers and pesticides. They also own seed companies and may
patent seeds. They may also
control aspects of the food distribution system of a nation, as well. These very large and vertically
integrated companies are called agribusiness.
The advent
of agribusiness has been a mixed blessing. While they do not tend to grow the best quality food, at
least they do not allow farmland to just blow away in the wind, which was often
the case in earlier times when people who did not know enough or did not care
enough about the land ruined it with improper farming practices. The agribusiness companies look at
their land as an investment and one they do not want to ruin.
BIOTECH
One of the
big projects of the agribusiness companies is to breed and design crops that
better match the needs of these companies, and yet will be popular among the
people to whom they sell food.
They have large laboratories where they breed plants and, in some
nations such as the USA, they also do gene splicing to create new GMO
(genetically modified organisms) plants.
Enhanced
nutrition is rarely on their list of traits that they wish to improve with
their hybrid and GMO crops.
Instead, they are usually interested in hardier varieties that can live
on todayÕs depleted soils, withstand insect attack, last longer on the
supermarket shelf and be cheaper to produce. As a result biotech is a negative force in agriculture and
in the world.
THE BIRTH OF ORGANIC AGRICULTURE
The
twentieth century trends in agriculture caught the attention of a number of
prominent agricultural scientists.
One of them was Dr. William Albrecht at the University Of Missouri. These scientists saw clearly that the
green revolution was a trap that was slowly ruining the farmland and ruining
the health of the crops, the farm animals and the people who eat the food. They sounded the alarm and what is
called the organic food movement began as the response to the green revolution.
Today, organic agriculture is fastest growing sectors of
the food market in America and some other nations.
III. MORE DETAILS ABOUT THE GREEN
REVOLUTION
The
Ôgreen revolutionÕ succeeded in drastically increasing the amount of food
grown. American farms feed
millions more people around the world. Our government pays farmers millions
each year not to grow certain crops to keep the prices up. We also have access
to fresh pineapples from Hawaii or Malaysia, tomatoes from Colombia, even rain
forest herbs. Fresh food can be
shipped virtually anywhere on earth in a few days.
The
green revolution also succeeded in increasing the efficiency of farming, if
that is measured in human labor required to grow food. It also succeeded in reducing human
drudgery - the hard, relentless manual labor required for non-mechanized
farming.
However,
not all changes have been positive.
Modern agriculture requires huge investments in machinery, fuel,
chemical sprays and fertilizers.
Other difficulties and costs to society may be far greater.
Chemical
Poisoning. The U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency considers pesticide poisoning the worst
environmental problem in the world.
Pesticides have contaminated almost all water supplies in most nations,
decimated dozens of animal species, and polluted every aspect of our
environment. Most are cumulative
poisons and carcinogenic.
Cumulative means they do not leave the body and they just build up more
and more.
The
American Cancer Society estimates that 85% of cancers are environmentally
caused. The cost of this epidemic
is enormous. Some pesticides cause
genetic damage similar to the effects of atomic fallout. This may contribute to a doubling or
the birth defect rate in America since 1950. Other pesticides mimic estrogen, which may contribute to
many cancers and other health problems.
By killing soil microorganisms, herbicides and pesticides contribute to
massive soil erosion and loss of precious topsoil around the world, even
creating deserts in some areas.
Nutritional
Depletion. Few people realize
how devastating chemical agriculture has been to the nutrient content of our
food. The average supermarket
apple or tomato today bears little
resemblance to one grown 100 years ago. This was the subject of a book written in the 1980's called
Food For Naught, The Decline in Nutrition by Ross Hume Hall. A more recent book on the same subject
is called Empty Harvest (1995) by Bernard Jensen and Mark Anderson.
According
to the USDA, the calcium content of an apple has declined from 13.5 mg in 1914
to 7 mg in 1992. The iron content
has declined from 4.6 mg in 1914 to 0.18 mg in 1992. Some nutrition books written 50 or 60 years ago simply do
not apply to today's food.
For
example, some people think they can live comfortably on the protein in pasta or
other wheat products because they read this in books. However, today's wheat has about half the protein content of
wheat grown just 80 years ago. The use of
pesticides and stimulant fertilizers has allowed poor-quality crops that would
otherwise have been destroyed by pests to make it to market.
Mass
production of chicken, beef, pork and other products often results in unhealthy
animals who receive over half the antibiotics used in America. Residues of these and other drugs used
in food production find their way into our meat, eggs, and dairy products.
A study
published in the Journal of Applied Nutrition, Vol. 45, #1, 1993, pp. 35-39
compared the nutrient content of supermarket food versus organically grown food
from food stores in the Chicago area.
The organic produce averaged twice the mineral content of the
supermarket food! Fortunately, the
organic food industry is growing rapidly, as the truth about our
nutritionally-depleted food becomes more widely known.
Health
Disasters and even more world starvation. Along with the green revolution has come "the diseases
of civilization". Authorities
are realizing that costly epidemics of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, AIDS,
mental illness and even violence are related to the nutritional content of the
food, and toxic substances in the food, water and air. Also, the advent of agribusiness has
upset the social fabric of many traditional societies. Today they cannot feed themselves and
their land has often been sold out from under them to the large companies that
ruin the land and ship the crops back to America and Europe while the local
people do not have enough to eat.
Social
Displacement. Factory farming
has also forced millions of people off their land and into the cities seeking
work. Life on the farm was not
easy, but living on the land provided a source of security, and a far healthier
environment than many city environments.
Many people today cannot even afford the food that is grown on what was
their land. Living on the land has
been replaced by ghetto tenements in many nations including America.
This
is not a total indictment of factory farming and agribusiness. However, it is important to understand
that any movement or revolution of this magnitude and nature, as has occurred
in agriculture just in the past 50 to 100 years, has had far reaching
consequences in many nations on the globe.
If one wishes to evaluate the
green revolution, one must consider all of these consequences, and it is a very
complex picture. While millions
have been displaced, millions have also been relieved of a life of drudgery.
TWO TRENDS
On one hand, the green
revolution continues in full swing, with ever newer technologies to produce more
and cheaper food. Genetically
engineered foods and food irradiation are two of the newer technologies. New drugs are developed to handle the
new plant, animal and human diseases that result from consuming the
chemically-grown foods. .
The other
trend is the growth of organic, sustainable, or ecological agriculture, the
environmental movement, the locally grown movement, land trusts, and seed
banking. Sometimes I feel it is a
race to see which will win. Of
course, the answer is the organic movement, as it is the more sustainable and
it is what the people want.
However, the Òfood scientistsÓ keep trying to come up with newer seeds
and plants that can withstand more pesticides and can grow in more depleted
soils. The food is a mix,
therefore, of old technology and new.
As a result, you never know what you will get these days in the
supermarkets or even the health food stores. This is just one problem with todayÕs food.
GENETICALLY ENGINEERED (GE or GMO) FOODS
Genetic
engineering involves adding, deleting or changing specific genes in a plant to
produce certain qualities in the plant.
Genetic modification is not new.
Crops have always been crossbred to produce tastier, hardier, more
nutritious varieties of food.
Indeed, our present foods were bred from wild plants by generations of
farmers who carefully picked the best of their crop to produce the next year's
crop.
The new
genetic methods are more specific, work much faster, and for the first time
companies are patenting their new varieties to give them control over who grows
the crops. They are also, for the
first time, combining the genes of pigs or fish with those of plants. This is radical new technology –
and very unproven in its long-term effects.
As
with any new technology, there are potential problems with GE. For example, some G-E plants make their
own toxic pesticides. In a recent
incident, Bt corn, bred to produce a pesticide to kill corn borers, also killed
monarch butterflies that ate the pollen.
It won't kill humans outright, but what are the health effects? Thirty percent of the corn grown in
America in 1999 was genetically engineered Bt corn.
Roundup
Ready soybeans are bred to withstand more of the pesticide called Roundup. This means more pesticide can be
sprayed. This is excellent for the
pesticide producer. However, what
does the pesticide do to our bodies, water supplies, wildlife, and soil
microorganisms?
Another
controversial area of GE is called "terminator genes". These are genes that are added to the plant
so that it will not reproduce.
This way, the farmer must buy new patented seeds from the company each
year, instead of saving seeds for next year, a common practice especially in
poorer nations. In summary, there
are potential benefits of GE, such as improved drought-resistance or nutrition
of crops. In practice, however,
the focus of GE is often on greater production and continued dependence on
chemical methods of agriculture.
Most
European nations, where more small farms remain, prohibit the importation of GE
foods or seeds. There is less
concern in America, although recently two large natural food retailers decided
to stop selling GE foods.
Americans tend to embrace new technology more readily, and in America
chemical companies have more influence.
Most likely, GMO or GE foods
should be banned, as we simply donÕt know enough about its long-term
effects. As a first step, there is
a campaign to insist on labeling of genetically engineered foods. This is the only way people will have a
choice regarding what they are eating.
Time will tell if any of the GMO foods are really better foods for our
health, and not just ways to enhance crop yields or fight bugs that attack poor
quality crops.
FOOD IRRADIATION
As
food is grown and shipped globally, avoiding spoilage is of great
importance. Food grown with
pesticides and chemical fertilizers often does not keep as well as the older,
hardier varieties. This has
spawned interest in newer methods of food preservation. Irradiation of plant and animal
products kills bacteria that can cause spoilage.
Problems
with food irradiation are the danger of damaging sensitive components of the
food, harm to workers, and disposing of spent radioactive material. Ionizing radiation is very harmful to
living matter. Also, food that
spoils easily is often of lesser quality.
Preserving it with irradiation to make it edible does not make it healthful
to eat. The nutritional and
vitality of the food take a back seat to the desires of the processors to avoid
spoilage.
Irradiated
food in America is supposed to be labeled, although processed food often
contains irradiated ingredients that are not labeled. Labeling of GE foods and irradiated food is a critical issue
so that people have a choice. I
believe irradiated food should be outlawed completely, as it is a method of
food processing that just further reduces the nutritional and safety of our
food, even if it kills harmful germs.
MAP OR MODIFIED ATMOSPHERIC PACKAGING OF
ORGANIC PRODUCE
Another newer insult to the food supply –
including food that is labeled organic - is called MAP. It is the spraying of produce
– fruits and some vegetables, too – with various ÔnaturalÕ
chemicals to preserve the food.
This puts a sort of bio-film on the surface of the fruit that helps
retard spoilage.
As a result of this technology, food can be grown
in China or India, for example, and shipped to the United States on a
slow-moving boat. The trip takes
two weeks, at times, and the food is miraculously still fresh-looking. This outsourcing of our agriculture is
great for China, and very bad for our health and for our farmers.
Problems with this technology are that food begins
to lose some of its nutrients as soon as it is picked, so Òpreserving itÓ with
MAP, while it may not spoil, it still loses nutrients. Also, the chemicals used to create the
bio-film or atmospheric packaging, as it is euphemistically called, are often
slightly toxic. They can cause
allergic reaction, and often there are outbreaks of disease because the food is
not clean and fresh, even if it looks like it.
This may be one reason to eat good quality frozen
produce instead of fresh produce Òmade in ChinaÓ. The frozen vegetables are often frozen at the farm, and
freezing, or even canning them, preserves them better than many of the
chemicals used in the modified atmospheric packaging. This is a difficult question to answer simply, as it will
vary among different crops. I will
be researching it more in the future and will report upon it in this article.
I am opposed to all MAP technology at this time, as
I do not think it is necessary or helpful for our health. Yes, it makes for slightly cheaper food
grown in China, but the unintended consequences or Ôside effectsÕ of ingesting
many unknown and odd chemicals is not worth it. At least, it should be absolutely labeled with any chemicals
that are sprayed on it, even if they are ÒnaturalÓ. Here is a link to a longer article on this subject:
LAND TRUSTS
Land
trusts are agreements made by individual land owners to prevent future
development on their land. The
trusts contain strict covenants for the land use, to prevent its use for
parking lots and shopping centers, for example. Buyers or renters of the land
must agree to abide by the contract.
Though still a small movement, land trusts now exist in every part of
America. They are helping to save
farmland, wildlife habitats and old-growth forests from destruction.
SEED BANKS
As new
hybrid plants are used more widely, some of the older seed varieties are in
danger of being lost. Several
groups have taken on the task of saving and banking precious seeds. They could
be useful or even life-saving if weather changes or new crop diseases destroy
the hybrid or GE plants. Also, the
genetic material in the older seeds may be needed at some time to enhance our
crops. For research and for
disaster preparedness, the movement to save traditional seed varieties is an
important trend.
LOCALLY GROWN
More
small farmers are finding a niche catering to the needs of the local
community. Farmer's markets and
local buying clubs help address the problem of the loss of the family farm. Communities are reaping the benefits of
supporting local farmers by getting fresher and often better quality produce.
Often the local farmers grow
food organically, helping preserve the land, the wildlife and the local
environment. The locally grown
movement also fosters a greater sense of community, and contributes to local
self-sufficiency and sovereignty.
However,
do not be misled into thinking that locally grown food is always best. This is not always true. It may well be the freshest, but
sometimes a farm far away is able to produce better quality food.
It is
possible to use modern technology wisely to produce pure, nutritionally
superior food without damaging the environment. This is the challenge for agriculture in the 21st century.
Resources
1. www.thecampaign.org (excellent site for
labeling of genetically engineered food.
2. Bergner, P., The Healing Power of Minerals, Special Nutrients
and Trace Elements, Prima Publishing, CA, 1997.
3. Hall, R., Food For Naught, The Decline in Nutrition,
Keats Publishing, New Canaan, CT, 1979.
4. Price, W., Nutrition and Physical Degeneration,
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