Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Can Organics Save the Family Farm? by Eliot Coleman
A groundbreaking essay by the nation’s foremost organic grower and
writer.
http://www.rakemag.com/features/detail.asp?catID=61&itemID=19847
Rake Publishing, Inc. September 2004

Thor Heyerdahl’s classic adventure story, The Ra Expeditions, has a
lesson
for agriculture. Heyerdahl wanted to prove that ancient Egyptian sailors
could have reached the New World in traditional boats constructed of
bundled papyrus stalks. He and his crew studied fresco paintings, three to
four thousand years old, on the tomb walls of pyramids for instruction on
the size, shape, and style of the crafts. In the paintings there was one
rope represented, from the stern’s curled-in tip down to the afterdeck,
for which they could discern no purpose suggested by modern physics, and
in the ensuing construction it was left out. Ra I collapsed in mid-ocean
for lack of that rope. Their second attempt, Ra II, with the newly
appreciated rope in its assigned place, completed the voyage without a
hitch.

In the story of agriculture’s transition from the traditions of the past
to the realities of the present, there is a missing element that is the
rope’s equivalent—an unappreciated detail without which the worldwide
agricultural system will eventually fall apart.

That crucial element, found in healthy, viable dirt, is called “soil
organic matter.” In the mid-1930s, organic farming arose from a
recognition of the vital importance of this soil ingredient. Some farmers
saw the undesirable changes in their soil and the diminished health of
their livestock that followed the shift to chemical farming in the
twentieth century. Their appreciation for soil organic matter was reborn.
They realized that they needed to return to pre-chemical practices, and
improve them if possible, rather than reject them in favor of chemical
shortcuts. They believed this was the direction they needed to go if the
health of the soil, the health of the produce, and the health of the human
beings consuming the produce were to be maintained. Some of their
improvements to old methods included more successful methods of compost
making, better management of crop residues—the leaves, roots, or stems
that are left after harvest—and adding mineral nutrients, where
necessary,
in their most natural form.

The organic pioneers wrote and spoke about their realization that the farm
is not a factory, but rather a human-managed microcosm of the natural
world. Whether in forest or prairie, soil fertility in the natural world
is maintained and renewed by the recycling of all plant and animal
residues which create the organic matter in the soil. This recycling is a
biological process, which means that the most important contributors to
soil fertility are alive, and they are neither farmers nor fertilizer
salesmen. They are the population of living creatures in the soil—whose
life processes make the plant-food potential of the soil accessible to
plants—and their food is organic matter.

The number of these creatures is almost beyond belief. It was often said
that a teaspoon of fertile soil contains at least one million live
microscopic organisms. Hard to believe as that may be, that number is now
considered far too conservative. Once you begin to understand that the
soil is a living thing rather than an inert substance, a fascinating
universe opens in front of your eyes. I once watched a specialist on soil
creatures perform a minor miracle. He held the rapt attention of a roomful
of teenagers by showing slides and telling tales of the endlessly
interrelated and meticulously choreographed activities of these creatures.
The students were entranced because the subject matter was like a trip to
another planet. They were peeking into the secret world of nature.

The idea of a living soil nourished with organic matter also helps cast
light on the difference between a natural and a chemical approach to soil
fertility. In the chemical approach, fertilizers are created in a factory
to put a limited number of nutrients in a soluble form within reach of
plant roots. The idea is to bypass the soil and start feeding the plants
directly with preprocessed plant food. In the natural approach, the farmer
adds organic matter to nurture all those hard-working soil organisms. This
approach is usually called feeding the soil rather than feeding the
plants, but what it’s really doing is feeding the soil creatures, and
that
’s why it works so well. The idea that we could ever substitute a few
soluble elements for a whole living system is a lot like thinking an
intravenous needle could deliver a delicious meal.

Through the years, as organic farmers have worked with this world of
nature, they have developed harmonious farming practices that are
outstandingly productive. The general level of expertise today among the
best organic growers allows them to equal chemical agriculture in yield
while far surpassing it in quality. Coincidentally, they discovered that
this approach to farming could save not only their soil, but the family
farm itself—especially from the crushing onslaught of petrochemical
agribusiness.


Since the 1930s, organic farming has been subjected to the traditional
three-step progression that occurs with any new idea directly challenging
an orthodoxy. First the orthodoxy dismisses it. Then it spends decades
contesting its validity. Finally, it moves to take over the idea. Now that
organic agriculture has become an obvious economic force, industrial
agriculture wants to control it. Since the first step in controlling a
process is to define (or redefine) it, the U.S. Department of Agriculture
hastened to influence the setting of organic standards—in part by
establishing a legal definition of the word “organic”—and the organic
spokespeople naively permitted it.

Wise people had long warned against such a step. Almost thirty years ago,
Lady Eve Balfour, one of the most knowledgeable organic pioneers from the
1930s, said, “I am sure that the techniques of organic farming cannot be
imprisoned in a rigid set of rules. They depend essentially on the
attitude of the farmer. Without a positive and ecological approach, it is
not possible to farm organically.” When I heard Lady Eve make that
statement at an international conference on organic farming at Sissach,
Switzerland, in 1977, the co-option and redefinition of “organic” by
the
USDA was far in the future. I knew very well what she meant, though,
because by that time I had been involved in organics long enough to have
absorbed the old-time ideas and I was alert to the changes that were
beginning to appear.

When you study the history of almost any new idea, it becomes clear how
the involvement of the old power structure in the new paradigm tends to
move things backward. Minds mired in an industrial thinking pattern, in
which farmers are merely sources of raw materials, cannot see beyond the
outputs of production. They don’t consider the values of production, or
its economic benefits to the producers. While co-opting and regulating the
organic method, the USDA has ignored the organic goal. And since it is the
original organic goal, and not the modern labeling requirements of the
USDA, which I believe can save the family farm, we need to know the
difference. To better convey this difference, I like to borrow two words
from the ecology movement and refer to “deep” organic farming and
 “shallow” organic farming.

Deep-organic farmers, after rejecting agricultural chemicals, look for
better ways to farm. Inspired by the elegance of nature’s systems, they
try to mimic the patterns of the natural world’s soil-plant economy. They
use freely available natural soil foods like deep-rooting legumes, green
manures, and composts to correct the causes of an infertile soil by
establishing a vigorous soil life. They acknowledge that the underlying
cause of pest problems (insects and diseases) is plant stress; they know
they can avoid pest problems by managing soil tilth, nutrient balance,
organic matter content, water drainage, air flow, crop rotations, varietal
selection, and other factors to reduce plant stress. In so doing,
deep-organic farmers free themselves from the need to purchase fertilizers
and pest-control products from the industrial supply network—the
commercial network that normally puts profits in the pockets of middlemen
and puts family farms on the auction block. The goal of deep-organic
farming is to grow the most nutritious food possible and to respect the
primacy of a healthy planet. Needless to say, the industrial agricultural
establishment sees this approach as a threat to the status quo since it is
not an easy system for outsiders to quantify, to control, and to profit
from.

Shallow-organic farmers, on the other hand, after rejecting agricultural
chemicals, look for quick-fix inputs. Trapped in a belief that the natural
world is inadequate, they end up mimicking the patterns of chemical
agriculture. They use bagged or bottled organic fertilizers in order to
supply nutrients that temporarily treat the symptoms of an infertile soil.
They treat the symptoms of plant stress—insect and disease problems—by
arming themselves with the latest natural organic weapons. In so doing,
shallow-organic farmers continue to deliver themselves into the control of
an industrial supply network that is only too happy to sell them expensive
symptom treatments. The goal of shallow-organic farming is merely to
follow the approved guidelines and respect the primacy of international
commerce. The industrial agricultural establishment looks on
shallow-organic farming as an acceptable variation of chemical
agribusiness since it is an easy system for the industry to quantify, to
control, and to profit from in the same ways it has done with chemical
farming. Shallow organic farming sustains the dependence of farmers on
middlemen and fertilizer suppliers. Today, major agribusinesses are
creating massive shallow organic operations, and these can be as hard on
the family farm as chemical farming ever was.

The difference in approach is a difference in life views. The shallow view
regards the natural world as consisting of mostly inadequate, usually
malevolent systems that must be modified and improved. The deep-organic
view understands that the natural world consists of impeccably designed,
smooth-functioning systems that must be studied and nurtured. The
deep-organic pioneers learned that farming in partnership with the natural
processes of soil organisms also makes allowance for the unknowns. The
living systems of a truly fertile soil contain all sorts of yet-to-be
discovered benefits for plants—and consequently for livestock and the
humans who consume them. These are benefits we don’t even know how to
test
for because we are unaware of their mechanism, yet deep-organic farmers
are aware of them every day in the improved vigor of their crops and
livestock. This practical experience of farmers is unacceptable to
scientists, who disparagingly call it mere “anecdotal evidence.” The
farmers contend that since most scientists lack familiarity with real
organic farming, they are passing judgment on things they know nothing
about.

It is difficult for organic farmers to defend ideas scientifically when so
little scientific data has been collected. However, the passion is there
because the farmer’s instincts are so powerfully sure of the differences
that exist between organic and chemical production. I often cite an
experience of mine in an unrelated field—music—in defense of the
farmer’s
instincts. Twice I have been fortunate to hear great artists perform in an
intimate setting without the intermediary of a sound system. The first was
a saxophonist, the second a soprano. The experience of hearing their
clear, pure tones directly, not missing whatever subtleties a microphone
and speakers are incapable of transmitting, was so different, and the
direct ingestion of the sound by my ears was so nourishing (that is the
only word I can think of), that I remember the sensation to this day. The
unfiltered music was like fresh food grown by a local, deep-organic
grower. That same music heard through a sound system is like industrial
organic produce shipped from far away. Through a poor sound system, it is
a lot like chemically grown produce.


Like most other farmers I know, I am sensitive to the reactions of my
customers, especially young customers, as evidence of the advantages of
organic farming. Children are notorious for hating vegetables, but that is
not what I hear from parents in the neighboring towns in response to the
vegetables we grow on our farm. We have been told that our carrots are the
trading item of choice in local grade-school lunch boxes. We have been
told by stunned parents that not only will their children eat our salad
and our spinach, but that they ask their parents specifically to purchase
them. I put great faith in the honest and unspoiled taste buds of
children. They can still detect differences that older taste buds may miss
and that science cannot measure.

Lately, there has been a lot of talk alerting us to the takeover of many
organic labels by industrial food giants. But to anyone who wishes to eat
really good food, I say the sky is not falling. These takeovers only
involve industrial shallow organics. They only involve those companies
large enough to attract takeover money. Most of these companies sell
processed foods, which are substandard nutritionally, whatever the
provenance of their ingredients. When the organic version of the Twinkie
eventually appears, it will be immaterial who controls it. Some of these
companies do sell staple foods, but they only meet the shallowest of
standards, thus ignoring those valuable production practices that only
family farmers seem to care about anymore.

For example, I don’t buy organic eggs from the grocery stores. Merely
feeding organic grain to chickens, without giving the animals honest
access to the outdoors, does not make a free-range hen or produce truly
edible eggs. The yolks of these eggs are pale and, being mass-produced
somewhere far away, they are not fresh. I purchase eggs from a neighboring
farmer who runs his chickens on grass pasture where the sunshine, green
food—and a host of unknown factors—produce eggs with deep orange yolks
and
awesome flavor. I don’t buy organic milk from the large producers who
keep
thousands of cows in confinement and who claim their milk is special
because they feed the cows organic grain. As if preventing access to grass
is not bad enough, these producers then ultra-pasteurize the cows’ milk
so
they can ship it nationally—thereby destroying the amazing natural
cultures and enzymes in uncooked milk. I buy milk from a very successful
local raw-milk dairy where the cows eat grass outdoors (as they were
designed to do) and produce milk that studies have shown is far richer in
many important nutrients due to the grass diet alone.

In other words, the only organic companies that have been bought out are
those whose quality is so dubious you don’t want to buy their food no
matter how many times they can legally print the word “organic” on the
label. Real food comes from your local family farm, run by deep-organic
farmers. These farms won’t be bought out because they are too honest and
too focused on quality over quantity to attract the takeover specialists.
The good news is that small, committed, organic family farms are the
fastest growing segment in U.S. agriculture today. Old-time deep-organic
farming will save these farms because there will always be a demand for
exceptional food by astute customers who can see past the hype of the USDA
label and realize the importance of making their own fully informed
decisions about food quality.

***

How did deep get turned into shallow and good food revert to mediocre? It
is a logical result in a world blind to the elegance of natural systems.
Humans think in terms of more milk rather than exceptional milk, cheaper
eggs not better eggs. Since modern humans tend to consider nature
imperfect, they focus on improving nature rather than improving the
function of agriculture within nature. Humans want to change the rules
rather than try to operate more intelligently within them. A recent
advertisement from a biotech company reinforced that idea by highlighting
the phrase “Think what’s possible.” It’s true that these companies
think
they have the power to remake the parts of nature they don’t understand.
However, if they understood them, they would realize they don’t need
remaking. It is our human relationship with the natural world that needs
remaking.

Family farms thrive when they operate as participants in nature’s
elegantly structured system. Take my own farm. I have visited organic
vegetable farms across the U.S. and Europe, and I believe ours is fairly
typical. We augment the fertility of our soil with both homemade compost
and green manures to provide all-important organic matter, plus locally
available organic residues (in our case from the fishing industry). We
grow thirty-five different vegetables year round, both in the field in
summer and in greenhouses in winter. We use no pest-control products
because we have no pest problems that need to be controlled. Fertile,
healthy soils teeming with beneficial life grow vigorous, healthy plants.
Rather than depending on product inputs, we have created a knowledge-input
agriculture where biological diplomacy and management skills replace war
mentality and chemical weapons. Our aim is to cultivate ease and order on
our farm rather than battle futilely against disease and disorder. When we
have had problems (low soil fertility, plant stress) we dealt with them by
correcting the cause so the problem would no longer exist. If, instead, we
had treated the symptom, then that treatment would have been required
again and again unless the cause went away on its own.

If we view modern society through the lens of this agricultural model, the
parallels are striking, and the potential for deep-organic farming to
transform more than just the family farm becomes obvious. It has the power
to transform the world. Our present economic infrastructure is focused on
selling treatments for symptoms, rather than finding inexpensive ways to
correct the causes. For example, the medical profession, under the
influence of the drug companies, peddles pills, potions, and operations
rather than stressing alternatives to destructive Twinkie nutrition,
over-stressed lifestyles, and toxic pollution. The economists push
conspicuous consumption as a panacea, despite the fact that alternatives
to hollow lives, addictive behavior, and meaningless work would bring us
far more satisfaction. The government colludes in preparing for conflicts
and then waging them (symptom treatment), rather than committing our
country to permanent resolution of differences through diplomacy (cause
correction). Although deep-organic farmers demonstrate daily the existence
of a successful parallel universe where cause correction rules over
symptom treatment, the significance of that option is unknown and thus
unheeded. If its implications were fully known, deep organic farming would
certainly be suppressed, because it exposes the artificiality of our
symptom-focused economy and, incidentally, explains why society’s most
intractable problems never seem to get solved.

So what is the future? If you want to eat really good food, support your
local deep-organic farm. Committed growers are engaged in a quest to grow
better food because they understand that real food makes an enormous
contribution to human well-being. In the food world, family farmers are
the last link maintaining the old-time values of quality rather than
quantity, of the deep satisfaction from meaningful work rather than the
shallow return from excess consumerism. The values of caring farmers were
once so common, so basic to human existence, that they did not need to be
expressed. In today’s world these values have been so overwhelmed by
greed
and shoddy thinking that they now very much need to be put into words.
When pronounced, those words seem quaint and idealistic. Just as organic
foods have become the last refuge protecting eaters from GMOs, rBGH, and
food irradiation, so have family farmers become the last refuge protecting
the values of the early organic pioneers against the onslaught of the
industrial organic hucksters. I cast my vote for quality and for
idealism—and for putting the rope back in place.

 © 2004 Rake Publishing, Inc. No part of this site may be reproduced in
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visit www.rakemag.com

===============
>From or Forwarded by: Chrys Ostrander
Chrysalis Farm at Tolstoy
Grower of Organic Produce and Botanicals
33495 Mill Canyon Rd.
Davenport, WA 99122
Phone: (509) 725-0610
"The purpose of agriculture is not the production of food, but the
perfection of human beings" Masanobu Fukuoka - "One Straw Revolution"

Email: <mailto:chrys@thefutureisorganic.net>
URL: http://www.thefutureisorganic.net

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