Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["David Anderson" <squtch@gmail.com>]

> (On the other hand, I have heard that some MG programs are more open
> to including the research on and promoting organic methods. Maybe
> Oregon and Washington? I know King County has been trying to
> discourage pesticide use for years.)

My neighbor just went through the Thurston County (WA) program. It
sounds like most of the people going through the program lean organic.
The program encourages that the discussion start with organics and
move towards non-organic at the request of the caller. In other words,
try the least harmful first.

It also helps that WSU is the land grant university, and when you
consider how much of their teaching land is now organic and they are
now running an organic ag program, I don't think they are ready to say
that it isn't research based.

http://csanr.wsu.edu/Organic/index.htm

And Thurston County is home to The Evergreen State College, where
there has been an organic farm since the early 70s.

http://www.evergreen.edu/cell/farmhistory.htm

Other states will start coming around. It would be interesting to do a
survey to see which of the land grant univerities are now accepting
and even promoting organic.

Dave