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  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] PLANT POSITIVE
  • Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 09:06:46 -0700

http://www.fourseasonfarm.com/main/authentic/positive.html

PLANT POSITIVE

By Eliot Coleman, printed in Organic Gardening, 1998

The following has been adapted from a presentation given by Eliot Coleman
in 1993 at the National Pesticide Forum of the National Coalition Against
the Misuse of Pesticides

Our current pest-control thinking is 180 degrees backwards. We should focus
on the insusceptibility of plants rather than focus on killing pests. This
approach can be defined as plant positive -- in contrast to the present
approach, which is pest negative.

Insects and disease in agriculture should be seen as indicators (symptoms)
of stressed, sub-optimal plant growth rather than as enemies to be
destroyed. The obvious solution is to focus on correcting the growing
conditions (the cause) in order to optimize the physiological well-being of
the plant. Insects and disease bring a message when plants are under
stress. Since it is a message we haven't understood, we have tried to kill
the messenger. If we pay attention to the message, we will focus on
preventing pest damage by providing the proper cultural conditions for
unstressed plant growth...

I think we have difficulty accepting the idea of a plant-positive rather
than plant-negative approach because we have made nature in our own image.
We see natural processes as if they are projections of our own warlike
actions and revenge-dominated thought patterns; thus we see malevolence in
the relationship of one organism to another and in nature's relationship to
us. We don't notice the beneficial balances between predator and prey that
are maintained throughout the natural world. We miss the obvious logic of
tipping the balance in our favor by creating optimal growing conditions for
the plants. All we can see are the temporary agents who inform us of the
imbalance (the pests) as threatening forces to be battled and defeated. We
need to look again.

It's not a question of whether pesticides are desirable or not. The fact is
that they are superfluous. They were devised to prop up an agro-industrial
framework that was misconceived from the start. When you abandon that
framework, you can abandon its negative thinking pattern. We need to begin
studying the natural systems of agriculture from the point of view of
enhancing the positive factors rather than our present focus on killing the
negative factors. The published research and the experience of organic
farmers clearly demonstrates that when we accentuate the positive we
simultaneously eliminate the negative.







  • [Livingontheland] PLANT POSITIVE, TradingPostPaul, 11/18/2006

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