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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Organic, Local & Beyond

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: Liz <liz@allslash.org>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Organic, Local & Beyond
  • Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:25:51 -0400

At 02:26 PM 9/2/2008, you wrote:

A stack of plastic boxes containing rock-hard tomatoes are piled in the produce section with labels proclaiming they were organically grown in Mexico. Next to them are bins filled with ripe, locally grown tomatoes. An approaching customer pauses, eyeing each option, weighing how best to spend her food dollar. Will it be pesticide-dusted or fuel-gulping tomatoes for tonight's salad?

For me, the primary question is not whether it was grown with pesticides (though that's important to me), but whether I have any influence over how it was grown. The only way I can influence how produce is grown thousands of miles from me is to either buy it or not buy it. My buying power at that distance is so diluted that it's useless. But at the roadside produce stand or the farmer's market, I can say, "Were these grown without the use of poisons?" I may still buy the produce even if the answer is yes. But the farmer or market gardener has heard that I'd rather they weren't drenched with Roundup, or whatever. Perhaps next year, he or she will consider alternate methods of pest control. Perhaps, over the winter, he or she will begin to look for information on growing organic, or turn up on lists like this one, and next year there will be one more better informed farmer.

The farm where I buy a lot of our food wasn't always organic. The owner used to scoff at organic methods. Now he's one of the biggest proponents of it that I know. Someone said the right thing to him one day, and he started to think about how the pesticides he was using might affect his children's health. He started reading, and looking things up on the net, and talking to people, and now he's completely organic. So one person can make a difference locally, where they can't at a distance.

Liz in SW VA
http://life-as-a-spectator-sport.com




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