Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

> All inspectors can inspect is the record keeping. They can't tell if I put 
> some 10-20-10 NPK on my bean beds. Or if I used some methyl iodide on my 
> strawberries. Or Roundup on all the weeds. There's no way without specific 
> and costly testing for those things and a hundred other things that 
> violate organic standards.
>
> paul tradingpost@lobo.net

I don't agree Paul. At least here inspectors are walking the land. If they 
are any way good they know from the variety of "weeds" and the variety of 
insects and other small critters what has been done to the land as would I 
at least in a hundred and fifty mile radius from here. With knowledge of 
local conditions such as natural soil and past weather you know how high 
bean plants should be at what time of the year. What shade of green to 
expect from their leaves and how their root development should be. If for 
instance the root development is much larger than expected then you know 
that P has been added in a soil that is normally P deficient. If the farmer 
has no receipt for allowed rock phosphate then he has added something else. 
Over here most of the rock phosphate comes from the Spanish Sahara and 
consists of little bits of fossilized fish with a good number of small shark 
teeth visible. That does not disappear in a few weeks or even months. You 
see how much organic amendments such as compost have been applied simply 
from the color of the ground. Without compost or mulch that color would be 
reddish here or if the subsoil is exposed grey. And if you see beans twice 
as lush as in the previous farm or the next farm you inspect you know 
something is not right and that NPK is likely.

Also, I do not think it would be that expensive necessarily to test for 
pesticides and fungicides. What university with a science department does 
not at least have one gas chromatograph? These machines are extremely 
sensitive and it only needs an experienced operator half an hour to sniff 
out any man made chemical in even the lowest concentration. If there were a 
serious demand for it this would not have to be that expensive.

That this is not done is imo a sign of the times. It is well known that 
governments, really instruments of the big corporations, in many countries, 
at least the US and in Ireland as well have done their best to 
systematically reduce the requirements for organic certification. And that 
the people who originally started the "organic" movement were not at all 
pleased with this. This was for the benefit of the industry corporations, to 
allow them to get rid of original organic, small producers.

john