North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Alan Haigh" <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

"And he said, "Rise up from the petrochemical ooze and be reborn.  These
simple people are not luddites, but practical folks eager to help these
pilgrims of the polarity find that there are many shades of grey, as
well as colors, in an otherwise black-and-white world.  Complexity
abounds.  Embrace it.  Seek these moderates and ye may find discussions
of food which need not include engines, Enzite, nor even polyester.
Find them and you may well find a simpler, kinder discussion replaces
your fears.  You may even find no enemies exist.  You may find harmony."

 

Good, now we can get serious.  The advocates of organic agriculture don't always convey to me a complex and moderate embrace of the shades of grey.    An absolute rejection of the use of a single manmade molecule on soil or plant has a definate black or white ring to it.  There aren't just two camps in this discussion.  I don't align myself with the profiteers of unsustainable agriculture. 

 

Agriculture is deadly.  It consumes wilderness and the habitat of the thousands of disappearing species we read about every day.  It destroys the forests that help regulate the climate.  The more effiecient it is the less land it consumes.  It's a very complex issue, I understand that and organic agriculture produces far more calories in ratio to those put into it than conventional agriculture.  But conventional agriculture produces more food in a land use to food quantity ratio.

 

My argument is that the existential challenges to the human species right now are far too serious to throw away any of the arrows in our quiver of survival tactics including chemicals that may make the land more productive.  That doesn't mean agricultural strip-mining by corporate farms should not be regulated and converted to more sustainable methods.