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  • From: mangodance <bmn@iglou.com>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] organicism
  • Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:39:48 -0500

Alan Haigh wrote:
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.

<grin> And to others, the advocates of what seems to be standard practice in ag today also seem polarized. I'll agree in theory that with ANY topic of dicussion these days (not just fruit) it seems de rigeur to align onesself before real scholarship, and that it tends to cloud communication with a certain predetermination and dismissal. Basically, all subjects have their zealots. NO camp is best judged by its zealots. Zealots are usually loud, vocal, and determined. The message gets lost and you end up with the poles lashing out at each other. Most of us in the middle just scrath our heads.

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.

This isn't always the case...conventional ag just has more study money and a longer history of making it available for directed studies. I'll agree for the sake of discussion however that conventional ag has figured out how to produce a lot of food. I wonder how efficient it would be without all the subsidy, reinforced structure, and agrichem corporate power it enjoys. Clearly, the double-digit surge in alternatives year after year is a sign something is amiss. Since petroleum is a finite resource, and we seem to act like we believe it to be renewable in a generation, what does that mean for a world propped up by petrochems?

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.

However, it is the almost total lack of sustainable thinking and lack of real action (in many countries) that many believe put us squarely in the midst of such challenges. I don't think mankind's challenge is producing enough food (not yet anyway). It seems to be one of waste and distribution of food along with overpopulation, poor settlement, and squandering of resources. Add to that an almost total lack of responsibility for our own actions and an inability to look at moderate to long range issues, shortsighted politics and politicians, and I'm not sure more tonnage will do much. Those folks on this list, those who grow and toil, are commended for not following what has unfortunately become the norm.







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