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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@bellsouth.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Fwd: Re: organic vrs conventional
  • Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2010 21:41:09 -0500

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: organic vrs conventional
Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2010 20:55:23 -0500
From: SUBSCRIBE SANET-MG m_astera <michael.astera@GMAIL.COM>
To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU, "Lawrence F. London, Jr."
<lflj@BELLSOUTH.NET>

Hi All-

Michael Astera here. I just joined the SANET list because a friend sent me
some parts of this interesting discussion.

The answers seem simple enough to me. If we wish to prove that organically
grown foods are more nutritious than chemically grown foods, we have to do
so in a way that meets the requirements that mainstream science is looking
for and measuring: in this case flavonoids, in other cases vitamins or
minerals. I think the only way to come out on top in a "science" contest is
to do better science than the competition is doing, all down the line.

Setting aside climate and plant genetics, what we are left to work with is
the fertility of the soil. What is that, anyway? Ask a chemical farmer and
they will tell you soil fertility is so many pounds per acre of NPK plus a
minimum amount of whatever other elements are needed to grow the largest
possible yield. Generally the "other elements" are applied only when the
crop growth and yield are seriously affected by their lack.

Ask an organic grower what soil fertility means and they will usually tell
you it all has to do with soil organic matter: compost, humus, manure, cover
crops (green manure), and soil biology. What does the organic grower think
they are getting from these? Mostly NPK again, but in a "natural" form.

The chemical grower may toss a bone towards the organic side of things by
applying a little compost or plowing under a green manure crop; the organic
grower may give a little towards elementary chemistry by adjusting pH with
lime or applying rock dust, but neither of them are very scientific and both
are mostly using yield as a measure of success, not nutritional quality. I
would suggest that neither grower really knows how to achieve nutritional
quality.

One foolproof way of measuring nutritional quality is to feed the crop to a
growing animal or person and monitor their health. That can be a risky and
long term project, but there is a simpler way: We can look to where animals
(and people) are already eating the produce of the soil and have been for
generations, where they are paragons of health who live long, vigorous
lives. Then we could analyze the soil that grew the food that allowed them
to thrive and reproduce successfully. With that information we could
recreate that soil wherever we wished and grow equally nutritious food to
feed healthy people and animals. Does anyone doubt that the food grown on
such perfect soil would be superior in all ways, including the results of
laboratory analyses for flavonoids, vitamins, and minerals?

This would be nutritional science applied to soil fertility, not guesswork
aimed at maximum yield.

It will not be done by applying NPK fertilizers or large quantities of
organic matter in a quest for maximum yield. It can only be done by
observing Nature and seeing how and where she has arranged things so that
the creatures whose food comes from the soil experience perfect health, and
then copying what Nature has done on our own gardens and farms.





  • [permaculture] Fwd: Re: organic vrs conventional, Lawrence F. London, Jr., 11/07/2010

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