Category Archives: Agriculture

Organic farming as productive as pesticiding (proven yet again)

Rodale Institute has been running a side-by-side comparison of organic and chemical agriculture since 1981. They report:
After an initial decline in yields during the first few years of transition, the organic system soon rebounded to match or surpass the conventional system. Over time, FST became a comparison between the long term potential of the two systems.
Year after year, Rodale found:
Organic yields match conventional yields.

As Tom Philpott reported for Mother Jones 17 November 2011, Yet Again, Organic Ag Proves Just as Productive as Chemical Ag,

And now comes evidence from the very heart of Big Ag: rural Iowa, where Iowa State University’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture runs the Long-Term Agroecological Research Experiment (LTAR), which began in 1998, which has just released its latest results.

At the LTAR fields in Adair County, the (LTAR) runs four fields: one managed with the Midwest-standard two-year corn-soy rotation featuring the full range of agrochemicals; and the other ones organically managed with three different crop-rotation systems. The chart below records the yield averages of all the systems, comparing them to the average yields achieved by actual conventional growers in Adair County:

Norman Borlaug, instigator of the “green revolution” of no-till and pesticides, when asked in 2000 whether organic agriculture could feed the world, said: Continue reading →

Southern Nevada Health District forced private citizens to pour bleach on home-grown organic food

Quail Hollow Farm was holding a Farm-to-Fork dinner for invited guests, when a health inspector showed up and forced them to destroy the food. In this video of the event you can hear the arrogance of the inspector:
That’s all the information you need.
Well, no, it’s not.

The inspector said it was a public event because the guests had paid for d inner.

The farmer eventually called their lawyer who said ask the inspector to see her warrant. She had none.

But they had already been told their food that they grew with their own hands was not fit for a public dinner, nor a private dinner, not even to feed to their pigs. They were forced to pour bleach on it, making it unfit even for compost.

Given that every food contamination recall in recent years has come from big factory farms, not from small organic farms, does this raid seem right to you? Continue reading →

Massive lawsuit against Monsanto for seed patent abuse

The Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association (OSGATA) are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Monsanto’s attempts to control seeds.

Wake Up World wrote 19 September 2011, Case Update: 270,000 Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto

The 83 family farmers, small and family owned seed businesses, and agricultural organizations challenging Monsanto’s patents on genetically modified seed filed papers in federal court (13th August 2011) defending their right to seek legal protection from the threat of being sued by Monsanto for patent infringement should they ever become contaminated by Monsanto’s genetically modified seed. The Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) represents the plaintiffs in the suit, titled Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association (OSGATA), et al. v. Monsanto and pending in the Southern District of New York. The August 13 filings respond to a motion filed by Monsanto in mid-July to have the case dismissed. In support of the plantiffs’ right to bring the case, 12 agricultural organizations also filed a friend-of-the-court amici brief.

“Rather than give a straight forward answer on whether they would sue our clients for patent infringement if they are ever contaminated by Monsanto’s transgenic seed, Monsanto has instead chosen to try to deny our clients the right to receive legal protection from the courts,” said Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT’s Executive Director. “Filings include sworn statements by several of the plaintiffs themselves explaining to the court how the risk of contamination by transgenic seed is real and why they cannot trust Monsanto to not use an occurrence of contamination as a basis to accuse them of patent infringement.”

This goes well beyond control of seeds, of course, and beyond the plaintiffs: Continue reading →

Pesticide spray drift finally gets legal rebuf

Tired of hacking and coughing after cotton fields get sprayed to open their bolls? Tired of losing your garden or organic crops to Roundup drift? Now there are two precedents for legal recourse.

Ethan A. Huff wrote for NaturalNews.com 3 August 2011, Court rules organic farmers can sue conventional, GMO farmers whose pesticides ‘trespass’ and contaminate their fields

Purveyors of conventional and genetically-modified (GM) crops — and the pesticides and herbicides that accompany them — are finally getting a taste of their own legal medicine. Minnesota’s Star Tribune has reported that the Minnesota Court of Appeals recently ruled that a large organic farm surrounded by chemical-laden conventional farms can seek damages for lost crops, as well as lost profits, caused by the illegal trespassing of pesticides and herbicides on its property.

Oluf and Debra Johnson’s 1,500-acre organic farm in Stearns County, Minn., has repeatedly been contaminated by nearby conventional and GMO farms since the couple started it in the 1990s. A local pesticide cooperative known as Paynesville Farmers Union (PFU), which is near the farm, has been cited at least four times for violating pesticide laws, and inadvertently causing damage to the Johnson’s farm.

The first time it was realized that pesticides had drifted onto the Johnson’s farm in 1998, PFU apologized, but did not agree to pay for damages. As anyone with an understanding of organic practices knows, even a small bit of contamination can result in having to plow under that season’s crops, forget profits, and even lose the ability to grow organic crops in the same field for at least a couple years.

And all most people have done so far is let it slide. But the Johnsons did something. Continue reading →

Organic yields higher than pesticided, all around the world

To feed the world, we need to get rid of Monsanto’s pesticided patented seeds and get on with diversified sustainable organic agriculture.

A friend commented about Organic farming better for bottom line:

Devil’s advocacy: yields from organic agriculture are lower than from artificially fertilised + pesticide’d crops; therefore, the practice tends to increase food prices; therefore, organic food means starvation for people who would otherwise eat. Discuss!
Nope, that’s simply not true. Organic farming yields more, in addition to being more profitable, healthier, and tastier.

-jsq

Organic farming better for bottom line

And you don’t have to owe your soul to the bank or to Monsanto!

Margaret Reeves wrote for GroundTruth 12 October 2011, Organic farming better for bottom line:

Agronomy Journal… reports on an 18-year study demonstrating that organic crop rotation is consistently more profitable than conventional corn and soybean production, even when organic price premiums are cut by half. That is very good news for both organic producers and the agricultural economies in which they operate.

The report is especially important in that it comes from one of the major U.S. professional trade journals for agricultural research — not known as a bastion of progressive thinking on alternative agriculture.

-jsq