Well, I can understand his line of thinking, especially in older folks or those from some other countries that don't havve the ready access to chemicals.

We all remember the stories of the Depression, plagues of insects, diseases destroying entire crops and lean times from older people. Chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides have been very successful in producing large harvests and more successful harvests in western, richer countries in modern times. Not many of us have seen empty grocery stores like the old days or poorer countries that can't afford the chemicals.

While I don't want to have many chems in my food, I also understand that a belly full of food grown with chemicals is a hell of a lot better than an empty belly. Some don't have the choice of just popping over the the supermarket if their crops or gardens fail.

if he spent 300,000 on chems in his lifetime, he's got a biiiig patch of land under cultivation - don't be suprised tho' at the fact that most food is/has been chemically grown for decades, the scale of industrial agriculture that's evolved to supply all the inmates of the vast apartment complexes in N America demands it

wiser folks will grow as much of their own food as possible and get the rest direct from local growers they can get to know and trust

Bill

I find the farmer's attitude very disturbing. Maybe the whole world could never be reliably fed by completely organic means, I don't know. But I would hope non-organic farmers would have a more intelligent attitude.

I've met older people who use every chemical they can find, sometimes not for the intended purposes (I'm speaking generally, not just about gardening) and if you suggest that it's maybe not a good idea they shrug and smile and say "it hasn't killed me yet". I can't help wondering how much of what they've done has contributed to things like ADHD, asthma, allergies, infertility, etc. I mean I've spoken to so many people of my generation who say "when I was at school a handful of kids had asthma, now it's half the kids in each class". Sure seems to me like something's gotten out of balance.

I know a lot of farmers (most are fruit and veggie growers), and the great majority of them don't like to spray any more than necessary. Basically, each spray they have to apply cuts into their profit, and the smart ones realize this. So they're relying on scouting and disease and insect models to help figure out if a spray is warranted.

I tend to take more of a sustainable approach, simply because I really don't believe we can feed the world with organic farming; not yet, anyway. Besides, I've seen first hand just how much fossil fuels it takes to control weeds in organic fields, and that's definitely not sustainable and very earth friendly.

I do think that non-organic chemicals are becoming safer, and I also think that we're taking great strides towards reducing pesticide applications.

shellva: I sympathize. I know the feeling. My then-wife laughed at me thirty years ago when I started gardening organically. Today it is a multi-billion dollar business.

hamiltongardener: I agree. I've had my fruit trees and veggies fail from time to time. But each time I learn more about why it happened and what to do about it.

I am encouraged by several things.

From a successful harvest viewpoint, "to use" or "not to use" is not necessarily an all-or-nothing choice. There are shades of grey in there. For example, I use lime-sulfur spray to control fungi such as peach leaf curl because it is the least toxic effective control. Even though lime-sulfur is OMRI listed, it is considered a heavy duty organic spray. So I am very careful with it and use it only in the orchard and only as a dormant spray. I'm not suggesting that we cheat on organic principles. I am saying that if the hobbyist or the professional farmer sees imminent doom for a crop, then saving the farm warrants the use of something stronger than garlic interplanting. One does what one has to do in an emergency. If a terabazillion locusts all of sudden descended upon California's central valley, I think one would be hard pressed to find an organic soul who would object to the growers' hauling out the big guns.

From an emergency viewpoint, we are not facing the emergencies of 70 years ago. We are confronted today with several problems that are on slow creep toward emergencies: Pollution of everything and not just soil or water. In addition to the usual suspects of air pollution there's now GM pollen in the air. Nobody today knows what this may engender. There's the slow guileful acquisition of the planet's remaining fertile land by global corporations. I feel more food challenged with a board of directors (who never turned a shovel in their life) calling the shots than with a million moms and pops trying to grow healthy food. There's the co-opting of the federal government's agencys by the corporations. The EPA has been emasculated. Nobody's heard a word from the anti-trust division of the Justice Department in twenty-five years. The USDA and the FDA can't prevent Chinese poison from entering our livestock and pet food. And on and on. It's death by a thousand cuts that's confronting us today. Not locusts.

From a pest control viewpoint, there are so many more organic tools available today than there were in the '30s. I quote from Peaceful Valley's website:

"Natural pest control is available and it is effective. New products are constantly being developed to provide non-toxic, low impact alternatives to organic gardeners... There are beneficial insects, botanical insecticides, biological insecticides (beneficial insects at the microscopic level where bacteria and fungi combat pests), barriers, suffocates, minerals, pheromone lures, traps and more."

From a fertilizer viewpoint, organic practices will not make us vulnerable to empty bellies. Indeed, organic practices will keep us from empty bellies. Tasteless and nutritionless produce in the supermarket is a result of several factors one of which is soil depletion. The use of sythesized chemicals will relatively quickly lead to the nutrient being leached out of the soil (into the water many of us drink) leaving depleted potential dust in its wake. This is soil depletion. Putting organic matter back into our soil makes it more fertile in both the short term and long term. Our prospects for bountiful nutrition are far better with organic practices than they are with chemicals.

So take heart. There's lots of choices out there. The days of being limited to a choice bewteen DDT or baking soda are long gone.

And by the way, organic bee keepers are not experiencing Colony Collapse Disorder.

juniorpilot

These are the words of a tomato farmer to an Agricultural Extension Officer, "When you can grow tomatoes to mind yo'self an' fam'ly, an' pay you' house loan, come back an' we can talk about growing tomatoes". End of conversation. You and I can try this plant or that and if we cannot get it to do our will, we can throw it out. The farmer who has tended his apple or pear tree in order earn part of his income from its produce does not have this luxury of choice. He has to load the die in his favor any and every way he can. There is all this knowledge and points of view out there and essentially the farmer is struggling against daunting odds to eke out a life style that I can best describe as 'organised drudgery'. My own formula for breaking this cycle is to speed up the natural cycles - the hydrological cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the carbon cycle etc. The scientist, the horticulturist, the homeowner can all dabble at these but it will take the will of "Wall Street" with its conglomerate of "Big Business", "Savvy Brokers" and "Deep-Pocket Bankers" to bring science to practice. We should be their allies.
A pleasant and thoughtful Sunday to each!
Ron.

Just because someone has been raising crops, conventionally, for years, doesn't mean they know or care a lot about horticulture. They might know the land and the cycles intimately, and have an open and experimantal bent of mind, or they might simply be an unquestioning automaton.

This guy might know and care about as much regarding horticulture as a screen-door factory worker knows of woodworking.

When petroleum gets high (we ain't seen nothin' yet) pesticides, chemical fertilizers, fuel to farm and to haul all sorts of things to and from the farm, will come under reassessment. We will see a necessary move toward organics and more labor intensive farming.

This will likely lead eventually to a break up of many large farms into smaller family farms. I hope this break up doesn't require too much share-cropping in the transition.

Backyard gardening will be a necessity for most people.

Also, I think people, weather farmers or Joe Citizen, vary widely in being in touch with issues, the land, and really everything. In all walks some people are with it and some people are without it, and most are in between. In all walks there are brilliant people and dull.

It may not be in the cards for the world to be able to feed 8 billion or more people regardless of farming and fishing methods used. That's not even counting any effects of Global Warming.

There are limits.

rangier

Got that right.

The guy may have sensed that you're an organic proponent and tried to get you riled ( I know folks that would do the exact same to you).

Chemicals cost money. Crop loss costs more. I'm sure that he balances those factors based on costs and crop prices, but there are enough that just spray-spray spray on a regular schedule.

I find it very sad and pretty darn scary. People are so resistant to change and if that's the way their father/mother/aunt/uncle, etc. did it then it seems good enough for them. In talking with several gardeners in the area, they insist that it is not possible to produce a harvest without chemicals. They do not even consider the possibility. I have found that it takes establishing a relationship and then presenting facts or proof, via harvest, to get them to open up to the benefit of organic gardening/farming.
One to one, and one at a time. . .
Do we have that much time???

I do not know that the comments I posted should rile anyone but just in case it did, please accept my apologies. I was trying to highlight the motive behind the farmer's attitude towards change. He is operating a special type of business but it is a business all the same. It must pay rent, wages, interest and profit/dividend like any other business; additionally, the land must maintain its productivity. I do not know of any other business that is burdened with a fifth factor of production. The farmer is at the mercy of the weather like no other businessman is. There is the "Extension" service which seeks to bring the findings of research to the farmer and the true story I related illustrates the farmer's attitude. Indeed, a feature of the more progressive services is the "Demonstration Farm" where the Extension Officers live and work and eat off the type of farming they are trying to teach. These programs struggle to recruit enough people to make serious inroads. Apparently there are not many graduates who are convinced of the benefits of their own learning.

Five factors of production. Hence the corn and soybean subsidy, so as to guarantee a supply. And a tacit admission that expecting big profits from the land isn't in accord with reality.

I do not know enough about farm subsidies to continue an objective exchange of views along that line. But I think I can defend the concept of subsidies. Ultimately, the fate of farming depends upon the weather. History shows that death by starvation can and has occured to millions during a year (365 days) of drought. The USA stands out as the single country that has consistently been able to offer relief in the form of grain - usually wheat and corn. This grain is stored in towering silos in the farm belt. This stored grain comes from farms, subsidised or not. The subsidies were most likely decided by politicians who govern with the consent of the governed. And I have a deep conviction that they have to. I believe that the economist Adam Smith may have said that Government must do only those things that the people cannot do for themselves. I believe that some of these things are Police and Fire Protection, roads and other communication........and farm subsidies. I have to believe that there are enough brilliant and dedicated meteorologists out there who are working hard to predict the weather to the extent that we will not have to depend upon the contents of those silos for our daily bread. But if Mother Nature decides otherwise I will be very thankful that they are there.

I'm guessing that some folks simply don't aren't aquainted with agricultural businesses and farming. I've lived around such communities pretty much my entire life, in many locations in the NE and SE. Huge investments in chemical appications are the norm. Absolutely and positively the norm. I have seen some good changes, such as 'no till' farming, but when these people rely on dollars per acre of produce for their living, they have learned to rely on chemicals. Herbicides are the the family of chemicals most used in agriculture today. Unfortunately, many herbicides are extremely damaging to the human body, long and short term.

ronalawn, I thank you for your thoughtful and thought provoking comments!

Attitudes of many people today under 50 years old are formed by seeing adverse affects of what is going on in their world - over population, diseases from chemicals, global warming from greenhouse gases, etc. Attitudes from those over 50 were formed the same way - starvation from crop diseases, starvation from war, oppressive invading nations (World War Two European countries), etc. The younger generation does not live and see first hand what the previous generation went through.
Does that mean we leave it alone and don't change? No. But knowing this helps us understand different attitudes between the generations. Remember how the Baby Boomers during the 60's disdained the life of their parents who wanted to live in a quite suburb and do nothing but have kids, have cook-outs, and live the simple life? It may sound boring if that is what you saw growing up, but if you just came back from war in Europe and people around you were making tough decisions, getting killed, oppression from the Nazis...life in a quite suburb with easily accessible food and easy ways to cook it sounds really good.
That being said, we still need to harness the technology of all these industrial years to come up with something better if modern pesticides and fertilizers are causing increasing harm.

i agree totally with juniorpilot and rangier. i go about my life trying to live in a relatively low-impact way, and then open my eyes once in a while and see that i'm so outnumbered by the high-impact practices of industry and individuals, here and in china and everywhere else. i still do it becasue i wouldn't feel right doing things any other way. but i don't expect the rest of the world to change anymore. and frankly, i think it's too late anyway. everyday we hear that global climate change is happening at a faster rate than previously thought. petroleum running out sooner or later... we AINT seen nothin' yet. i feel worst when i hear my kids innocently talk about what they want in their futures. who can picture what they'll have to deal with? i know, i sound very pessimistic! i'm not trying to spread pessimism or anything. this is just how it looks to me these days. sorry!

hey egganddart,

We all see the same thing, we just don't all see it the same. Global climate change is happening, but not all the effects will be negative, some will be positive and some areas will balance out.

Sure oil is running out and our lifestyles will change, but that's not so bad either. Just think how much less air pollution, and wars will be harder to conduct with less oil for tanks planes and ships.

Our kids will have different choices for their future and careers, just as we had different choices from our parents. Our parents never thought of a career in computers, but we very well could. Perhaps our children will have careers in alternative energy sources like solar or wind. Your kid could be the engineer who discovers the most efficient method of gathering solar energy ever!

Hmm... interesting. I had a conversation some years back with a farming family member, discussing the squash bugs I was dealing with. This farmers reply... "What's a squash bug?" In a lifetime of farming, they had never seen one, because all such things were sprayed into oblivion.

The corn and soybean subsidies (and the towering silos in the midwest) are all about the beef. Americans must have their beef (and the fast-food conglomerates must have their reason for being at a cheap price), and the beef must have it's feed. The feed must be gauranteed by subsidies, because the really big farms can't be counted on to produce at less than cost. Only the family farmer trying to save his generational homestead will do that.

The vagaries of weather have nothing to do with subsidies or corporate ag.

Yup- subsidy is often about NOT producing and paying the farmer in order to maintain low supply to drive up price. If subsidies were not paid to farmers, eventually it would work itself out by a natural selection type process, but there would be some serious suffering lean years until enough dropped out to effect natural price. Then there may be a short rebound effect, and a settling.

Producers are also subsidized to NOT raise pigs etc.- so it's not all about feed.

This year I plan to NOT raise thousands of pigs, or to grow 100's of acres of corn. I should get a subsidy for that. You folks should do likewise- let's get paid for what we're not doing :)