South Bend Tribune, IN
11-07-06
Organic agriculture: From Larchill all the way to Lansing
MICHIANA POINT OF VIEW
MERRILL CLARK
Organic farmers were not well received in the "old days," although that was the
way everyone farmed during the settling of the New World.
In 1951, in an early issue of "Country Gentleman," a not-so-gentlemanly dean of
Kansas State College, stated, "In recent years there has grown up ... a cult of
misguided people who call themselves organic farmers ... who preach a strange
doctrine compounded mainly of superstition and myth, with just enough half-truth,
pseudo science and emotion thrown in to make their statements sound plausible
to the uninformed."
Chemical farming appeared to represent "progress," and non-chemical was just
simply old-time and backward. One of those weird cultists must have been my
mother, for about that time we all moved to a 26-acre farm we called Larchill,
where she eschewed pesticides and synthetic fertilizers in our gardens. She still
fed us a ton of fresh, tasty vegetables, milk and butter from the one cow, and
chicken and eggs from the flock of 300.
If R.I. Throckmorton, the Kansas State dean, were alive today, he might be
regretting his words. "Cultish" organic grains, fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses
and milk are flooding the markets and selling at a growth rate of 15-20 percent a
year. At least three thriving organic markets reside in the Mishawaka/Granger
area, and one more is poised for opening in St. Joseph, Mich., this fall. Some
myth.
Facing problems
In fact, today's agricultural problems seem to be emerging from the conventional
agriculture arena. Synthetic fertilizers are sending nitrates to groundwater
reservoirs and public wells, and pesticides are deforming frogs, getting into rivers
and streams, poisoning wells and contributing to human cancers of all forms.
Today's conventional farming and production materials are even contributing to
the gradual loss of a significant drug utilized for many human bacterial infections,
i.e. antibiotics. Why? Because similar antibiotics are fed to conventional and
confined beef animals and hogs as a way to promote rapid growth in the
unnatural settings in which they spend their entire lives
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reminds folks perusing their Web site that
"these drugs can cause microbes and pathogens within the animals' guts to
become resistant to the same antibiotics that are used in humans."
Cycle of life
Pesticides are also failing in their duty. Their overuse has created insect and
weed resistance all across the United States.
"Atrazine and 2,4-D are no long controlling numerous weeds in parts of
Michigan," stated Steve Gower, weed scientist with Diagnostic Services at
Michigan State University, at a recent meeting in Marcellus. In addition, Roundup
resistance has shown up in Indiana and Ohio with respect to the control of
horseweed (marestail), he stated.
More recently, St. Joseph River water sampling has shown that the herbicide
Atrazine "is often found above the U.S. EPA limit for drinking water" (ARS
National Soil Erosion Laboratory at West Lafayette, Ind.). The village of Coloma
has been fighting a problem with remnant dacthol in its water supply for years.
More than 1,000 cases of insecticide resistance have occurred as well, meaning
simply that several varieties of mosquitoes, leaf rollers, predator mites and more
no longer die when sprayed with insecticides.
Gower hinted in the article that eventually some organic practices might come
into play here, "such as greater use of crop rotation for weed control as well as
mechanical control" ... or just hook up the cultivator.
Research conducted in 12 Corn Belt states (Farmer's Exchange, March 2006)
"showed that reducing the amount of insecticide applied by 25 percent provided
protection against corn rootworm equal to that of the full amount suggested on
the label," reported Iowa State University working in conjunction with the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.
What does it show?
The chemical treadmill, as it poisons the earth and its water, continues to hold
the upper hand. Even with pests and weeds winning out, while beneficial plants
and insects are dying in droves, the chemical assault marches on.
Pollinators, bees and beneficial predators of all kinds which are built-in natural
enemies of the real pests are being severely reduced in numbers. Chemical
pesticides are treated as perfectly "natural" components of agriculture, even with
integrated pest management programs and examples of successful organic or
non-pesticide agriculture occurring all across the country.
So when Throckmorton claims organic farmers are "letting in nasty weeds and
bugs" to ruin conventional farm production, it is in fact the other way around. The
good bugs go and the "bad" bugs thrive during the course of much conventional
crop production.
In the 1960s, Mother read Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," which told about the
death of thousands of robins by chemicals used on campuses to kill the Dutch
elm disease insect borer.
Bodies of dead and dying birds littered the banks of the Red Cedar River flowing
through campus.
Things do change, however. On March 4, the Michigan State University Kellogg
Center, located on the banks of the Red Cedar River, welcomed hundreds of
organic farmers, retailers, farm marketers and MSU professors and scientists to
the Michigan Organic Conference, an event growing every year for the past 15
years.
Mom and Rachel Carson were right. It is an emotional thing to watch the good
Earth die. One can get pretty angry when a scientist, for instance, is denied
access to a conference where he can review detailed research about how and
why the pesticide Atrazine deforms frogs and other amphibians living in wetlands
along treated farm fields in Minnesota.
Anything that adversely affects the land, the food, the water, the air, the health of
little children and animals surely affects every one of us and the future of the
Earth as we know it. This can't possibly be right. Besides, we have all that
knowledge from the misguided cultists of the organic age of yesterday to learn
from. Thanks, Mom, for being one of the first.
Merrill Clark is owner of Roseland Organic Farms, Cassopolis. Clark was a
member of the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Organic Standards Board
from 1992-1996.