ORGANIC AGRICULTURE
by Dr. Lawrence Wilson
© November 2020, LD
Wilson Consultants, Inc.
All information in this article is solely the opinion of
the author and for educational purposes only. It is not for the diagnosis, treatment, prescription or cure
of any disease or health condition.
Contents
Definitions
Four Levels Of Organic Food
Why Organic Agriculture?
II. BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ORGANIC
FOOD MOVEMENT
III. MORE DETAILS ABOUT THE GREEN
REVOLUTION
GMOs
Food Irradiation
Frozen Food
****************************
NOTE: To do justice to the subject of
organic agriculture would require over a million pages explaining the theory,
practice, problems, politics and thorough documentation. This is available through other
publications. This article is
designed as a brief introduction.
Definition of organic agriculture. A
general definition is that organic agriculture is the raising of crops and farm
animals without the use of toxic chemicals. The chemicals include pesticides and insecticides used on
the soil. It usually also includes
toxic chemicals used to raise livestock such as medical drugs such as hormones,
antibiotics, and other drugs.
Other definitions. Different organic food certifying agencies
have very precise legal definitions of organic agriculture. Certain chemicals and farm practices
are permited, while others are not.
A separate article contains definitions for many
other words used in connection with modern agriculture, Definitions
In Agriculture.
Terms. People are use
various words to refer to improved agriculture. Among these are:
Sustainable agriculture
Eco-agriculture
Regenerative agriculture
Organic agriculture
Biodynamic agriculture
These terms roughly mean agriculture that does not
destroy the soil and that produce food without the use of toxic chemicals. Some of the terms have legal meanings.
Organic certification. A
number of organizations, including the US Department of Agriculture, offer
organic food certification.
Usually, farmers pay a fee and the certifying agency inspects the farm.
If it meets their criteria, they can display a certification logo on their
products.
This system is okay, but has some problems. Getting certified is costly and it is
really difficult for any certifying agency to check carefully to prevent
cheating by the farmer. These are
the problems with organic certification.
Warning. Organic
standards have been lowered in the United States and around the world due to
pressure by large growers who say they must use some pesticides, at times, to
maintain their crops.
We think this is just cheating, but they
have succeeded in lowering the organic standards to allow some use of chemical
pesticides on supposedly organic food.
This has resulted in several levels of ÒorganicÓ food:
LEVELS OF ORGANIC FOOD
1. Commercial organic. This is the organic food found in
supermarkets and in most health food stores. It is heavily dependent upon the use of superphosphate
fertilizers or N-P-K soil amendments to increase the yields. It does produce inexpensive food,
however.
The Brix level of this
food is between 3 and 10, as a general rule. We consider this poor to medium-quality food because we are
aware of development science and we know we can increase the Brix further.
What is Brix? Brix is a quick and simple measure of the total sugars and
amino acids, mainly, of a plant leaf.
You can buy a simple refractometer and make
the measurement yourself. Leaf
solids are mainly minerals and sugars the plant makes by photosynthesis. The Brix
reading is considered a rough measure of photosynthesis and therefore a measure
of the health of a plant.
For comparison, the Brix
level of chemically-grown vegetables and fruit is
about 2 or 3. These plants require
fertilizers and pesticides to survive.
A brix level of 12 or over is considered good
and the food usually does not require pesticides to survive. Bugs tend to leave it alone.
2. Local farmers market organic food. This food is often better and found in
some health food stores and at some farmerÕs markets if the farm is organic.
The Brix
level for this food is between 12 and about 20. This is definitely better food for your health and for the farmerÕs
family and others who must work with the soil. Most of the time, it does not require chemical pesticides to
control insects and other pests.
They are simply not attracted to these plants as much and the small
amount of losses to insects do not interfere much with the output of the farm.
3. Biodynamic organic agriculture. This is the Rudolf Steiner method of
agriculture. It is superior in
that it does not use N-P-K or superphosphate fertilizers, which are basically
growth stimulants and which damage the soil. Yields tend to be a little lower, so this food is usually
more costly.
The Brix level of this
food is usually high, roughly 18 to 22 or 23. The reason is that without chemical pesticides and without
N-P-K additives, if the soil is not very good, little will grow.
4. Development organic. Some day in the future we hope to have
a type of organic food specifically designed to promote development. It will require improving the soil using the development
method. For details, read The Development Method Of Agriculture.
WHY ORGANIC AGRICULTURE?
The impact of twentieth
century changes in agriculture on our health is at least as profound as the
effects of such inventions as cars, television and computers. This article explains why our food today is far less nutritious, far more toxic with pesticides, insecticides and
other agricultural chemicals, and the soil is also much less healthy. The organic agriculture movement is a response
to this destruction of our soils and food supply.
REASONS FOR THE NEED FOR ORGANIC AGRICULTURE ARE:
1. To stop horrendous pollution of the
soil, water and air of the entire planet with toxic pesticides, insecticides
and other agricultural chemicals. This pollution is affecting the soil, livestock, wildlife,
fish and the oceans, as well as human life on planet earth.
Polluting chemicals are not only
the synthetic insecticides, but also the N-P-K chemical fertilizers.
2. To be able to feed more people on earth. Oddly, chemical or bio-tech
agriculture is promoted as the way the feed more people on earth. However, the promise of bio-tech and chemical agriculture is fading.
Bugs that eat the crops are becoming more resistant
to agricultural chemicals. Also,
repeated application of chemicals is destroying the soil. This is causing a reduction in the crop
yields, even with the use of N-P-K and other growth stimulants.
A key principle is that pests leave healthy food
alone. This is known in agriculture
and is not open to debate.
A related principle is that the ÒjobÓ or role of
agricultural pests – bacteria, viruses, fungi, insects, grasshoppers and
many others – is to remove and destroy weak, sick plants.
(This is completely analogous to the principle that
disease germs do not attack healthy human bodies.)
In agriculture, if one does not want these
creatures to destroy oneÕs food crops, then one must improve the quality of the
plants. To do this, one needs
organic agriculture to restore the soil, produce healthy crops and keep crop
yields high by reducing losses to pests and plant diseases.
3. To improve the nutritional quality of our food
and thus improve human and livestock health. Quality food is required
for excellent health and organic agriculture is the only way to produce it.
Organic food tends to have much higher levels of
vital nutrients than commercially grown food. This is well-documented, although
some still claim it is not true.
The food is also much less toxic because it does
not contain the residue of farm chemicals. This has also been well-documented and makes good sense. Never believe anyone who says there is
no difference between organic and non-organic food!
4. To save the topsoils
of the planet. This is a very serious problem
worldwide. Our lives literally
depend upon the first 12-24 inches of topsoil upon which all plants and grasses
live.
Standard Ògreen revolutionÓ agriculture always
leads to soil erosion and destruction of farmland. This occurs because toxic chemicals and other foolish
farming practices kill soil microorganisms that keep the soil aerated and give
the soil structure. Without
them, the soil more easily dries out and loses its structure. Then when it rains or the wind blows,
the topsoil washes away or blows away.
Organic agriculture methods produce soil that is
more drought-resistant, more freeze-resistant and more wind-resistant. For example, organic farming methods
tend to make the soil more porous, so that when it rains it absorbs a lot more
water. This helps reduce water
runoff, flooding, and topsoil erosion.
Organic agriculture also produces plants higher in
sugars that move from the plants to the soil. It makes the soil more hygroscopic, which means able to hold more
water. This helps prevent runoff
and erosion. Soil that is higher
in sugar also has a lower freezing point, which helps keep crops alive in cold
areas.
5. To improve the health of farmers, their families
and others who work in the agricultural industry.
Farming areas have become among the most toxic and unhealthy areas to
live and work thanks to chemical agriculture. This needs to change if we want a healthy agricultural
sector of the economy.
Agricultural workers includes migrant workers who
pick crops, those who work in the food processing, transport, storage and other
areas of the agricultural sector of the economy.
6. To improve and protect the health of all
wildlife on earth. Residues of toxic agricultural chemicals find their
way into the ocean and all water supplies of the earth. They have decimated species of birds,
bees, bugs, fish and every other life form on earth. This needs to stop!
7. Other. Organic agriculture is the only way to
restore harmony and balance to planet earth. Spreading toxic chemicals has the opposite effect on the
planet.
Organic agriculture is also the only way to
maintain topsoil that is rich in humus and other compounds that absorb
radiation much better from nuclear disasters such as occurred at the Fukushima
nuclear reactor in Japan.
What about organic agriculture for fighting climate
change? The earthÕs atmosphere is hit by meteors,
comets, asteroids and space debris day and night. Without help, any of these impacts
could knock the orbit of the earth out of balance. This would quickly freeze or burn up the planet. Without continuous correction, the
planet would not last a month.
The truth is the earthÕs climate is carefully
controlled by large fine matter beings (see the article Bodies
In Space ).
They continuously correct the earthÕs distance from the sun and the
speed of earthÕs rotation to maintain the climate for all the plants and
creatures of earth. For details,
read Climate Change.
II. BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ORGANIC/
SUSTAINABLE/REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE MOVEMENTS
DESTRUCTIVE FARMING METHODS
In
most of the world, agriculture is done poorly and often stupidly. Often, farmers mix a little chemicals
and fertilizers into their soil, plant seeds and hope for the best. Many times the crops do not grow well
and/or plant diseases or pests arrive and the result is a poor quality harvest. As a result, starvation is still a
major problem on earth, although it is probably less prevalent than in past
centuries.
Soil mining. In nations where there is a lot of land, farmers often plant
crops for a number of years until the soil becomes depleted. Then they abandon
the land and move on to a new area with more fertile soil. This is the least costly method of
farming. However, it leaves a
trail of deserts, and causes massive soil erosion, dust bowls and other problems.
AGRICULTURE IS A SCIENCE
In
fact, the only way to avoid the mistakes above is to realize that agriculture
is a science and one must do it right or it does not work well. Whim is not a good way to proceed, just
as whim is not a good way to decide what to eat or how to do most things.
THE GREEN REVOLUTION
The
so-called Green
Revolution was and is the application of modern chemical science to
agriculture. It began in the late
1800s and early 1900s with the discovery of superphosphate fertilizers. These are chemical fertilizers that
stimulate plant growth and can increase crop yields. They are combination of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium
compounds, for which reason they are also called N-P-K fertilizers.
Using these new chemicals,
food production increased up to 10 fold.
This was hailed as a great revolution in agriculture that would end
world starvation and help the farming sector of the economy by allowing farmers
to grow much more food.
Superphosphate problems. Unfortunately, superphosphates harm the structure and life
forms in the soil. They also harm
plants, making them much more yin in macrobiotic terms.
Also, while the crops are
higher in carbohydrate, they are lower in protein. They are also much lower in minerals because farmers rarely
put back on the soil the same amount of minerals as they remove with their superphosphate-fertilized
plants.
The result of these problems
is much less healthy plants, much less healthy animals and people who consume
the plants. This is our situation
today and the reason the development diet requires so many vegetables to
restore health and cause development.
For details, read Superphosphates.
MECHANIZATION
At about the same time that
superphosphate fertilizers were invented, motorized tractors and other
motorized farm implements became available. This made it possible for one man to farm a much larger area
than in the past.
This helped gave rise to
mega-farms that depend on the use of a lot of mechanized equipment. This led to lower prices for food and
put a lot of old-style family farms out of business because they could not
compete with the new mega-farms.
The new equipment and
superphosphates also gave rise to large-scale monocrop
farming. This means raising just
one crop in a field because the crop is suited to tilling and harvesting by a
large machine. It is basically
mass production of food.
PESTICIDES
Those who favored the green
revolution said that the sick crops were not an insurmountable problem. They used the new science of chemistry
to invent a whole series of chemicals that kill worms, bugs, parasites,
bacteria, fungi and the other things that were starting to infect plants grown
with superphosphates.
At the same time, the
pharmaceutical industry was growing and inventing drugs to take care of the
diseases that the superphosphate-fertilized food was causing in livestock and
human beings. This, too, is our
situation today.
Billions of pounds of toxic
chemicals are used on farms, ranches and in the medical offices in an attempt
to counteract the harm done by eating food fertilized with superphosphate
fertilizers.
AGRIBUSINESS
It is
important to understand who owns and operates the agricultural system of most
nations today. In fact, a few
enormous companies own or control most of the farmland in many nations.
In the early part of the
twentieth century, large companies began moving into the agricultural
sector. Today, just a few such as
Cargill, ADM, Monsanto and very few others own or control vast amounts of
farmland. They have huge,
expensive farm machinery and use the latest scientific methods to increase crop
yields.
They also have powerful and
well-funded lobbyists in Washington, DC and the capitols of most other nations
that protect their interests from competition. While they do respond to the buying habits of the population,
they have corrupted the organic standards in some nations, and have infiltrated
many farming organizations to make sure they do not interfere with their
business.
Most of
these companies own the entire food chain. This means they produce fertilizers and pesticides. They also own seed companies and may
patent seeds. They may also
control aspects of the food distribution system of a nation, as well. These very large and vertically
integrated companies are called agribusiness.
The advent
of agribusiness has been a mixed blessing. While they do not tend to grow the best quality food, at
least they do not allow farmland to just blow away in the wind, which was often
the case in earlier times when people who did not know enough or did not care
enough about the land ruined it with improper farming practices. The agribusiness companies look at
their land as an investment and one they do not want to ruin.
BIOTECH
One of the
big projects of the agribusiness companies is to breed and design crops that
better match the needs of these companies, and yet will be popular among the
people to whom they sell food.
They have large laboratories where they breed plants and, in some nations
such as the USA, they also do gene splicing to create new GMO (genetically
modified organisms) plants.
Enhanced
nutrition is rarely on their list of traits that they wish to improve with
their hybrid and GMO crops.
Instead, they are usually interested in hardier varieties that can live
on todayÕs depleted soils, withstand insect attack and toxic chemicals, last
longer on the supermarket shelf and be cheaper to produce. As a result, we believe biotech is a
negative force in agriculture and in the world.
THE BIRTH OF ORGANIC AGRICULTURE
The trends
in agriculture at the start of the twentieth century caught the attention of a
number of prominent agricultural scientists. One of them was Dr. William Albrecht at the University Of
Missouri. Another was Sir Albert
Howard, and there were others.
These scientists saw clearly
that the green revolution was a trap that was slowly ruining the farmland and
ruining the health of the crops, the farm animals, and the people who eat the
food. They sounded the alarm and
what is called the organic food movement began as the response to the green
revolution.
Today, organic agriculture is fastest growing sectors of
the food market in America and some other nations.
III. MORE DETAILS ABOUT THE GREEN
REVOLUTION
The Ôgreen revolutionÕ succeeded in
drastically increasing the amount of food grown. The green revolution also succeeded in increasing the
efficiency of farming, if that is measured in human labor required to grow
food. It also succeeded in
reducing human drudgery - the hard, relentless manual labor required for
non-mechanized farming.
However,
not all changes have been positive.
Modern agriculture requires huge investments in machinery, fuel,
chemical sprays and fertilizers.
Other difficulties and costs to society may be far greater.
Chemical Poisoning. The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency considers pesticide poisoning the worst environmental problem in the
world. Pesticides have
contaminated almost all water supplies in most nations, decimated dozens of
animal species, and polluted every aspect of our environment. Most are cumulative poisons and
carcinogenic. Cumulative means
they do not leave the body and they just build up more and more.
The
American Cancer Society estimates that 85% of cancers are environmentally
caused. The cost of this epidemic
is enormous. Some pesticides cause
genetic damage similar to the effects of atomic fallout. This may contribute to a doubling of
the birth defect rate in America since 1950.
Other pesticides mimic
estrogen, which may contribute to many cancers and other health problems. By killing soil microorganisms,
herbicides and pesticides contribute to massive soil erosion and loss of
precious topsoil around the world, even creating deserts in some areas.
Nutritional
Depletion. Few people realize
how devastating chemical agriculture has been to the nutrient content of our
food. The average supermarket
apple or tomato today bears little resemblance to one grown 100 years ago. This was the subject of a book written
in the 1980's called Food
For Naught, The Decline in Nutrition by Ross Hume Hall. A more recent book on the same subject
is Empty Harvest
(1995) by Bernard Jensen and Mark Anderson.
According
to the USDA, the calcium content of an apple has declined from 13.5 mg in 1914 to
7 mg in 1992. The iron content has
declined from 4.6 mg in 1914 to 0.18 mg in 1992. Some nutrition books written 50 or 60 years ago simply do
not apply to today's food.
For
example, some people think they can live comfortably on the protein in pasta or
other wheat products because they read this in books. However, today's wheat has about half the protein content of
wheat grown just 80 years ago. The use of
pesticides and stimulant fertilizers has allowed poor-quality crops that would
otherwise have been destroyed by pests to make it to market.
Mass
production of chicken, beef, pork and other products often results in unhealthy
animals who receive over half the antibiotics used in
America. Residues of these and
other drugs used in food production find their way into our meat, eggs, and
dairy products.
A study
published in the Journal
of Applied Nutrition, Vol. 45, #1, 1993, pp. 35-39 compared the nutrient
content of supermarket food versus organically grown food from food stores in
the Chicago area. The organic
produce averaged twice the mineral content of the supermarket food! Fortunately, the organic food industry
is growing rapidly, as the truth about our nutritionally-depleted
food becomes more widely known.
Health
Disasters and even more world starvation. Along with the green revolution has come "the diseases
of civilization". Authorities
are realizing that costly epidemics of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, AIDS,
mental illness and even violence are related to the nutritional content of the
food, and toxic substances in the food, water and air. Also, the advent of agribusiness has
upset the social fabric of many traditional societies. Many can no longer feed themselves and
their land has often been sold out from under them to large companies that ruin
the land and ship the crops back to America and Europe while the local people
do not have enough to eat.
Social
Displacement. Factory farming
has also forced millions of people off their land and into the cities seeking
work. Life on the farm was not
easy, but living on the land provided a source of security, and a far healthier
environment than many city environments.
Some people today cannot even
afford the food that is grown on what was their land. Living on the land has been replaced by
ghetto tenements in many nations including America.
This is
not a total indictment of factory farming and agribusiness. However, it is important to understand
that any movement or revolution of this magnitude and nature, as has occurred
in agriculture just in the past 50 to 100 years, has had far reaching
consequences in many nations on the globe.
If one wishes to evaluate the
green revolution, one must consider all of these consequences, and it is a very
complex picture.
TWO TRENDS
On one hand, the green
revolution continues in full swing, with newer technologies to produce more and
cheaper food. Genetically
engineered foods and food irradiation are two of the newer technologies. New drugs are developed to handle the
new plant, animal and human diseases that result from consuming the chemically-grown foods.
The other
trend is the growth of organic, sustainable, or ecological agriculture, the
environmental movement, the locally grown movement, land trusts, and seed
banking. Sometimes we feel it is a
race to see which will win.
Of course, the answer is the
organic movement, as it is the more sustainable and it is what the people
want. However, the Òfood
scientistsÓ keep trying to come up with newer seeds and plants that can
withstand more pesticides and can grow in more depleted soils.
The food is a mix, therefore,
of old technology and new. As a
result, you never know what you will get these days in the supermarkets or even
the health food stores. This is
just one problem with todayÕs food.
GENETICALLY ENGINEERED (GE or GMO) FOODS
Genetic
engineering involves adding, deleting or changing specific genes in a plant to
produce certain qualities in the plant.
Crops have always been crossbred to produce tastier, hardier, more
nutritious varieties of food.
Indeed, our present foods were bred from wild plants by generations of
farmers who carefully picked the best of their crop to produce the next year's
crop.
The new
genetic methods, however, are more invasive, and for the first time companies
are patenting their new varieties to give them control over who grows the
crops. They are also, for the
first time, combining the genes of pigs or fish with those of plants. This is radical new technology –
and very unproven in its long-term effects.
There are
serious problems with GMOs. For example, some GMO plants make their own toxic
pesticides. In a recent incident,
Bt corn, bred to produce a pesticide to kill corn borers, also killed monarch butterflies
that ate the pollen. It won't kill
humans outright, but what are the health effects? Thirty percent of the corn grown in America in 1999 was
genetically engineered Bt corn.
Roundup
Ready soybeans are bred to withstand more of the pesticide called Roundup. This means more pesticide can be
sprayed. This is excellent for the
pesticide producer. However, what
does the pesticide do to our bodies, water supplies, wildlife, and soil
microorganisms?
Another
controversial area of GMOs is called "terminator
genes". These are genes that
are added to the plant so that it will not reproduce. This way, the farmer must buy new patented
seeds from the company each year, instead of saving seeds for next year, a
common practice especially in poorer nations. In summary, there are potential benefits of GMO science,
such as improved drought-resistance or nutrition of crops. In practice, however, the focus of GMOs is often on greater production and continued
dependence on chemical methods of agriculture.
Most
European nations, where more small farms remain, prohibit the importation of
GMO foods or seeds. America is
somewhat behind in this area, though resistance to GMO technology is
growing. Americans tend to embrace
new technology more readily, and in America chemical companies have more
influence.
Most likely, GMO foods should
be banned, as we simply donÕt know enough about its long-term effects. As a first step, there is a campaign to
insist on labeling of genetically engineered foods. This is the only way people will have a choice regarding what
they are eating. Time will tell if
any of the GMO foods are really better foods for our health.
FOOD IRRADIATION
As food is
grown and shipped globally, avoiding spoilage is of great importance. Food grown with pesticides and chemical
fertilizers often does not keep as well as the older, hardier varieties. This has spawned interest in newer
methods of food preservation.
Irradiation of plant and
animal products kills bacteria that can cause spoilage. Problems with food irradiation are the
danger of damaging sensitive components of the food, harm to workers, and
disposing of spent radioactive material.
Ionizing radiation is very harmful to living matter. Also, food that spoils easily is often
of lesser quality. Preserving it
with irradiation to make it edible does not make it healthful to eat. The nutritional and vitality of the
food take a back seat to the desires of the processors to avoid spoilage.
Irradiated
food in America is supposed to be labeled, although processed food often contains
irradiated ingredients that are not labeled. Labeling of GMO foods and irradiated food is a critical
issue so that people have a choice.
We believe irradiated food
should be outlawed completely, as it is a method of food processing that just
further reduces the nutritional and safety of our food, even if it kills
harmful germs.
MAP OR MODIFIED ATMOSPHERIC PACKAGING OF
ORGANIC PRODUCE
Another newer insult to the food supply –
including food that is labeled organic - is called MAP. It is the spraying of produce
– fruits and some vegetables, too – with various ÔnaturalÕ
chemicals to preserve the food.
This puts a sort of bio-film on the surface of the fruit that helps
retard spoilage.
As a result of this technology, food can be grown
in China or India, for example, and shipped to the United States on a
slow-moving boat. The trip takes
two weeks, at times, and the food is miraculously still fresh-looking. This outsourcing of our agriculture is
great for China, and very bad for our health and for our farmers.
Problems with this technology are that food begins to lose some of its nutrients as soon as it is picked,
so Òpreserving itÓ with MAP, while it may not spoil, it
still loses nutrients.
Also, the chemicals used to create the bio-film or atmospheric
packaging, as it is euphemistically called, are often slightly toxic. They can cause allergic reactions, and
often there are outbreaks of disease because the food is not clean and fresh,
even if it looks like it.
We oppose all MAP technology at this time, as we do
not think it is necessary or helpful for our health. Yes, it makes for slightly cheaper food grown in China, but
the unintended consequences or Ôside effectsÕ of ingesting many unknown and odd
chemicals is not worth it. At
least, it should be absolutely labeled with any chemicals that are sprayed on
it, even if they are ÒnaturalÓ.
Here is a link to a longer article on this subject:
Frozen food. We recently found that frozen food is
not helpful for development. We
are not sure why this is so. One
possible reason is that frozen food companies are allowed to spray the food
with various chemicals such as EDTA to preserve the color of the food. Unfortunately, EDTA binds up minerals
in the food to prevent ÒtarnishingÓ and thus preserve the color. This definitely damages the food. So please avoid most frozen food.
An
exception is frozen meats. These
seem to be fine for health and development.
LAND TRUSTS
Land
trusts are companies that buy land or receive donations of land and they agree
to preserve the land as farmland.
The trusts have strict rules for the land use to prevent its use for
parking lots and shopping centers, for example.
Though still a small
movement, land trusts now exist in every part of America. They are helping to save farmland,
wildlife habitats and old-growth forests from destruction.
SEED BANKS
As new
hybrid plants are used more widely, some of the older seed varieties are in
danger of being lost. Several groups
have taken on the task of saving and banking precious seeds. They could be
useful or even life-saving if weather changes or new crop diseases destroy the
hybrid or GMO plants.
Also, the genetic material in
the older seeds may be needed at some time to enhance our crops. For research and for disaster
preparedness, the movement to save traditional seed varieties is an important
trend.
LOCALLY GROWN
More small
farmers are finding a niche catering to the needs of their local
communities. Farmers markets and
local buying clubs help address the problem of the loss of the family
farm. Communities are reaping the
benefits of supporting local farmers by getting fresher and often better
quality produce, meat, eggs and other foods.
Often the local farmers grow
food organically, helping preserve the land, the wildlife and the local
environment. The locally grown
movement also fosters a greater sense of community and contributes to local
self-sufficiency and sovereignty.
However,
do not be misled into thinking that locally grown food is always best. This is not always true. It may well be the freshest, but
sometimes a farm far away is able to produce better quality food.
CONCLUSION
It is possible to use a
combination of ancient and modern technology wisely to produce pure,
nutritionally superior high-Brix food without
damaging the environment. This is
the challenge for agriculture in the 21st century and it is the essence of
organic, regenerative or sustainable agriculture movements. Let us pray that this movement survives
and thrives.
Resources
1. Organic Agriculture magazines. These are excellent and include The StockmanÕs
Grass Farmer, Countryside, Mother Earth News and others.
2. www.thecampaign.org
(excellent site for labeling of genetically engineered food.
3. Bergner, P., The Healing Power of Minerals, Special Nutrients
and Trace Elements, Prima Publishing, CA, 1997.
4. Hall, R., Food For Naught, The Decline in Nutrition,
Keats Publishing, New Canaan, CT, 1979.
5. Price, W., Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, La Mesa, CA. 1945, 1970.
6. J. Applied Nut.,
1993, 45:1, pp. 35-39. (study of the mineral content of organic versus commercial
food in the Chicago area)
7. Wilson, L., Development Science And Development programs,
LD Wilson Consultants, Inc., 2019.
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