Farming organic

The organic movement owes its origin primarily to the work and inspiration of Sir Albert Howard (1931, 1940). Howard was a botanist and plant pathologist who worked in the West Indies, India, and Great Britain. It was in India that he developed the Indore process for the manufacture of compost from vegetables and animal wastes. It was during 

There is no better way to present Howard s views than to quote extensively from his book, entitled An Agricultural Testament, in which he laments the shift from nature s methods of crop production to the newer artificial methods, which he claims lead to the loss of soil fertility. As soil fertility decreases, according to Howard, there follow the many other effects involving increased plant disease and insect damage, poor food quality for animals and man, and a marked deterioration in health. Especially surprising is his severe criticism of agricultural research methods, since he was a botanist engaged in research. Quotations from Howards s book follow. 

Howard states further that the slow poisoning of the life of the soil by artificial manures is one of the greatest calamities which has befallen agriculture and mankind. The responsibility for this disaster must be shared equally by the disciples of Liebig and by the economic system under which we are living. The experiments of the Broadbalk field showed that increased crops could be obtained by the skilful use of chemicals. Industry at once manufactured these manures and organized their sale. 

Government will be to prevent the research workers themselves from creating an organization which will act as a bar to progress. 

It is surprising indeed that a man of Howard s education and experience should have been so unable to evaluate the events of the time, and to have had such a large percentage of his life work discredited. Even his concepts of how agricultural research should be conducted were as much in error as were his ideas on the detrimental effects of chemicals on soil fertility, food quality and human health. 

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Jacques Sorci, the executive chef for the Ritz-Carlton New York, Battery Park, buys small, sweet onions from an organic farm in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, and cooks and pickles them a la gtecque in chicken stock, white wine vinegar, bay leaves and fresh thyme, to serve as a garnish for gibsons at Rise, the hotel s bar.That s so what. 

There must be a waiting period between application and harvesting, and few of these products can be used in organic farming. 

Serenade has low human and environmental toxicity outside the target organisms, is broad spectrum and suitable for organic farming, there is no build up in the soil or groundwater, and it can be applied right up to harvesting. 

Cederberg, C. and Mattsson, B. (2000). Life cycle assessment of milk production—A comparison of conventional and organic farming. /. Cleaner Prod. 8,49-60. 

H. Ferris, R. C. Venette, and S. S. Lau, Dynamics of nematode communities in tomatoes grown in conventional and organic farming. sy.stems, and their impact on soil fertility. Appl. Soil Ecol. 3 161 (1996). 

One purpose of this book is to help the organic farmer define how much milk or meat or cereal he can produce from clay or chalk land, and how this will vary according to temperature, rainfall and altitude. Farmers like to do better than their neighbours, or at least as well, producing more bales of hay per ha for example. But, particularly with organic farming, this is likely to be the case only if the... 

Consumers are also likely to be influenced in their choice of organic products by the knowledge that an increase in organic farming will improve the welfare of farm animals, and that pollution of the rivers and the countryside generally will diminish. 

The monitoring of organic farms in Europe and North America is relatively well-established. However, as Herrmann and Heid (2000) pointed out, several European member states are voicing doubts about the reliability of control mechanisms among groups of small farmers in Latin America, Africa and Asia. 

Despite these successes, the impression is often given, with certain European countries such as Austria in mind, that Britain s record in the expansion of organic farming is a poor one. When the situation in Britain is compared with the USA, however, a different picture emerges, for Americans are seen, on the whole, as even less interested in where and how their food is produced than are Europeans (Clancy, 1997). 

Dabbert, S. (2000) Organic farming and the Common Agricultural Policy A European Perspective. Proceedings of the 13th International IFOAM Scientific Conference, Basel, Switzerland, pp 611-14. 

Murphy, M.C. (1992) Organic Farming as a Business in Great Britain. Agricultural Economics Unit, Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge. 

Organic Farming (1999) Conversion enquiries reach new heights. Organic... 

Table 2.5 Dry matter production on organic farms by site class. ...

Silage- and hay-making are very important components of success on organic farms, not just because good quality silage and hay are critical... 

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