Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I tend to like organic produce myself.  It tends to be fresher and
tastier, though it's often a little spottier -- The fresher and tastier
is just because it's local I'm sure.  Nothing tastes as good as an
almost overripe peach that came right off the tree -- that kind of
peach won't ship because it's too soft.  Sometimes I really miss
Pennsylvania and Georgia where I could get them that ripe.  Here in
Minnesota fresh peaches are a rarity.  I've had organic and non-organic
fresh peaches and could never tell the difference (except for some
Japanese beetle damage on the organic ones).

Thanks for all of your answers -- here's something to ponder.  I get
the general sense that people tend to think that organic growing is
good for the environment, or at least more sustainable than
conventional growing, but I'm not convinced that's the case -- at least
not in industrial organic production (Have you read Michael Pollan's
book Omnivores dilemma? -- if so you know what I'm talking about).  The
most common organic insecticides need to be shipped in from around the
world which obviously uses petroleum.  Certain organic fungicides last
in the soil and can actually build up and inhibit crop growth (copper
sulfate, Sulfur) and certain organic fertilizers aren't sustainable
because they are mined (greensand, rock phosphate, guano).

I won't argue with chemical sensitivity -- some people have it and it
can be pretty darn nasty -- and I hate chemlawn myself -- I do use 2,4
D every few years (an herbicide that kills dandilions, plantain,
thistle -- just about everything but grass)-- but I've seen them apply
the stuff 4X a year -- absolutely nuts.  This stuff combined with 2,4,5
T (a banned substance) were what made up agent orange made famous by
the Vietnam war.

So it looks like I'm arguing against organic -- but really I'm not.  I
think organic is great, but I'm not sure that it is everything that
people think it is.  And the truth is that I would like it to be what
people want it to be ... so I think organic needs to change.  Or maybe
we need a new word for organic....
  

    
there's been a lot of stuff written how 'usda organic' standards
were a sellout, and continue to be watered down/gamed for
industrial farming. as some people here on the well know,
i became a reluctant if fanantical activist to stop the
light brown apple moth eradication program in california...
ANYWAY, the relevent bit here is that the aerial-spray
component of the program consisted of something approved
by the national organic program of the usda --- and contained
mutagens, carcinogens, primary lung skin eye irritants, etc etc.

there has been a huge tension in the community, where
ccof (california coalition of organic farmers) initially
went along with the NOP organic certification --- because
they didnt want their farmers to lose their precious
'organic' certification. yet many folks locally  who
want to buy healthy sustainable food --- dont want to buy
food that was grown locally in the spray zone.

ccof is no longer okay with this spray...and the
poor farmers remain caught in the middle (many didnt
want the spraying either, and had no choice in the decision).

this has been a hugely divisive issue, pitting farmers, farmers
markets, and local produce stores --- against local consumers
and enviro activiists. it has been really sad, because really,
we have all wanted to be on the same side...
  

    
Many of my favorite local farms here use a word other than "organic"
to describe themselves. Our previous vegetable CSA was "biodynamic"
(which is a philosophy of its own. Our new meat CSA is humane,
grass-fed, and hormone free. The farm I can see from my back window is
completely pesticide free (except for the corn, grown in another town)
but does use some synthetic fertilizer. 

I like the word "sustainable". It is probably sustainable for a local
farm to add a little something to balance the soil as they work to get
their crop rotation right. It might be sustainable to give antibiotics
to an individual sick animal. It's not sustainable to do
industrial-scale petroleum-dependent mass production to keep New
England supermarkets supplied with organic produce from Chile all year
round.
  

    
It is for those Chilean farmers, however. The debate becomes one kind
of sustainable versus another: buying local to sustain local farmers
versus buying global to support an improved global economy. There are
strong arguments on both sides.
  

    
That's a subject for a different book, I guess, but there is a body of
evidence to suggest that the globalization of agriculture is actually
destroying local farmers in developing countries and centralizing
production into a small number of wealthy companies. Improving the
global economy is not necessarily a positive development. 

Back to organic gardening, I would like to know Mr. Gillman's opinion
on the use of mineral fines in gardening. There are an increasing
number of claims regarding mineral dusts and the health of plants, but
I wonder if it's actually possible to obtain mineral fines in a
sustainable manner.
  

    
I like Betsy's thoughts on sustainability (and why not?  They are
similar to my own).  Wouldn't it be nice to have a "sustainable"
section in the grocery store?  But I suppose it would eventually be
industrialized the same way that organic food is now.

My opinion on mineral fines in gardening is that:  They may be good or
bad.  What are the fines from and what is the soil type that you're
adding them to?  Much of my research over the last ten years has dealt
with adding various things to the soil to make it better.  Sometimes
what you add does make it better and sometimes it doesn't.  Without
knowing exactly what you're adding and the type of soil your adding it
to I wouldn't hazard a guess.  I will say that adding organic matter,
like compost and mulch, is almost invariably the best thing that you
can do for your soil.

Before I end this e-mail I should answer Angie's question -- I keep
only a small garden near my house -- some strawberries, basil, and
marigolds, that's about it this year -- it has been bigger in the past.
 At work (University of Minnesota) I run an eight acre nursery where
we use both organic and synthetic methods depending on what we're
working on and the needs of the crop.  We grow everything from roses to
amur maackia -- and lots of elms -- we currently have a big project
going on Dutch elm disease. I grew up on a small orchard (about 500 or
so trees -- my dad was a hobby farmer) Over the years we grew peaches,
plums, apples, apricots, and a few other fruits.  We grew both
organically and conventionally.  The organic was mostly when we were
too lazy to spray anything. 

Do you think that the world can grow crops using only organic methods
and still feed its population?
  

    
Bob Geldof did a big famine relief thing back in 1985, and at the end of it
all he came to the conclusion that famine was not an agricultural or
economic problem, but a political problem.  George Harrison did a similar
project in 1971, with similar results.

Nothing has changed.  Decades later, Zimbabwe is in crisis, but it doesn't
have anything to do with a lack of fertilizers or pesticides, never mind
what kinds.

I'm hard pressed to come up with an example of a famine that isn't also
related to a war or a governmental policy.
  

    
Mineral fines? I haven't heard of that before, but looking at it from the
geological side, that sounds like a very slow, gentle way to approach soil
improvement. And it depends entirely on what you're adding to what--what
mineral to what soil. It doesn't sound like something I'd go very far out of
my way to do.
  

    
These folks have an interesting lifestyle - they run an organic,
energy independent , almost completely self-sufficient homestead on 1/5
of an acre in urban Pasadena, CA, and they're aiming to increase
production from 6,000 to  10,000 pounds of food this year: 

http://www.pathtofreedom.com/
http://urbanhomestead.org/journal/

On the one hand it is an awe-inspiring example of what people can do
with a little space (and good weather and lax zoning regulations,
neither of which are the case in my part of New England). But I've
wondered whether this is "sustainable" for another reason: it looks
EXHAUSTING. They have a household with four able-bodied adults, and it
looks like it takes all their time to run the place. 
  

    
I tend to agree that right now famine is mostly a political issue --
but that's because most countries dump huge amounts of synthetic
fertilizers into the soil to stimulate plant growth.  These fertilizers
are made through reacting natural gas with air to create ammonia --
the best way we have right now to take nitrogen out of the air for
feeding plants.  But, it's not sustainable.  It costs natural gas and
coal (the coal is used to create high temperatures and pressure needed
for the reaction to occur).  The limiting factor to the growth of most
plants is the amount of nitrogen in the soil.  In organic gardening the
nitrogen comes from manure or, sometimes, something less sustainable
(like guano which is a special aged manure).  If everyone farmed
organically would we have enough manure to sustain our crops at their
current levels?  It's a big question, and many scientists think that we
can't do it.  If everyone farmed organically it would demand too much
naturally produced nitrogen and so things would slowly crumble.  It's
an interesting conundrum.  Are we now fundamentally unable to farm
organically for all of our food because we have too many people for the
world to sustain with what it can produce naturally?

Betsy,  those were neat links, thanks for including them.  I have
great respect for people who do what those people do -- but like you,
I'm not sure whether I could manage that type of garden -- especially
with a full time job!  I also wonder how much animal feed, compost,
fertilizer, and other outside materials they bring in.  
  

    
I was quite taken, reading the book, with the aphorism, "The dose is the
poison."

Could you elaborate on the thinking behind that?
  

    
So, in essence, sustainability is related to population growth/control.
Then the question becomes which is more important: sustainability of the
population or sustainability of the agriculture?
  

    
Wow, that's a profound question.
  

    
They're tightly linked.
  

    
I'm deep.
  

    
I'm wide.
  

    
While you do mention planting resistant varieties in the context of insects
and diseases, I was a little disappointed not to see that with regard to
deer.  While there aren't varieties of the same species that are more or
less attractive to animals (that I know of, anyway). If you have a choice
in what to plant, you can use daffodils instead of tulips, pine instead of
arborvitae.  Was that because the list of plants that animals usually skip
is sometimes a moving target?
  

    
Yes Lisa, I think that hits the nail on the head.  If we sustain our
population at its current level then we will have a difficult time
sustaining it with organic agriculture.   If we reduce our population
then it won't be so tough to go completely organic.  

Back in the '80s when things were getting crazy in Eastern Europe Cuba
had to shut down most of its fertilizer production.  This shut down
meant that it had switch over to organic methods and so is a good model
for what might happen to the rest of the world if we were to switch
over.  Cubans now eat 1,000 less calories per person than they did
prior to this occurrence, they eat meat only once or twice a week, they
are a net importer of food (though not from the US obviously), all
this and their still using 10-20% of the fertilizer that they once did
-- only now they ship in the fertilizer instead of synthesizing it
themselves.

Back to the book -- Alan you ask about deer -- and I have an answer
for you though it's a little bit of a cop-out.  In The Truth About
Organic Gardening I decided not to overlap too much with my previous
book The Truth About Garden Remedies.  In my first book on page 167 you
will find a list of deer resistant plants, but not nearly as much
about fencing, motion detectors connected to hoses, and the like as
you'll find in my second book.

Finding out what deer will eat is indeed a moving target, and varies
from region to region -- but my primary reason for not including it was
simply that I didn't want my two books to overlap too much.
  

    
If sustaining a food supply for our current population is dependent
onm fossil fuels, then it seems inevitable that our population is going
to go down sooner or later.

On the other hand, cutting 1000 cal/day would probably do most USians
good.
  

    
Jeff, did you get a sense of where organic gardeners tend to look for
information, or how discriminating they are as information consumers?
  

    
ooh, that's a good one. I want to know, too.
  

    
Ah!  I can cartainly understand the decision not to make any significant
part of your book to be a re-run of the first.

Still, for the 2nd edition, maybe you'd consider putting a mention of it
in?  Just a sentence or two, finishing with something like "contact your
local ag extension agent, they probably have a current list of
deer-resistant plants for your area."

Many people who ask me about this problem don't know that there are some
things that the vermin don't like to eat.  It's a heartbreaker for someone
to plant hundreds of spring bulbs (not just the money, but also all the
work) only to find that the squirrels ate everything but the daffodils.  I
had one couple tell me that they'd have been happy to plant nothing but
them, but thought they were getting a good deal and doing a smart thing by
buying a packaged assortment.

Another thing that I get from a lot of people is that they don't even know
that they're allowed to call their local agricultural extension agent with
a question about a single apple tree.  It's a common misconception that
extension agents only advise commercial farmers, but their mandate is to
advise anyone who asks about anything agricultural.

Just like the public library, it's one of those things you pay taxes for,
so if it's something they can help you with (often just by answering the
telephone) you might as well call them!  You'll probably get better advice
than you'll get at the gardening department at the big box store.

So a tip of the hat to you for mentioning that valuable resource often.
It's one of the things I really like about the book.
  

    
Hi Jennifer -- Yes, I would agree that many Americans could remove
1,000 calories from their day and be just fine...but would they want
to?  Organic may involve sacrifices that some people just wouldn't be
able to handle.

Hi Angie,  That is a good question.  Funny I often ask the practices
that organic gardeners/farmers use, but I rarely ask where they find
them.  My sense is that much of their information comes from packages
that pesticides are contained in -- if it says organic it must be good!
 The serious ones also tend to use books and magazines including,
especially, Organic Gardening by Rodale Press.  How discriminating are
they?  Well, it varies widely, but I've found that many people "believe
the hype" that they find on pesticide containers -- hype that may or
may not be true. There is no doubt that recently "organic " pesticides
have been heavily promoted.  We still want our poisons, but now we want
them to be "green".  It would be funny if it weren't so sad.  

Hi Alan -- excellent point, thanks -- and thanks also for your kind
comments about my book.  I'm an extension scientist and I like to
promote the extension service because I believe in what we do.
  

    
I love the extension websites where they allow you to send emails
also.  I had a question once about dogwood trees in East Texas and they
were very good about giving me a detailed explanation of the problem. 

On the 'green' thing. I recently bought a 'green' roach spray. My room
mate was told to only spot spray, please because she was really bad
about using up whole cans of the stuff. The next morning I went
downstairs and was slammed by the smell of mint. Seems one of the main
ingredients is wintermint oil. ack! She hasn't been spraying so much
lately. Man that smell can be bad if it's too intense.
  

    
Now that formerly food crop land is being diverted to fuel crop land, maybe
we should be looking at asking Americans to shave a few miles a day off off
their driving.  It didn't use to be that fuel production would take
anything significant away from food production.

Many Americans could still stand to trim a thousand calories a day from
their diets anyway (myself included), but I thought I'd bring that issue
up, since sustainable energy and sustainable agriculture and feeding the
population are now all linked.