A Push for Organic Farming?

So I'm reading some online articles instead of doing my work - my typical MO this late in the work week and I stumbled across this.

http://www.slate.com/id/2196642/

I'm skeptical that it will catch on given the money behind some of the seed/pesticide/fertilizer companies but one never knows!

Interesting link, Bethey. Out our way the farmers seem to use very little or no pesticides - evidenced by the look of the locally grown veggies with insect holes etc. I think it's because they can't afford them and in my opinion, that's a good thing. Skin rashes I had back in Oz and NZ completely disappeared around 3 -4 months of my first coming here. I don't know about a National push, but at the local level these things are happening.

The last couple of years I was involved in a local organic co-op farm and was always amazed by the sheer number of workers in the field. The vegs just seemed better in quality and taste. And I noticed a change in how I felt. I wasn't sure if it was the organic nature of the vegs or the fact that they were never more than a single day off the vine before I got them as opposed to days in transit to a grocery.

Later, after spending time down by my parents where cottton and tomatoes are grown in a more "factory" farming method, I was shocked that the number of workers appeared to be roughly the same.

Either way you slice it, there is an awful lot of manual labor needed to farm.

Vanadana Shiva is outspoken about this topic. video clips related to the topic can be found on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p32Iq...eature=related

Isn't it sad that we now refer to quality food as "organic?" Growing up in the '70s in the Midwestern U.S., all our food was 'organic' but we certainly never thought of it that way. It was just 'food.' Then within a span of 15 to 20 years, everything had changed so radically with growth hormones and the like (mostly because of globalization and corporate farming practices) that the only way for family farms to survive was to go organic or natural (different in the eyes of the U.S. FDA). They were doing pretty good too until recently when the gas crunch began forcing people to think twice about spending double the cash for organic milk or tomatoes. A very popular organic food chain in the U.S. is feeling the crunch and those family organic farms are feeling squeezed again. It's really a sad thing.

There have been certain changes over the last 20 years that, I believe, will prove disastrous in the near future. For example, did you know that feeder hogs (pork) in the U.S. have been genetically modified so that they're all the exact same size and shape -- this so they'll go through automated butchering machinery more easily. This genetic modification has been so drastic that pigs are kept in hermetically contained barns because their immune systems are almost non-existent. This is just one example of our food supply being purposely put on a precarious balance simply for profit's sake (and to satisfy people's addiction to copious amounts of cheap food). One little glitch, say a new, quick-spreading bacteria, and things could go horribly awry very quickly. "War for oil?" Hell, try "war for food" on a global scale. It's scary.

this is SO BAD...

people don't really get it eh?! what we are doing to other life forms is really terrible.
somebody, half jokingly, said that most probably the reason why aliens don't want to interact with us is cause they see what we do to all the other creatures that are not humans... and i agree with them.. they better stay away from planet earth!


(I know that in this forum discussions about animal rights etc are not so much encouraged - and i'm trying to respect that as much as possible - but if somebody's starting a topic of conversation about it... i can't just shut up.. even though behaving very very quietly for my ara standards...) <---- pls don't hate me..

You'll get no hatred from me. And this is coming for a guy who grew up in a rural farming and ranching society. Fact is, there was a time when eating meat made absolute sense. But the moment any necessity is provided for by the corporate world, suddenly that necessity is made into obscene self-indulgence at a cost to our world as a whole.

Another ugly example: Because of the premium placed on the sperm of large bulls that have proven themselves in producing big beef cattle offspring, there is no longer such a thing as natural bovine sex. Bulls have been genetically modified to the point where they would actually crush the much smaller cows if they were to copulate. All breeding (corporate) is done through artificial insemination. So not only do these animals live in horrible conditions, we no longer even give them the joy of sex!

Organic farming is an old idea. The key weakness is that much of its benefits require cooperation. For example, if all of the farmers adopt it the insects spread evenly. If some don't the insects concentrate on the organic farms. Texas, which at one time was the membership center for the Socialist Party of America, had some experiences along this line. Cooperation falls apart when, its highly, highly individualistic farmers (99%), if its a stress point like harvest (I get the machinery first & the devil take you), or a basic issue like the advantages of individual interest (you do organic & I pump in some insecticide). I have seen the counter arguments. We'll introduce a "new socialist mentality". This apparently means Cuban fathers pimping their daughters on the street and is zero relevant to both Indian farmers as well as Texan (from my experience). An alternative is to yield to darker impulses and use an authoritarian state. Just look at the genocide these states have enacted in the 20th century and at their ultimate failure. Organic farming is a great idea. I recommend it to all my neighbors. That reminds me I have a stockpile of banned pesticides I need to put in the shed..

In the 70's, agriculture was already pretty well chemicalized. Pesticides, etc, started in earnest right after WWII and the whole "Live Better Though Science" mentality. As a matter of fact, organic farming was very much a fringe effort in the 70's and now some of the same companies have gone mainstream. (an example: Cascadian Farm)

I have an interest in sustainable agriculture, loved belonging to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) organic farm and have been wondering how something like that would fare in India. Seems hard since members usually have to pay up front.

Thanks for the article bethey.

Some more bits along these lines:
~Something I haven't seen, but was highly recommended by the organic farm co-op I belonged to is the film, Future of Food.
~A fictional book that's a good read, but also deals with some of the animal treatment plus chemicals is My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki.

I always buy organic and fair trade tea and spices from India here in Germany.
Just a small contribution to organic farming in India, but hopefully a step to improve working and health conditions of the farmers.

Here is one of the most successful cooperative movements in India.

Here is another.

Admittedly, they are not in agriculture, but as the article points out, there is a strong grassroot movement to change the nature of Indian agriculture.

I would say Indian agriculture is less chemical and GM dependent than the west, except for grains and some cash crops such as cotton. Most of the vegetables you get in markets are locally grown, with little or no fertiliser and pesticides, simply because people can't afford them.

Meat, particularly chicken, has moved to the factory farm/hormone model, but you can still get "natural" meat if you are particular. Fish is still "natural", and because Indians prefer smaller fishes (Sardine, Mackeral, Pomfret, Smelt) more, the toxin content is less, despite the polluted waters around cities.

Also, there are initiatives like this popping up all over. I recently read about a person in Kerala cultivating rice in his terrace!

Just checked:

My tea is from Tea Promoters India (TPI)
here some info about them:
http://www.equalexchange.com/tpi-san...as-cooperative

And I get organic rice from Navdanya Foundation:
http://www.navdanya.org/
Their website seems quite interesting.

FabIndia also market organic produce - I recently bought some tulsi tea put out by FabIndia ( not at their shop btw - many shops carry their products.)

If the word 'organic' increases prices, I'm sure it will be appearing on packets and supermarket shelves all over India.

What will it mean? How will it be defined? How will it be certified, inspected or policed?

I don't think it will, and I do think that the customer will be ripped off, when they might have been getting the real thing at a fraction of the price in a local market

I for one remember the times when the "ration card" in India, that now substitutes almost merely as official government ID, was once the only way that large, way over the majority, sections of the Indian population could buy rice, daal, wheat( which I remember humping down to a local retail-level mill to get ground into flour), sugar at a reasonable price in sufficient quantities.

Food was scarce and relatively expensive in India ! And the seed/pesticide/fertilizer companies have played a large part in ending that - as has the reduction in the manual labor required per tonne of wheat/rice/sugar.

Sure, the hybrid stuff has resulted in a loss of quality - I bemoan that and am searching out original varieties of harbara ( chick peas ) for my own tastes- but given the alternative that existed in my living memory, I'm bloody glad we are where we are now.

Mostly I'm saying - those who want to pay extra, pay extra and enjoy organic food - some of them do definitely taste better; even lead to better health in the Western context of life expectancy.

But before there is lobbying in India at the legislative level to put impediments on say: GM, dam building, irrigation, pesticides, fertilizers, hybrids - think hard of the consequences to an urbanising, countryside emptying, industrializing India. I for one would oppose any non-science based non-safety predicated impediments vehemently.

-skk