Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot | Mark in WCIowa - 7/29/2015 19:04
Great post!
What I see is a bunch of jealous farmers (typical) that some farmers are selling $11 corn....the thing is, anyone can do it...IF...IF...they choose to put forth the effort. Why they wouldn't is beyond me....no way we should have such a spread for something that can be rectified SO EASY. Its just too easy to plant now, spray later.
I don't really see the jealousy aspect of it, at least locally. Sure, some guys have done very well growing organic alfalfa here, but that is a pretty easy market to jump into if someone wants to. Other guys just love growing potatoes, and organic seems to be a way just to survive in the fresh market. We also have a lot of ground that will lend itself well to organic production, honestly the yields on organic fields never cease to amaze me.
What I do see is farmers worried about legitimate threats to conventional production methods. Some of which do have cause for concern. I'm a pretty small grower, and I can think of 7 places where I am only separated from another grower by a fence, a couple of posts or nothing but an imaginary line, and whomever gets there first with the combine gets the bigger field. So if one of us wanted to go organic, where does the buffer zone come from? What about drift? Lots of places here are surrounded by canals and drains, and roads, so the buffer zones are often a non issue. But that is an issue that is going to have to be dealt with by the courts, someday. Luckily I'm all conventional as are all of my neighbors. But the districts have already ran into issues spraying right of ways on organic ground. I need water flowing through ditches, not getting held up by the weed patch up the ditch. Dealing with it by mechanical means costs all the landowners more $$$. What about the added weeds blowing around and floating down to my field?
There are plenty of legitimate issues, and both sides have a case to make. But as far as why organic is here in the first place, I don't think it has anything to do with science. Never has. It has to do with emotions and economics. People do have the income to make a choice on what they want to eat, even if it is more expensive. Some farmers are going to look at the premium and think it is worthwhile to grow organic and deal with the hassles, even if it is more expensive. |
Organic shown to be a hoax
