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| I still have some New Farm magazines here somewhere. I don't know Rodale's education but he started out reclaiming worked out farm land that hardly grew weeds. Sure enough lots of manure over a decade or two reclaimed it.
The fundamentals of organic rules were invented by Rodale, without significant scientific background. The prime basis is that if its in the ground its good, if its processed its bad. So the emphasis on manure or rock phosphate for P. And P from rock phosphate sometimes has been said to be not available to the crop if the pH is neutral and for sure not if alkaline. Strange thing is that the rock phosphate mines out west that process most of the their rock phosphate with acid to make other more available forms are super fund clean up sites from storing the stuff that acid process has removed. That remains in their rock phosphate product. That's good for the soil, I think not. Black walnut hulls surely are natural, and used for natural dyes, but toxic to other plants if incorporated into the soil. That's contrary to Rodale's rules.
When the USDA was considering their organic rules one of their scientists published his opinion that organic produce was much more hazardous to the eating public simply because of the ease of unhealthy organisms getting to the crop from applications of manure. Things like e coli.
I read today in the Iowa Farmer Today newspaper that the FDA is proposing new rules that will require keeping domestic and wild animals out of berry and produce fields. Good luck with that, even the national symbol the bald eagle leaves behind stuff that they don't want in the fields. How do you keep every animal and bird out of a crop field? Shoot all on sight, fences won't stop birds, and practical fences don't stop many animals? Seems to me the only ways to meet that rule are to stop growing those crops so they can be imported from countries without such rules (where they have been known to use human waste for fertilizer thus shortening the disease path) or in green houses at 100 times the cost. Say good bye to berries, all salad vegetables. The proposed rules only allow them to be sold if cooked or if the only way to eat them is cooked.
Gerald
Edited by Gerald J. 1/11/2013 17:00
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Going organic
