www.Govern.Us

[MapleCorner]

The current Vermont Department of Agriculture is agribusiness and the for the American Corporate Way, and they are "missing the boat" of possibilities that are opening up to helping farmers take advantage of the huge interest, and pocketbooks of people interested in organic products.

Companies such as Organic Valley, a Co-op, and Horizon Organic, a for profit organic milk corporation, are currently in a bidding war to sign up new farmers. They are paying $22.50 to $26 per hundredweight of milk, which is very good.

The conservative Vermont Dept. is still spieling the corporate garbage from Monsanto, and the pharmacueticals, and big comodity style businesses, and ignoring the huge financials available to farmers who "Stay small", and produce organic. It is just plain bad advice. All the successful farms are now organic, or are huge giganticos which are heavily polluting and leaching from the environment or have some kind of short term semi-scam sort of arrangement going.

We need new directions in the Vermont Agricultural scene, which will never happen under a James Douglas administration. Lets move on to the future!!
_________________
Steve Gallagher
www.picture.net

[vermonty]

Supporting organic agriculture in Vermont benefits all of us here in many ways, and has no down side I can think of, if the prices are somewhat reasonable. Organic farms keep land open and undeveloped, reduce pollution, promote health, support local communities and economies, all things which most people are willing to put efforts into supporting. Just buying these products is the simplest and most direct way to work towards these goals.

[Mr. X]

Earl Butz was Nixon's secretary of agriculture. He was essentially despised by organic farmers at the time, and vis/versa. He stated in 1971 that if America retuned to organic methods then "someone must decide which fifty million of our people will starve".

Recent estimates are that if synthetic fertilizers were to suddenly be eliminated, about 2 billion people would die.

[vermonter]

I read somewhere recently that in many African nations, going organic has actually increased production and decreased the cost of food. Also made a better environment and less pollution. This is particularly true in Africa because labor is so cheap, and imported goods (chemical fertilizers, pesticides, etc.) so expensive.

[concerned citizen]

i think this really is a cultural shift for people and as consumers we must realize the impact we have on farmers and the soil. farms that use chemical fertilizers and pesticides/herbicides essentially kill all of the beneficial microorganisms (and just organisms) that break down organic matter and make nutrients available to the plants. to convert this farm to organic, the soils need to be rehabilitated and revitalized to expect any kind of yield, as the complex soil systems that support plant growth will have been destroyed. much of the testing of yields on "organic" farms have been carried out on fields used for industrial, chemical based farming, in soil that has been abused and essentially sterilized. these tests have showed low yields compared to the same fields with chemical fertilizers, but are fatally flawed as the soil in these tests does not have the life needed to break down compost to provide the nutrients for the plants to thrive.
recent research (and research from the late 1800-mid 1900s) shows that with healthy, living soil with plenty of organic matter, minerals boosted by rockdust. not only is there less runoff and leaching of nutrients, but there is also higher yields of much healthier food.
it seems funny to me that people would choose to kill their soils and then be forced to buy synthetic fertilizers year after year when the best fertilizers are free, "organic", and create lasting rather than fleeting fertility. animal manure, green manures and nitrogen fixers, dynamic accumulators (comfrey has roots that go very deeply into the subsoil, mining for minerals and nutrients, and bringing high levels of these into its leaves. in compost or as fertilizer tea comfrey can boost the fertility of the soil in a lasting and healthy way. just one example) general compost, leaf mould, vermicompost, mushroom compost, granite dust, these are just some of the soil amendments that create long lasting healthy, living, fertile soils.
feeding the soil (or the organisms that make up the soil) compost not only makes the nutrients needed for plant growth available in the soil, it also absorbs and holds water, reducing the need for watering and irrigation and more.
the introduction of healthy compost is also the introduction of billions of microorganisms that can create a healthy, living, dynamic soil in the field and not just the pile
let's build the soils and the fertility of the land, so that we can leave this place in better shape than when we arrived.

[Governus]

Thanks for writing this about organic growing. I agree with what you say, though I am starting to think that small scale, and local is almost, or probably equal to organic.

I grow organically, but am not against buying locally grown things which are grown "naturally", by which I mean that a minimum of imputs that ae not 100% organic.

For instance, I buy lacally raised grass feb beef from my cousin, raied in the same town. They might be fed a tiny bit of commercially grown grain, but are nowhere nearly anything like a feedlot raised cow.