Organic futures : the case for organic farming

258 Pages·2005·0.816 MB·English

by  Adrian Myers

Organic
Futures
The Case for Organic Farming
Adrian Myers
Adrian Myers
ORGANIC FUTURES

Organic
Futures
The Case for Organic Farming
Adrian Myers
FirstpublishedintheUKin2005
byGreenBooksLtd,
Foxhole,Dartington,
Totnes,DevonTQ96EB
Reprintedwithminoramendments2006
Firstpublishedindigitalformats2010
Copyright©2005-6AdrianMyers
Allrightsreserved
Nopartofthisbookmaybeusedorreproducedinanymannerwithoutwritten
permission,exceptinthecaseofbriefquotationsincriticalarticlesorreviews.
CoverdesignbyRickLawrence
[email protected]
PrintformatISBN1903998697
PDFformatISBN9781907448669
ePubformatISBN9781907448676
Contents
Chapter 1 What is Organic Farming? 9
Chapter 2 From the Past to the Present 34
Chapter 3 The Living Soil 65
Chapter 4 Nutrition and Food Safety 87
Chapter 5 Genetically Modified Foods 107
Chapter 6 Maintaining Soil Fertility 132
Chapter 7 Control versus Co-operation 155
Chapter 8 The Challenges Ahead 181
Chapter 9 The Organic Uplands: A Vision of the Future 210
Notes 239
Bibliography 244
Useful Organisations and Websites 245
Index 246

DEDICATION
To my friend John,
who encouraged me to write this book
in the first place
To my wife of thirty-five years,
who never once asked me to
go out and get a “proper job”
&
To the Divine in all of us

Chapter 1
What is Organic Farming?
“Theorganicmovementisclearlyestablishedandheretostay.Itisheralding
achangeinagriculturewhichisoccurringsimultaneouslyineverydeveloped
agriculturalnationintheworld.Farfrombeingareturntothepast,organic
farming is an agriculture of the future, our future.”—Nicolas Lampkin,
OrganicFarming1
Ancient and Modern
Onacold,grey,drizzlydayIslippedintothewarmthoftheSwissCottage
referencelibraryinLondontocontinuemyresearchesintoorganicfarming
andhorticulture.Itwas1971,andthedayIdiscoveredtwoamazingthings:
the fact that the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans had been practising
organicfarmingforoverfortycenturiesnon-stop,withoutalossofsoilfer-
tility;2 and a quote from the original statement of the Soil Association (the
leading organic organization in Britain), which read as follows:
“Manyscientistsandagriculturistsnowrealizethattheirknowledgeofthe
naturalprocessesunderlyingsoilfertilityisincomplete.Theyrecognizethat
theseprocessesareonlypartlyexplicableintermsofagriculturalchemistry
andthatthepureinorganicapproachtothestudyofsoilscienceisalineof
thought as dead as the mechanical determination of nineteenth-century
physics.‘Dead’istheappropriateword,forthemissinglinkislifeitself.”
Thediscoverythatsomecountries’farmershadbeenfarmingorganically
for4,000yearswasrevelationenough,andshowedconclusivelythatorganic
husbandryhadalongandnoblehistory;buttodiscoverthatmodernorganic
farming is very much more than just farming as practised in this country
before1939,assomanythink,reallymademesitupandtakenotice.Ibegan
torealizethatorganicfarmingisachangingandevolvingscience,constantly