I am more comfortable as a "lurker", but I felt impelled to respond to Bill Duesing's article in my earlier submittal. I was gratified to see that other people shared my concern for a more balanced, levelheaded approach to the push for a more sustainable agriculture. Several people who responded seemed to be asking "who is this guy, anyway", (albeit very politely).
I am a resource economist currently working for the Prince Edward Island Department of Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry. I became a resource economist in the hopes of being better able to give nature its due when development decisions were being made. For eight years I was a wildlife biologist doing environmental consulting work in Ft. Collins, CO. During that time, I saw, time after time, decisions being made by accountants and engineers who had little discernable appreciation for the value of natural systems (as opposed to extractable natural resources). A blind defense of natural systems as being "priceless" is not very effective; I wanted to be able to estimate the dollar-denominated value of resources, and environmental amenities for which there is no established market. It is a daunting task -- and one which is, to my regret, peripheral to my current job. I spend half my work time evaluating risk in agriculture -- for insurance purposes -- and the other half doing miscellaneous policy analyses for the Department. I own and live on a 250ac farm, but I am not a farmer. The neighbour who rents my cleared land for grain/hay/pasture is about as close to chem-free as I've seen a "conventional" farmer get -- though for economic, not philosophical, reasons. If a potato grower asked to rent my land to grow potatoes, I would refuse (even though the going rate is 10 times what I get now). I do not like what conventional potato culture does to the land, both in terms of soil erosion/degradation and also the chemical use.
Farmers do not use all the chemicals they use just for fun. We had organic potato growers who were completely wiped out this year by late blight (the organism behind the Irish potato famine). This happened also to a lot of conventional growers. Potato growers who successfully fended off the blight were spraying fungicides two -- sometimes three!-- times per week. Many farmers topkilled (herbicided) their potatoes early -- before they had reached full size -- as a sort of salvage operation, rather than risk losing it all to blight. With all this extra spraying and a small crop too, it will be hard to make money in potatoes here this year. These farmers would be delighted to be able to let the sprayers gather dust in the barn and keep the extra money in their pockets. The truth is that there are some pests and diseases which -- with current technological alternative -- do not permit commercial scale, chem-free agriculture. Rich, well-managed LIVING soils may provide crops with the best chance of staving off diseases, but this is no panacea. Finally, I was almost ready to back off from my claim that 19th century Irish potato farmers were farming organically. I am a stubborn fellow, however, and am willing to stick to my guns on this one. I am not convinced that the organically-approved chemicals, like rotenone and blue stone (copper sulfate) are any more benign than a lot of the manmade pesticides in use today. More noteworthy (in reference to Bill Duesing's comments) I know of many organic home gardeners who lost all their potatoes AND tomatoes to blight this year.
The perennial closing comment of the scientist is "we need more research" -- I think all of us on the list can agree with this pressing need. I would also contend that the most important and productive researchers in sustainable agriculture right now are wearing overalls and workboots, not lab coats.
Right now, I believe the exchange of practical information -- the
discoveries and observations of these field "researchers" -- is much
more helpful than continuation of these philosophical meanderings.
(especially contributions from overly-verbose ex-lurkers)
Bob MacGregor,