What’s Organic

Over ten years ago, Bill Duesing of Solar Farm Education asked the question in his article Living on the Earth, June 7, 1996: What’s Organic? His answer was: the soil. With the battles over genetically modified crops, questions related to legislation and labeling, and all of the marketing of organic products and the obfuscation that brings with it, it’s easy to forget what organic really means.

Care for the soil is at the heart of organic agriculture. By building up organic matter and the diversity of life in the soil, the organic grower makes it easier for the plants to obtain what they need for healthy growth.

In an article archived at ibiblio.org, a digital library of technology and applied sciences with a focus on sustainable agriculture, Bill Duesing’s article continues “Protecting the life in the soil is one of the reasons for not using strong chemical fertilizers or toxic pesticides. The latter are frequently as effective at killing helpful and benign organisms as they are at killing the pests. In many cases, the pests soon become resistant to the chemicals anyway. In the long run, they just don’t work. Yet, they leave their residues in the air, soil and water, as well as in farm workers and produce-eaters. Avoiding these chemical residues may be especially important for the young, the elderly, and those who are seriously ill or are allergic to manmade chemicals.”

Duesing goes on to describe the certification process as it existed before the National Organic Program was created and the Agricultural Marketing Service was put in charge of the organic industry. His description was of a simpler time when “The farmer who wants to be certified organic must fill out a form detailing the history of and future plans for the farm as well as the crops to be grown, rotations and even seed sources. After an inspection, a soil test and approval by an independent certifying organization, the farmers’ produce carries that certification with it to market.”

Read the entire article here.