>Okay, and now comes along the Federal certification guidelines.
>I actually fear that my livelihood as an "ecological,"
>"sustainable," or whatever you want to call it (I am definitely
>not conventional) is threatened by these guidelines. Why?
>Because the FEDERAL certification will carry a weight that the
>private labels didn't, and the average consumer will, I fear,
>assume that the federally certified stuff is perfectly groovy
>and ecological and safe, while anything not certified will
>be more-or-less considered suspicious.
>
>
Dear Guy.
I think you raise a crucial point. You went to a **public** University to
find a conventional solution to your pest problem. Your tax dollars went to
pay for the research and extension activities you took advantage of. But it
was the only thing they could give you and it took you out of the organic
market and right back into paying for chemicals. Now, Federal certification
standards are about to hit us. Where is the research that will help us meet
them? (There was a food security measure that didn't make the farm bill--but
plenty of help for the poor chemical companies did!)To what degree are
recalcitrant pests such as plum curculio or white flies (and new ones all the
time) a result of ecological chaos caused by the almost sole reliance on
chemicals to solve every problem farmers face? Can I go to the University and
get that information?--maybe someday, if we all insist that we want our food
organic and we want are farmers to have all the help we can give them to grow
it that way.
By the way, I have never considered your valuable comments to this forum in
the category of organic bashing. But after that story of your
experiences(thank you for sharing it) I'd say you've earned the right to bash
away! But better, how can we solve these problems? I'd like to be able to by
your organic apples when I'm in Arkansas! Regards,
Ronald Nigh
Dana Association
Mexico.