Marcie Rosenzweig wrote:
> Having said all that, Steve has a point. He uses a SYSTEMS that builds and
> protects soil. In my heart of hearts, I believe that is what will make the
> nutritional difference. Good organic culture should, in theory be that
> way, a systems approach, not a mere substitution of a "permitted" input for
> a "banned" one.
Marcie,
You articulated my point very well. I have nothing against organics and have
learned a good deal of info from organic growers that has gotten me to the place
I am now with my Permenant Cover Cropping System. Frankly, I'm just curious to
see how a system such as mine would compare on a nutritional basis to organic or
conventional. I do know, now that my system is functioning for quite a few
years, that i have experianced many benefits that organic growers typically have-
such as less imputs, increased soil life and soil health in general.
Theoretically this should translate into higher quality food, but we don't really
know till we test. Yes, I discreetly use a few pesticides,( I think I could
manage 10-20 acres organically) but then again I always have cover on my soil and
I never disturb the soil microbes and earthworms with tillage. That's an area
where i'm ahead of the average organic grower.
However I don't really think we should create a "3rd" comparison to conventional
vs. organic. I believe that farmers, especially direct marketers need to build
trust with the folks they sell to. I'd rather buy a pastured poultry chicken from
my nieghbor who bought conventionally grown corn to feed his chickens, then an
organic chicken raised in a closed building and shipped 2,500 miles to a store
near me.
Dale Wilson said:
> >I think all this is eminently do-able. IMO it would take four things:
> >1. Statistically sound sampling plan
> >2. Definition of relevant nutritional analysis targets
> >3. Someone to shepard the project and manage logistics
> >4. Money to do the testing
> >
> >I think it would be best to target a limited geographical area, one that has
> >a fairly high density of vegetable production. Samples could be taken at,
> >or just before harvest, to avoid post-harvest effects. Samples could be
> >sent to a commercial lab. It could probably be done for about $20,000.
> >Maybe some food scientist can get a grant. The support of this list
> >community might make the proposal more attractive.
Has any comparisons ever been done in a method such as Dale suggests?
-- Steve Groff"Enhancing the Environment" http://www.cedarmeadowfarm.com/ Cedar Meadow Farm 679 Hilldale Road Holtwood, PA 17532 USA
To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command "unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command "unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest". To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command "subscribe sanet-mg-digest".
All messages to sanet-mg are archived at: http://www.sare.org/san/htdocs/hypermail
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Mar 12 2000 - 14:00:27 EST