Posted on 06/18/2014 3:20:31 PM PDT by Lorianne
By 9 a.m., Jack Motter had been planting peas for hours..
He pushed a two-wheeled contraption that deposited a seed every few inches along neat rows at Ellwood Canyon Farms, just outside Santa Barbara. As clouds gathered overhead, he picked up the pace to avoid losing days of work to the fall rain.
Timing can mean the difference between profit and loss for the 4-year-old farm.
Motter and his business partner, Jeff Kramer, are part of a growing crop of farmers — many of them young — choosing to produce food without pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. As consumers demand more fresh and local food grown with minimal environmental effects, a new generation has taken up organic farming.
The two Brawley, Calif., natives, both 30, have learned that small-scale agriculture is neither easy nor lucrative. Their days on the 15-acre farm start at dawn and end with exhaustion.
"There's nothing romantic about it," Kramer said. "It's hard work and long hours for little pay."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Bilge.
As in overly sentimental, or in the capitalistic sense?
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X1100182X
Organic is great if you are willing to plow up an additional 20-25% more dirt that is plowed up now.
Since the marginal farming land is currently coming at the edges of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, organic agriculture's advance is destroying the Amazon rainforest.
Way to go, greenies!
Unlike the morally superior but intellectually ignorant greenies, I do actually care about preserving wild spaces free from agriculture. To do that, we MUST farm as intensively as possible on the acreage in use, rather than revert to less productive methods that require additional land.
Preserve Wild Lands: Use Ammonium Nitrate!
...interesting article.
My father grew up on a family farm (an older son inherited it, I believe) and I think that he probably never was terribly excited to end up a farmer himself.
But, surprise of surprises, I like gardening and have had vegetable gardens and paid attention to having nice landscaping for years and years.
And I have to say that when I started using “organic” (like chicken manure)fertilizers last year my stuff really took off and I had my best crop yields ever.
Anyway, I wish these “farmers” well.
You know that over 80 percent of cleared rainforest land is used to grow coffee, sugar beets for animals, and sugar cane - right?
Genius.
“The BBC’s Unnatural Histories presented evidence that the Amazon rainforest, rather than being a pristine wilderness, has been shaped by man for at least 11,000 years through practices such as forest gardening and terra preta.[19]
Terra preta (black earth), which is distributed over large areas in the Amazon forest, is now widely accepted as a product of indigenous soil management. The development of this fertile soil allowed agriculture and silviculture in the previously hostile environment; meaning that large portions of the Amazon rainforest are probably the result of centuries of human management, rather than naturally occurring as has previously been supposed.[23] In the region of the Xingu tribe, remains of some of these large settlements in the middle of the Amazon forest were found in 2003 by Michael Heckenberger and colleagues of the University of Florida. Among those were evidence of roads, bridges and large plazas.[24]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_rainforest
“Research in the late 1980s was the first to show that charcoal made from slow burns of trees and woody waste is the key ingredient of terra preta.
“With the increased level of agriculture made possible by terra preta, ancient Amazonians would have been able to live in one place for long periods of time, said geographer and anthropologist William Woods of the University of Kansas.”
“As a result you get social stratification, hierarchy, intertwined settlement systems, very large scale,” added Woods, who studies ancient Amazonian settlements.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081119-lost-cities-amazon.html
Indeed, if people want to buy organic crops, and farmers can do it - then more power to them. I buy organic myself, if its local (what’s the point of organic product that then must be shipped across the country...)
“Organic” is a rich man’s toy though - I doubt India or China could feed themselves with organic farming.
Both. I think. Organic farming is the alternative to edible. Before there were insecticides there were bugs. Little bugs, big bugs, bugs that killed, bugs that disgusted, bugs, bugs and more bugs. Then there were no bugs. Now they want us to eat bugs again. Bilge.
It works best if someone in the family has a good day job, or if the “farmer” is someone like a chemical engineer by day and an “urban farmer” nights and weekends.
That’s what keeps such operations afloat.
I get a lot better yields with raised bed and container gardening. Not so many bugs chewing it up.
And the deer just LOVE that stuff, the place is lousy with 'em. I usually kill between 15-20 a year. Not much better eatin' than venison from organic baby food eatin' deer.
Now, to add flavor, try adding rock dust and/or New Jersey Greensand under tomatos, etc.
I spade the rock dust into the whole garden, and add the greensand before setting tomatos. Also helps with squash and beets.
Of course I use Amsoil (Aggrand)organic fertilizer, added as I spade in the compost which includes the manures you appear to already use.
LOL, I’ve encountered plenty of little critters in our locally grown food. I get it.
I’m assuming the contention concerns “organic” farming.
I realize organics are unpopular among some conservatives for understandable reasons, but in my opinion, organic farming is an entrepreneurial contribution to the supply chain. That said, I’m not in favor of forced GMO labeling — it’s enough for the organics to make the distinction via its labeling.
I don’t care much for govt involvement in farming notwithstanding my ignorance of farming financials. And it seems govt involvement is making it more difficult for the local farmer to exist.
Any one of which is there because it is gown inefficiently and organically somewhere else. Genius.
Most of my friends here in Maine have vegetable gardens and know how to can and preserve what we grow.
As an old timer told me; “Growing food is like growing money”
Do you know where your food comes from? What happens when the shipping costs double, and that steak or chop triples in price? What happens when a disease wipes out half the country’s wheat crop because one of the five strains of seed we use becomes infected? What happens when the government and the agro-businesses decide that you can’t have potatoes anymore?
Maine is leading the county in new small farm starts.
It’s because there is a healthy demand for clean healthy food and a desire to keep our food dollars here in the state.
(Explains why the FDA just opened it’s third office in the state)
“Now they want us to eat bugs again. Bilge.”
So your argument is that it is the bugs that force buyers to purchase organic food at a higher cost?
hmmmmmmm... I’m not sure about that.
“I’m not in favor of forced GMO labeling — it’s enough for the organics to make the distinction via its labeling.”
I support free information flow about our food supply. Let people know and choose based on their preference. The market will sort things out.
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