We've been farming organically for sixteen seasons.
But we've been eating organically for nearly twice that long. We were urban consumers in the early and mid-1970s. Organic food was a little more expensive than food from industrial agriculture. But we made our decision. We'd eat organic.
We decided to eat organic not because there were pesticide residues on the food. That is probably an important factor in most peoples decision. But our decision was based on the belief that organic production was good for the earth. And it was based on the decision that organic agriculture was better for farmers and farm workers who were in the fields every day. Eating organic was like a vote for the earth.
We made our decision to eat organically nearly thirty years ago. After sixteen years of farming organically I know that decision was the right one. We grow enough food in our market garden to provide ourselves with fruit and vegetables. And in that small spot we produce plenty to provide others with the same. If we were better gardeners we could produce more. As important to our production is the fact that our garden is a place full of wild things. There are bluebirds and tree sparrow, monarch butterflies, many kinds of wasps and honey bees, frogs, snakes, and crickets. And there are, of course, things like slugs and caterpillars and beetles that eat our crops and weeds that try and crowd them out. We try and reach a balance and live with all of them. And each year we more or less succeed and there's a bountiful harvest for ourselves and our customers. Our garden lives because we refuse to attack it with herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and fumigants. I don't think our decision is particularly unique. I think many people who buy and eat organic foods do so, at least in part, out of respect for other living things besides themselves. That is why it is puzzling to me why a professional journalist like ABC's John Stossel claimed organic food "can kill you" on the ABC television networks news program 20/20. By now you likely know that Mr. Stossel, and the programs producer, based their claims for that show on test data they knew never existed. They claimed that ABC had done independent lab tests. And, they said, those independent lab tests showed that there was no difference between organically produced food and industrially produced food. The non-profit organization The Environmental Working Group discovered Stossel and 20/20 weren't telling the truth. There never were any lab tests done at all. As a result ABC fired the producer and reprimanded Stossel. You can read EWG's extensive file on their investigation at their web site: http://www.ewg.org Go to their FoodNews.org link.
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