Dithering about organic farming

My hat’s off to organic farmers. In the ‘70s we had a farm in Michigan where I planted 500 peach trees. It was an organic operation with sub-optimal results (actually, below sub-optimal). My trees were beset with rose chafers—small beetles that gnawed on the fruit. Organic Farming and Gardening magazine said you could keep these critters away by picking them off the fruit, then pureeing them in the blender with water to make a spray. I did this (just ask my grossed-out kids). The spray was supposed to scare the beetles away, but it had no effect whatsoever.

The trees also suffered from lack of fertilizer. Because the soil on our farm was practically nutrient-free, I tried mulching them with a variety of organic matter—mostly a type of seaweed that grew on ponds in the area. People would remove the weeds and put them in piles that I then forked into the back of my pickup truck, hauled to the trees, and spread underneath them. Again, no luck with that. (Of course, it would take years for that organic matter to break down and make its way into the soil.) I’m sure that the trees would have perked up with a big dose of fertilizer I could buy in a store.

Now I’m rather two-faced about organic gardening. On the one hand, I think organic farms should be supported and am concerned about the effect of chemicals on farm workers. On the other hand, I don’t make it a point to buy organic food, mostly because I’m not a worrier. I’m also a user of store-bought fertilizer and of Roundup, the world’s most widely-used herbicide. We have areas around our current home where there are great swaths dense with weeds—way too much territory for me to weed by hand, or even with a hoe.

There is a lot of controversy about the safety of Roundup and similar herbicides. Its active ingredient is glyphosate, a compound that specifically inhibits protein synthesis in a pathway that is unique to plants. Plenty of research has been performed on glyphosate, and the conclusion, in the words of one scientist, is “The data are overwhelmingly in agreement that glyphosate by itself is relatively nontoxic.” But glyphosate is just one ingredient in the formulation, which contains a variety of other chemicals, such as surfactants that help the product cling to leaves and stems. Herbicide producers are not required to make public these “inert” ingredients. As one scientist remarked, “You can have an active ingredient that is nontoxic, but that does not mean that the commercial formulation is also nontoxic.” Another adds, “The effects are going to be subtle and accumulative over years of exposure.” As of now, nobody really knows that long-term effects of these chemicals—either on the environment or in our bodies.

 I’m very careful when I use Roundup, and only use it once a year and only in places that are prohibitive for me to weed by hand. Does it help that I feel a little guilty each time I use it?

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.