rodale 30yr study

i don't recall this link being posted, i've not read it yet, but supposedly it is a comparison between conventional methods and organic done for 30 years.

http://66.147.244.123/~rodalein/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/FSTbookletFINAL.pdf songbird

Reply to
songbird
Loading thread data ...

I'm sure that Monsanto's response will be bigger, glossier, and praise GM products to the heavens. Supporters of the Guardians Of Privilege will see this as tampering with the free market. So, why are you spitting into the wind, bird? ;O)

Reply to
Billy

http://66.147.244.123/~rodalein/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/FSTbookletFINAL.pdf>

Got it. Thanks.

We're on the Rodale mailing list but notice hasn't made it through to us yet or it got lost in the usual onslaught rush of emails.

One of our more enthusiastic but technically maladroit friends emailed us something that I now believe was the summary but we couldn't make out what he was trying to tell us and the attachment didn't take.

Notice will be going out across our mailing list soon and my wife will be putting the links on our community gardens advocacy site ASAP.

Reply to
phorbin

phorbin wrote: ...

you're welcome, it's a summary about 13 pages long, not very high on details about specific methods.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

http://66.147.244.123/~rodalein/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/FSTbookletFINAL.pdf> songbird

I certainly do like the concept of organic farming but that booklet is PROPAGANDA as bad as the crap put out by the chemical and fertilizer companies. I know of some farmers in this area who have given up on organic farming as the weed problem just overwhelmed them. Trying to fight quack grass and thistles the organic way was totally useless. I believe in using chemicals if and when necessary but should be a last resort.

Round-Up type herbicides should be used as little as possible and certainly not as pre-harvest treatments as some farmers routinely do.

Reply to
Roy

The "Green Revolution" is more than a delivery system for commodified, industrial toxin$, and patented seeds (be they GMO, or hybrid). The "Green Revolution" was the breeding of improved varieties, by NGOs, combined with the expanded use of fertilizers, irrigation, and other chemical inputs (re: insecticides). Now one of the three legs of the "Green Revolution" (Agricultural Chemicals) threatens to undo the benefits of the other two.

The first leg of the "Green Revolution" was the development of high yielding varieties of rice, wheat, sorghum, millet, maize, cassava, and beans. This was done without genetic engineering, and can still be done, but it requires biodiversity to supply unique traits.

The second leg of the "Green Revolution" is irrigation, and having the clean water to make it feasible. The easily accessed water is drying up, and AgChemicals are responsible for the lack of organic matter in the soil which can hold moisture. Soil with more organic material also absorbs water more easily, resulting in less erosion of topsoil. At the same time CAFOs are hard pressed to get rid of all the nitrogen compounds that they produce. Putting the animals on the land would also reduce the need for giving them antibiotics (recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), a synthetic cow hormone that spurs milk production when injected into dairy cows is a different problem). The other alternative is to double crop, or crop rotation with soybeans, which will add organic nitrogen to the soil.

Our problems seem to come from the third leg of the "Green Revolution". the chemical inputs. At first chemical fertilizers seemed amazing, because they allowed farmers to skip crop rotation, or cover crops, but the benefit is now seen as illusionary. Chemical fertilizers have allowed the organic, water trapping content of the soil to fall. Moreover, they have poisoned our drinking water, and destroyed large swaths of rich fishing areas at the mouths of rivers, called "dead zones".

Also, we are chronically exposed to low levels of industrial pesticides. As the FST pdf pointed out, a diverse crop rotation is the primary line of defense against pests.

Globalization of food, makes food supply dependent on politics, and business cycles. If you grow broccoli for the world market, and the demand drops, it will be impossible to get your investment back. Small farms, that sell quality produce to the local area can charge more, pay a decent wage, and be sustainable.

Food for thought.

In any event, there are still the Mongongo nuts.

Reply to
Billy

http://66.147.244.123/~rodalein/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/FSTbookletFINAL.pdf> > songbird

farming as the weed problem just overwhelmed them. Trying to fight quack grass and thistles the organic way was totally useless.

You'd have to update yourself on just what these chemicals do to the soil and to living organisms before settling on what is and is not propaganda.

My recent efforts have been spent in the political domain dealing with the political fog of war.

Sometimes I may not be the sharpest pin in the cushion but let me challenge the foundation of your assertion by asking the question, "What was it about this farmer's business that caused him to forego the premium prices that organic production usually nets?"

That opens lines of investigation up to and including the possibility that his organic seed had been contaminated with GMO pollen and he could no longer produce organically. (Look into GMO contamination of flax. It's nearly wiped out some organic flax farmers around here because the GMO RR gene in their seed denies them access to the lucrative European market.)

Reply to
phorbin

http://66.147.244.123/~rodalein/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/FSTbookletFINAL.pdf>>> I'm sure that Monsanto's response will be bigger, glossier, and praise

Huh? Now I'm going to have to go and read it. Knowing of Rodales interest int he plant world it'd make sense to me for Rodale to mention 'prostrate' but I really can't see any reason for them to be referring to 'prostate' . Cancer links from growing practices perhaps??? Off to read it.....

Reply to
Farm1

http://66.147.244.123/~rodalein/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/FSTbookletFINAL.pdf>>> I'm sure that Monsanto's response will be bigger, glossier, and praise

Found 'prostrate'! And the sloppy mistake there is a reflection of the whole doco! I was not the least bit impressed by it given that I kept wondering where the evidence was. It's all excecutive summary but no detailed that usually follows for those exceutives who really do give a shit, can read and then analyse what is presented.

Does anyone know if there is link to a real report or is Rodale now doing only a dumbed down Dummies job?

Reply to
Farm1

It may be propaganda but you have no more evidence for making that statement att his point in time than Rodale provided. They may very well have good evidence to back up everything they say but they didn't bother to provide it in that doco.

Reply to
Farm1

Reply to
Farm1

Roy wrote: ...

sounds like they didn't have the right help or ask the right questions. there is more than one "the organic way". those weeds are not impossible to deal with.

unfortunately too many have set up their farms so that the last resort is forced upon them fairly quickly. they have no diversity in crops and few beneficial critters to help.

by using the current methods they are encouraging certain weeds, bugs and fungi and are not adding many helpful parts to balance. it isn't a big surprise it goes out of whack because there's no checks and balances. they've killed off or marginalized their helpers and a fair amount of the time they are leaving the soil bare which is like wasting free energy and encouraging weed problems, but they have the crutch of *cides already established so the cycle continues.

considering in the past that it was quite possible to raise crops without using *cides at all i think that is point enough.

after all, the chem-ag-folks don't make money if the farmers get smarter and don't need their products.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

David Hare-Scott wrote: ...

well like i said, the two pictures were worth thousands of words.

i agree with you though, that i'd like to see the information behind the Rodale study.

for a more scientific bent look into:

formatting link
they've run studies for quite some time (150+ years). this is the most extensive set of studies in the modern science/statistical bent that i've found so far.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

Farm1 wrote: ...

i looked, but i didn't find any data archived any place. they may publish it for a fee or include it in one of their books so they may not ever put the whole data set on the internet.

we'll see... :)

songbird

Reply to
songbird

Billy wrote: ...

thanks Billy,

songbird

Reply to
songbird

The comparison pics show something was different. But what exactly? They don't say. Soil building is admirable but just because you can build soil doesn't mean all the other requirements of a sustainable food production system are met. Unless, like them, you carefully define sustainability in terms of soil building.

I have the same problem with a local community-based horticultural trial. They are getting good results but so far have not produced enough analysis to show what the full costs are. If you put enough inputs (including hard work) into a trial you can do wonders in almost any situation but can you do it efficiently, can you keep it going on a large scale if you have to pay full price for your labour, manures etc and can you compete, or at least get close to it, regarding selling price with conventional systems?

I will have a look at the material Billy was sent.

D
Reply to
David Hare-Scott

Well it won't have any impact on how any of use who post here garden or the opinions we have. Frank will still get hysterical about things that don't accord with his world view :-))

Reply to
Farm1

they say the one handful of dirt that was darker was from the organic plot and the other handful was from the conventional plot. and the other picture was showing the difference between the organic and conventional plots during a drought with the organic plot showing taller and greener plants.

from my continued studies i'd say it is a good start in a world that is mostly going the other direction (destroying topsoil faster than making it).

you use the word "efficiently" but i think that word is often a focus and over-simplified into "easy". the base rate of soil production with no inputs is the absolute minimum in terms of energy expenditures. where there are no other inputs or passes of machinery or anything other than walking through and picking whatever is desired and then putting it directly in the mouth.

some complexities and inputs added above that type of system can be offset by getting more out of the garden plot. yet i don't think a lot of people keep that close of an eye on expenses or time spent because they get a lot of happiness out of raising their own food or they like the larger variety of foods they can grow that they'll not find at the store. it's hard to put an exact price on what is good about being able to go out and have fresh beans or strawberries right off the plants.

for myself, just having a good reason to get outside and exercise in a meaningful way is a huge benefit. i hate having to exercise just for the sake of exercise itself, but i can go outside and putter around in the gardens for hours and the time goes by so quickly.

they are on my reading list too.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

It was the difference in treatments that resulted in such visible differences that I was after.

Soil building is necessary but not sufficient.

That isn't what I meant. I mean so that you can compete on a large scale without a subsidy. They are using grant money to get started, the question is can they produce food sustainably using just the proceeds of sales in future?

the base rate of soil production

There are plenty of inputs required and if there is to be little or no machinery then there will be labour costs instead. The methods appropriate for a family are not going to scale up to where you can feed the whole district.

I was more interested in large scale commercially viable systems where the cost of labour and other inputs is critical.

I agree with you about home produce but that isn't what the Rodale study or my local horticulture trial is about.

David

Reply to
David Hare-Scott

i've not gotten to the details yet...

i'd accept soil stability in many places that still have topsoil.

the differences in productivity between topsoil and subsoil is significant. when any farm runs out of topsoil the required inputs for reaching the same level of outputs as before is quite large (especially when using high yield grains) sometimes by several factors or even a magnitude shift.

in the future those costs will be much higher as cheap oil turns into more scarce oil.

if the subsidies already in place for the conventional system are made available to the organic system it would be a fair comparison.

the conventional system has all the advantages in many areas because the infrastructure is already in place to support it along with the marketing and lobbying of politicians to ensure it continues. the conventional system is also getting a free pass on pollution and abuse of fresh water resources and destruction of topsoil turning land into desert or salt pans.

to do an accurate comparison we need to list all the costs of each. the conventional system may be more efficient, but it may also be more efficient at destruction or pollution or wasting fresh water.

yes more labor, but last i knew unemployment is a concern.

i think much of the scaling problem is over- hyped. if you take most of the greens and fresh veggies production and do what the Cubans have done then you've concentrated the perishables nearer to the population centers. transportation and infrastructure costs stay reasonable. for the farms further away they shift to a crop rotation system which gives them transportable plantstuffs or animals, but i think it is much better to process the animals on the land where they are raised to keep the nutrients there as much as possible (and transportation from the population centers should be bringing organic materials out when they are picking up stuff to bring in). this reduces fuel costs as then only the actual edible parts are shipped. you get an increase in fuel costs hauling organic materials from the cities, but there is some cost in that already because the stuff currently ends up in a landfill or at a recycling center.

eventually energy costs and an accurate assessment of the pollution costs will show that organic systems are viable. large scale organic farms exist now.

if food becomes scarce you can be sure that there will be a wider push to encourage more people to grow food in small plots and to reclaim unused spaces or to restore degraded areas. already i see a lot more gardens than before.

i don't know what your local horticultural trial is about. how large is it?

the claims of the Rodale study is that the labor and fuel increases of the organic approach are more than compensated by the reduced input costs and the higher prices for the organic outputs. i think the cost of fuels can be worked on in various ways that aren't considered useful now, but will become more important when the price of oil goes up.

i think with an accurate accounting of the damage from conventional system the organic system comes out even further ahead. my own small scale practice has shown me enough details and i'm not even pressing production very hard or getting very complicated.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.