Organic vs. Conventional

A customer forwarded this article to me the other day.

http://health.msn.com/nutrition/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100242535

I found it interesting that the article made a distinction between conventionally grown food and organically grown food. Up until 70 or so years ago, wasn't the conventional way to grow food similar to organic growing nowadays? Didn't the farmer grow his own food, rotating crops and using chickens as both fertilizer and pest control? If food traveled more than 10 miles from where it was grown it was because one family was visiting another and bringing along homemade pie.

It is only during the last century that food producers have experimented with non-conventional methods: taking all the nutrients from the soil with no thought of replenishment, modifying plants so that they accept only one type of pollen while being immune to the herbicides broadcast randomly, planting mono cultures, tearing down forests to plant crops with no value. As I see it, the organic movement is a trend towards the old ways, not a new fangled idea.

I found it also interesting that the article focused only on the nutrient value of the food from the two types of growing methods. That too, is incompatible with the whole idea of organic growing. Organic growing comprehensively addresses the entire process of growing food. We don't just look at the nutrient value of an individual vegetable; we look and consider where the food was grown, how it was grown, in what it was grown, how it was harvested, where it's sold, farm management...the list continues.

At the compost site I often discuss the "cost" of material. Most frequently it stems from a customer trying to decide between decorative gravel and our organic mulches. After I point out some of the true costs of gravel, i.e., mining (environmental and aesthetic) and it's equipment (diesel fuel and exhaust), transportation costs(including wear and tear on roads and highways), labor to move it, the effects of added heat to the our dry city and its surroundings, a customer begins to see the value in using a recycled product in their landscape.

While it's exciting to see MSN approach the subject of organically grown food (I don't think we would have seen an article like this even five years ago), we still have a long way to go before the subject is addressed fully and comprehensively.