Food Chain Radio Show #1069

Michael Olson, Author & Urban Farming Agriculturalist

Commercial Organic Farming with Compost

Should composts containing pesticide residues be allowed in organic farming?

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Yes

No

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Guest: Stan Mitchell Pacific Coast Ag

Once, while visiting the Shipibo Indians along the headwaters of the Amazon, I watched as a leaf fell to the rainforest floor and was immediately consumed by decomposers. Through the enzymes resident in their digestive tracks, they rendered the leaf into essential nutrients. Through my mind’s eye, I could see these nutrients immediately carried right back up into the forest canopy.

Michael Olson Food Chain Radio – Organic gardening with pesticides?

Truth is, death does not last long in the Amazon!

Up here in the temperate zone, death lasts a bit longer. Still, nature is hungry for the nutrients, and decomposition happens.

Fact is, decomposition is a big reason we humans have been able to to live in one location for long periods of time. Like mother nature herself, we recycled dead things– usually plant matter– into living soil. We called the trick, “composting.”

In modern times, composting is the essence of what we have come to call, “organic farming,” which is really what we have been doing all along. However, organic farming now has lots of rules and regulations to distinguish it from that what has become called, “industrial farming.”

One of the biggest rules of organic farming is: No Pesticides!

Imagine the ruckus, then, when USDA issued rules allowing composts containing pesticide residues to be used in commercial organic farming, and another ruckus when a federal judge tossed the rule out!

And so we ask…

Leave a comment below:  Should composts containing pesticides residues be allowed in organic farming?

Tune in here, for the syndicated Food Chain Radio Show #1069 August 20, 2016 Saturday 9AM Pacific