Attacks on Physical Internet
October 29, 2015
Slow Food
November 12, 2015
Food Chain Radio Show #1034
Michael Olson, Author & Urban Farming Agriculturalist
Professor William Albrecht, Heretic
This Poll is closed!!
Guest: Dr. Joel Wallach
Can we live without living soils?
Green may be popular today, but not as popular as it was between the 1930 and 1970. During those times, green was a real revolution.
Michael Olson Food Chain Radio – Professor William Albrecht, Heretic – Can we live without living soils? Guest: Joel Wallach
Green Revolution technologies included higher yielding grains, more powerful equipment and more potent chemicals, all of which enabled fewer farmers to grow more food crops. And the father of the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug, was given the Nobel Peace Prize for having saved the lives of a billion people.
Though the Green Revolution would seem to be one of mankind’s greatest achievements, some are not so certain. One among them was Professor William Albrecht, who as Chairman of the Department of Soils at the University of Missouri, said, “NPK formulas, (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) as legislated and enforced by State Departments of Agriculture, mean malnutrition, attack by insects, bacteria and fungi, weed takeover, crop loss in dry weather, and general loss of mental acuity in the population, leading to degenerative metabolic disease and early death.”
For this heresy, Albrecht was pretty much shunned by the movers and shakers of industrial agriculture. But then all those degenerative metabolic diseases Albrecht warned about began showing up, and so we ask…
Leave a comment below: Can we live without living soils?
Tune in here, for the syndicated Food Chain Radio Show #1034 November 7, 2015 Saturday 9AM Pacific
1 Comment
I know exactly what Professor Albrecht was up against. We farm near Vancouver BC. In 1959-60 I was a teaching assistant to Dr Duncan MacKenzie at UBC who took a similar stand.
The Soil Science professor was proclaiming that farms would not survive unless they converted to chemical agriculture. To prove it he used leaflets prepared by Canadian Industries Ltd at Trail BC that extolled the virtues of NPK and their Elephant Brand fertilizer.
Dr MacKenzie continued to teach about the need for trace elements missing in the new fertilizers, crop rotations, livestock and green manures and composting to feed to soil, worms and microbes to produce healthy food. He was ridiculed. When he became ill and I taught the last couple of months of his course. I was ridiculed. Dr. MacKenzie retired and that was the last time the course was taught for decades.
Our farm had always been basically an organic mixed farm. My father saw no need for wasting money on chemicals and we never changed. My soils professor was wrong. It was the chemical using farms that didn’t survive. We’re still farming. Now. at 78 years old, I am proudly giving the lectures on organic farming that I was afraid to give 55 years ago