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What's
Organic farming?
Organic
farming is a type of farming that uses no synthetic pesticides, herbicides
or fertilizers. An organic farmer aims to create a healthy, balanced soil,
which supports many creatures such as beetles, worms, grubs, bacteria,
fungi, rotifers, etc. Organic farming also aims to create a habitat that
supports many different creatures above ground such as snakes, toads,
birds, and insects. The healthy soil together with the healthy habitat
should lead to healthy, productive plants.
What's wrong with chemical fertilizers
- after all nitrogen is nitrogen is nitrogen.
Well, yes, nitrogen is nitrogen is nitrogen, but plants shall not live
on nitrogen alone. You can't live on just one nutrient; you need a variety
of vitamins, minerals, fiber, protein, and calories. Plants are the same
way. Synthetic fertilizers only provide key minerals. However, to be healthy
plants need many major nutrients and trace elements to survive. Organic
fertilizers provide many trace elements, major nutrients, as well as organic
matter.
Organic fertilizers release nutrients more slowly, so the plant doesn't have a flush of growth when they are applied. Synthetic fertilizers often cause a spurt of unhealthy growth. This makes your plants more susceptible to disease and insects, which leads the synthetic farmer to more pesticides. By using organic fertilizers, you can break this cycle.
The organic matter helps hold the nutrients and water the plants need. It also provides food for soil organisms that recycle and hold nutrients. With all these good nutrients hanging around in the soil, your plant can grow at a steady, healthy pace. And because your organic soil is holding the nutrients, the nitrogen and phosphorus won't leach away and end up polluting our waterways. You can dump all the nitrogen you want on your soil, but if it can't hold the nitrogen, it will end up harming our waterways. There is a large dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, from synthetic fertilizers leaching off our farmer's fields in the Midwest.
The salts in synthetic fertilizers can harm soil organisms - especially worms. The fillers in synthetic fertilizers are not listed or regulated by the government. A company can put anything it wants to in those bags and you have no way of knowing what it is. Manufacturing synthetic fertilizers is not environmentally friendly. Synthetic fertilizers depend on non-renewable resources and use large amounts of energy to manufacture and transport. Organic fertilizers can also use energy to transport and mine, but many organic farmers use local resources that would otherwise be wasted.
What's Wrong with Chemicals?
Well, actually, nothing. Everything has chemicals. Water is a chemical.
Try to use the word synthetic instead of chemical. But, as everyone says
chemical farming and farming (even me), remind people that it's the type
of chemcial that matters. Organic farmers use natural chemcials that breakdown
quickly and don't harm the environment. A lot of stuff that organic farmers
use comes for the kitchen. Other chemcials we use come from plants, animals
and bacteria in our natural environment. Synthetic pesticides and herbicides
can be much more persistent - they don't breakdown as quickly. They can
also attach themselves to the humus in the soil and remain inactive for
hundreds of years until the humus breaks down.
Synthetic pesticides also harm more than their target insect. They can kill many different types of insects at one time. Organic farmers work to control just the pest insects. Insecticidal soap kills when it covers the insect. Horticultural oil kills by smothering the insect. Insects who come along later are not likely to be killed. But after spraying a synthetic pesticide, any insect that lands on the plant days later can still be killed. Synthetic herbicides have been found to be harmful weeks after application. Mulch controls weeds ver effectively, and it helps, not harms, your desired plants.
Why bother saving insects
- a bug is a bug is a bug?
Not all bugs are created equal - that's what makes your organic farm such
a hot spot. Organic farms have nematodes eating grubs, snakes eating toads,
spiders eating flies, wasps larvae eating catepillers, ladybugs eating
aphids. It's a real bug eat bug world out there. By encouraging and protecting
the predators, you can keep your pests at an acceptable level with a lot
less work than spraying. Synthetic farmers spend a lot of time spraying
to kill bugs, yet they still have insect damamge. Why not let the predators
take care of your pests and enjoy the show
Eventually bugs pests become resistant to chemcials - whether
they're synthetic or natural. Chemicals are just too simplistic to keep
a pest at bay for long. Ahhh - but predator bugs are just as complicated
as your pest bugs are. As the pests develop new startegies to evade being
eaten, the predators are developing new ways to ensure they can catch
their dinner. It's a lot harder for the pests to develop resistance to
a predator than it is for them to develop resistance to a chemical. So
support your local predator population.
From Suite
101, written by Deborah Turton
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