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Issue 14 |
Issue No. 14, February 2008
HEALTH FROM THE SOIL UPJust as we are what we eat, so are plants and animals, which we consume, what they eat. If they are not raised on a healthy, balanced soil, then the whole health equation fails from "the ground up." The farmer is the physician in preventative medicine. Human health was sustained by the soil, using time-proven agricultural methods, for several thousand years. It was not until the last 60-70 years of chemical agriculture that we have seen such a drastic decline in soil nutrition, balance and health. Chemical giants looking for uses for huge inventories of nitrogen used for the manufacture of explosives during WW II initiated the idea of using chemical nitrogen as "fertilizer" on the nation's crops. Three synthetic nutrients, NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium), were declared by PhD-bearing soil scientists "on the company payroll" to embody all that a plant needs to grow, though, in reality, a plant takes in nearly 90 nutrients present in balanced, healthy soil. Ignoring the other 87 vital nutrients has led to the present continually depleting practice of "soil mining" by modern chemical agriculture. This is where organic production differs, or at least should differ. I say should because, unfortunately, organic is not what it once was or was conceived to be. With Wal-Mart and other big grocery chain stores carrying organic food, there is increasing demand for organic food selected with only one consideration: price. With this consideration, the industrial organic farm was born. Instead of restoring soil nutrition to ensure the balanced presence of trace nutrients, industrial organics use conventional agriculture's simplistic calculations for nutrient needs, only now supplying them organically rather than synthetically. This is still considerably better than the alternative, chemical agriculture, with its synthetic nutrients and obscene application of life-negating pesticides, but it does not fulfill the mandate of "organic by conviction" that seeks to make the soil the best it can be for the health of all. We at Harvest Haven are "organic by conviction." We use nutrient-rich products such as kelp meal (seaweed) to re-mineralize our soils in spite of the expense. But we do much more. There is the component of soil health completely ignored by chemical agriculture; the microbiology of the soil. Up to half of a handful of healthy soil is composed of live microbes and the bodies of dead microbes. Without microbiology, the minerals cannot be converted into an available form suitable for plant uptake. Also, without microbiological balance, excess CO2 gas is let off into the atmosphere - Al Gore never told you about the microbiological solution for high levels of carbon dioxide, did he? A flourishing balance of soil microbiology makes plant diseases all but impossible, as any pathogenic organism that happens to float in and land on a leaf merely becomes lunch for the "good guys" that populate the surface. These "good guys" are capable of fixing or making available all of the nutrients a crop needs, eliminating the need for ag chemical companies, period. This is why we spend much time and expense at our farm making our own compost and brewing compost tea - to re-establish and re-balance the microbiology in our soils – a more costly, but effective practice. Implementing these healthy, restorative soil practices has proven to eventually create organic farming yields that consistently out-produce conventional yields, as well as much better and healthier food, disproving the brazen, profit-motivated lie that, "If the whole world went organic, the world would go hungry." The real story is that if the whole world does not go full-on organic, it will continue to die the "death of a thousand cuts," leading to the catastrophic stage recently witnessed with commercial bees in the dreaded "colony collapse disorder," a harbinger of larger environmental troubles to come if things do not change. We are taking a stand for the welfare of everyone and everything by the way we have chosen to farm. In this your support is appreciated. We need you as consumers to discriminate between the care taken in raising our organic food and in choosing the organic food we bring in as compared to the destructive price-point only selection criteria that Wal-Mart and other large food retailers apply in selecting their line of "organic" food. If you have not already done so, come out and experience first-hand the difference for yourself. Mark Benson WHOLESOME ORGANIC FOOD
Chicken Quick and Easy
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