Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Without that demand for organic farm products by consumers, organic pro-
duction and research, as we know them today, would not exist.
Milestones and Growing Pains
J. I. Rodale's son, Bob, and Bob's wife, Ardath, carried on his work and founded
the Rodale Institute. Bob Rodale's impassioned testimony before the U.S.
Congress helped convince lawmakers to include funds for regenerative agri-
culture in the 1985 Farm Bill. Unwilling to adopt the term “organic,” however,
the U.S. Department of Agriculture coined the name “low-input sustainable
agriculture” which was known by the acronym LISA.
One of the few things that mainstream scientists and organic farmers at
the time agreed on was that we hated the name, which was flawed and mis-
leading. At that time, however, many mainstream farmers and agricultural
scientists still considered organic farming to be pseudoscience and were put
off by some organic advocates' inclusion of mysticism, astrology, and spir-
itualism as key components of organic production. In a few years, “low-input
sustainable agriculture” became simply “sustainable agriculture.”
Farmers and researchers made many advances as they developed more
sustainable practices. Initially, we looked for ways to reduce pesticide use
and develop “softer” pesticides. The more we learned, however, the more we
discovered that our tried and true method of reducing research to a single
question and a few variables did not explain much of what was taking place
on a farm. During the past 25 years, we have learned to recognize the intric-
ate relationships between plants and their environments. In the 1980s, most
fruit researchers worked alone or with a small number of like-minded col-
leagues on narrowly focused projects. Today we work in teams that include
horticulturists, breeders, entomologists, weed specialists, soil scientists, and,
very importantly, private fruit growers.
In particular, we are discovering what organic advocates have taught for
a century. Plant health is absolutely dependent upon healthy, chemically bal-
anced, and biologically active soil. In turn, healthy soils require healthy, di-
