Organic Farmers on the Ground - Good Growing: Why Organic Farming Works - page 117

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The Rissmans at the Green City Farmers' Market in Chicago. (Credit: Glenda Kapsalis)

hi m it wasn't going to be easy, and it hasn't. But it is a lot more fun.”Plus the
ch emical concerns are gone. “You don't have to worry about rinsing [after
ap plications] and your kids getting into something.”
Joel has clear opinions about the dangers of agrichemicals. He describes
on e neighbor: “Mr. McDonnell. He's retired now, but he farmed for years.
An d his story, he said every spring he would go partially blind. He came
to find out it was from the chemicals he was using.” But often it's the
la nd owner, not the farmer who rents and works the land, who insists that
ch emicals be used because they think pesticides help to avert economic risk.
Fo r Mr. McDonnell, apparently, this was a concern. Land ownership and
de cision making are often distinct in conventional Corn Belt agriculture, as
la ndowners often lease out land to farmers who grow corn and soybeans on
thousands of acres of geographically dispersed ground.
When questioned further about his motivations for being an organic
farmer, Joel says, “I thought about it in high school, because my dad has
Parkinson's. It's from the chemicals. No one will change his mind or my
mind. Yeah, he thinks that, too. It's from the chemical use and exposure to
it. They get a neurological magazine that has found a pretty good correlation
between chemical usage - insecticides mainly. And that is what he handled

[117], (27)