Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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are pretty damn stupid. They are used to doing things one way and they
can't change to save their life. But anybody that has enough balls to change
their operation and they are losing money and can't make it . . . The ones
that change over. I tell them if you can't put it on the organic market, you
can put it on the other. You have the best of both worlds. Whereas with what
you are doing now, you know what you got.”
Speaking of his family's upstate New York farm, Steve says, “We were in
a financially competitive position here, and we couldn't get big enough to
survive by just getting more ground and better equipment, getting bigger
to survive in that way. With 100 acres of vegetables in the conventional
market, I am nobody. With 100 acres of vegetables in organic, I am not
somebody huge, but I am still a player at certain times of the year. It gives
us a little leverage that way.” Organic farming has provided an opportunity
to survive in agriculture, which probably would not have been possible
with conventional methods. In addition to economic factors, ecology plays
a crucial role in the success of organic farms.
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COLOGICAL CONCERNS
Organic farmers are comfortable with ecological conversations - not nec-
essarily ones based on strict scientific definitions (although some would
enjoy that, too) but rather a discussion of how things really work on their
farm. The key ecological factors, according to these farmers, are soil health,
weather and climate conditions, and ecological balance. They also have
interesting perspectives on environmentalists.
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So
il Health
Soil building is the basis of production success in organic farming. Phil, in
California, says that when he first attempted organic farming, “it piqued my
interest in soil fertility, how to grow crops without commercial fertilizers.” It
seems that this interest in the soil is what motivates many organic farmers in
their decision to continue with organic methods. Joel says his Illinois farm
has seven types of soil. He recommends an important step in the organic
farming process: “Start out with soil samples. And don't have someone come
in and do it. Take the sample yourself. Then you know how hard you have
to push down on the probe, and over the years you can say, hey, this is
getting easier. Because you are not killing off your microbes anymore with
chemicals, and the soil has a chance to loosen up. And you are more in
touch with what is going on. You can observe different things - why are
