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The Science of Organic Farming
[First Page]
[40], (1)
Ecologically, agriculture is a highly effective means of converting solar energy into
food and fiber. Given sufficient water, and properly managed, the system can operate
provided with nothing more than sunshine. But modern agricultural technology has
di srupted this efficient relationship.
- Ba rry Commoner, Making Peace with the Planet (1992)
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arly studies of organic farming faced the obstacle of def-
inition: since organic certification was not readily avail-
able, it was difficult to identify organic farms. This meant
that it was impossible to obtain a list of organic farmers
to study; so researchers had to use less formal means to
identify them. As recently as the early 1980s, “very little re-
search has been done on organic farming as a systemof commercial agricul-
ture” (Lockeretz et al. 1981, 541). At this time, many people still assumed that
organic farming was just a throwback to methods from the 1800s, although
research into the social and economic forces at play on organic farms was
beginning to show otherwise (Lockeretz et al. 1978).
This remindsme of an elderly conventional farmer who grows chemically
intensive vegetables in Colorado.When I asked him about organic methods,
he huffed, “Huh! I remember that from when I was a boy. It means worms
in your cabbage!”Well, we've come a long way, partly because of innovative
organic farmers who've experimented and learned through trial and error
and partly because of the relatively scarce research that helped educate
people about modern organic farming. Organic farming techniques are in-
creasingly sophisticated, with improved cultivation and tillage implements,
new crop varieties, and better management knowledge.
Arguably“the first farm-scale study of modern commercial organic farm-
ing in the United States” was conducted in the mid-1970s and investigated
[40], (1)
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