Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
practices, this joint research fund was critical to the success of the
Randall Island Project.
By the late 1990s, Randall Island Project growers were down to
four pesticides: oil, pheromones, one organophosphate, and a miticide.
4
By reducing the use of pesticides to control the codling moth, they
allowed beneficial insects—formerly killed by organophosphates—
to control some other pests that had required treatment. They were able
to fulfill the vision of IPM of creating the right conditions in their farm-
ing systems to take advantage of “bug vs. bug” strategies, better known
as biological control. The rate of pheromone adoption at the end of
the 1990s was quite steep because its economic advantages were undeni-
able. Pear growers in other regions of California noticed the success
of the project and began demanding access to it. Records kept by the
California Department of Pesticide Regulation show that the California
pear industry reduced organophosphate use 75 percent between 1994
and 2002.
5
An Agroecological Imagination in Almond Growing
When Glenn Anderson returned to his family's farm, he knew he wanted
to do things differently. He had grown up in California's Central Valley,
100 miles south of Sacramento, but had developed a certain dis-ease—
physically and emotionally—with the ecological and economic implica-
tions of modern dairy production. In the 1960s he had dropped out of
farming and moved to Hawaii, where he had taken courses in tropical
agriculture and Pacific island ecology. He had begun reading Rodale's
Organic Farming and Gardening Magazine
, and in class he had inquired
if organic agriculture could be put to use. His instructors had said that
simply wasn't possible, and that chemical farming was the wave of the
future. During the 1970s, Anderson traveled around the Pacific Islands
and concluded that organic agriculture was not only possible but neces-
sary. When he took over the family farm near Merced in 1980, he was
convinced he could find another way to farm. His older brother had
found almonds to be profitable, so Anderson set out to plant an orchard.
Glen wanted to farm organically, but he didn't know how and had never
met a scientist or an extensionist (that is, a field educator) who could
help him.
