The need for Organic Agriculture.

Of the more than 80,000 chemicals used in the U.S., only 300 or so have ever undergone health and safety testing. In fact, only five chemicals have ever been restricted or banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Agriculture is humankind’s most important activity. According to some estimates, some 70% of the water we use goes to crops and farm animals, and agriculture takes up more space than any other human activity. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), agriculture employs at least half of the world’s workforce. Agriculture therefore must be at the very center of any project for revolutionary social change.

The green revolution is at the very center of the problems of agriculture in the 20th and 21st centuries. In brief, the corporate green revolution was the export of the American-style industrial and mechanized model of agriculture to the third world... The corporate green revolution was one of the single largest non-military undertakings of the twentieth century. In terms of massive use of human resources, proprietary scientific expertise and public funding, it was comparable to the Manhattan Project and the Apollo space program.

But, the corporate green revolution failed miserably. After decades of relentless work, world hunger has not been ameliorated. The world does not have less hungry people today, but it has more. Considering the vast human and financial resources that went into this endeavor, it is no exaggeration to state that the corporate green revolution was one of the biggest failures of the twentieth century. In spite of its painfully obvious failure, the corporate green revolution’s protagonists and spokespeople continue to stubbornly refer to it as a success, that it was and still is one of the most noble and successful humanitarian undertakings of all time. In light of the persistence of this triumphalist discourse of denial, one can also say that the corporate green revolution was also one of the major deceptions of the last century.

The corporate green revolution had been under continuous and unending criticism ever since it started. In the early 1960′s authors Rachel Carson and Murray Bookchin warned about the environmental and human health hazards of pesticides, one of the main elements of the corporate green revolution. In the following decade, American activists Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins founded the non-governmental organization Food First, which has produced educational materials on food, agriculture and hunger, with an explicitly critical view on the corporate green revolution and neoliberal policies. In 1977 Lappe and Collins, with the collaboration of Cary Fowler, wrote “Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity”. This pioneering book made a bold frontal attack on every assumption of the corporate green revolution, from Malthusianism to the need for pesticides in agriculture. In 1981 Food First published “Circle of Poison”, a book about the hazards of pesticides, which led to the founding of the Pesticide Action Network, a global network that today comprises over 600 non-governmental organizations, institutions and individuals in 90 countries. They are not alone in their criticism.
Scientists Estimate That Pesticides are Reducing Crop Yields by ONE-THIRD Through Impaired Nitrogen Fixation - July 2007 - http://www.organic-center.org/science.hot.php?action=view&report_id=99 . Over the last forty years nitrogen fertilizer use has increased seven-fold and nearly every acre of intensively farmed, conventional cropland is treated with corporate pesticides. A team of scientists explored the impact of pesticides and other environmental toxicants on symbiotic nitrogen fixation (SNF) brought about by Rhizobium bacteria (Fox et al., 2007). Their findings were published June 12, 2007 in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/104/24/10282

The team describes the critical role played by SNF in supporting crop yields and environmental quality. SNF has great potential to reduce farm production costs – a factor of growing importance as rising natural gas prices push upward the cost of nitrogen fertilizers. In Brazil, SNF from soybeans reduces production costs an estimated $1.3 billion per year. The research by Fox et al. (2007) explored in depth the signaling processes between plants and bacteria colonizing plant roots – processes that govern the degree of SNF and the production of certain phytochemicals. They focused on the ways that pesticides can disrupt signaling and impair the efficiency of SNF. Some 30 pesticides are known to disrupt SNF; the most widely used pesticide in the United States, glyphosate (Roundup) is known to be toxic to nitrogen fixing bacteria. The "Conclusions" section of the paper begins by stating: "The results of this study demonstrate that one of the environmental impacts of pesticides and contaminants in the soil environment is disruption of chemical signaling between the host plants and N-fixing Rhiz(obia) necessary for efficient SNF and optimal plant yield."

Drawing on their recent work and other published studies, the team projected that pesticides and other contaminants are reducing plant yield by one-third as a result of impaired SNF. This remarkable conclusion suggests one mechanism, or explanation of the yield-enhancing benefits of well-managed, long-term organic farming systems.

Throughout the 1980′s and 90′s a new chorus of critical voices spoke up against the corporate green revolution: the advocates and practitioners of what has come to be known as organic, or ecological, farming. The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) defines organic agriculture as "a production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems and people. It relies on ecological processes, biodiversity and cycles adapted to local conditions, rather than the use of inputs with adverse effects. Organic agriculture combines tradition, innovation and science to benefit the shared environment and promote fair relationships and a good quality of life for all involved."

What is not done for love - is done for money. A corporation has no soul, its only goal is to make a profit. A corporation cares not who is harmed in its pursuit of profit. A corporation cares not about the misery and pollution it causes - it cares only for its "bottom line". And when faced with the proof of the evil it has done in order to make a profit - the corporation can declare itself bankrupt and can not even be incarcerated. The Author believes the corporate green revolution should be more correctly called the corporate greed revolution!

For years the Author has written if you sow POISON you will reap POISON and that there are many safe and far more effective alternatives - that is what this entire free book (http://www.thebestcontrol2.com) is about. It is my free gift to mankind and it is the Author's hope and prayer that we can stop the use/misuse of POISONS, synthetic fertilizers and frankenfoods before it is too late!