Jim Wells wrote an editorial in the LA Times you might have seen. You may derive what he said through my rebuttal, which may be published since an accomplice has a pipeline to the ed desk.

Wells' headline was:  To Feed World's People, Modern Practices Must Supplant Organic Fads

And then he regurgitated the Avery's crapola for 400 words.

Steve

ORGANIC FARMING AIN'T NO HULA-HOOP

While reading Jim Wells' admonitory editorial in the Times ( 4 June 02) suggesting that we collectively shun organic farming as if it was some flash-in-the-pan, I realized that Mr. Wells, former Director of Pesticide Regulation for the State of California, seems to be, well, if not scared, shall we say overly concerned? By the way, why is a former regulator on the pro-chem bandwagon after retirement?

Has the bitty organic mouse got the big old chemical farming behemoth on the run? Why do folks like Wells and a few other unabashed promoters of synthetic farming inputs continue to thunder away at that little mouse? The agricultural materials manufacturers (and their champions) are usually those that are most outspoken, not the conventional farmers. However, after the recent spate of pro-organic headlines, the chemical sector was somehow due their rebuttal time. But one rarely reads or hears of an organic farmer blasting the conventional agricultural producer sector, mainly because those are farmers we're talking about, and be they organic or not, knowing what we do about the risks and rigors of farming, we farmers tend to not demean one another.

One potential revelation is that lot of conventional farmers who now have significant acreage devoted to certified organic production are generally happy with the non-chemical results and utilize organic methods and materials on their conventional ground as well. Many other conventional farmers have adopted organic practices and consider that they are nearly organic (in terms of total volume of inputs), and have done so merely because its safer for them and their neighbors, frequently more cost effective, and because its plainly a lot less troublesome than to file intent-to-spray documents with the county, buy, truck, store and use dangerous toxic chemicals, and get dressed up in a full-length moon-walking suit when its 94 degrees.

With neighborhoods and agriculture increasingly sharing the same space, perhaps it might be a good idea to teach non-synthetic agricultural principles. We also are astonished to see that Mr. Wells recycled that dubious data about sulfur and copper use-is that all you can come up with to scare us? That data was proven to be self-serving the moment that the Hudson Institute published it. The fact is that these elemental pesticides are used to a greater degree on conventional farms, and has been documented.

What is more interesting is that curious and independently minded farmers have reduced their synthetic inputs, usually only employing conventional fertilizers and perhaps a modest amount of herbicide. Generally, while conventional farmers are concerned that pesticide regulation will continue to prohibit numerous chemicals, they also are learning a few new tricks (actually old tricks) that will allow them to continue to farm when those chemicals are no longer allowed.

I apologize if such practices are now codified in the National Organic Program ( USDA), in California law, and widely adopted internationally,  but feel free to call them something else and use them without shame.

To surmise Mr. Wells' motive might do him a disservice. And if I do him harm it is no less than he has done to organic farmers. By risking such editorial comment, his unjust criticism and hyperbole leveled at the organic farming sector actually aims to directly harm our commerce. I use the word harm repeatedly and with cause. It's a legal term. 

Nonetheless, I am curiously pleased to see the dire predictions paraded before us again, with the vaunted Hudson Institute ( is that spelled with two pillars or just one?) serving as the authority, because at the very least  this proves once again that we have your attention. Glad to see that.

We organic cultists are just as concerned as Mr. Wells and other humanitarians, like Dennis and Alex Avery at the Hudson are, about feeding a growing population, and share with them a determination to not have more land converted to agriculture when it is best left as wilderness. We also believe that one way to save the land already devoted to intensive agriculture is to not subject it to practices or materials that will eventually render it useless. We've lost thousands of acres to the kind of farming Mr. Wells supports. We can underscore that fundamental error by including the water resources fouled by those same agricultural chemicals.

On the other hand, I have seen much acreage on conventional farms that was actually rescued through organic management and put back into profitable production. I farmed some land myself which had been damaged by herbicides and its rehabilitation took three years. Eventually the place was featured in Sunset magazine, so you may draw your own conclusions as to how it looked thereafter.
Much new research indicates that organic production is so close to the average production on conventional ground that there is little reason to argue about superiority. Please refer to the website of the Organic Farming Research Foundation <ofrf.org> for all references and citations.

I would also say that what is not clearly stated in the organic-versus conventional discussion is how broad the acceptance is for organic farming practices in institutions and in government. Our recent gains in the federal Farm Bill may have reinforced our position. It took us quite a long time to finally obtain the massive sum of $15,000,000 for USDA research in organic farming ( compared to the billions given to conventional agriculture): oops there is that mouse again. Many agricultural scientists are drawn to organic farming because they are allowed to study nature as it is, not genetically engineer what is perhaps best left alone. There is job security in nature, compared to the roller coaster that is GMO.

The real problem for the synthetic chemical sector is not the needlessly demeaned environmental sector, nor the unjustly characterized chicken-little sector of the populace that prefers food not grown with synthetic chemical poisons (  they're the ones that are crazy?), but the fact that a growing number of unbiased scientists and policy makers find that organic farming deserves respect. We organic cultists say: don't take on the whole program at once, just mix in crop rotations, beneficial insect habitat management and some hardcore soil science for a start.

We never meant you any harm. If the chemical input sector crumbles, it crumbles because of its own excesses, not because hundreds of professional restaurant and hotel chefs prefer to use organic ingredients-but, hey what kind of experts in taste are they anyway?  The sector will crumble because they poisoned the people who live near West Helena, Mississippi, just like the poor folks down-wind from Bhopal, India. You see, it's not just that using chemicals or even eating them on food is paramount, even thought evading them is a good idea.

What is probably most frightening is  that huge facilities make these materials by the freight-car load, haul them beside sleeping neighborhoods and on bridges lain over municipal drinking water supplies, and then park them nonchalantly in huge, carelessly managed piles at your local hardware store or mega-retailer. That is a bit more unnerving. So please leave us alone and give us a chance to feed people without contributing to those kinds of threats to our security.

Before there were chemicals everyone farmed organically, de facto. Now we observe that the improvements wrought by chemicals had too high a price, and instead  the innovations of the past-aided by new and responsible technology appear more sustainable and predictably safer. We have to get off the chemical treadmill sooner or later. Organic farming ain't no hula hoop, it's the wave of the future.