Overview

1. Overview • Conventional Farming • Organic farming • Video: My Father’s Garden • The difference between conventional farming and organic farming • Why are organic foods more expensive?

2. Conventional Farming • 1940’s began farming with agri-chemicals • Fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and rodenticides • 1972 Congress ordered the EPA to test all pesticides for potential health hazards. • All agri-chemicals can remain until EPA proves dangerous • 1990’s pesticide companies focus on genetic engineering • Using agri-chemicals is the predominate way food is grown in U.S. so it is now called “conventional” farming

3. Organic Farming • Based on : • Using natural, renewable fertilizer and pesticides • Compost, manure, Bt • Farming in a way that maintains and replenishes the life and nutrients in the soil. • The farmer feeds the living organisms in the soil. • Handful of organic soil – 5 billion microorganisms • Primary methods used: • Crop diversity • Crop rotation • Biological pest control

4. Organic Foods • Plants grown without conventional pesticides or fertilizers • Produced without genetically engineered seeds • Animals are fed organic feed and raised without use of antibiotics • Food processed without irradiation or food additives

5. “Eating is an environmental act.” Wendell Berry