Eating Organic is Good for EVERYONE
A lot of talk is about the effects commercial farming methods are having on the fertility of the soil. This is with good reason. While ecologists have been warning us for years about the impending consequences due to improper stewardship of our terra firma, modern food producers are just seemingly not to hearing it. Many people today are coming face to face with the consequences conventional farming has now thrust upon us.
Commercial farming; especially that done on an industrial scale sees the soil as a tool and is a profit-driven venture. This kind of outlook towards natural resources is turning once fertile land into desert rapidly; these practices deplete the soil of nutrients, forcing farmers to use chemicals to fertilize the land.
This chemical fertilization uses three basic chemicals: Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium. This mans that they are not using organic soil enriching methods to return the 52 essential nutrients and countless other beneficial elements such as bacteria, all of which are needed to maintain healthy soils and healthy plants. Naturally, this means that farmers also need to rely on chemical pesticides and insecticides to deal to with less resistant crops.
Commercial farming then results in poor, depleted, and toxic soils. This in turn grows poor unhealthy plants with toxic properties. The unhealthy food produced by these unhealthy plants is not only toxic, but it is also void of the nutrients and minerals we need to be healthy. This, in turn, leads to malnutrition and other deficiencies. This causes a multitude of ailments which we would not have to suffer from if we only cared for the soil properly. Is it any coincidence, then, that along with the advent of industrial food production we have also seen the rise in diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and childhood and adult illnesses?
So what do we do now? Jerome Rodale (founder of Prevention magazine) once said: ” The health of the people is dependent upon the quality of the food they consume. And the quality of their foods depends on the quality of the soil on which that food is grown.” So simple, yet so important. Rodale came to this view while studying the Hunzan people, living in mountainous northern Pakistan. The Hunzan practice organic agriculture and served as Rodale’s inspiration for adopting an organic viewpoint.
It seems that the ingenious irrigation systems coupled with the fertilization and composting methods used by Hunzan caused the soil to be incredibly rich. The Hunzan also used wood ash to repel pests, this also added to the soils richness. After using their methods over millennia their soil was pristine. Thanks to their smart system of organic agriculture, the erosion of topsoil and the depletion of the soils nutrients and beneficial bacteria was never an issue. What should this tell us? The health of our soil related to the health of our crops and the health of ourselves.
In the United States alone, more than 3 billion tons of top soil is lost every year. This is over seven times the rate at which the top soil is amended and replenished. Organic farming looks at the bigger picture, not just the current need. Organic farming means that the health of the soil is taken seriously and is treated as the most important part of the farming process. By supporting our soils and treating our crops properly, organic farming serves to support our health too.
Eating organic really is - Good For Everyone!
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