Today we assist to a hudge conversion of land for food into land for biofuels...At the same time there is a big lack of food on Earth...
Moreover, the man kills the forest to plant palm oil...
This situation can not go on...
As everybody know, to statisfy organic certification when you used to product in a conformist way, time of conversion will be required.
During this time the farmer will have to have an organic way of production whitout having the organic certification. The time enable the soil to filter the pesticides, fertilizers, manures or any other subtances which where used by the common way of production.
We have to remember on more time that organic legislation differ in every country, that mean the duration of the time required for the conversion differ too.
Even if it is on small scale, our little garden of vegetables and flowers is still one kind of agriculture. And on a large scale the way we chose to cultivate it, have an important impact on the environment. Indeed intimate gardening is his one of the main of origin of contamination.
So the have some advises to cultivate your garden organically.
http://www.essentialgardenguide.com
“The bio-dynamic agriculture is an agriculture assuring the health of the ground and the plants to get a healthy food for animals and for people. It bases itself on a profound understanding of the laws of "alive" acquired by a qualitative and global vision of the nature. It considers that the nature is at this time so degraded that it is not capable any more of being cured itself and that it is necessary to restore on the ground its fertile vitality indispensable to the health of plants, animals and people thanks to "therapeutic" processes.”
The European agriculture crosses at present an important crisis. This crisis is characterized by two big points:
- the problem of the environmental pollution (ground, water, air)
- and underestimates it agricultural which gets numerous regions, notably low mountain range.
In some years, the consequences of these drift brought to us to ask us of numerous questions: in the future, the Earth will still give us what people need for their physical existence? What do we really eat? … Behind these essential questions appears the question of responsibility, that it is about environment, about production, about quality of food or about social fabric. Even if the agriculture is only partially responsible for the situation where is the biosphere (as a result of the industrial and economic development), it is always quoted in the debate. The stakes and the consequences are such, as each today feels concerned.
To speak about responsibility supposes that there is an ethics and reasons for action. We blame the extensive agriculture for having too much gone away from the conditions of a durably stable and healthy work. Furthermore, constants difficulties met by the agricultural policy tend to prove us that the industrial methods are not adapted to the agriculture, a profession where we work with human beings.
But the idea of a durable, environment-friendly, satisfactory production on the quantitative and qualitative plan is new by no means. In 1924, Rudolf Steiner gave the foundations of what was going to become the bio-dynamic agriculture.
Even if the number of farms which work according to the methods of the bio-dynamic or biological agriculture remains still too weak, notably in France
The purposes of the bio-dynamic agriculture:
- to look after the ground
- to regenerate, to shape and to maintain the landscapes
- to supply to people a healthy food
- to develop the approach of the alive and to understand the role of the Man
- to open new social perspectives on farms as in the producing, consumer links (by including the storekeepers there)
Studies about GMOs crops began in 1973 in USA. Ten years later, the first transgenic plant had been got. Reasearchers modified the genome of a tobacco variety. Then, they created crops resisting to insects (1985) and to a total weed-killer (Roundup from Monsanto). 1990 was the year of the first commercialisation of a genetically modified plant : a tobacco resisting to a virus in China. And, in 1994, the first transgenic vegetable (a tomato) was sold. In spite of their recent history, GMOs are now very developed and wide-spread all around the world. Nowadays, we list 102 millions of hectares of GMOs cultures (40 millions in 1999). We can note that, in Europe, France had been the first country cultivating genetically modified organisms outside (3 corn’s varieties) before the creation of a European Comitee examinating autorisations (or no) to cultivate the different crops.
This way of cultivation is really modish mainly in developed countries. But do we really know what does this certification mean? Organic certification do not have the same constraint and every state, furthermore european certification does not exist. That means that a way of production which is considered organic in one state of europe, would not necessarily fulfil the requirements of the any other country. However every product can be sold in every state of the world with the organic certification of the country where it was product.
So as a consumer how could we know if all the organic certification worth the same. Let have a look to the link to have an idea. To make the reading easier you should know that French certificatio AB is consider as one of the more restrictive.
Bio-gro which come from New Zealand is one of the most important distributor. This beg the question of the discharges of gazes brought whith the carriage of foodstuff.
The agriculture is essential. It’s thanks to it that we can eat each day. However the way it works today does not allow us to continue like that. The pollution which the agriculture loosens and the energy which it consumes is nothing else only the environment degrading / do anything else that degrade the environment and use the ressources. It’s an issue because we don’t left the time to the soil to regenerate itself and we don’t give it anything to help it to regenerate itself. We just use the soil by giving it fertilizing, pesticides, herbicides... We have to find solutions to have an agriculture clean which can prduce a lot (the mondial population don’t stop to increase) without harm the environment.
To speak about the energy, the agricultural system we have today depends on and works only thanks to the oil. If we look at the previsions about the future oil ressources, it seems that there will be no more oil on the soil in 2050. It ‘s so very urgent to find solutions to be able to compensate for this lack without reduce the production.
Of course it is not all the farmers or all the agricultural system which are not aware about these issues. There is a lot of farmers who are conscient that they have to protect their environment and who have already clean practices. They develop solutions on a small scale that may be we can combine to be able to duplicate them on a large scale.
And maybe that the agriculture of tomorrow is in those about whom we speak now..
Maybe that the agriculture of tomorrow is hidden among the ideas about which we speak...
“La vie après le pétrole, de la pénurie aux énergies nouvelles » de Jean-Luc Wingert, éditions Autrement frontières.
My name is Stéphanie, I am a student of an International agro-development school and as my three comrade the question of the environment and of the place, the being, of agriculture in the ecosystem is very important for me. I am not originally from an agricultural milieu, I just exercise myself in the vineyard with my father and obviously in my garden! If we choose to do a blog on the agriculture of tomorrow it is because we are worried about le future of our soil. I think (and I hope my friends too!) that if we continue to do agriculture in the same way that in this time it might have some problems in the future (there already are a lot of problems!!) as for provide for the need of the worldwide population than for the health of the earth. We can’t continue to have an intensive system because we use a lot of natural resources, we exhaust the soil and deteriorate it and we soon use more energy to produce that we produce it.
A lot of people might say that we can’t do anything for that, that the new modes of production are not sustainable and appropriate to nourish everybody (are not suited to feed everybody), that in term of operating cost it’s impossible to resist when we are in organic system…This is rubbish, of course we can live with a lot of alternatives to the traditional extensive system…Even the FAO say in one of its reports that we can nourish, could feed all the planet only with biological or respectful of the environment productions…
Bois Raméal Fragmenté (BRF) in French, the technique of fragmented wood consists in increasing the fertility and the productivity of a field with a mix of fragmented small branches. It happens during the fall: the small branches are cuted, crushed and spreaded. The next step takes place at the end of the winter, it consists in mixing the fragmented branches with the first soil bed . after this step we can notice the micro-fauna and the micro-mushrooms proliferation.
This process, developed during the 70’s by Edgar Guay in order to help the foresters in Quebec, is based on the nature imitation. Indeed, the soil forest is an example in fertility, an African adage says: “Soil fertility is coming from the tree”.This technique is also a way of increasing the rate of carbon, nitrogen.
