The National Organic Standards Board of the United States of America defines organic agriculture as: "An ecological production management system that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity. It is based on minimal use of off-farm inputs and on management practices that restore, maintain and enhance ecological harmony". The word “organic farming” was coined by Lord Northbourne (an English agriculturist) in his book ‘Look to the Land’ way back in 1940.
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I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the full-fledged definition before so I appreciate that.
I hadn’t seen that particular definition either. But it’s similar to the one I generally turn to, from the Soil Association http://www.soilassociation.org/whatisorganic
There doesn’t seem to be anything regarding runoff of manure or other contaminants into rivers (although I expect this is much worse in some other farming methods).
Interesting point. If greenskyindia is reading this, I hope phe’ll respond.
Manure runoff is a huge potential risk in intensively raising food animals, which concentrates large amounts of manure in relatively small areas. We read regularly about conditions that result in contamination of water, whether in rivers and lakes, or well water. This is a short article on prevention (http://www.wi.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/solutions/manurestorage.html). Organic farming of vegetative crops has been used since the dawn of time, with minimal issues. We do read much more about the contamination of the food crop, especially when it’s eaten raw, than any issues with runoff per se. The solution seems to be to plow the manure in and not use fresh manure as top dressing. Big Chemical Agriculture trumpetts any negative issues that arise from organic gardening, and to be honest in a population of 300 million it seems to be one or two incidents a year.
That’s an interesting link. Are North American livestock farmers obliged to contain the muck from intensive farms? Of course muck is a valuable resource, if used correctly on the land, but if mismanaged it can cause eutrophication. I wrote about how it’s generally managed on British livestock farms http://argylesock.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/where-theres-muck-there-may-be-death/ and about how its runoff can lead to duckweed blooms http://argylesock.wordpress.com/2012/12/04/duckweed/
Thanks for the link.