VVH-TV News SpecialOrganic Farming: Can It Feed Us? Part 1Karl Grossman Chief Investigative Reporter examines Organic Farming on Eastern Long Island.
What is organic farming? Organic farming can be defined as an approach to agriculture where the aim is to create integrated, humane, environmentally and economically sustainable agricultural production systems. Maximum reliance is placed on locally or farm-derived renewable resources and the management of self-regulating ecological and biological processes and interactions in order to provide acceptable levels of crop, livestock and human nutrition, protection from pests and diseases, and an appropriate return to the human and other resources employed. Reliance on external inputs, whether chemical or organic, is reduced as far as possible. In many European countries, organic agriculture is known as ecological agriculture, reflecting this reliance on ecosystem management rather than external inputs.
The objective of sustainability lies at the heart of organic farming and is one of the major factors determining the acceptability or otherwise of specific production practices. The term 'sustainable' is used in its widest sense, to encompass not just conservation of non-renewable resources (soil, energy, minerals) but also issues of environmental, economic and social sustainability. The term 'organic' is best thought of as referring to the concept of the farm as an organism, in which all the component parts - the soil minerals, organic matter, micro-organisms, insects, plants, animals and humans - interact to create a coherent and stable whole.
The key characteristics of organic farming include:
protecting the long term fertility of soils by maintaining organic matter levels, encouraging soil biological activity, and careful mechanical intervention;
providing crop nutrients indirectly using relatively insoluble nutrient sources which are made available to the plant by the action of soil micro-organisms;
nitrogen self-sufficiency through the use of legumes and biological nitrogen fixation, as well as effective recycling of organic materials including crop residues andlivestock manures;
weed, disease and pest control relying primarily on crop rotations, natural predators, diversity, organic manuring, resistant varieties and limited (preferably minimal) thermal, biological and chemical intervention;
the extensive management of livestock, paying full regard totheir evolutionary adaptations, behavioural needs and animal welfare issues with respect to nutrition, housing, health, breeding and rearing;
careful attention to the impact of the farming system on the wider environment and the conservation of wildlife and natural habitats.
dude you are so wrong...u really think your food came of a capsule or something? go to the FAO website and take a look of how many thousand of miles have been poluted thanks to the chemichals they trow in, there is now choice, the earth will go organic with or without you...the world dont need people like u anyways..10 more years dude...and u will remember this post.
Yosh0(October 31, 2008 at 1:30 pm)
Even the water you drink running through your house is soiled with fluorine to prevent your teeth from decaying. Organic farming is just the reminisce of the old country, people who don't know how to do anything but farm and are lost in the age of technology. All we gotta do is wait a couple generations till they all die out...then no one will care about organic farming....they won't even know what it is. hahah.
maynardhs79(September 27, 2008 at 10:55 am)
Why don't you start with yourself?
harryrarmer(September 24, 2008 at 3:22 am)
If people will not drink synthetic pesticdes from a barrel why will they eat food sprayed with it ?
typeclash(September 18, 2008 at 1:50 pm)
m2, she rocks btw
SirHayler(July 25, 2008 at 12:28 pm)
his voice sounds like jerry springer? lol
Nick2565(July 8, 2008 at 8:19 am)
actually, scientists have done studies and they believe that the earth can support about 3 billion humans if we each person consumes the same amount of food/energy as they are right now.
thrivesurvive(June 26, 2008 at 6:34 am)
Brilliant, very informative video. Thank you so very much for making and posting it!
forthseen(June 8, 2008 at 6:17 pm)
How can you say I'ts not social.
forthseen(June 8, 2008 at 6:14 pm)
You have too ask yourselfs this question where did all of the people come from. Thank You.
Debrevol(May 28, 2008 at 4:10 am)
Grow your own!
DivineReaper(May 25, 2008 at 1:12 pm)
Lets just kill 90% of the human population and stop trying to find more food!... there is enough of us already, I mean, 6 BILLION HUMANS? Even 1 billion is too much!
