Organic agriculture typology

For my Comparative Farming and Sustainable Food Systems class, we were given an assignment in which we were to either a) examine USDA organic certification, or b) create a typology of organic agriculture. I chose the latter.

Organic agriculture comes in many stripes and emphases. There's agroecological farming, agroforestry and forest gardening (slightly different), biodynamics, permaculture, certified organic (several countries and international certifications), Natural Farming, Nayakrishi, wildculturing. Some of these don't have to be strictly organic (that "strictly" really being a broad range). So, what is organic agriculture, exactly? Here's the Wikipedia definition, which basically captures it:

Organic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and control pests on a farm. Organic farming excludes or strictly limits the use of manufactured fertilizers, pesticides (which include herbicides, insecticides and fungicides), plant growth regulators such as hormones, livestock antibiotics, food additives, and genetically modified organisms.

Wikipedia also quotes the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements, which goes further than the techniques and technologies required or limited by organic agriculture, to include the human element:

Organic agriculture is a production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems and people. It relies on ecological processes, biodiversity and cycles adapted to local conditions, rather than the use of inputs with adverse effects. Organic agriculture combines tradition, innovation and science to benefit the shared environment and promote fair relationships and a good quality of life for all involved.

The thing that is nice about this second definition is that it gets to one aspect of organic agriculture that is very important in many of its genres: the ethics of growing organic.

The essential point is that not all organic farming is the same; not all farmers who grow organic use the same methods. Organic agriculture can vary by quite a bit; for example, organic agriculture is not necessarily sustainable agriculture. Organic agriculture need not necessarily integrate crop and livestock production; some organic farmers do one or the other but not both.

Agroecology, or the science and application of ecological principles to the production of food, fuel, fiber, and pharmaceuticals, is not exactly a type of organic agriculture. Wikipedia describes several different approaches: ecosystems agroecology, agronomic ecology, ecological political economy, agro-population ecology, integrated assessment of multifunctional agricultural systems (the landscape and agriculture as part of a wider, integrated set of social institutions), and holon agroecology (an apparently huge topic in itself, the ecology of contexts).

According to the Agroecology Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, agroecology is, among other things, "beneficent agriculture.'

The University of California-Berkeley calls it "a scientific discipline that uses ecological theory to study, design, manage and evaluate agricultural systems that are productive but also resource conserving." This is essentially the same description given by UC Santa Cruz' Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems.

ATTRA has a bunch of information on USDA certified organic and what that all means, with pages on livestock, pests, crops, regulation & history, marketing, fertilizer and soils. Farm Direct has a bunch of US links on organic farming; Organic-World.net has tons of info by country, statistics of all sorts, and news. And the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations also has a bunch of information on organic agriculture. The FAO describes organic agriculture as:

a holistic production management system that avoids use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and genetically modified organisms, minimizes pollution of air, soil and water, and optimizes the health and productivity of interdependent communities of plants, animals and people. The non-use of external agriculture inputs which results in natural resources degradation (e.g. soil nutrient mining) does not qualify as "organic". On the other hand, farming systems which do not use external inputs but actively follow organic agriculture principles of health and care are considered organic, even if the agro-ecosystem is not certified organic.

An article in CounterPunch by Heather Gray and K. Rashid Nuri called "How Organic Agriculture Can Feed the World" talks about this, and the persistent idea that currently exists—but is changing—that "Green Revolution," industrial techniques (and attitudes, although that's usually unspoken) in agriculture are all that can stave off mass starvation. The Worldwatch Institute also discusses these stereotypes of industrial vs. organic agriculture, in an article titled "Can Organic Farming Feed Us All?" These articles touch on both technique and attitudes, but not so much on what David Korten calls the Great Turning, or a philosophical, spiritual, and cultural revolution in attitude that he (and others) believe is essential for survival.

Sustainable Table has a nice distinction between sustainable and organic agriculture:

Organic farming generally falls within the accepted definition of sustainable agriculture. However, it is important to distinguish between the two, since organic products can be (unsustainably) produced on large industrial farms, and farms that are not certified organic can produce food using methods that will sustain the farm's productivity for generations. Some organic dairy farms, for example, raise cows in large confinement facilities but are able to meet the bare minimum requirements for organic certification, while a non-organic certified small farm could use organic guidelines and be self-sufficient by recycling all the farm's waste to meet its fertility needs.

What intrigues me most, however, are the organic farming systems that focus on sustainability, ethics, and fundamental shifts in world view.

Here's a few of them:

Biodynamics

I've written about this type of agriculture elsewhere. It's sort of the Gaia approach: in biodynamics, the farm is treated as a single, unified organism. Wikipedia again proves a good source for succinctly describing what differentiates this type of agriculture from other organic approaches:

Regarded by some as the first modern ecological farming system and one of the most sustainable, biodynamic farming has much in common with other organic approaches, such as emphasizing the use of manures and composts and excluding of the use of artificial chemicals on soil and plants. Methods unique to the biodynamic approach include the use of fermented herbal and mineral preparations as compost additives and field sprays and the use of an astronomical sowing and planting calendar. Biodynamics originated out of the work of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy.

The local example of a biodynamic farm is Wild Rose Farm, owned by Eric Mayo and Susan Kerndt. My comment to Eric about it was that it seemed like a method of staying in touch with the Earth and its rhythms. Of particular note to me is the use of astronomical conditions, such as phases of the moon or planetary or stellar positions as guides to timing of planting, etc. One must be aware of the world and the skies to plant or harvest on such a schedule. ATTRA has a detailed description of the method on its website, and of course the Demeter Association, which certifies biodynamic farms through its various national chapters, does also.

Permaculture

According to the Permaculture Institute, this is more than an agricultural method:

Permaculture is an ecological design system for sustainability in all aspects of human endeavor. It teaches us how build natural homes, grow our own food, restore diminished landscapes and ecosystems, catch rainwater, build communities and much more.

Permaculture is a portmanteau word, originating from permanent agriculture/culture. It takes an agroecological approach to food. An interesting feature of permaculture is the design element: the design of a system is approached both from a methodological and a structural viewpoint.

Methodology: The method used to design a permaculture system involves the following aspects in sequence: observation, boundaries, resources, evaluation, design, implementation and maintenance. Site observation, often for a full year, allows the designer to consider the seasonal changes and existing interrelationships of a given site as well as its physical characteristics. Boundaries include both physical limits and social ones. Resources include human and cultural ones (money, for example) as well as natural ones. Evaluation of these allows for preparation for the design, implementaion, and maintenance of the (in this case) agricultural system.

Structure: The patterns of the physical elements of a permaculture system echo naturally occuring ones. For example, I have two herb beds in my back yard which, I discovered in researching this article, reflect principles of permaculture design. The beds are in the shape of spirals, with a high peak in the center of the roughly circular bed that slopes downward in a spiral form, resulting in a single, roughly round bed with small microclimates: high and dry to lower, cooler, and damper soil. Different herbs grow better in different spots along this spiral structure, according to whether they prefer warmer or cooler soil, quicker drainage or slower-draining, shadier spots. Permaculture's physical structure is also viewed in terms of layers, as in a forest: the canopy, low tree layer, shrub layer, herbaceous plant layer, rhizosphere (root crops), the soil surface (cover crops), the vertical layer (climbing plants that grow through the various other layers), and the mycosphere or subsurface/surface layer of fungi.

Another element of permaculture is both structural and methodological: zones of intensity of human involvement and/or manipulation. These range from zone 0, the most intimately involved with human beings (our homes) to zone 5, utter wilderness, or no human intervention. Interestingly, this seems to exclude humanity as part of the system—as though we cannot be part of wilderness (zones 00, the human self, and 6, the wider world, are included in some reckonings of permaculture).

ATTRA also has a thorough description of permaculture, and calls it "unique among alternative farming systems (e.g., organic, sustainable, eco-agriculture, biodynamic) in that it works with a set of ethics that suggest we think and act responsibly in relation to each other and the earth." It describes these ethical principles as including a life ethic that recognizes the intrinsic worth of every living thing, and calls for care of the earth, caring for people, and setting limits to population growth and consumption. I disagree that permaculture is unique in this aspect; other farming systems also have an explicit ethical component.

Alaska has a few permaculture groups and blogs: Alaska Permaculture Community, the Alaska Permaculture Guild, and the Alaskan Eco Escape Educational Center (see also the Facebook page).

Nature or Natural Farming

This is the shizen nōhō that professor Gerlach refers to in the syllabus for the class. Also known as do-nothing farming, from the permaculturist's point of view, it is a type of permaculture. Developed by Masanobu Fukuoka and Mokichi Okada, it uses five guiding principles (as described on Wikipedia):

• human cultivation of soil, plowing or tilling are unnecessary, as is the use of powered machines
• prepared fertilizers are unnecessary, as is the process of preparing compost
• weeding, either by cultivation or by herbicides, is unnecessary
• applications of pesticides or herbicides are unnecessary
• pruning of fruit trees is unnecessary

Fukuoka popularized shizen nōhō in his book, The One-Straw Revolution, translated into English with the help of his disciple, Larry Korn.

Nayakrishi Andolon

Nayakrishi Andolon translates as New Agriculture Movement, and according to Wikipedia "is an agricultural movement in Bangladesh that opposes the use of Western pesticides and genetically altered seeds." It is a philosophy of agriculture that sees human beings as an intrinsic part of the natural world. It is about happiness:

[Nayakrishi Andolon] is the movement of the farming communities to cultivate happy relations of life and environment and new ways to build up communities. It is a way to creatively relate with Nature or "Praliriti" as is called in bangla language.

But Nayakrishi does not assume Nature or "Praliriti" as an external object outside the living human beings, or do not believe that a sharp margin can be drawn between human beings and external world without falling into illusions and contradictions. We are all Nature as well, and Nature or "Praliriti" exists through us.

The organization UBINIG has more information on the approach.

In bangla the word krishi, means the act of cultivation, but not in the conventional sense as we understand cultivation now, which is as an act to produce consumer needs for the human beings using earth as merely means of production. The word 'krishi is rather cultivation of the relation between human beings and nature that transforms both and functions as an integral whole, as the single organism. In this relation human beings are not the supreme agent possessing, commanding and controlling the object of production, i.e.,nature. The nature also transforms the human beings. It is an act of reciprocal nurturing. There is no outside and inside of human existence, since we are both thinking beings and nature.
…
Andolon is movement -- movement at various levels: cultural, mobilisational, political and organisational. It is also a movement at the site of ideology, discourse and power. At the margins of imagination and determination Nayakrishi is also about promise of future. But most importantly Nayakrishi Andolon is the movement to change our destructive lifestyles, it is a lifestyle movement that is proper for human beings endowed with the capacity to act politically and spiritually against the destruction of conditions of life and livelihood. Nayakrishi is a movement to move from drstructive and preadatory stage of civilisation to creative and joyful lifestyles.

This is a level of ethics that moves into spirituality and an entire way of life, a long remove from the USDA National Organic Program certification of a technique applied on one part of a given farm.

Cross-posted at SNRAS Science & News.

Previous posts in this series:

Farms, schools, soil, and dirt
Seven industrial agriculture myths
Farming systems and Food, Inc.
Financial finagling in food and sustainability
Food systems, policy, and foodsheds
Food systems and shizen
Sustainable food systems class

Flamingo Man

The mysterious Flamingo Man was last spotted at this weekend's birthday bash (theme: Pink) for Raz, held in the deep woods off Chena Pump Road. While ordinarily he'd stick out like a fuscia bird in a flock of white, he was relatively tame in comparison to some of the other guests, and so was able to mingle unobtrusively.

More on pollock, trawling, salmon, and money

John Enge recently posted a column on Alaska Report, "Science vs. Barons of the Fish Business:"

It is apparent that the two trawl fisheries mentioned above [Neah Bay, Washington, and the Bering Sea] are not conducive to family fishermen, subsistence and sport users, the many other species of fish in the ocean, or the coastal communities. The problem is that these giant factory trawlers, and many independent trawlers fishing for shore plants with 'legal rights to process a certain % of the total catch,' don't mind snuffing out all other species of sea life. The big fishery in the Bering Sea is the pollock fishery, prosecuted by mid-water trawlers. That would seem to be a safe way to fish. Just scoop up the schools of pollock, leaving plenty behind for replenishment of the stocks. (Except that half the pollock fishery is right before propogation and the pollock never get to sow the seeds of the next generation.)

…Many times, the electronics are indicating the wrong kind of fish; fish that they are not permitted by law to keep. So down goes the nets and up comes millions of pounds of squid, king salmon, chum salmon, halibut, herring and anything else that lives in proximity to the pollock. It's not like they all live in separate apartments. You clean out one apartment and you get a mixed bag of occupants. Remember, the trawl nets are like pulling a football field-sized sieve sideways through the water, with everything in that amount of space for miles squeezed into a 'sock' on the end of the net. (I won't even go into bottom trawling where Oregon State University researchers found that it extinguishes 30% of the species complex where they have been.)

According to the Marine Stewardship Council, the Alaska pollock fishery is seeking recertification as a sustainable fishery. There is a lot of money in pollock, especially in sustainably fished pollock, and some serious drivers in the purchasing end of the business. For example, McDonald's:

McDonald's purchases more than 18,000 metric tons, or 43.2 million pounds, of fish a year for its popular Filet-O-Fish sandwiches. Filet-O-Fish is made with pollock, a whitefish that lives in the cold waters off the coasts of Alaska and eastern Russia. The Marine Stewardship Council has certified U.S. Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands and the Gulf of Alaska pollock fisheries as models for sustainable fisheries management, but many retailers and foodservice operators still use whitefish from other fisheries that are less sustainable and traceable.

McDonald's is very interested in obtaining fish from sustainable sources, providing an economic incentive for fisheries to obtain certification of sustainability. But is that level of sustainability certified by the MSC sufficiently sustainable? or is it just better than no certification at all? or, as Thomas Royer asks, is it really only a myth?

Fisheries are generally classified as a sustainable resource on the assumption that they can be maintained for future generations. However, studies have demonstrated man's ability to deplete major fisheries since the Middle Ages.

A recent book, "The Unnatural History of the Sea" by Callum Roberts, traces the destruction of fish populations from the estuaries of England after 1000 AD to the most recent demise of orange roughy off New Zealand. It has been estimated that 90 percent of large fish have now been depleted.

Will the Bering Sea pollock fishery continue to decline? Is it already too late?

An Anchorage Daily News article last summer points to the decline in the pollock fishery, which certainly doesn't sound like it's very sustainable. One interesting thing that Callum brings up, and that is discussed at the Progressive Policy Institute, is that of subsidies "to help keep catch levels up." These subsidies to build boats were in vogue until around 2004. There is a whole blog on the subject, in fact. Among the interesting recent posts are:

• WTO beaten by the Marine Stewardship Council
• US: fisheries subsidies and advice to President Obama on fisheries policy
• US: $170 million subsidies for commercial fishers of salmon in the West Coast
• USA: fisheries subsidies and WTO Trade Policy Review
• The pain of high fuel prices: US Senators introduce a bill proposing fuel subsidies for fishermen

Sustainability codes, of course, are only as good as their policy—and compliance.

Best Halloween costume of the election

Hands down, it had to be Terry Koltak's perfect sendup of the Republican ticket: he came as one of the Living Dead. Complete with a name tag: McCain-Franken-Palin-Stein. And a price tag on his designer dress: Nieman-Marcus. And bloody red lipstick all over his teeth and lips and (green) face. He lurched around the bar, yelling, "Nnngggh!", "Graagggrh!" and "Urrrggggh!" His red (wig) hair was extremely well tousled, and stuck up in the back (all over, actually).

Really, it was a stellar imitation of the brain-eating behavior, erudite elocution, and stalwart ethics of the actual Republican candidates. Couldn't tell the difference.

Halloween trick-or-treat

The Ester Community Association is putting on its annual Halloween event for kids tonight, 6:30 pm at Hartung Hall. The trick-or-treating starts at 7 pm.

Lots o' parties tonight. I'll go as the plague, I think....

Oh, yeah: bear alert

Some emboldened bear (black, pushy, hungry) has been nosing around people's porches in Ester. Don't leave your door unlatched! George Riley described to me the other evening how said bear came waltzing up (well, not really waltzing) his and Dianne's porch steps, knocking things over and looking for chow, while they were peering out the window at it. Well, the bear thought that was interesting, peered back in, and then tried to get in! Through the door, that is. George had to light some fireworks to get it to depart, which it did, heading directly over to the neighbors to check out their porch's goodies.

George was quite disgruntled: the bear was obviously habituated to a) people b) houses and c) garbage. He and I were in general agreement that bear-baiting is Stupid with a capital S, and this bear had either been baited or been hanging out around easily accessible trash. This makes a bear very very dangerous.

So--keep your garbage out of bear-paw reach, folks.

Planting day, gazeboed, and sunny sunny summer

WHEEEEEE! Oh, man, it is sunny and warm and feels GREAT! I just LOVE this time of year: not too many bugs, the butterflies are out (saw my first one, an Alaska blue, down by the post office a few days ago--here's another nice photo), no smoke, hardly any rain, very few tourists, and it's not too hot! Well, the frost the other night was a bit chilly, but still!

A whole bunch of people turned up (late, of course, most of them--no need to hurry) for planting flowers around the village on Sunday. (This was the first EMCE event.) Mayor Hannah and Monique went off to Plant Kingdom to buy a bunch of flowers for the Eagle and the village, so at first it was just me and my nasturtiums and sunflowers and Scott Allen. Then Kate showed up, and then Maggie, and then the ball got rolling. Richard Gumm brought a bunch of vegetable-rated municipal compost. George Gianakopoulos showed up in straw hat and with a humongous amount of nasturtiums, marigolds, lettuces, sunflowers, and mysterious mixed whatnots from Calypso Farm, donated to the village! Dwight Deely brought petunias. Then Hannah and Monique came back with a whole flat of lobelias and some other goodies. (I took a bunch of photos, but now of course I can't find my camera so you'll all have to wait until later to see the festivities.)

So we were mixing dirt and sand and compost and peat and putting it in buckets and pots and old oil drums and boxes and who knows whatall and then planting a dizzying selection of flowering greeneries. Hannah and I planted stuff in the buckets around the old post office/library annex (that's officially the Old Post Office Espresso Library Annex, or OPOELA for those of you who like acronyms). Scott drove Kate and I down Village Road, stopping every twenty feet or so so that we could unload yet another basket or bucket and place it by the roadside. It was a blast, and I forgot clean about going over to Molly's at 3 to review the paperwork for our ECA nonprofit status. I was planting until after 6 pm!

Kate and I went down to the park and planted a couple of the planters. One of them we stuffed full of sunflowers. Somebody, Ruth, I think, had prepared the soil (but there was no sign of the perennials we'd planted last year, so they may have gotten dug up by accident, alas). She'd planted a park planter before the big frost, but everything looked pretty good, actually.

We brought eight hanging baskets down to the gazebo to hang up once we get hooks (and the rafters have been varnished). The old partially collapsed 55-gallon oil drum that was there and filling up with leaves we cleaned up a bit and filled up with dirt, and planted with a selection of mystery plants. Plus a nasturtium. Or two.

Hans has been working like mad on the gazebo, and now all the copper is on the cupola and the edge of roof, and a lot of the siding has been given its first coat of stain (I did a bunch of it yesterday afternoon and will finish it up tonight). He finished up the bracing yesterday (it looks so COOL!) and is going to work on the rough sanding tonight. Kate gave him some iced tea from the planting day; we drank some that day and then took the rest home. I took home the leftover pots and flats and a few flowers that didn't get planted, and then yesterday planted the remainder. Hannah and I brought the last few pots over to the OPOELA.

And I finally planted my garden, such as it is, with some of the leftover lettuce starts. My sunflowers and nasturtiums are finally coming up--I've got flats and flats of them. I'm going to be in real trouble once they start needing permanent homes. The squash seeds I saved from last year, French ronde de Nice that I got originally from Seeds of Change, FINALLY started to sprout. I was afraid that they'd maybe not ripened enough and were infertile, but nope, it looks like I'm going to be zucchiniing the neighborhood later this summer...

Absurdity triumphs over realism

Or optimism, for that matter. Absurdity seems to be the ruling force in the world today. Let's just take a few examples of items found recently on the blogosphere and elsewhere:

• Don Young's mother-in-law quote (but then, this is typical Yon Dungism, so what else is new?)
• DOT is at it again, apparently, this time with the new Elmore Road in Anchorage
• Beavers are biting back in Kodiak (pay attention, Jamie!)
• Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake stuck his foot in his mouth and wiggled his toes energetically at Quinhagak recently on a campaign-cum-factfinding trip with Ted "Torture" Stevens by saying, sagely, that concern about post-traumatic stress and brain injury in Iraq vets was overblown.
• Our detention camp is STILL operating in Guantanamo Bay.
• Prime Minister Gordon Brown seems to think that going nuclear will reduce greenhouse emissions, and seems to have bought the rotten goods that nuclear is "clean". But hey, the French have been advocating this for a long time...unfortunately, this attitude is catching. Some doofus in Chicago seems to think it's a good idea too, and he's not alone.
Don't forget Galena! Yep, nuclear power is just fine, safe in an earthquake and flood zone, too, clean as a whistle.

Every day, there's more! Clean coal and other conundrums...

Philo lives!

Yes, there is a counterpart to the Yabba-Dabba-Doo, although she isn't a submarine. This just in from the New York Times: "environmentally minded pirates" have captured the Svizter Korsakov, a Russian tugboat with a shady past.

While environmentally minded pirates might make a nice complement to the bishops who today urged followers to cut their carbon footprint for Lent, there was no way to verify the spokesman’s identity or what he said.

At the very least, though, there was a lucky coincidence between one of his claims and the record of the hijacked tugboat, the Svitzer Korsakov. The caller’s charge that the boat was “part of the environmental destruction” would not be the first levelled against the vessel. But that controversy is located thousands of nautical miles away at Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East, where oil companies are trying to build a hub for gas and oil production.

The news story from Garoweonline has more on this delightful development:

He claimed that the Russia-registered ship, Svitzer Korsakov, is "part of the environmental destruction" being committed by various foreign ships off of Somali shores.

"We are the gentlemen who work in the ocean…since the [Somali] civil war began the ocean has been our Mother," the man said…,[the] "group's name is the Ocean Salvation Corps, and they are a group of Somali nationalists who took it upon themselves to protect the country’s shores."

"The ships we now control have the equipment which destroyed the Indian Ocean," the man said, adding: "More than 70,000 tons of fish species is on abroad."

The group's spokesman said, "it is their promise to protect any reporter willing to verify his claims first-hand".

Now THAT would be an interesting assignment. Any takers out there (willing to work for peanuts, of course, as we're poor) on behalf of the Republic?

In related news, two activists from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society were held hostage last month by Japanese whalers on board the Yushin Maru No. 2 for -- gads -- protesting whaling and attempting to deliver a letter of protest to the crew of the whaler. Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd are calling each other names over this. Greenpeace:

"He [Watson] revels in being a pirate. He says he is prepared to defy the laws," says Greenpeace Australia's chief Steve Shallhorn.

Sea Shepherd:

"Greenpeace are the ocean poseurs ... I really have to question just what is Greenpeace's motivation in coming down here year after year," says anti-whaling activist Paul Watson from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

My suspicion is that as the situation in the environment grows more dire, we're going to see many more acts of ecopiracy, and many many more peaceable protests labeled "eco-terrorism" because the activism goes against somebody's corporate bottom line. YouTube has a movie commenting about that, and posits who the REAL pirates might be.

A herd of javelinas

Yesterday evening, a herd of collared peccaries, also known as javelinas (for their sharp, straight, javelin-like tusks) came meandering by our windows here in the guest house. There were about oh, twelve of them, including one tiny little reddish baby about a foot and a half long, very cute, and a youthful one with adult coloring (grayish, but without the white collar yet), about two and a half feet long. The adults are around three to four feet long, with enormous heads in proportion to their bodies. One sow had a white blaze on her back. Very shaggy, somewhat pig-like in appearence, they look cute but tough at the same time.

We had been assured that they were about, but the only signs we saw were javelina droppings and munched plants. We were beginning to think they were mythical. But lo, they are real! And of course, our camera still was conked out, so you'll all just have to take my word for it.