Organic Living And The Environment
What actions can I take in my home to make it more organic?
There are lots of things that you can do to make your home more organic. The first is to buy organic food and there are lots of different ways that you can do this, but we would recommend the best way of doing this is to order a local vegetable box where you get it delivered to your house. You can have all sorts of different types of vegetables that you might not have ever even seen before. Some of them come with recipe ideas so it's a very sort of creative process, lots of people really get on well with them, and it saves people money as well. Also, you could compost by saving your peelings and your fruit skins and things like that and keep them in a compost bin. You can stack that for a while in your garden and that turns into fertiliser for your garden. That's a good thing to do. Just think about reducing the waste. Do you need to take a carrier bag to the shop or haven't you got a billion already? Try to save and recycle things so that you don't have to continually buy plastic and things like that.
What problems are there with intensive farming?
After the second World War we had food shortages, and the farming in this country became increasingly intensive. What happened was rotations which were the basis of an organic farm -- Rotation is when you grow a crop and you grow different crops in order, not growing just one crop all the time. And so, for example, you would have a field of potatoes which generally are quite hungry. They take up quite a lot of nutrients, and then you have got clover or grass, which actually puts nitrogen back into the soil. If you balance them out, then you maintain a consistent level of nutrients in your soil.But what happened was they devised nitrogen - it was used in the explosive industry, and so after the second World War they realized that actually this meant that if you apply it in plants it actually makes them grow quicker.They used this a lot in farming, and they got rid of the old system of using crop rotation. They just poured loads of chemicals onto the land, and plants grew very quickly. But what this meant was that the actual fertility of the soil was being driven down. It also meant that hedges were ripped out. They started using pesticides rather than using natural methods of pest control. This had a really, really dramatic effect on our countryside. We have lost hedgerows. Bird species have declined. Lots of species have now become endangered. Rivers have become polluted. We've had massive problems of farming disasters like BSE and foot-and-mouth which are a result of intensive farm practices.
Why is biodiversity important?
Biodiversity is really important because nature has devised this incredibly complex web of life, and the more diverse and complex and intricate the system, the more robust it is. For organic farmers it's really important that they understand what eats what in nature. Organic farmers have got to be like nature's hotel managers and understand biodiversity. They've got to understand what hedgehogs like, where they like to live, what they like to eat. It's very important that organic farmers provide hedges, piles of dead leaves, ponds so ducks can eat the slugs, etc. The more the organic farmer understands biodiversity - the more habits, the more places that the farmer provides for nature's pest controllers to live - the better the farm will perform.
Is eating organic better for the environment?
Eating organic food is much better for the environment, in lots of different ways. Firstly, organic farmers do not use chemicals to produce the food. We don't use nitrogen fertiliser, which actually kills off life within the soil, killing of the things that are making the soil fertile and thus damaging the enviroment. We also don't use pesticides, we avoid the use of pesticides, which cause widespread damage within the environment, so they're absolutely avoided. There's also less waste produced from organic farming, and there are also less harmful gases produced, such as greenhouse gasses. Organic farming also uses 30% less energy, which is really important for the environment in this day and age where we're going to running out of oil, and natural gas is one of the main components of nitrogen fertilizer. Organic farming ticks lots of environmental boxes. This is why the government are now supporting organic farmers: because of the evidence, the wholesale evidence, that organic has proven to be beneficial to the environment.
Is organic farming more sustainable than other types of farming?
Organic farming is more sustainable than other types of farming and this is due to the fact that we are not relying on chemicals that are very energy hungry. Natural gas is the main component of nitrogen fertiliser, used in non-organic farming, and it requires a lot of energy to make that fertiliser. In addition, energy is involved in transporting the fertiliser from where it was made to the farm. Whereas, organic farms use crop rotation, compost, and manure which is produced on the farm in a sustainable way. From that point of view, organic farming is much more sustainable. Furthermore, in terms of pest control and disease control, organic farmers use crop rotation so you don't build up larger populations of pathogens and disease-causing microbes. Non-organic farmers will use chemicals to sort those problems out, but that generally will be a short term, unsustainable solution.
What is biodynamic farming?
Biodynamic farming is quite similar to organic farming in that they treat the whole farm as one living organism. Biodynamic farmers have a couple of other practices over and above organic farming, such as planting and harvesting using lunar cycles, and applying herb-based preparations to their compost. Generally, though, the whole philosophy is the same between organic and biodynamic farming.
What is crop rotation?
Crop rotations are the best, most sustainable way of building fertility on the farm. Crop rotations mean that you're planting a selection of crops in an order, so it's not, for example, planting one crop year after year, because crops take different things out of the soil. Some crops are incredibly hungry and will sap out quite a lot of nutrients from the soil. Other crops actually put in nutrients into the soil. Sometimes you just want the soil to have a rest. On an organic farm, about a third of the farm will be sown with clover, and clover's really important because it actually adds nitrogen to the soil, whereas potatoes, for example, are quite hungry and they take out quite a lot of nutrients. To maintain that balance, you need to have a variety of crops growing on your farm in an order, and that helps with weeds and pests as well as building fertility. Crop rotation is one of the foundation principles of organic farming.
Are pesticides used in the production of organic food?
Pesticides are generally not used in the production of organic food. Organic farmers will always aim to prevent any reason to have to use pesticides at all. However, if, for example, we had a particularly hot summer that favoured a particular pest and the balance was thrown out a little bit, then there are four products that can be used. Two of them are under restricted circumstances. These four products are copper, sulphur, Derris, and soft soap; all naturally occurring, none of them leave residues on food and they all break down really quickly in the environment. They are allowed to be used as a very last resort. The farmer would have to give examples and evidence of all the different things he's tried already which haven't worked. So, those pesticides can be used but it's really a fraction; there are only four. There are about 400 pesticides that can be used in a non-organic situation, so really it's a very small amount.