Greenjeans Farm

From the Wikipedia Encyclopedia:

A pesticide is a substance or mixture of substances used to kill a pest.^[1] A pesticide may be a chemical substance, biological agent (such as a virus or bacteria), antimicrobial, disinfectant or device used against any pest. Pests include insects, plant pathogens, weeds, molluscs, birds, mammals, fish, nematodes (roundworms) and microbes that compete with humans for food, destroy property, spread or are a vector for disease or cause a nuisance. Although there are benefits to the use of pesticides, there are also drawbacks, such as potential toxicity to humans and other animals.

I don’t know about you, but as an organic farmer I do not list birds, mammals, fish, worms, microbes or most insects as pests.  I gladly welcome them to our farm, in fact we worry when they are not present.  That would mean that their would be no good bugs and birds to eat the bad bugs, no worms to enrich the soil, no fish or frogs to eat the flies and misquitoes.  I have yet to feel the rife competition for food, and there is very little property destruction caused by those nasty little microbes.  If pests include mammals as it does in that definition, does that not mean humans too?  Oh great, lets kill each other so we don’t compete with ourselves for food!  AND lets get those little suckers while they are young! 

I have just read an article in the Seattle P.I., regarding a study of the levels of pesticides in the system of 21 children in Mercer Island Washington.

“The peer-reviewed study found that the urine and saliva of children eating a variety of conventional foods from area groceries contained biological markers of organophosphates, the family of pesticides spawned by the creation of nerve gas agents in World War II.

When the same children ate organic fruits, vegetables and juices, signs of pesticides were not found.

"The transformation is extremely rapid," said Chensheng Lu, the principal author of the study published online in the current issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.

"Once you switch from conventional food to organic, the pesticides (malathion and chlorpyrifos) that we can measure in the urine disappears. The level returns immediately when you go back to the conventional diets," said Lu, a professor at Emory University's School of Public Health and a leading authority on pesticides and children.

Within eight to 36 hours of the children switching to organic food, the pesticides were no longer detected in the testing.”

Nuff said?  You would think!  “Well chalk one up for the cause!”, I thought to myself,  “Yet another study with the same findings”.  I then went on to read the comments.  Some 40+ comments!  Some stating the article was a “non-story”, not unlike global warming.  Some of the comments stated that Organic food is just too expensive, and is not an alternative since the yields are so low.  There was a lot of talk about washing and peeling being a viable cure to the situation. 

Hmmm….. If organic yields are so low, why is there always a time each year that even after the 20 CSA bushel baskets have been filled some 30 times over the course of the season, I fall in a heap on the kitchen floor and declare if I see one more basket of fruit or vegetables that need to be processed I’ll go into a coma.  And I don’t know about you, but I haven’t peeled a vegetable for over 20 years, conventionally or organically grown! There are vitamins, fiber and most importantly flavor in that skin!  Peeling a vegetable would be like eating a boneless skinless Chicken breast from a chicken that was grown in a cage and fed antibiotics all of its life, what’s the point? (but that’s another story).   Most of all as a farmer I enjoy watching the quail walking across the yards, and the crazy Killdeer that lay eggs in the vegetable garden and then act like they are having a heart attack if you come near their nest.  I love the beautiful colored spiders that take residence in the rose garden.  And I even love the toad families that hide in the rocks and come out at night to eat those nasty little slugs. There’s something exciting about going out before light and feeling having the bat that eats it’s weight in insects each day whiz over your head.  Call me crazy, but I think it’s sweet that my husband has named the tree frog that sneaks in through the open window and visits the overflow drain of our bathroom sink from time to time.  Sure, sometimes there’s a worm in a tomato or an ear of corn.  And a pesky little earwig or two hiding in the cabbage, but you know?  They wash right off, and they haven’t been treated with “pesticides spawned the creation of nerve gas agents in World War II”, so it really doesn’t matter if you eat them anyway!