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DEAR NEW FARM:
“Amen” to Parker
Bosley's letter, NF Newsletter July 13. I also reference
an unfortunate phrase in the lead sentence of Cornucopia's
Op.Ed in same Newsletter: "... right-wing think tank
..." Mightn't a representative of a left-wing think tank
possibly, sometime, be as idiotic?
I took a brief look at Hudson's site. Any place that recommends
Joe Lieberman for the next Secretary of State sure cannot
be all that right wing! More to the point, I along with many
other readers of NF despise Avery of the Hudson Institute;
I care not at all that his viewpoints may be left, center,
right, or other.
Our issue is the viability of ecological, organic farming,
and mostly that in the United States. Because farming activities
involve so much of the rest of society, some non-farm issues
will be appropriate to consider but only with the least possible
reference to political tendency. For example, with Lisa
Hamilton's excellent descriptions of various ranchers' ecologically-oriented,
profitability-oriented management methods, I don't care
who they're going to vote for next elections. Geez, I don't
even care what movies they like. I don't care about those
cultural tendencies, because I do care a lot about the culture
of ecological agriculture. That culture will succeed more
quickly without the burden of left-right references.
As my personal area of active interest during the last 15
years, I can definitely communicate that in the area of non-toxic
or low-risk "pesticides,” EPA interpretation under
both Republican and Democrat administrations has been continuously
incompetent, with the result of slowing the advancement of
ecological methods of agriculture.
Please just tell your Op.Ed contributors to skip all the
political swipes when they write for NF.
Thanks,
James Silverthorne
Three Hills Farm
Stroudsburg, Pa.
DEAR NEW FARM:
During my years of organic gardening, teaching organic gardening
and farming workshops here and abroad, I have never read a
better article than
the one of July 2 by Parker Bosley, the restaurateur from
Cleveland, Ohio. Apparently, most famers like he discusses
are not taking the organic certification route. They are right.
There is no end to the conferences, meetings, etc., that are
occurring monthly, sometimes I think weekly, all over this
nation discussing this. There is no end to the listserves
on the Internet discussing this. They encourage attendance,
and sometimes I am invited to speak. My question is this:
After all these are finished, how many farmers have switched
to organics? How many more consumers are buying from the local
organic family farms, either directly or at the farmer's markets?
Usually the answer is “none”. The solution to
the problem is just what Mr. Bosley and those farmers are
doing and will continue to do.
Ken Hargesheimer
Lubbock, Texas
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