ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 7, 1995 TAG: 9512070032
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-7 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: Hoein' & Growin
SOURCE: JOE HUNNINGS
Americans remain concerned about the safety of eating our farmers' crops. No one wants to eat pesticides, and no farm family wants to foul its own soil and drinking water with chemical residues, poisons, and nitrates. Another concern is that pesticides, whether biological or man-made, are expensive.
No grower or farm family wants to add to the high costs of producing food by spraying expensive pesticides. So, these mutual concerns of both urbanites and farm families can unite us all in a common goal of providing and obtaining safe food.
In effect, the public's message to farmers seems clear: "Provide us with food grown without pesticides, and we'll pay you a premium to get it." More and more farmers today are eager to try reducing or even eliminating pesticides from their production systems. However, as consumers, we need to know that it costs farmers more to farm this way.
To survive, they will have to be rewarded well because:
Mechanical cultivation and hoeing replace chemical herbicides.
Fields are rested and renewed with periodic rotations of soil-building cover crops, not intensively and soil-destructively farmed each year. Crop and field rotations are a vital part of the management of insects, plant diseases, and weed control by helping prevent a build-up of pests that favor one host crop. No cash crop is harvested from resting fields to help with farm income, expenses, and the mortgage.
A high level of management ability is required of growers who opt to use biological or natural methods, including pest predators and non-chemically synthesized pesticides.
These products often act slowly on target pests, so the pest must be identified and controls applied early, while small numbers of the pest are present. It is necessary to pay close, daily attention to scouting the crop. Knowing the life cycle and biology of specific crop pests also is necessary.
For vegetable growers, the use of insect sex-attractant pheromone traps has been improved and refined. These traps target the very early presence of pests, such as the adult egg-laying moths of the European corn borer in pepper pods and sweet corn; cabbage looper moths in broccoli and cabbage; and such other commonly found vegetable eaters as the corn earworm in sweet corn and tomatoes.
Organic fertilizers are often more difficult and expensive to handle, store, and spread on the land than are chemical fertilizers, but they can also supply vital moisture-absorbing and nutrient-holding organic matter to improve soil structure and stability.
They also are difficult and expensive for farmers to obtain in some areas, but are in over-abundant supply in other areas, especially near livestock and poultry holding/processing centers.
Yes, biological farming is hard work, definitely not as convenient in the short run, and requires the highest skills to survive.
Many of the pesticides used in vegetable crop production are to help produce cosmetically perfect, pretty vegetables. If consumers and produce buyers for major chain markets will accept less than perfect-looking, but entirely wholesome vegetables, then the final barriers can come down between producers and the general public for a return in the stores of "vegetables like Grandmom served." But, let's remember, Grandmom was real handy with the paring knife, and wasted very little food that was wholesome.
As consumers, we should speak to the product manager at our favorite food store and disclose our feelings about purchasing vegetables grown without pesticides, the higher prices we will pay for them, and our acceptance of their possible cosmetic imperfections in order to have such food available. Buyers say this is a public-choice issue, and they need your input.
LENGTH: Medium: 73 linesby CNB