Today is, I’ve discovered, Blog Action Day where, if you’re of a mind, you’re encouraged to write about “the environment”. Not having time to write anything new this evening I thought I’d drag something out of the archives. This is from May 2003 when I was working on an organic farm on the Isle of Wight. I’d gone as part of the WWOOF scheme where you get bed and board in return for six hours labouring and hadn’t really done it for any ethical reasons. It was just the notion of working on a farm for no money seemed like just what I needed at that time. Soon, though, I started to realise why organic is a good idea. It’s not just about health or taste or middle class guilt. It’s about the ecology.
I’ve been struck by the range of grasses up on the field because you don’t usually see such a variety. Most lawns and parks have a single variety while most farms are a uniform dark green. Here there are lush thick grasses that don’t grow too tall, very tall blades of grass, long stems with seed bunches at the top and many more varieties. Even within those descriptions there are numerous shades and densities making for a patchwork that shimmers as some grasses bend more in the wind.
I suspected that this was unique to an organic field and, yes, pesticides and weed killers do render a field of grass uniform. Interestingly, the mixed up organic field is not only better for the animals because of the lack of chemicals but also gives them a more varied diet. So for the herbivores these fields are like an infinite menu of every flavour under the sun (or at least the Isle of Wight sun). Add to this all the insects, and the animals that feed on them, that survive because of the lack of pesticides, and whatever else feeds on particular grasses, and, well, it’s all nature, innit.
And to think, all of that would be wiped away with a day’s spraying.
If you want to read the rest of my Farmblog from that summer, well, it’s not actually in a well presented form at the moment (bad Pete…) but you can start here at the end and work forwards.
As you know, this was a seminal blog entry for me. A cynic about many things, I really didn’t trust (and to some extent still don’t) the statements on food that the contents are “organic”, “low fat” or “sugar free”. But your description of the organic farm field got me noticing how many “inorganic” fields have that one, strange green color. We buy and eat organic food these days and your description is probably the reason why – tho’ of course the food does also taste better!
Interesting stuff!
Another factor may be the use of fertilizers…
If the ground is overly fertile, slightly counter-intuitively, that can *reduce* bio-diversity. The idea is that if resources are not overly plentiful, then a variety of plants can specialise and find a niche exploiting their cunning means of being very good at extracting some particular nutrient. So a variety of plants can flourish, each making use of a particular specialisation.
However, once fertilizers are used, resources become plentiful, each plant has enough of the various chemicals it needs, so there is no use for specialisation. Whatever is best at exploiting the few remaining limiting factors (which might often be light I think) then comes to dominate.
I need to find some references, because I think the above logic applies just as much to organic farming, perhaps. Maybe the difference is that if you’re digging in the muck yourself rather than spraying stuff you’re less inclined to over-fertilize?