Rural Trader Blogs

Beyond Organics

A while back I wrote some fairly 'heretical' comments regarding organic farming. Perhaps I was a tad evangelical about it, but I think the organic movement needed the criticism that I saw as long overdue.

My main criticism was that organic farming is ideological rather than evidence-based. Basically, I claim that organic farming has a worthy aim (less chemical use) but this was taken to a ridiculous extreme – that all chemicals and essentially any man-made formulations were off limits. Scientifically, this is like winding the clock back on the all the progress we have made in agriculture that took a few centuries to refine. 

My proposal is that the organic proponents are ignoring a more rational and ethical alternative; an 'excluded middle'. This is a term used in logic to show that a false dichotomy (in this case organic = good, conventional = bad) is a fallacy and that often there is a middle ground that is being overlooked. 

Well now, many farmers internationally are coming to their senses about the organic issue as are many New Zealand farmers. 

Perhaps one of the more sensible quotes I have read recently came from Otorohanga framer David Miller in a Rural News article. The story focuses on the collapse of the New Zealand Organic Dairy Farmers Cooperative (NZODFC). Mr Miller says: “I have renewed faith in others and I am simply inspired about dairying”.

“I like what Grant Paton says ‘organics simply means chemical free, beyond organics means it’s good for you, and we will use good science.”

Mr Miller went onto say he will leave organics and return to “the middle ground of the beyond organics movement”. 

I have to applaud his passion and resolve but mostly, I am inciting a Mexican wave of excitement for his rationality – that beyond just organics is a scientifically sound and environmentally sustainable way of farming.

I think “beyond organics” will catch on because it encompasses some of the values that makes the organics ethoc great while embracing the knowledge and approaches we have gained through hundred's of years of trial and error. Our ancestors ploughing fields on bullocks while sprinkling chicken dung fertiliser would be proud.