management time in planning, pest scouting, and related activities. For this reason,
organic management can be preferable if a farm is not too large. However, the notion
that organic systems are only possible on very small farms is a false one. Studies con-
ducted by both Washington University in Washington state and the Department of
Agriculture confirmed this. Given the range of acceptable technologies available, or-
ganic agriculture can be sized to fit a wide range of farms and enterprises.^61
A better way to understand organic farming is to hear from the farmers themselves.
Here are some quotations from farmers in the Midwest:
¥‘‘Why is it that when somebody gets deathly sick with cancer or something, a
doctor recommends that they go on an organic diet? I think that all these peo-
ple know that there is a difference.’’¥‘‘If you get on a chemical system, the only way you can keep going is to keep
adding more and more powerful chemicals; if you get on an organic system, it
will perpetuate itself. You don’t need to keep adding more and more fertilizer
because it is a natural system.’’
¥‘‘If you want to be certified organic you have to demonstrate and have a plan
on how you’re going to farm and how you’re going to produce these crops with-
out using all these chemicals.’’
¥‘‘The nice part about organic is that it’s economically viable, and the reason is
that you don’t have to spend a lot of money, because the good lord designed the
cycles of nature in order to do it itself.’’¥‘‘You can get instant results from chemicals and there is no doubt they will work.
They are short-term solutions, but they don’t solve any long-term problems.’’
¥‘‘It just got to the point where we didn’t think we wanted to use and handle the
chemicals. We decided that we could farm without them and we thought we’d
give it a try. We just thought it would be a better way of doing things, and we
thought we could reduce the cost of production plus increase the quality of
what we produce.’’^62Evolution of Organic Agriculture
Organic farming embodies the elements of a sound agriculture—traditional practices
that have been proven over time. In fact, a convenient working definition for organic
agriculture is ‘‘good farming practice without using synthetic chemicals.’’ This working
definition distinguishes organic farming from the general milieu of agriculture that
existed in the pre-chemical era, much of which was exploitative and unsustainable. Or-
ganic farming was never intended to be ‘‘throwback’’ or a regressive form of agriculture.
Rachel Carson’s bookSilent Springwas one of the key documents that gave birth
to environmental consciousness in the 1960s and 1970s. Carson was the first to
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