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Quotes about Farming Practices from the world's top natural health / natural living authors

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"This is exactly what happened in the latest El Nino, when age-old farming practices precipitated an ecological disaster of the first order. Maps of El Nino-caused droughts in 1983 and 1997-1998 chronicle severe dry spells that affected much of highland and lowland Mexico and neighboring countries. The 1983 drought caused $600 million of damage in Mexico alone. With droughts come fires and hunger, failed crops and economic disruption, which can be especially severe in environments with fragile tropical soils and growing population densities." - Brian Fagan, Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations (Get the book.) "Despite modern farming practices, the Icelandic government still has to purchase and transport hay in cold years, at enormous expense. Sea temperatures around Greenland and Iceland dropped precipitously for much of the time between 1600 and 1830, decimating cod populations, another staple of the Icelandic diet. Cod flourish in waters between two and thirteen degrees Celsius, but their kidneys do not function in colder water. Even a minor shift in polar water causes the fish to follow warmth." - Brian Fagan, Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations (Get the book.) "Some Mayanists believe the Maya eventually went a step further and attempted to standardize farming practices over wide areas. Such an approach is feasible in environments like Egypt's Nile Valley or even in the river valleys along Pern's north coast, where extensive irrigation systems require close control and a degree of standardization to maximize the dissemination of precious floodwater. However, the Maya environment was highly diverse, with fragile soils and unpredictable rainfall." - Brian Fagan, Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations (Get the book.)

"Decades of shortsighted farming practices have resulted in eroded soils and depleted aquifers. With environmental damage compounded by job loss and steady out-migration, America's heartland faces a bleak future agriculturally. But it's not too late to turn things around, and ideas abound—like the Buffalo Commons, a suite of ideas for ecological and social restoration of the Great Plains that's been circulating since the late 1980s and continues to carry revolutionary promise. The idea? Restore native grasslands of the Great Plains and bring back herds of buffalo." - Alex Steffen, Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century (Get the book.) "Some people choose vegetarianism as a way to take a personal stand against destructive factory ranching and farming practices, but for most people, a meat-free lifestyle has no appeal; meat tastes good, plays an integral role in traditional cuisine, and makes up a significant portion of some basic diets. In reality, we could reduce all of the harmful cycles of livestock farming and still have enough meat for a summer-long BBQ. We just need to be smart about our own choices, and encourage smart practices from ranchers and fishers." - Alex Steffen, Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century (Get the book.)

"Amish farming practices today are impressively productive and efficient, even carried on without electricity or motor vehicles. Wendell Berry has compared their operations favorably with industrial farming in several books.2 Can Amish farming practices be separated from the stringencies of Amish religion and social organization? The Long Emergency could provoke a broad renewal of religious observance in America out of misery and desperation, but I do not imagine that any large numbers of ordinary Americans will rush to become Amish." - James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century (Get the book.)

"But doing so requires fundamental changes in farming practices. Figure 22. Bare, rilled field in the Palouse region of eastern Washington in the 1970s (USDA 1979, 6). In 1979 the Soil Conservation Service reported that three decades of plowing had lowered fields as much as three feet below unplowed grassland. Berms of soil four to ten feet high stood at the downhill end of plowed fields. Experiments conducted with a typical sixteen-inch mold-board plow pulled along contours showed that plowing typically pushed soil more than a foot downhill." - David R. Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (Get the book.) "Such lands were naturally prone to erosion and vulnerable to poor farming practices. On lowlands, the soil was replenished by upland erosion that produced fine deposits downslope. "As to Lands lying near Rivers, the great Improvement of them is their over-flowing, which brings the Soil of the Uplands upon them, so as that they need no other mending though constantly mowed."6 Working land too hard for too long would reduce soil fertility. Sloping land was particularly vulnerable. "Where Lands lie upon the sides of Hills . . . great care must be taken not to plow them out of heart." - David R. Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (Get the book.) "At the close of the eighteenth century, newly arrived settler John Craven found Virginia's Albemarle County so degraded by poor farming practices that the inhabitants faced the simple choice of emigrating or improving the soil. Writing to the Farmer's Registeryears later, Craven recalled the sad state of the land. "At that time the whole face of the country presented a scene of desolation that baffles description—farm after farm had been worn out, and washed and gullied, so that scarcely an acre could be found in a place fit for cultivation. . . ." - David R. Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (Get the book.)

"Wes Jackson's Land Institute does much-needed work on changing farming practices to work with nature. Those with a serious interest in the subject will find the institute's reports and studies invaluable. Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio (Ten Speed Press, 2005) Sometimes the best way to gain a wide-angle perspective on a global situation is to piece together a number of close-ups." - Alex Steffen, Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century (Get the book.)

"Instead, they promote alternative food systems based on organic and sustainable farming practices designed to preserve the ecology. Such inspiring efforts include farmers' markets, community-supported agriculture (buying shares in a local farm), community gardens, and independent stores and co-ops, to name just a few. One of my favorite programs is called "farm-to-school," through which local farmers supply school lunch programs with fresh, healthful produce. There are hundreds of such alternative movements throughout the country, and their numbers are growing." - Michele Simon, Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back (Get the book.)

"The Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems (CIKS) in the state of Tamil Nadu, India, works with hundreds of small farmers to form groups, called sangams, wherein farmers work together on programs to maintain organic farming practices, or sell biopesticides to supplement their incomes. These sangams also manage community seed banks." - Alex Steffen, Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century (Get the book.)

"The Parliamentary report also warned of the serious consequences of factory farming practices, involved in the large scale administration of rBST to cows. "rBST use removes the foundations of non-industrial farming." WHERE: Plaza Hilton, Vienna, Austria CONTACT: Michael Buchner (Animal Welfare), Robert Hanke (Communication Director), VIER PFOTEN (Four Paws), SechshauserstraBe 48, 1150 Vienna, Austria Samuel S. Epstein, M.D." - Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., What's In Your Milk?: An Exposé of Industry and Government Cover-Up on the Dangers of the Genetically Engineered (rBGH) Milk You're Drinking (Get the book.) "December 13,1999: A European Parliament Report warned that the use of rBGH, involving factory farming practices, "removes the foundations of non-industrial farming ... [and threatens] preservation of the agricultural landscape." December 20, 1999: Monsanto and Pharmacia & Upjohn merged in a $27 billion deal to create the 11th largest global pharmaceutical company with combined sales of $17 billion." - Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., What's In Your Milk?: An Exposé of Industry and Government Cover-Up on the Dangers of the Genetically Engineered (rBGH) Milk You're Drinking (Get the book.)

"They are a component of industrial farming practices and part of a complex ecosystem and food web. This section looks at potential health problems that may arise from these relationships. Topics include the impact of toxic herbicides that are applied to herbicide tolerant crops, bioaccumulation of other toxins within GM crops, concentration of toxins in the milk or meat of animals, and the consequences if virus-resistant GM plants promote new plant viruses." - Jeffrey M. Smith, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods (Get the book.)

"Modern farming practices have resulted in soils that are lacking in selenium and other nutrients. Harvesting and shipping practices are dictated not by nutritional considerations but by marketing demands. Add to this extensive processing, improper storage, and other factors, and it is little wonder that many of the foods that reach our tables cannot meet our nutritional needs. Getting even the RDIs of vitamins from today's diet has become quite hard to do. This means that for optimum health, it is necessary to take nutrients in supplement form." - Phyllis A. Balch, CNC, Prescription for Nutritional Healing, 4th Edition: A Practical A-to-Z Reference to Drug-Free Remedies Using Vitamins, Minerals, Herbs & Food Supplements (Get the book.)

"The Kansas State Board of Agriculture, for example, blamed the disaster on poor farming practices. "Soil has been cultivated when extremely dry, and no effort has been made, in most cases, to return organic matter to the soil. . . . When cultivated in a dry condition such a soil became loose and dusty. There are individual farmers throughout the region who have followed good methods of soil management and have found it possible to prevent soil blowing on their farms, except where soil blown from adjoining farms encroached upon their fields." - David R. Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (Get the book.)

"After the turn of the nineteenth century, criticism of America's aristocracy and its farming practices became much more widespread, and even some of the aristocratic farmers became early critics of large-scale agriculture. In 1813, the aristocrat John Taylor published Arator. Taylor's strategies, though still dependent on slave labor, accurately addressed the problems caused by destructive agricultural practices in America and pointed out the crisis caused by the loss of organic matter: Let us boldly face the fact. Our country is nearly ruined." - Will Allen, The War on Bugs (Get the book.)

"Instead, it encourages companies to improve their farming practices so their fish will qualify for the "eat any time" sections of seafood advisory lists. In October 2004, SOTA announced that it had done its own PCB tests and that these proved you can "ditch the pills, potions and diets, and eat salmon." The SOTA tests found the same amounts of PCBs in farmed salmon as in wild salmon. This, it said, "should put to rest any fears that arose from the notorious Hites study that appeared in the journal Science . . . The bottom line? The benefits of salmon far outweigh the risks." - Marion Nestle, What to Eat (Get the book.) "In the first study to directly compare Growers of conventional produce do not farming practices, University of Min- have to follow such rules, nesota scientists tested for harmless forms of Salmonella and E. coli, as well as for the deadly E. coli Oi57:Hy, on vegetables grown on farms using three methods: conventional, Certified Organic, and supposedly following the organic rules but not certified. All three of the farms used aged or composted manure as fertilizer, but none of the vegetables had any E. coli Oi57:Hy, no matter how they were grown." - Marion Nestle, What to Eat (Get the book.) "Organic produce is scarce because the organics business, like any other business, is as much about politics as it is about farming practices." - Marion Nestle, What to Eat (Get the book.) "I business, is as much about politics as it is looked hard for local organic foods but about farming practices, found only one (some red cabbage from New York State), unless you consider organic corn and tomatoes from Vermont as "local." On that particular midsummer day, hardly any of the produce was grown locally, and hardly any of the local produce was 0rRai Certified Organic. This is a supply-i lain problem that could change if more farmers went into the organics business." - Marion Nestle, What to Eat (Get the book.)

"Despite the odds, in 2004, China adopted a policy of vaccinating all poultry against bird flu. farming practices in most of China are primitive, however, and contact with animal feces routine. I went to China several times in the 1980s and 1990s and have experienced the masses of people in Chinese cities. Even the Chinese call it a "sea of humanity." Crowding in Chinese cities is so intense that people walk pressed shoulder to shoulder and ride buses so tightly packed that it is difficult to move to get off. These conditions facilitate the spread of infection." - J. E. Williams, Beating the Flu: The Natural Prescription for Surviving Pandemic Influenza and Bird Flu (Get the book.)

"Liebig and most of his contemporaries (including his American students) seemed incapable of appreciating traditional peasant or tribal farming practices. Liebig LIEBIG AND THE INDUSTRIALISTS The foundations of modern chemistry had been developed in the late 1700s. The Frenchmen Lavoiser and Gay-Lussac and the Englishman Priestly finally went beyond alchemy and founded chemical science. It was in Germany, however, that discoveries in organic chemistry would be most spectacular." - Will Allen, The War on Bugs (Get the book.) "The first farmers targeted with propaganda about chemicals farmed large tracts of land, with some cultivating thousands of acres of tobacco, corn, hemp, cotton, and other crops for export. The farming practices on their huge estates and plantations had literally destroyed the fertility on most of the choice farmland on the eastern seaboard even before 1800. The New York State Agricultural Society magazine, The Cultivator, conducted the earliest propaganda campaign promoting chemicals, beginning in the 1840s." - Will Allen, The War on Bugs (Get the book.)

"The ultimate result of these profit-driven farming practices is toxin-laced Refined: Meaning, a substance has undergone chemical or mechanical manipulation prior to consumption. crops with little nutritional value, not to mention the economic hardship of small-production farmers who cannot compete with multi-million dollar corporations. Niacin (Nicotinic acid): Part of the Vitamin-B complex made from the oxidation of nicotine. For example, twenty years ago a half-pound of spinach contained 50 milligrams of iron. A half a pound of spinach today contains just five milligrams!" - Dr. Edward F. Group III, DC, ND, DACBN, Health Begins in the Colon (Get the book.)

"As I worked on all these farms, I began to realize that American farming practices had become much more poisonous and dangerous than when I was a kid. In the early 1980s, I enrolled in a pesticide- and fertilizer-applicator's course at the local college to learn more about spray rates for foliar fertilizers. I also hoped that I might understand why most of my neighbors and all my bosses continued to feel so comfortable with farm chemicals, while I had become fearful." - Will Allen, The War on Bugs (Get the book.)

"Green-lipped mussel, when included in such a programme, is often referred to as a food supplement, and because of present-day farming practices, such supplements are often essential as the nutritional value of food is lower than it used to be. Unfortunately, juvenile arthritis (which, as the name suggests, predominantly affects the younger generation) has become much more common in recent years and this also is largely a result of dietary deficiencies." - Jan De Vries, Life Without Arthritis: The Maori Way (Get the book.)

"Can Amish farming practices be separated from the stringencies of Amish religion and social organization? The Long Emergency could provoke a broad renewal of religious observance in America out of misery and desperation, but I do not imagine that any large numbers of ordinary Americans will rush to become Amish. If anything, I expect Americans to turn to the cruder branches of evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity, which will provide simplistic explanations for the dire circumstances in which we find ourselves (and justifications for extreme behavior)." - James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century (Get the book.)

"You may find it strange to talk about the mental health of chickens, but foods produced from healthy, happy animals are far better than foods derived from animals driven insane as a result of inhumane farming practices. Avoid eating eggs from crazy chickens On that subject, let's talk about crazy chickens." - Mike Adams, Grocery Warning: How to recognize and avoid the groceries that cause cancer, diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and other common diseases (Get the book.)

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