Pesticides used in organic farming?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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mikenz66
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Re: Pesticides used in organic farming?

Post by mikenz66 »

Lazy_eye wrote: I had overlooked the first precept angle when I wrote the OP, but this is important too. I doubt the problem can be avoided in commercial organic farming due to cost and labor issues. Maybe homesteading is the better choice, at least for those who can be successful at it.
Though as Anna says, in many cases you can just let the other bugs do their thing. I.e. get the ecosystem back into balance. For example by planting the right flowers you attract predators for the insects that are killing your plants. I went to an interesting talk about this a couple of years ago. One of the professors at our local agricultural university has been getting the local vineyards to control pests (aphids etc) by planting the right flowers along the rows (they did a lot of scientific work to figure out the right ones). A key selling point is that it's much cheaper and easier to scatter a few seeds on the ground than to buy and spray the pesticide.

Some of the farmers have also experimented with keeping birds off by encouraging the native hawks, rather than shooting at them...

Mike
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Annapurna
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Re: Pesticides used in organic farming?

Post by Annapurna »

Lazy_eye wrote:Thanks everyone -- this is exactly the kind of specific info I was looking for. Anna, I replied to you over at dharmawheel.

What I'm getting here is that although organic farming also uses pesticides, the non-synthetic, natural types used break down more quickly, leave fewer residues and in general are less toxic to humans. Is that correct?

I had overlooked the first precept angle when I wrote the OP, but this is important too. I doubt the problem can be avoided in commercial organic farming due to cost and labor issues. Maybe homesteading is the better choice, at least for those who can be successful at it.

Namaste,

LE
I also replied to you over at Dharmawheel. As Mike said, bringing nature back into balance and natural antagonists into the play is one key..


Like let's use the example of a greenhouse. If damaging insects settle in, little wasps, specialized on hunting those are brought into the greenhouse and the infestation is over after a short while and without any toxins.

Plant lice are often cultivated by ants. Ants love to 'milk' them, like we milk cows.

Lice first drink juices from a plant, and this juice is sweeet. Ants tickle the lice, so that they give that juice away...and the ants drink it now.

Ants protect those lice and carry them onto plants...

So, if you have roses, and ants carry their lice onto it, planting lavender between the roses is a good trick.

Ants find lavender disgusting, and are so bothered by it, they avoid them and so also the roses near them.

The beautiful side effect is that lavender and roses together look lovely, and smell lovely and prefer similar surrounding, sunny and hot.

Our ancestors knew all this through experience, and so a large part of organic cultivation is using the old knowledge and combining it with modern science.

A very important point is also, that if chemical toxins are sprayed, they usually kill the 'beneficial' insects as well, which would keep the damaging insects at bay, if only they got a chance to do their work.

Lady bugs eat lice, and even more so their larvae:

Image

Image

Another problem comes with spraying chemicals:

Although they produced chemicals which spare bees, we can't tell bees where to fly.

So they come in contact with toxins, and this may add to or cause the mysterious bee hive collapse disorder.

Organic cultivation is imo a huge Buddhist topic!
Last edited by Annapurna on Sat Jun 12, 2010 8:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
PeterB
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Re: Pesticides used in organic farming?

Post by PeterB »

Lazy_eye wrote:Thanks everyone -- this is exactly the kind of specific info I was looking for. Anna, I replied to you over at dharmawheel.

What I'm getting here is that although organic farming also uses pesticides, the non-synthetic, natural types used break down more quickly, leave fewer residues and in general are less toxic to humans. Is that correct?

I had overlooked the first precept angle when I wrote the OP, but this is important too. I doubt the problem can be avoided in commercial organic farming due to cost and labor issues. Maybe homesteading is the better choice, at least for those who can be successful at it.

Namaste,

LE
It is possible although not easy to garden without killing pests. I have done it for some years.
It is not possible to garden without killing at all.
Every time the soil is tilled many sentient creatures die. some of them visible to the naked eye for example nematodes. which in any case are alive in the resulting fruit and veg when we start to cook it.
It is not possible to eat without sentient beings losing their lives.
Also it is not possible to produce fruit and veg on a commercial scale without pest control. That pest control can be organic. but it will be necessary.
We are not Jain Sadhus. In the end all we can do and should is to minimise our sentient- being- death footprint.
Of course many Tibetans would say that the best way to do this is to eat large mammals and reduce the number of smaller creatures killed...its ok I know the argument both ways..just saying.
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Annapurna
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Re: Pesticides used in organic farming?

Post by Annapurna »

You're right Peter, deaths can't be avoided, we would have to give up driving [fast] too, if we look at how many insects die in collisions.

I think what matters in terms of breaking the first precept or not is:

Intention.

The first precept is only broken if we kill with intention, right?

If we step on an ant without even noticing, we had no intention to kill. Precept not broken, or?

:shrug:

Anna
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Annapurna
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Re: Pesticides used in organic farming?

Post by Annapurna »

Peter, what do you do against snails and slugs?

I used to use a killer but now I am blocked. I hate touching them, if they don't have a little house to live in, but pull myself together and collect them, only-I never catch them all like the killers.

What to do? :shrug:
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effort
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Re: Pesticides used in organic farming?

Post by effort »

i enjoyed your post anna, thanks, but in commecial level using pesticide is non avoidable, organic farming and plant health improvemnt method helps lot but in some point farmer needs to rescue his/her harvest, i think.
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Re: Pesticides used in organic farming?

Post by PeterB »

Slugs and snails are notoriously difficult Anna..wood ashes scattered between the lines of plants deters them without killing them. Sharp Builders Sand will deter snails but not the little grey slugs that live under the soil surface. I have not tried it yet but it is possible to buy copper wire which deters the slugs and snails by giving them a tiny galvanic shock which does not harm them but they will not cross it..apparantly..
:smile:
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Annapurna
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Re: Pesticides used in organic farming?

Post by Annapurna »

Hi, effort,

but organic agriculture already is on a commercial level [here], -it is a huge branch, actually, with more demand than supply, so we need to import from the rest of the World.

Conventional farming or agriculture is a sad field, needing to resort to clubs, when smaller tools would work better, at least in the preventive field.

Anybody can open an can of poison and kill, but it takes intelligence to wonder about WHY something got out of balance, and how to counter it wisely.

Of course I live in a region where grass hopper invasions that ruin everything are unknown...

We do get a poisonous caterpillar though....through global warming, they say, and they come in via the Alps from Italy.

They get sprayed.

I think there is no natural antagonist, -I will have to google that.

There is of course a difference between organic and Buddhist agriculture.

Organic farmers will defend crops and kill insects, if necessary, but with different substances and with 'beings'.
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Annapurna
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Re: Pesticides used in organic farming?

Post by Annapurna »

PeterB wrote:Slugs and snails are notoriously difficult Anna..wood ashes scattered between the lines of plants deters them without killing them. Sharp Builders Sand will deter snails but not the little grey slugs that live under the soil surface. I have not tried it yet but it is possible to buy copper wire which deters the slugs and snails by giving them a tiny galvanic shock which does not harm them but they will not cross it..apparantly..
:smile:
Thanks, Peter, I have wood ashes and will try that today, before it begins to rain again.

I think I'll try copper wire as well. 8-)
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Re: Pesticides used in organic farming?

Post by chownah »

Annapurna wrote:Peter, what do you do against snails and slugs?

I used to use a killer but now I am blocked. I hate touching them, if they don't have a little house to live in, but pull myself together and collect them, only-I never catch them all like the killers.

What to do? :shrug:
When you say "I am blocked" does this mean that you are not allowed to use the killer because it is not organic and you are perhaps looking for a better way to kill slugs?....if so....here is a technique which I used when living in a land famous for its proliferation of slugs. First I discovered that slugs love marigolds so I planted a border of miniature marigolds completely around the garden (looked great!!!)....this was to attract any slugs entering the garden from outside....then I put alot of old boards flat on the ground where ever it seemed good (often on the edge of a pathway...then I got a quart jar and put a couple of tablespoons of salt and about a half cup of water in the jar....then early in the morning before the dew dried up and the slugs were still active I used chopsticks to pick the slugs and then place them in the salt water where they would dissolve.....later in the day when it was warmer and dryer I would turn the boards over and again using chopsticks I would harvest the slugs which were hiding on the damp cool underside of the boards....then in the evening at twilight I would patrol and get the slugs came out early as the dampness descended. After about a week or two I had more or less eliminated slugs from the interior of the garden so mostly all I had to do was patrol the marigold border to catch the newcomers who invariably would stop to eat the marigolds...I would still patrol the interior but to my delight I discovered that I had a virtually slug free garden which at that place and time everyone was saying was impossible to achieve without chemical poisons......of course this is KILLING them and in a most uncomfortable way I'm sure (dissolved in brine!!!) but I think that if you check out the anatomy of a slug and see how many sensory nerves they have and what amount of brain power they have to process it you will see that slugs are only marginally sentient...maybe...

Also...to deter (and NOT KILL) green worms on brocolli and other cabbage family crops you can use a floating row cover which is a light weight nylon mesh (used to be used for making cheap formal dresses....maybe still is...) draped over the row of plants....it is light enough that the plant can support it without any stakes or poles....be sure that it reaches to the ground all around.....this will keep the moths (which lay the eggs which hatch into green worms) from laying their eggs on the underside of the edge of a leaf....if the moths can not grip leaf edge and carefully place a cluster of eggs on the underside then they will go look somewhere else....I developed this technique years ago when I lived in a place where it was claimed that you could not grow worm free brocolli without chemicals...wrong again.....now it is a standard practice....I guess I should have patented it.....but didn't.....

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Annapurna
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Re: Pesticides used in organic farming?

Post by Annapurna »

When you say "I am blocked" does this mean that you are not allowed to use the killer because it is not organic and you are perhaps looking for a better way to kill slugs?....
No, Chownah, I don't want to kill them anymore at all, because of the first precept.

Trapping them though like you did, only minus killing them, just collecting them in a bucket and driving them off into the sunset...oops, forest, :D would be a good idea...hm.

Let me think about it. Can't you come over and do it for me? :lol:
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Re: Pesticides used in organic farming?

Post by Rui Sousa »

Annapurna wrote:You're right Peter, deaths can't be avoided, we would have to give up driving [fast] too, if we look at how many insects die in collisions.

I think what matters in terms of breaking the first precept or not is:

Intention.

The first precept is only broken if we kill with intention, right?

If we step on an ant without even noticing, we had no intention to kill. Precept not broken, or?

:shrug:

Anna
There is a Sutta about a blind monk that stepped on bugs, and some of monks went to the Buddha and mentioned this. As i recall it the Buddha explained the monks that his killing was not intentional and there was no kamma in such actions from him.

There is another sutta in which a wanderer could not drink water because he couldn't help thinking about the invisible beings he was about to kill be drinking, the Buddha advised him not to be to zealous about that.

When try very hard to keep my percepts and keep going with my live, for example by gardening with no chemicals and by making my own fertilizer from vegetable left overs. But I know that these actions will result in killing animals, it is not my intention, but I know it happens so I try to avoid it whenever possible.

P.S. Couldn't find the suttas on Access to Insight, sorry.
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Re: Pesticides used in organic farming?

Post by PeterB »

Its one of the main differences between Buddhadhamma and Jainadharma as I am sure you know Rui Sousa..the Jains teach that all action results in vipaka. Buddhadhamma that only intentional action does.

:anjali:
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Re: Pesticides used in organic farming?

Post by Rui Sousa »

PeterB wrote:Slugs and snails are notoriously difficult Anna..wood ashes scattered between the lines of plants deters them without killing them. Sharp Builders Sand will deter snails but not the little grey slugs that live under the soil surface. I have not tried it yet but it is possible to buy copper wire which deters the slugs and snails by giving them a tiny galvanic shock which does not harm them but they will not cross it..apparantly..
:smile:
That is a very useful tip. My broccoli leaves look like swiss chesse :) And my peach tree has more snails hanging in the branches than peaches.

It will be fun to make an ashwall to keep snails off my farm, instead of a firewall to keep hackers off my server farm.
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Rui Sousa
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Re: Pesticides used in organic farming?

Post by Rui Sousa »

PeterB wrote:Its one of the main differences between Buddhadhamma and Jainadharma as I am sure you know Rui Sousa..the Jains teach that all action results in vipaka. Buddhadhamma that only intentional action does.

:anjali:
Indeed :anjali:
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