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:
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!