Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi Plumpudding,
I too find fault with both articles. I asked Richard to look at Part seven the last sentence because I have so often seen it quoted by the with the last four words missing. Which makes it read that the SA do not use Pesticides. They constantly say organic food is free of pesticides but as you have now read that this is simply not the case.
It has taken Johnston to squeeze that out of Melchett.
I too grow without using pesticides but I do use herbicides on non productive areas but only in extreme cases would I use it on anywhere productive.
I think that when you take over an allotment that is over-run with weeds it is best to use Glyphosate to clear the plot and that should be the last time you should need to use it. I have always used Slug Pellets since I became a pragmatic gardener mine are always placed strategically and not scattered. Prior to that I was organic for well over 30 years.
The shenanigans of the SA put paid to my being organic.
You will note that in the Melchett reply he mentions four pesticides but only actually names one. The others mentioned are not pesticides. So we are all in doubt as to what the other three are.
Rob Johnston is a Doctor and a Scientist and basically he has taken the SA apart and I do not see that Melchett has given a sufficient response.
Over the years the SA have used an awful lot of money lobbying and subverting the system so that home gardeners cannot use chemicals because they are not available any longer due to the prolonged lobbying by SA. I feel that the money spent on lobbying should have been used for research and then organics in this country would be on firmer ground. What Johnston says, that more farmers are returning to conventional farming, is very true and the amount moving into interventions is also falling.
This present government, or the previous administration, made funds available for people the move into organics and money to tide them over whilst in the intervention phase. It has failed miserably and this is because of the SA's dogmatic approach.
I would like to see the SA removed from the list of approved accreditors and it be left to Growers to become the accreditors rather than a Trading Company.
JB.

JB as usual your tone is aggressive and offensive, there is not need to be rude...I too read the articles and as has been previously commented on they are both controversial as they have poetic licence to prove a point by missing out opposing views. I myself am completely against all forms of chemical but I know that it is impossible to grow wholesale food without some form of pest and disease control. I was merely commenting that this kind of thread just turns into an argument between two definitely opposing sides, and you call me rude then tell me to butt out, I too am allowed a view and I am not directly rude to you. There is no right or wrong answer to this debate, one side is not better than the other, it is the method of either growing or eating that suits your individual philosophy that is best for each individual which is surely the right path. Today I used bran to protect my salad from pests and I am trying to select blight resistant potatoes and tomatoes to help my quest against the disease and pest problem. But it is only my method, and I do know what I want to eat and how I want to grow it.

Compo

Compo

I agree entirely with all you say. I too would not be daft enough to suggest that all food production could be organic. As far as I am concerned, growing for home, I am organic and use no chemicals of any kind.

As for the articles, here is my initial reply to Johnboy:

Johnboy

Thanks for the links.

However, since both articles contain little more than unsubstantiated statements, I prefer to let them battle it out.

I'm sure if we did have access to all the research on one side or another, we'd be none the wiser - just a lot older

As I have read replies to the thread I have re-read both articles and I still find lots of inaccuracies, selective facts and no substantiation. Then I woke in the middle of the night thinking "Did he really say that?"

"The Soil Association invariably claims that anyone who questions the value of organic farming works for chemical manufacturers and agribusiness or is in league with some shady right-wing US free-market lobby group. Which is ironic, considering that a number of British fascists were involved in the founding of the Soil Association and its journal was edited by one of Oswald Mosley's blackshirts until the late 1960s."

Is that supposed to be an argument against organic food? To my mind it is on a par with some of the most irrelevant rants on this forum. Having read that I immediately discount all his previous statements (whether accurate or not).

As for his being, as Johnboy keeps saying, a doctor and a scientist, so what? He is actually identified by the Independent as "A doctor and science writer" - which means nothing.

What this forum thread is about is one person's view of the Soil Association stemming, it seems, from personal experience. If producers do not like the SA, there are other approved certification bodies. One is inclined to wonder why so many sign up to SA certification if the organisation is so subversive and dictatorial.

Now, Grock, where's that cucumber

Hi Alan,
I dearly want to see Organics succeed and flourish and to me the ones that have taken it down the wrong route are the Soil Association.
There are more people leaving the SA accreditation scheme than are joining. I feel that if the SA accreditation scheme was withdrawn from the system and the accreditation carried out by growers for growers then I see organics would be set on the right lines.
Do notice that I am not against Organics or accreditation schemes I just want the SA to be taken out of it.
JB.

Compo,
At last a reply instead of the pathetic one liner you previously posted.
JB.

crock in the frock. any particular siz e cucumber.

Johnboy

Would you use belittling language if you met me in person? 'Pathetic' ' Manners maketh man'......

Compo

JB & Compo

Will you please both give up sniping at each other and just get on with the debate. I know I'm not alone in saying that I'm totally fed up with the pair of you!

any size that takes your fancy: i will go for a 4ft one:only to hit the 2 boys over the head with.now both of you STOP IT AND MAKE FRIENDS!Chantal i agreee with you

I think johnboy & compo should be banned to the Lottie for a week.

Compo retires to the peacefulness of his plot leaving behind the trivia of others, deciding to make no further comment.

Shallot Man wrote:I think johnboy & compo should be banned to the Lottie for a week.

One down, one to go