”Made in China” Ping.
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Posted on 09/02/2007 6:40:28 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
Sometimes, people find that the oldest ways may be the best.
Organic farm manager Guo Changjun is just one such person. He believes that returning to traditional cultivation methods can provide a better future for the agricultural industry, a better environment for future generations, and a guarantee of safety for the coming Beijing Olympic Games.
His organic farm, located near the Badaling section of the Great Wall, where the strong smell of manure is impossible to avoid, will supply 4,000 tons of vegetables to the Beijing Games.
"Organic farming is not a new thing in Chinese agriculture. We did it thousands of years ago and now we are just going back to the traditions with some modern technologies," said Guo.
During the Warring States Period (475-221 BC), Chinese farmers already used straw as a soil fertilizer. And peasants have always used organic fertilizers, such as manure, which are cheap and easy to get.
Only since the 1970s, when the artificial fertilizer industry began to develop in China, have more and more farmers shifted to chemicals which can help plants grow faster and bigger at lower costs.
But in recent years, the use of such chemicals has sparked many health and environmental concerns.
"When people's living standards increase, they pay more attention to their health and prefer to pay more for organic vegetables," Guo said.
"Now even farmers try to avoid eating vegetables grown with chemicals," he pointed out.
But returning to traditional methods comes at a cost. According to Guo, to maintain fertile soil and chemical-free planting, organic farms must invest four to five times more than others, meaning that the price of organic vegetables can be four or five times higher than regular ones.
"We do organic farming not just because we are going to provide quality vegetables for the Olympics. It is the future of agriculture."
Guo's farm started going organic about three years ago.
He said that the farm never uses any chemicals. It only uses organic fertilizers authorized by the government as well as manure, slurry, worm castings, peat, seaweed, guano, compost and bone meal.
As modern organic farming involves a lot of modern techniques, Guo's farm has invited experts from the Beijing Academy of Agricultural Sciences to run workshops for local farmers to help them develop organic planting skills.
At his farm, rather than using chemical pesticides, farmers use chrysanthemum extract, solar pest killer lamps and small sticky pieces of cardboard to exterminate pests.
"The Games organizers have very high standards," he said. "We have already assigned workers for each planting area, and you won't find any pesticides in any of our vegetables."
In one of his greenhouses, Guo picked some baby cucumbers from the field and ate them without washing.
"It's very clean, no chemicals," he said.
Recently, some Chinese media reported that in order to plant good quality vegetables, Olympic vegetable suppliers had turned to some rare methods, such as irrigating the soil with fermented soybean milk and using a mixture of milk, sugar and vinegar as fertilizer to make vegetables taste better and look more appealing.
"We did use soybean milk last year, but only once," Guo said. "It is very good to improve soil structure and nutrient density, but it is very expensive.
"As for the milk mixture, I know someone did that but I don't agree with it. It's not necessary."
China is military dictatorship that allows limited free market enterprise insofar as it benefits the State. Spend you money wisely.
Somehow grown in Chinese human poop and watered with urine is not appealling.
I eat almost totally organic and I would not buy one single organic item produced in China. I buy mostly locally grown as much as I can. I would definitely not trust anything from China right now, and especially not anything I’m going to eat!!
What the hell is up with the "Olympics" being hosted by the biggest communist country in the world?
PC?...."politically correct?.....How about "PRC"?...peoples republic of china?
This is not my world.
FMCDH(BITS)
“Somehow grown in Chinese human poop and watered with urine is not appealling.”
Ya, but it’s “organic”...
nice propaganda piece, very possibly written with the numerous recent incidents with their exported products in mind.
Dead on accurate! My thoughts exactly. This is a preposterous propaganda piece, totally dishonest.
Anyone who eats anything from China is reckless to an extreme. It is the culinary equivalent of unprotected sex with a sleazy, disreputable IV drug using partner.
see post 9
That’s why they stir fry everything. It all has to be cooked.
Whew! I thought they were looking for a kidney.
Best quote in the article:
“But returning to traditional methods comes at a cost. According to Guo, to maintain fertile soil and chemical-free planting, organic farms must invest four to five times more than others, meaning that the price of organic vegetables can be four or five times higher than regular ones.”
Cost will doom the organic project, buyers won’t pay the extra money for little obvious benefit.
I’m growing what I can organically. We have friends who raise animals and have a manure pile.
Next year I plan on including garlic in my garden since most of it is supposed to come from China. I believe it also repels pests quite well.
My father was in China during WW II. He told me that every morning "night soil" collectors came around to collect fertilizer.
That’s great! I plan on doing that sometime in the near future also. I’ve done quite a bit of reading on organic to know the benefits of it’s nutritional value over the stuff I used to eat!
Anyone who falls for this “organically grown” crap still believes in tooth fairies, snake salesmen and of course alchemists. In the span of 50 years in agriculture and the nursery business I have run across all of these losers.
Even so-called “organic gardeners or farmers” disagree on what is “organic”.
It seems that the ultimate organic material that can be introduced into a plot of soil is from the toe-jam from some guru high in the Himalayan mountains. It does not get any better for these poor lost souls who are grasping at straws.
Thankfully they are in the kook fringe minority, and common sense agriculture production keeps feeding the world.
Follow these idiots at your own peril.
Umm, a little grumpy, aren’t we?!
What do you care if we choose to eat organic, even to the extent of growing it ourselves? OMG Are we somehow detracting from your bottom line or something?? It’s totally a personal choice. I can taste the difference in organic grown produce and organic fed range chicken! It’s not my imagination.
I truly do not understand the posters here on FR that go out of their way just to come onto threads like this to criticise others for purely personal likes and dislikes! Where’s the skin off your nose in this?!
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