So, I must confess that for three years we let a field to a neighbour for use in conventional tillage farming.\u00a0 Previously, that field had been managed organically for over a decade, but we found we could not use it and the rent money would be welcome.\u00a0 Now, we’re regalvanised to protect the environment and we planned to put the field back in to grass; we were going to start trying to manage all land organically again.<\/p>\n
But then the tenant sprayed the field with glyphosate a week or so ago.\u00a0 Now the field is dead.\u00a0 And we are faced with an even more difficult decision.\u00a0 It will take up to a year and will cost us a few thousand euros to get the field back in to production; or we could let the field again and receive rent, but chemicals will be spayed.\u00a0 The choice: conventional approach and get some money vs no-chemical approach and not make any money (in fact this year it will cost us).<\/p>\n
I don’t want to spray chemicals any more, despite calls for pragmatism from my family.<\/p>\n
Although everyone seems to want me to “spray”, it seems unethical.\u00a0 During the week, I happened to see this article on the front page of EarthSource<\/a>: Roundup and birth defects: Is the public being kept in the dark?<\/a>\u00a0 Roundup is the leading brand of glyphosate which most people spray around their garden or farm.\u00a0 Is this a sign that I should be impractical, but resist the application of more chemicals to the land?<\/p>\n And a day after I heard that the land had been sprayed, this headline was on the BBC news: UN highlights role of farming in closing emissions gap<\/a>.\u00a0 A UN report (UN annual emissions report<\/a>) says that emissions from farming, including nitrous oxide from applying fertiliser and CO2 from ploughing fields accounts for more than 10% of the global total right now, and simple changes in agriculture could cut emissions by four gigatonnes.\u00a0 I know that conventional farming is highly toxic and that though we are an insignificant player, if we don’t all change, there is no hope that our biosphere will be able to support humanity as it behaves today.<\/p>\n Although land management without chemicals means more physical labour, there is a fringe benefit: You live longer.\u00a0\u00a0 A study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine<\/a> says that simply getting up and avoiding a sedentary lifestyle is a lifesaver.\u00a0 (BBC: Gardening ‘linked to longer lives’<\/a>)<\/p>\n All the signs point in the same direction.\u00a0 Why won’t we change, before it’s too late?\u00a0 It’s hard to do the right thing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So, I must confess that for three years we let a field to a neighbour for use in conventional tillage farming.\u00a0 Previously, that field had been managed organically for over a decade, but we found we could not use it and the rent money would be welcome.\u00a0 Now, we’re regalvanised to protect the environment and …
Continue reading It’s not easy to do the right thing.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[36,6,13,35,8,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-perspective","category-environment","category-health","category-homenandgarden","category-responsible-investing","category-risk-and-terror"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4hwcd-vx","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1955"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1961,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1955\/revisions\/1961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}