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<blockquote data-quote="Highland Farmer" data-source="post: 8159800" data-attributes="member: 40586"><p>I'm registered as organic with the soil association and I'm very cynical about so called modern organic farming. Let me say first that real organic farming is in my opinion finding out how to help the land work for itself by finding the grasses, crops and livestock that best suit the land. If you read books by Newman turner or Robert Elliot and his Clifton park system, then these pioneers found ways of making their land work. It has taken me many years and much expense to get onto a positive cycle of production where I feel that the land is improving and giving back more than I am having to provide and I am not having a negative impact on the land by increasing weed banks, reducing nutrient availability, decreasing productivity, etc. Conventional farming allows that pain to be bypassed with a formulaic approach that can produce very good output with the correct application of nutrients and treatments, whether that be crop or animal. My criticism of modern so called organic is that "commercial organic" that sells to the big players is really no different than conventional farming, especially from a livestock perspective, in fact I could argue it's actually worse. I have spoken to the soil association about this and the chap I spoke to agreed with me that a conventional hill sheep or native breed conventional grass fed beef is probably more natural than so called organic from high productivity units. Organic as a philosophy of land management has been hijacked by the commercial sector and most farmers can spot hypocrisy a mile away. I argue that if a consumer could see all the derogations and treatments that a commercial organic farmer had applied then it would be no different than a conventional farmer and in many cases would be worse because the conventional treatments are more effective. The soil association and other bodies don't support the real organic philosophy of farming, they are interested in pushing a left wing agenda and climate change whilst at the same time maximising their monetary gain through commercial organic i.e. to the standard not the philosophy, such that real organic farmers are excluded from the commercial mainstream outlets because they don't adopt the necessary output criteria.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Highland Farmer, post: 8159800, member: 40586"] I'm registered as organic with the soil association and I'm very cynical about so called modern organic farming. Let me say first that real organic farming is in my opinion finding out how to help the land work for itself by finding the grasses, crops and livestock that best suit the land. If you read books by Newman turner or Robert Elliot and his Clifton park system, then these pioneers found ways of making their land work. It has taken me many years and much expense to get onto a positive cycle of production where I feel that the land is improving and giving back more than I am having to provide and I am not having a negative impact on the land by increasing weed banks, reducing nutrient availability, decreasing productivity, etc. Conventional farming allows that pain to be bypassed with a formulaic approach that can produce very good output with the correct application of nutrients and treatments, whether that be crop or animal. My criticism of modern so called organic is that "commercial organic" that sells to the big players is really no different than conventional farming, especially from a livestock perspective, in fact I could argue it's actually worse. I have spoken to the soil association about this and the chap I spoke to agreed with me that a conventional hill sheep or native breed conventional grass fed beef is probably more natural than so called organic from high productivity units. Organic as a philosophy of land management has been hijacked by the commercial sector and most farmers can spot hypocrisy a mile away. I argue that if a consumer could see all the derogations and treatments that a commercial organic farmer had applied then it would be no different than a conventional farmer and in many cases would be worse because the conventional treatments are more effective. The soil association and other bodies don't support the real organic philosophy of farming, they are interested in pushing a left wing agenda and climate change whilst at the same time maximising their monetary gain through commercial organic i.e. to the standard not the philosophy, such that real organic farmers are excluded from the commercial mainstream outlets because they don't adopt the necessary output criteria. [/QUOTE]
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