What is organic gardening?

Kanogwan Seraypheap
 ORGANIC Gardening
• Webster's

• "grown with only animal or vegetable

fertilizers, as manure, compost, etc."
 Defining “Organic”

Foods produced without

hormones, antibiotics,
herbicides, insecticides,
chemical fertilizers,
genetic modification or
germ-killing radiation

The USDA labels such

foods “certified organic”

From: Newsweek, Sept. 30, 2002

 Definition of Organic Agriculture
• a production system that sustains the health of
soils, ecosystems, and people

• It relies on ecological processes, biodiversity

and cycles adapted to local conditions, rather
than the use of inputs with adverse effects.

• Organic agriculture combines tradition,

innovation, and science to benefit the shared
environment and promote fair relationships and
a good quality of life for all involved.
 What is the correct definition of
Organic Gardening?
ORGANIC GARDENING
• the science and art of gardening
– incorporate the entire landscape design and environment
– improve and maximize the garden soil's health,
structure, texture,
– Maximize the production and health of developing
plants
– Without using synthethic commercial fertilizers,
pesticides, or fungicides
Development of agricultural systems made
advanced civilization possible

Photo courtesy of Texas

Department of Transportation

10,000 BC
Today
WHY ORGANIC GARDENING
• Environmental pollution increasing
• New plant/crop diseases are on the rise
• Chemical awareness is on rise
• Looking for alternative agriculture
• ORGANIC/SUSTAINABLE FARMING
is the only solution for healthy food
• Demands is increasing
 Conventional/ modern agriculture!!

11
 Agricultural Chemical Use

• Pesticide
• Insecticides
• Fungicides
• Rodenticides
• Herbicides
• Biocides

• ?
• ?
History of Agriculture
Years ago Event NeolithicCrops
Period
8500- First agriculture Millets (Setaria, Panicaum);
7500 bamboo shoots, grass
seed, persimmon, walnuts,
pine nuts, chestnuts,
mulberry, hemp.

7000 rice

6000 Large farming Wheat, barley, brassicas

villages

5000- Agriculture Rice cultivated, water

4000 universal buffalo
 Chinese Agricultural Beginnings
6500-5000 BCE Domestication of millets
Pigs, dogs, and chicken

5000 BCE Painted pottery, large

settlements

Food crops include:

Bamboo, persimmon, grass
seed, walnut, pine nut,
chestnut,mulberry
1400 BCE Water buffalo

600 BCE Row cropping

Iron plow
 Ancient Near East Cultures:
Sumeria, Babylonia, Judea

The Fertile Crescent, where agriculture began in

8000 BCE
 Ancient Egyptian Garden Scenes

Harvesting pomegranates in formal planting interspersed

with ornamental columns next to a T-shaped pool.
Source: Hyams, 1971.
 Ancient Egyptian Garden Scenes

Four workers transporting Tree with earth raised around

trees. the roots.

Source: Wright, 1934. Source: Wilkinson, The Ancient Egyptians.

 Ancient Egyptian Garden Scenes
(Thebes, ca. 1300 BCE)

Garden planted with fig, olive trees and flowering plants

containing a pavilion with steps leading down to the
water, being irrigated by a row of shadufs.

Source: Singer et al., 1954.

Intensive hoeing and row cultivation,
Han Dynasty (207 BCE - 220 CE)
Chinese plow, 2nd century CE.
 Historical Perspectives
• Rudolf Steiner's development,
biodynamic agriculture

• the first comprehensive organic

farming system

• 1924 Rudolf Steiner publishes “Spiritual

Foundations for Renewal of Agriculture.

• Healthy animals depended upon healthy plants

(for their food), healthy plants upon healthy soil,
healthy soil upon healthy animals (for the
manure)
 Historical Perspectives
• 1935 - Mokichi Okada established an agricultural system
originally called, "no fertilizer farming" or "Nature
Farming" in Japan

• 1939 - Lord Northbourne first used the term "organic

farming."

He derived the term from his concept of "the farm as

organism" which he explains in details in his book
“Look to the Land” (1940).
 Historical Perspectives
• 1905 to 1924
• Sir Albert Howard (1863-1947)

• The father of modern organic agriculture

• documented traditional Indian farming
practices
• superior to conventional agriculture science
 Historical Perspectives

• 1940 - Sir Albert Howard published "An Agricultural

Testament," a book that focuses on composting
methods.

• 1942 - J.I. Rodale started publishing Organic Farming

and Gardening magazine (founded Rodale Inc. in
1930). Today the magazine is known as Organic
Gardening.
 Historical Perspectives

• J. I. Rodale

• Rodale said that the use of "chemical"

fertilizers and pesticides was destructive of
the environment .

• The article advocated the return to the use of

natural materials.
DDT was invented in the
1940’s and viewed as:
- miracle for farmers
- and safe
dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane
Arial crop sprayers
were used to spray
tons of DDT on crops
across the U.S.
Pests became resistant to DDT

Based on: National Geographic

 Pesticide Resistance
In the beginning, most
pests were sensitive to
DDT but a few were
resistant.

The resistant forms

survived and reproduced.

In the end, most pests

were resistant to DDT.
Based on: National Geographic, February 1980
 Biomagnification
The concentration of
pesticides in higher levels of
food chains
Trophic Levels

Based on: Mader, S., Inquiry Into Life, McGraw-Hill

Most food chains consist of four trophic levels

 DDT in Food Chain

DDT is concentrated as it
moved up food chain.

This is because energy is

lost (from respiration) as
go up food chain but DDT
is not.

Based on: Campbell et al, Biology: Concepts

and Connections, Benjamin Cummings
 Bald Eagle

•Once was widely

distributed over U.S.

•As a top carnivore it

feeds on fish.

•Swoops down and

captures fish off the
surface of the water.
Photo courtesy of Texas Parks and Wildlife
Department
•Scientists discovered that DDT was
concentrated in the bald eagle.

•DDT affected the eagle’s ability to reproduce.

Photos courtesy of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

Scientists found that
the eagle eggs had
thin egg shells and
broke easily.

Nests contained
broken, rotten eggs.

The number of young

produced per
breeding
pair was reduced.
 Population of adult eagles
declined to 4,000 and the
eagle was listed as
“Endangered”.

Photo courtesy of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
banned DDT in 1972

Photo courtesy of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

Eagle reproduction before and after DDT ban

Based on: Grier, J., Science, 1982

 Eagle populations increased rapidly.

From: Time, July 11, 1994

Peregrine Falcon •Occurred naturally
over most of continental
U.S.

•Nests on cliffs

•Keen eyesight
(if human, could read newspaper
print at 110 yards)

•Feeds on other birds,

knocking them out of the
sky at 200 m.p.h.
Photo courtesy of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
DDT & Peregrine
•After DDT was introduced
in 1940s, DDT weakened
the birds’ egg shells,
devastating the population.

•By early 1970s, the entire

U.S. population was down
to 12 breeding pairs.

•Peregrines were declared

federally endangered and
DDT banned.

•Peregrines were bred in

captivity and reintroduced
successfully in cities.
“In the United States at least 500
species and subspecies of plants
and animals have become extinct
since the 1500s.”

Douglas Chadwick, H., National Geographic, March 1995

 Historical Perspectives
• During the 1950s

• sustainable agriculture was a topic of scientific

interest

• but research tended to concentrate on developing

the new chemical approaches

• J.I. Rodale began to popularize the term and

methods of organic growing particularly to
consumers through promotion of organic gardening
 Historical Perspectives
• Rachel Carson's "Silent
Spring“

• 1962

• an emotional picture of the

environmental damage
caused by the use of
"chemical" fertilizers and
pesticides

• the voice against the use of

"toxic chemicals" and
against the chemical
companies
 Historical Perspectives
• chronicling the effects of
DDT and other pesticides on
the environment

• A bestseller in many
countries, including the US,
and widely read around the
world

• Silent Spring is widely

considered as being a key
factor in the US
government's 1972 banning
of DDT
 Historical Perspectives
• Masanobu Fukuoka

• a microbiologist working in soil science and plant

pathology

• doubted the modern agricultural movement

• In the early 1940s, he quit his job as a research

scientist, returned to his family's farm, and devoted
the next 30 years to developing a radical no-till
organic method for growing grain, now known as
Fukuoka farming.
 Historical Perspectives
• 1975

• Fukuoka released his first book

• One Straw Revolution, with a strong

impact in certain areas of the
agricultural world
• 1972 - The creation of IFOAM - the International
Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements in Versailles,
France.

• 1980 - IFOAM defines the basic standards and regulations

relating to the certification of organic agriculture

• 1983 - Austria becomes the first country to establish

organic farming guidelines.

• 1990 - Law on Organic Agriculture adopted in the United

States
Factors of Production

Factor Conventional Organic

Genetics (seed) GMOs, treated Organic source, no GMOs, no

treatment

Fertility Chemically-based, high Manure, compost, green

energy input, hazardous, manures, approved products
polluting

Pest management Chemically-based, high rotations, ecosystem diversity,

energy input, hazardous approved products

Moisture Rain, irrigation Rain, irrigation

Labor Minimized by inputs Heavy requirements

Equipment Big, expensive Specialized, to scale

 History of Organic gardening
• Sir Albert Howard
• Rudolf Steiner
• J. I. Rodale
• Rachel Carson
• Masanobu Fukuoka