Asserting organics over GM to fight global warming

The Carbon Connection: Worldwatch Institute authors join Rodale Institute in answering the climate question with smart food production

A New York Times story linking organic certification to the tainted peanut plant in Georgia raises an important set of questions which requires distinctions between health, nutrition, safety and risk. Organic food has a head start, and good handling retains this advantage

Organic standards require great farming that makes great food, but not everything good is contained in these rules. Humane livestock treatment guidelines are in the works, but fair trade is another label.

Salmonella contamination at the farm level hasn't been an issue in the past for peanut growers, but the current search for a true source of the pathogen has investigators checking out farm practices. The few organic growers, their conventional counterparts and the researchers who work with them can seize the moment to assess risk factors from field to receiving dock to find the most sustainable way to produce an important and verrsatile food crop.

By using perennial sod crops (hay, grass and forages) we can save our soils from erosion, give cattle the best food for their four-stomach system and nurture a vast universe of underground biomass that sequesters carbon and cycles nutrients.

Messages from the sustainable ag community to a New York Times OpEd questioning the safety of pastured pork showed some "areas for growth," as well as progress toward positive biomimicry in dealing diversely and synergistically with a perceived threat.

On the same day I get word of Senator (formerly Mr. Bush’s Agriculture Secretary) Johanns’ “let’s not get crazy about organic” warning to the National Association of Farm Broadcasters (NAFB) back on April 29, I also get word that this “niche market” (his term) actually grew by 17.1 percent overall in 2008, despite a tough economic environment. And we learn that the USDA restores $50 million for organic conversion via its EQUIP program.

Organic growers can use a range of integrated options against late blight to lower their risk and perhaps even get part of crop.