Tim's Blog

Under the influence of ‘normal' industry jargon, I sometimes slip back into using terms that I prefer not to use.

One example of this is the term ‘conventional' used to describe the alternative to ‘organic'. This is a very commonly used term in the industry, but I try to avoid it when I can.

By what measure is non-organic food ‘conventional'?

Until the late 1800's all food was grown without synthetic fertilisers, and strong (but still naturally occurring) pesticides such as arsenic, lead, mercury and copper only became available in the early 1800's. It was not until the late 1940's that synthetic herbicides and pesticides came into use.

We have had only fifty - hundred years or so of using modern, non-organic methods. While they have sometimes increased yields considerably, they have also proven to cause many other problems and environmental disruption. From this perspective, synthetic chemicals are quite novel, unproven, and hardly ‘conventional'.

Organic on the other hand, has been part of ‘traditional' farming methods for several millennia. In places like Java, tropical polyculture home-gardens have been feeding people for 3,000 years or more. In the process, these complex gardens produce more protein and carbohydrate (i.e. more usable food) per square metre than any other farming system. With that history, we can definitely call ‘organic', ‘conventional'.

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I have just made my seventh visit to Sumatra, and the first on which I have been able to add on some holiday or non-work related activities. As a consequence I now find myself in Bali for the first time.

In Sumatra I was able to visit Bukittinggi as a tourist and Lake Toba. Both I had seen a number of times before, as we whizzed by on organic inspection trips. I also visited the Orang-utan Conservation Park at Bukit Lawang.

What a land of contradictions Indonesia is. There is enormous wealth of natural resources and great poverty, the people are extremely friendly, but there is potential for a scam everywhere. The chaos on the roads is hard to describe to anyone who has not seen it firsthand. Jakarta roads have at least 8 million motorbikes on them every day. Everyone is pushing to get through first. It is surprising that even more people are not killed on the roads - although many are. Overloaded trucks on the narrow, windy mountain roads are a nightmare. One driver told me he does do maintenance on his truck - but only when it breaks down! The roads themselves are narrow, potholed, sometimes only half there due to landslides, and almost never is there a guardrail to be seen (or directional signage). I have driven across a road washed out by landslide, where the outside tyres were supported by planks laid across the missing road and the drop was virtually shear for a hundred metres.

Also frustrating is the inability of most locals to take instructions - as pointed out to me by a Sumatran friend and confirmed on numerous occasions, they just do not listen. To order drinks without (enormous quantities of) sugar, or ice-cream without yucky chocolate sprinkles, or indeed anything at all out of the usual local practice, takes extreme patience and multiple attempts.

Another contradiction is the incredible beauty of local natural and manmade landscapes (especially rice fields) and the ugly, dirty, uncared for aspect of the country. Rubbish is everywhere, piled high on the roadsides until washed out to sea by monsoonal rains or set alight to smoulder for days.

It is so sad to see the rainforest destroyed for pine or palm oil plantations, with the resultant loss of biodiversity, especially loss of habitat for orang-utan, elephant, tiger, rhino, tapir, monkey and hundreds if not thousands of plant species.

One of the highlights of this trip was to see a rafflesia in the wild for the first time - startling, dramatic and beautiful. Another highlight, surprisingly, was the intensely emotional experience of standing in front of the memorial to those killed in the first Bali bombings, reading the long list of names of people and countries represented. I found it hard to imagine the chaos and agony of everyone affected - what a terrible crime to have perpetrated on the tourists, but also upon the gentle people of Bali.

I have visited Aceh during the war years and stayed in a hotel where the local Hajj was meeting. They were extremely friendly and welcoming. The only hope I can see for a reduction in terrorism from extreme religious and political violence is for responsible, pious Muslim leaders to take a strong stand against their own few murderous compatriots. And here again is one of the many great contradictions of this place - that some can read into the Koran an instruction for peace, kindliness and acceptance, and others can find a justification for hatred and destruction.

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Now here is another curiosity. I have on my shelves six or seven books that claim to be ‘organic recipe books'. They might be fine books, and they do contain recipes, but are the recipes ‘organic'?

I adhere to a view that I think is standard across most of the organic industry, and is embodied in the IFOAM Guidelines for organic production, which is that the only things that can really be labelled ‘organic' (in the current sense) are things that are produced in nature. Plants and animals can be organic. Water and salt are not the ‘products of biology' and therefore should not be called organic and should not carry a certification mark.

Recipes, equally, are not produced in nature and are therefore not organic.

The ingredients are organic. The recipes are just, well, recipes.

These books may make good reading, encourage healthy eating, stimulate organic consumption etc. but they could just as well be called ‘recipe books' for organic food or eating.

What do you think?

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Following on from yesterdays news about the nutritional quality of organic food, I have now had time to read the article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (July 2009) and quickly scanned the source report Comparison of putative health effects of organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs: a systematic review from the Nutrition and Public Health Intervention Research Unit, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

It also emerges from email correspondence that the British Food Standards Agency is known for its pro-GM and anti-organic stance.

On reading the studies I was fascinated to note that only 3 studies, of 11 (a very small number given the very broad time frame- from 1958) were considered relevant and met the satisfactory quality criteria for consideration.

There is no way this can be claimed as a meta-analysis of the literature, therefore, as the sample is way too small, and it also puts in doubt whether this is intended to be a fair systematic review, as the exclusion criteria have been skewed for a particular bias.

The study is further flawed as conclusions are drawn from all eleven studies considered (not the 3 deemed of rigorous quality), even though 8/11 were considered sub-standard.

The final conclusion that because of the lack of sufficiently rigorous studies (not evidence, and the difference is very important) considered in this paper that there is no evidence of the benefit of organic food is extraordinary, and really smacks of a vested interest in the reporting of the results to undermine arguments for organic practices and systems.

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Normal 0 The media is brimming with negative news about the nutritional value of organic food. It is yet another example of how an anti-organic establishment can skew statistics. The conclusions drawn by the researchers are simplistic and result from a very narrow perspective of the benefits of organic food and a lack of historical perspective on their topic.

The desk review of 162 scientific papers from the scientific literature over the last 50 years was funded by the British government Food Standards Agency and published in the August 2009 issue of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The researchers claim there are small nutritional benefits, but they conclude, "On the basis of a systematic review of studies of satisfactory quality, there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs. The small differences in nutrient content detected are biologically plausible and mostly relate to differences in production methods".

There are many problems with methodology, but here are some obvious responses:

The analysis was restricted to the most commonly reported nutrients.

This permitted the researchers to include the widest range of papers but limited the factors that could be compared. In other words, organic could have some better micronutrients, anti-oxidants or co-enzymes but not be statistically relevant

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Normal 0 I have just returned from the Organic Expo in Melbourne. It is always a fascinating show and it is especially exciting to see the continual stream of new organic products in the marketplace.

While growth of the organic industry has undoubtedly been slowed by the Global Financial Crisis, the industry still continues to grow, and there is little question that it remains the fastest growing sector of the agriculture/food market.

This year at the Expo it was particularly noticeable that there are many new cosmetic and clothing/fibre products, and a lot of activity around baby foods and children's snack foods.

It was also interesting to see the number of new wines in the marketplace, and the very respectable quality of all the wine offerings in the show. I also found a new organic beer that I really liked, and that I think will be popular because it does not have the prominent hops flavour of all other Australian Beers. This characteristic does not bother me, or many other South Aussies, because we were weaned on Coopers Ale, and we drink a lot of Pale Ale. If you do not enjoy the hops flavour, it is hard to find a decent organic beer - although there are some British beers that are less hopsy.

I even learnt at the expo that Coles has launched a range of cleanskin organic wines at the very reasonable price of $9.99 a bottle, and that they stock nearly 50 organic wines at their First Choice liquor superstores.

The Organic Expo currently alternates between Sydney & Melbourne annually. The next expo will be held in Sydney in 2010.  Visit the website at www.organicexpo.com.au 

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I recently watched both episodes of ‘the return of Peter Andrews' on Australian Story.

I was intrigued by Peter's insights into the land, and he is obviously a perceptive and thoughtful observer, by the good sense of his goal of rewatering the land, and by the challenge he held up to consider using the ‘forbidden species', sometimes known as weeds, to restore the country.

Common perception is that weeds are bad...but I don't necessarily think that's always the case.

My confidence in Peter Andrews was greatly encouraged when I heard him speak at a field day. He advocated using non-native plants, but he placed them in an ecological context and suggested that they would be replaced in time by more permanent vegetation, precisely by native vegetation, if a seed source is available. I guess that's why he calls it Natural Sequence Farming?

Without wanting to detract from Peter Andrews' unique contribution, I could not help but see him in the context of a lot of other pioneering people and ideas. For me he builds upon P.A. Yeomans, Bill Mollison. Alex Podolinski, Geoff Wallace and the pioneers of Wisalts in the West.

Read more about

• Weeds as a benefit?
• Peter Andrews

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Welcome to TM Organics. In this site you will find the stories of many of my friends and colleagues, from every part of Australia, and many other countries, and a host of pages on how to grow organically, based on over 30 years of experience in organic growing.

I hope you enjoy reading about these people as much as I enjoyed meeting them. I hope you can share my excitement for learning new techniques and methods of growing organically.  Have a good look around, sign up for our newsletter and please tell us what you think about the site.

I only write about farms and gardens I have visited, and techniques, tools, fertilisers and other products I have actually used. I hope this gives you the confidence to try some of the ideas for yourself.

It’s a very busy time for us as we’re preparing for the Organic Expo in Melbourne this week. It’s the main trade and consumer event in Australia and I’m looking forward to catching up with friends, both old and new, there.  It’s a hive of activity and I’m always keen to see the new products and services that are on offer.

One question a lot of farmers ask me is; “do I have to be completely organic?” Well the short answer is…You have to start somewhere…so you might as well “give it a go”.  Have a read of the "Do I have to be completely organic?" article and if you feel like it, jump to the forum and share your experience with us…and the rest of the world!

Cheers for now,
Tim

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