Volume 3, Number
6                                                                                                        
April 24, 2000

The Farmer

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Is it Organic?

“Is it ohganic?” The next time I hear somebody ask that question I am

going to say ,”Is you ohganic?”

Organic simply means “containing carbon”. All living
things contain carbon, so asking that questions begs the issue.

 What you are really asking is, “how much sweat did the
farmer put into this crop and did he have to

shovel manure, fight flies and determine which soap was
best at getting the manure from beneath his nails?”

I have included a picture of me standing in my fertilizer spreader which
we modified to be used to spread

chicken manure over my watermelon beds. Next to the tractor
are piles of composted manure that we use for fertilizer.

Too bad we can not email the smells of
“ohganic”. If  I seem bitter, I am not bitter,
just bewildered. Why do I have to

work in manure to produce a better crop for a people
who would rather eat at McDonalds (I ain’t talking

about “Old McDonald…”)? I am bewildered to understand why the consumer
wants me to give the crop to them for pennies, while

he or she is up to their necks in debt
paying for high priced junk advertised on t.v. to satisfy an
artificial want. How do people

expect to get something for nothing and
still be ungrateful when somehow nature provides so much for so little?

At the protest against the IMF and World Bank in D.C. I got into an argument
with a lady that wanted to tell me that it did not cost

more money growing crops organically. I
had to break down the cost of killing weeds by hand verses
chemicals. I can spray a field

for $8 per acre while it would take 3
workers 8 hours to clean one acre, or in other words, at
least $120 per acre. An acre is about 8/10

of a football field.  She also felt
that I was “alienating people” when I said that
“most consumers do not care about what they eat as

 long as it tastes good.  I don’t mind working in
manure but I hate working under ignorance. But thankfully, the smell of manure
is

 better than the smell of death.

Peace, Doc