Showing papers on "Organic farming published in 1979"

The case for organic farming.

Abstract: are popularized and tend to be uncritical, anecdotal, and testimonial (see for example I). This approach is not credibile to most natural and social scientists, nor to many commercial farmers. Oelhaf too addresses a lay audience, but he works from a more systematic framework and is more honest and circumspect in interpreting scientific and economic evidence. Another type of publication argues the positive aspects of organic agriculture or criticizes specific aspects of conventional agriculture by way of case studies (for example, the study of Klepper et al. on the economic and energy efficiency of organic vs. conventional farms [2] and that of Pimentel on implications of pesticide use [3]). In his welldocumented book, Oelhaf incorporates such narrow-focus studies in a portrayal of the larger food system. He sets the stage by devoting over one-third of the book to a critique of the prevailing mode of food production and distribution. (Two of these chapters also serve as useful primers on soil fertility and pest control.) He acknowledges the