Today we spent the whole day in the Salinas Valley at a place called ALBA (Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association). ALBA is an amazing small farm incubator focused on teaching farm workers how to become farmers. They have 90 acres in the middle of the Salinas Valley, also called the salad bowl of the world. Their farm is a little oasis of biodiversity and beauty in the middle a dessert of monocultures.
While I can conceptually understand that organic is better, seeing the real difference with my own eyes is absolutely astounding. You drive through field after field, only changing between lettuce, cabbage, artichokes and strawberries. The landscape has literally been stripped of every life form except the desired crop. After driving through this for miles and miles, you arrive at ALBA, and the first thing I noticed was that there were lots of birds. Why should it be shocking and amazing to see birds in an agricultural area? Yet it was. It reminded me of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Birds are a natural part of ecosystems, but have been completely removed from the conventional model for a number of reasons.
And sure, you can get some monocrop organic farms for a while, but the reality is that there is absolutely no way to grow organically without having crop rotations to renew the soils. And not just a "rotation" of corn and soy, but a true rotation of about three to five different crops from different families to replenish the soil.
I feel like I'm rambling a bit here, but the reality is that until you simply get out of your classroom, off the Internet, out of your textbooks and actually see with your own eyes the phenomenal difference between organic and conventional agriculture you may find it easy to slip back to the conventional produce without too much thought. But seeing the difference in the produce, in the land, in health and in spirit is something that I think will stick with me far longer than the articles about the toxicity of insecticides will. I've seen the difference with my own eyes, and it's not something I will soon forget.
ALBA strawberries:
CASFS Farm:
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