Richard R. MacMahon, Ph.D.
Originally, gardens and farms were propagated using all natural additives and methods. This general method has become known in modern times as organic gardening. Organic gardening depends upon the health of the soil to maintain crops. Thus the emphasis originally was upon nurturing the soil through the use of manures and compost. It was thought that if the soil was healthy, the crops that were raised would be healthy. These crop plants would be better able to “fight off” pests, that is, they would show greater resistance and tolerance to pests. For many years the major defense against insect pests was good soil, coupled with good husbandry practices (such as crop rotation, prompt removal and composting of all infected material, picking insects off of crop plants by hand and sometimes burning the contaminated plants). (I have not been able to locate the exact reference, but these ideas occur in the writings of Thomas Jefferson)
Eventually someone discovered that copper and arsenic compounds, such as Paris green, were effective as insecticides. Perhaps these were the first real problem biocides in the environment. Both of these elements are metals. As such, they did not disappear from the environment, but rather persisted and accumulated in the soil. There are reports that some French people could tell the difference in taste of the wines as Bordeaux mixture (a fungicide made of a combination of copper sulphate and lime ) became common in the vineyards as a leaf-dusted pesticide.
At the end of the second world war, the use of DDT began the modern era of chemical pesticides. Although promoted as completely harmless to humans, it soon became apparent that DDT and related compounds were causing havoc in all ecosystems, and were in fact extremely toxic (Carson, 1962; Wargo, 1996). But DDT had been a great help at the end of WW II and most people embraced this new technology as being able to save mankind from the scourge of the insect world with no cost to humans. The USDA was particularly enthusiastic and licensed thousands of pesticide compounds in the 1940’s and 50’s.
But even as far back as the 1940’s many people were alarmed at the effects of the new pesticides on the environment. Rodale’s
Organic Gardening
became a popular magazine. Yet there were many people who ridiculed the ideas put forth in this publication. Rodale was thought of as a crackpot. The only people who took him seriously were those gardeners who were reluctant to put any more persistent man-made pesticides on their soil. It is somewhat ironic to me that the methods espoused by Rodale in the 1950’s are so widely accepted today. They surely were not acceptable when first brought to the public’s attention.
But what did mankind do before the availability of all these wonderful chemical pesticides that are now slowly poisoning the world? Were we all in a semi-starved state until 1947? No, of course not. But farming was conducted in a rather different manner. Crops were rotated so that non-migrating pests did not have a chance to become well established. Fields were cultivated so that weeds were not able to flourish. Fields were contoured-plowed. Fields were well-manured and limed when needed so that crops had good soil to grow in and were healthy to start with. And farmers were not afraid to do a little old-fashioned hand weeding and hoeing. I spent many June afternoons as a boy cutting morning glories and bindweed out of corn fields. Not a pleasant chore, but it did the job with no harm to the soil or crops.
As a young boy and later as a teenager, I had a chance to experience farming first -hand in Ohio in the late 40’s and the 50’s. I saw the change in our area from careful husbandry of the land to chemical pesticide and fertilizer use. My family did not willingly embrace this new chemical culture. We continued until the 60’s using classic methods of husbandry, doing most of the work with teams of horses, making loose hay instead of baling it, threshing wheat instead of combining, manuring the fields in late summer, and generally using older, labor-intensive techniques. Finally, as I was in graduate school and others were retired, we sold our farms. The new owners took no time in drenching the land with pesticides and chemical fertilizers and getting rid of all of the livestock. And the interesting thing to me was that crop yields actually decreased over the next several years.
If you drive from Canton, Ohio down towards Columbus on routes 30 and 83 through Millersburg Ohio, you pass through country farmed by the Amish. Their religious beliefs prevent them from using almost all modern farming methods. They use no electricity or the internal combustion engine. They farm with horses, milk their cows by hand, and cling stubbornly to a way of life that is very hard to adhere to. They are often called the “simple people” although their lives are anything but simple. They are very private people, and would not open up to me at all until I had explained that I grew up on a farm working horses and tilling the land much in the same manner that they do. Then one of their elders spent three full hours answering my questions and explaining their farming methods.
The Amish are basically organic farmers. They farm some of the best farm-land in central Ohio, land that continuously is extremely productive. Why? Because the Amish maintain and improve the land. They use classic methods of crop rotation, weed control by cultivation, and manure their land each year. They do not use pesticides that I know of, and yet they have some of the most productive farm lands in the entire country. This has to raise a very basic question. Just how effective are all of these pesticides, anyway? In 1945, when pesticide use was minimal, only 3.5% of the corn crop was lost to insect predation. In 1990, there was a 12% loss of the corn crop to insects. This does not sound like the extensive use of pesticides is all that effective.(Pimentel and Pimentel, 1979; see also Wade et al, 1994, pg 297)