So, I must confess that for three years we let a field to a neighbour for use in conventional tillage farming. Previously, that field had been managed organically for over a decade, but we found we could not use it and the rent money would be welcome. Now, we’re regalvanised to protect the environment and we planned to put the field back in to grass; we were going to start trying to manage all land organically again.
But then the tenant sprayed the field with glyphosate a week or so ago. Now the field is dead. And we are faced with an even more difficult decision. It will take up to a year and will cost us a few thousand euros to get the field back in to production; or we could let the field again and receive rent, but chemicals will be spayed. The choice: conventional approach and get some money vs no-chemical approach and not make any money (in fact this year it will cost us).
I don’t want to spray chemicals any more, despite calls for pragmatism from my family.
Although everyone seems to want me to “spray”, it seems unethical. During the week, I happened to see this article on the front page of EarthSource: Roundup and birth defects: Is the public being kept in the dark? Roundup is the leading brand of glyphosate which most people spray around their garden or farm. Is this a sign that I should be impractical, but resist the application of more chemicals to the land?
And a day after I heard that the land had been sprayed, this headline was on the BBC news: UN highlights role of farming in closing emissions gap. A UN report (UN annual emissions report) says that emissions from farming, including nitrous oxide from applying fertiliser and CO2 from ploughing fields accounts for more than 10% of the global total right now, and simple changes in agriculture could cut emissions by four gigatonnes. I know that conventional farming is highly toxic and that though we are an insignificant player, if we don’t all change, there is no hope that our biosphere will be able to support humanity as it behaves today.
Although land management without chemicals means more physical labour, there is a fringe benefit: You live longer. A study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine says that simply getting up and avoiding a sedentary lifestyle is a lifesaver. (BBC: Gardening ‘linked to longer lives’)
All the signs point in the same direction. Why won’t we change, before it’s too late? It’s hard to do the right thing.
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