Perhaps a shift towards organic strawberry growing?

The LA Times has an article today on how limits on fumigants (to cut down on smog) might affect the strawberry industry.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pesticides18may18,0,5951480,print.story?coll=la-home-center

While I knew methyl bromide was dangerous, I didn't know it contributed to smog. The article talks about what a financial blow this will be to agribusiness. I'm sure it will. Changing over systems is nearly always expensive. It seems to me that this would be a perfect time for smart farmers to switch to organic as well as going away from single crop fields. Companion planting is recommended for home gardeners as a way to stave off pests. A row of the same plant is like a buffet to that plant's pests whereas it's harder for the pests to make a beeline for those plants if they're intermixed with other plants that aren't attractive (or are actively repellant) to it.

That sort of intermixing is more doable for small farmers than it is for agribusiness. Does this mean we'll see a resurgence of independent farmers? I hope so, but I'm not holding my breath. It seems to me that if the money that is now spent on chemicals, chemical fertilizers and high tech equipment were spent on prevention and hiring labor that can scout for pests and harvest by hand (because they've moved away from a single-cropping system) would work. It'd be hard, but god knows there are people that need jobs. And harvesting wouldn't be as dangerous to workers if it wasn't so full of dangerous chemicals.

Anyway, this is just stuff that article made me think about.

This message was edited May 18, 2007 12:15 PM