Organic Gardening Reduces Pollution!

Organic Guidelines

Organic farming provides the consumers, with fresh, tasty and reliable food while regarding natural life-cycle systems. In order to reach organic farming a number of practices should be implemented.

To create organic plants a special type of farming is followed. Examples of the requirements are:

  • Doesn’t use chemical pesticides
  • Crop management and fertility is not managed through chemicals.
  • Pests, diseases, and weeds are not managed through chemicals
  • Prohibits use of genetically modified plants
  • Has proper record keeping systems
  • Prohibited chemicals have not been in the soil for at least 3 years.
  • Has been certified by a certifying body (for commercial farming)
Reduce Pollution and Smog

How do we reduce smog? Well besides making sure your car is clean. (San Pablo Smog does a great job!)

Because organic gardening is done in such a clean way it can have huge benefits in reducing pollution and smog. How does it do this?  Well in a couple of ways:

  • It eschews usage of polluting agents.
  • It absorbs pollution

How does it prevent pollution? Here are a just a few of the ways:

  • Organic gardening emphasizes “soil building”. This includes such practices as crop rotations, inter-cropping, symbiotic associations, cover crops, organic fertilizers and minimum tillage. Doing all these things means that chemicals are not necessary to be used in the soil. Since the chemicals are not used, they never enter the ecosystem to become pollution.
  • Synthetic fertilizer or pesticides are not used so they can never enter the water supply.
  • Many of the aforementioned organic gardening practices actually create more of a return of carbon to the soil. When more organic carbon is returned to the soil climate change is improved to the positive.

These organic techniques are especially beneficial for keeping toxic nitrates out of the soil

How does it do that?

  • It doesn’t strip nutrients out of soil
  • It returns more carbon to the air which prevents climate change
  • It prevents the destruction of important soil microbes
  • Prevents the nitrates from fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides from filtering down into the water supply.

Nitrogen has been associated with health risks such as cancer, and reproductive and thyroid problems.

Today’s fertilizer usually contains different amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.  Typically when a crop is grown these chemicals may be taken from the soil by the plants being grown.  So artificial sources of these chemicals are used as fertilizer to replenish the soil.

However techniques such as crop rotation “field rest” are known to counter the problem and reduce the need for artificial fertilizers, but profit concerns have been prevented most farms from using these organic techniques.

So how can we support this wholesale? Well make sure you use good car smog tests. They will tell you accurately how much of a polluter your car is.  Then also make sure you

Not only that but according to Mother Jones we may be approaching “Peak Fertilizer”.  Please read this important article about how we may be forced to do organic gardening if the fertilizer runs out.

In Conclusion

Artificial or processed fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics, additives and other aids are a threat to the long term health of our soil, food, and water.  We should use natural resources such as livestock manure, disease resistant plants, and other organic and sustainable methods in order to prevent the earth from become more polluted.

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