CHEMICAL vs TRADITIONAL GARDENING: Which Produces Higher Quality Produce?

[Nauvoo2002]

This is from the Hardeman County, Tennessee Master Gardener's Website, sponsored by the University of Tennessee's Agricultural Extension Service:


CHEMICAL GARDENING vs TRADITIONAL GARDENING:
Which Produces the Higher Quality Produce?
by Colleen Johnson, Tennessee Master Gardener

From about the time of Adam and Eve until the end of World War II, food was grown on small farms or large family gardens without the use of agricultural chemicals. Gardeners "fed" their soils -- and the organisms that lived in their soil -- in a variety of ways: by plowing left over crop residues into the ground, by growing cover crops like clover or rye during the off season, or by the incorporation of well aged animal manure into the ground.

In the years after World War II, chemical companies that had previously been producing chemicals for the war effort shifted their production lines over to peacetime uses. Some of the primary products they began developing were chemical fertilizers like ammonium nitrate and insecticides like DDT.

Although there were a small number of isolated farms using these products even before World War II, they did not see wide spread use until the 1950s. As a result, most of the food sold in commercial markets in 1950 were grown using the traditional methods rather than using the new fangled agricultural chemicals. In other words, most food sold in grocery stores in 1950 were grown using techniques that today we call "organic.".

Over the course of the next half of a century, that changed, of course. By 1999, almost all of the produce sold in commercial markets was grown using agricultural chemicals.

Produce grown using the chemicals often grew larger and more physically attractive than their soil fed counterparts.

But when it comes to the produce we are going to feed our own families, the nutritional quality of the food we put on the table is more important than the size or cosmetic appeal, is it not?

So the question arises: is there a significant difference in the nutritional quality of food growing in a garden that uses chemical fertilizers and other agri-chemical products, compared to the food grown in a topsoil that is maintained the "old fashioned" way without chemicals?

This is the question that researchers out of the University of Texas at Austin set out to answer, and their findings were published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition in December, 2004.

To answer the question, they compared official USDA nutrient data for 43 crops -- mostly table vegetables -- for crops grown, bought and analyzed in 1950, and then compared them against USDA nutrient data for the same 43 crops grown, bought, and analyzed a half century later, in 1999.

What they found were significantly lower levels for 6 of the 13 nutrients tested, in the crops that were grown using chemicals in 1999. Specifically, there were significant declines in the amount of protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin and ascorbic acid (vitamin C) found in the crops grown and then sold in the commercial food markets in 1999, when compared to the food grown, sold and tested a half of a century earlier in 1950.

Their conclusion: "We suggest that any real declines are generally most easily explained by changes in cultivation in 1950 and 1999, in which there may be trade offs between yield and nutrient content."

English translation of the above statement: The declines found in the nutrient level of crops grown in 1999 is probably due to the change from the old fashioned ways of growing food back in 1950, to the chemical methods of 1999. Farmers may be able to produce more yield per acre using these chemicals, but the nutritional quality of the resulting produce is not as good as the produce grown without chemicals a half a century ago."

http://www.hardemancountymg.org/newsletter.html

[Btherbs]

Do you remember which issue this is in? I would like to add a link to my website.