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Loving those "specialty" crops?!
What's in a word? What do you think of as a "specialty crop"? To me, it sounds like something relatively exo tic--like horseradish, artichokes, or ginger. As evidence of what's wrong with Big Agriculture in the United States, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines "specialty crops" as
...fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, horticulture,
and nursery crops (including floriculture).
The explanation further states, Eligible plants must be intensively cultivated and used by people for food, medicinal purposes, and/or aesthetic gratification to be considered specialty crops.
While that might sound like nearly everything we think of as food and other household items like medicine and flowers, in the upside-down world of monoculture, it is a distinction used primarily to differentiate what we do from those who grow commodities--corn, wheat, and soybeans.
Similarly, "organic" is essentially growing the way it used to be done, without reliance on artificial and potentially harmful chemicals as pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides. Instead, we use healthy soil, animal fertilizers and compost, and labor-intensive hand-weeding. It's tempting to say that we use those to "replace" the harmful alternatives, but hey....organic was here first!
Chris is known to say that instead of "organic," what we do should be called "conventional," and what the so-called "conventional" farmers do should be called "chemical farming." But then, Chris is ahead of his time....or is it behind?!
-- Robin
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