>On our farming friend, I disagree, he's not in desperate need of
>science. He's desperate because of the demand for "perfect"
>produce, as in: perfectly transportable, and appearing, while the
>techniques used are quite often damaging to the earth due to the
>artificial methods needed to produce that kind of "perfect".
I don't quite get what this has to do with Michael's example. The guy was using companion planting, a "technology" (nods to Dwayne) that's been around for ages. Sometimes, it's used as pest control, other times it's used as a way to nourish soil near a crop to help it grow better.
I used all the time when I gardened in upstate NY. The radishes attracted bugs away from his broccoli. I used to plant marigolds all around the edges of my garden and up and down a few rows. It was quite pretty and the scent of marigolds repels certain pests. Similarly nasturtiums (IIRC, it's something that's related to nicotine) repel bugs. And they are mighty purty.
You plant parsley next to tomatoes, rosemary and tomatoes next to carrots, pumpkins near your corn, and basil, and nasturtiums with the squash.
hmmm. Getting hungry!
So, the radishes looked bad because they were bug traps that kept the bugs away from the broccoli. Who said his broccoli looked bad?
I understand what you're saying as a general principle, but growing up in farm country, I'm hard pressed to think of _anyone_ who'd rather have beans from the produce section of Tops Market than beans fresh from the fields. I don't know anyone who likes a tomatoe from a tubular cellphane wrapped package. (I personally hate any kind of tomato, but that's another story. :)
So, what the guy needed was, perhaps, technology to better understand how companion planting worked -- what was working -- or to understand what the chalky substance was from his family's secret recipe -- presumably so he could make it or do it more efficiently. Or, to give scientific backing to the process, so that more and more farmers would do it, thus driving down the cost of organic farming? I don't know, so maybe Michael can expand on what he meant when he said that the farmer needed technology.
ss
"Finish your beer. There are sober kids in India."
-- rwmartin