Daniel D. was on the right track. You can't look at part of the complex system & make a determination. Strawberries are one of the most pesticided crops. So, in effect, you trade "stoops" for other health problems.
Joanna asked why working in the fields is bad. It is very bad, if you are working under coercion. In Cuba, that need not be the case -- but I don't know. Like Jim Devine, most of what I saw of Cuban ag. was from a bus window.
One more point. Most ag. technologies are not to increase yields. US yields are not particularly high. The purpose is to save on wages. It tends to be very fuel intensive, thus depending on low oil costs. Yet Cuba made the transition quite well from what I understand.
I assume that a better way to raise yields would be to give more power to the people who farm the land. Farmers used to say that the best fertilizer is the farmer's boot. Here in N. Cal., rice is planted from airplanes.
So the question is not whether to go back to the stone age, but to develop a system appropriate to people's [long-term] needs.
On Thu, Aug 25, 2005 at 01:51:17PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
> joanna wrote:
>
> > working in the fields to raise organic produce is probably healthier
>
> Organic ag requires lots more stoop labor than the nonorg kind.
>
> Doug
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-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu