{"id":48986,"date":"2014-10-27T12:00:37","date_gmt":"2014-10-27T12:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=48986"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:29:36","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:29:36","slug":"amish-farmers-study-plant-immunology-avoid-using-pesticides-completely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/10\/amish-farmers-study-plant-immunology-avoid-using-pesticides-completely\/","title":{"rendered":"Amish Farmers Study Plant Immunology, Avoid Using Pesticides Completely"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amish farmers are studying plant immunology in order to grow healthy organic produce free of harmful chemicals.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"amishorganic102114\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Amish farmers avoided the draft during WWII, even choosing to face jail time over going to war because they didn\u2019t believe in combat, and now they are taking up a different fight altogether \u2013 peacefully \u2013 by studying plant immunology in order to grow healthy organic produce without pesticides, herbicides, and other harmful chemicals that biotech companies are lavishing on crops like cheap perfume on an uncouth lady.<\/p>\n

Samuel Zook<\/a>, an Amish farmer recently explained to a reporter:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you really stop and think about it, though, when we go out spraying our crops with pesticides, that\u2019s really what we\u2019re doing. It\u2019s chemical warfare, bottom line.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Zook should know what its like to try to grow without pesticides and still get rid of pests that would ravish his crops. He owns a 66-acre farm that was once riddled with fungus and other plant-killing insects that he could scarcely eradicate.\u00a0 The 39-year old farmer talked at length about trying to run a homestead that had been in his family for five generations, and how miserably he was failing. He became disillusioned with the Big Ag methods promoted as \u2018agriculture\u2019 when they are nothing more than war on the natural world.\u00a0 His frustration led him to the writings of an 18-year old Amish farmer from Ohio, named John Kempf.<\/p>\n

This young upstart is the founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture<\/a>, a consulting firm the farmer established in 2006 to promote science-intensive organic agriculture. That\u2019s right \u2013 it wasn\u2019t just going to be an inconclusive guessing game about what to grow and how to grow it \u2013 his achievements would make any pro-GMO agriculturalist or biotech scientists eat their genetically modified words.<\/p>\n

Kemp started his own research after experiencing several failures on his own family\u2019s farm when he was merely a pre-pubescent young man in the 8th<\/sup>grade. He poured over biology, chemistry, agronomy, and science books for two years. He didn\u2019t do it to make straight As in his classes or impress his teachers. He was literally trying to save the family farm.<\/p>\n

Kemp achieved a breakthrough when he started studying plant immunology. In healthy<\/em> plants, he learned, just like people, an array of compounds are produced that naturally defend against intruders.<\/p>\n

He explained:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe immune response in plants is dependent on well-balanced nutrition, in much the same way as our own immune system.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

He went on to describe how modern agricultural models, including GMO plants that require heavy doses of Round Up, and other toxic chemicals, including the newly approved Enlist, Duo, Dow\u2019s 2,4-D chemicals that were once used in the Vietnam War, really deprive plants of the proper nutrition they need, and then their immune systems become compromised and can\u2019t fight pests, fungus, rot, and other diseases.<\/p>\n

Modern fertilizers focus only on increasing crop yields \u2013 no matter the price. Arguably, this also depletes human nutrition by creating plants that have questionable chemicals in their very DNA, but also lack proper vitamins and minerals.<\/p>\n

An article published by Alternative Medical Review<\/a><\/em>states:<\/p>\n

\u201cReviews of multiple studies show that organic varieties do provide significantly greater levels of vitamin C, iron, magnesium, and phosphorus than non-organic varieties of the same foods.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Aside from having fewer pesticide residues, organic foods also contain more secondary metabolites<\/a>. In organically grown foods, more \u201cbioactive compounds that aren\u2019t directly involved in the plant\u2019s growth, maturation, or reproduction, include the antioxidant compounds<\/a> \u2013 the polyphenols, the flavonoids, and all the other phytonutrients \u00a0\u2013 that make fruits and vegetables so uniquely healthful and which the evidence suggests is the primary explanation for the\u00a0association of produce consumption with increased health<\/a>, are present.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through plant sap analysis, Kempf has been able to discover deficiencies in important trace minerals which he can then introduce into the soil. Once these elements are presented \u2013 his plants are nourished instead of poisoned to death, and they start fighting for themselves<\/em>.\u00a0 With pesticides, natural predators of pests flourish.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of trying to grow crops that are healthy with fungicides and pesticides, I started to grow crops that are healthy with nutrition, \u201c said Kempf.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kempfs methods developed on the Ohio farm are now being used across North and South America, Hawaii, Europe, and Africa. He promises his clients higher-quality crops, bigger yields, better taste, and produce that carries a lucrative \u201corganic\u201d label, but he does something even better.<\/p>\n

\u201cOrganic certification is a negative-process certification,\u201d he explained, \u201cYou can do nothing to your field and become certified. In contrast, we focus on actively restoring the balance found in natural systems.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 nationofchange.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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