The book that I started reading is called "Good Growing Why Organic Farming Works" by Leslie A. Duram. To give a quick summary, the author researches and interviews working organic farmers from all across the USA to find out the realities of organic farming; the pleasures, problems and concerns about it.
The first chapter is "Organic Farming and Geography." From reading part of this chapter, I found out that there are 5 geographical regions in the United States which helps the investigation of organic agriculture. Organic agricultural researchers and farmers define organic farming in many ways, such as crop rotation to build healthy fertile soil that has few pest problems. Crop rotation is changing the crops grown in a field each season. Organic farming also means growing large number of crops both for ecological diversity and for sales diversity. And lastly, it means innovation which is to try new crop rotations or varieties, timing, new machinery, and new sales venues to meet the consumer's demands.
The opposite of organic is what they call conventional agriculture. This kind of agriculture relies on synthetic fertilizers and toxic chemicals which kills most weeds and insects but pollutes the rivers and oceans. Some chemicals stay on the food and it affects the consumer who eat it. When I read this, I got scared what the farmers are doing to what we eat. I was glad my mom relies on organic food and products, and that she told me about it. That is why I chose this book; to know more about how organic production works.
This book is really scientific but I'm really interested in reading more about it and challenging myself to a higher level of understanding.
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