On Australian Story tonight was an episode on Dr Maarten Stapper - a former CSIRO scientist - who spoke about "Biological Farming" methods. His crusade is to educate farmers about putting micro-organisms back into the soil in order to negate the need for chemicals, and to increase yields.
Interesting to me was the fact that he was made redundant (i.e. asked to leave) by the CSIRO because he spent too much time on his "hobby". Apparently he was employed to further investigate Gene "therapy" of crops not help to reduce the need for chemicals. Is this a case of the CSIRO silencing ideas or thoughts that don't adhere to their agenda. Perhaps this is still a left over from the Howard years where any free thinking was quashed in order to silence dissent or compromising government policy....that's a discussion for another post.
Anyway, see my post on Bringing Carbon Back to Earth which speaks of the importance of fertility in soils via the introduction of micro-organisms. Not a new idea for back yard gardeners, but to see the method potentially introduced on a massive scale would be fantastic...why? Because anytime we can reduce the need for chemical sprays that kills EVERYHING must be a good thing. I don't use any sprays in my garden (except eco-oil) and so my kids can go out there pick whatever they want and eat straight from the bush, tree or whatever it is, they love it.
