Voodoo goodness me Yabs, you are showing your own bias here. Not sure how you get voodoo out of organic when it is a natural way of farming and is less 'interfering ' of the natural state than traditional agriculture ie. attempts to work with nature not against it as with permaculture.

But you can always be relied on for a fiery retort Yabby (although you were quite polite this time).

I like to think I do keep an open mind hence why I mentioned my doubts about raw milk and also why I choose not to indulge in other activities like visiting homeopaths etc. Not everything marketed as 'natural' is necessarily good for us and sometimes it may not even be 'natural'. Each situation or practice should be judged on its own merit. I agree that some farmers using fertilizers may make better judgements and analysis to ensure that application methods are sound, not all traditionalists could be bad - not statistically possible. :)

Based on your argument about dummies and agriculture, and given the state of the Murray Darling Basin, increase in blue green algae, excessive land clearing and other effects of high nitrogen runoff in our waterways (just to mention a few), you better go tell some of your mates in the industry to switch to organics pronto. ;)

PS: burying cow horns with cow poo is a biodynamic method devised under the Steiner view of the world, NOT organics although the two may cross paths on occasion.

bennie,

l love the stuff too. Used to drink a litre or two a day. Its especially good when its cold enuff to give ya that slight bolt of pain to the noggin.

l pretty much stopped cold tho. Since then, my allergies have cleared up. l have a couple of nieces and milk is like poison for them, they have very high food intolerances. Something that is becoming quite widespread. These days, some kids travel with a shot in case they get bowled over by a peanut. Arguably, this is a product of the a sort of commercialised adulteration of the food production process and if anything an arguement against processed foods (and for raw).

Cow milk just aint that good for the human gut. And milk has a nasty thing in it called casein.

Then again a drop in a brew cant hurt.

Ah Pelican, I might be more open minded about all this then you are! For I am
on record on OLO for suggesting a number of times, that permaculture might in
fact be the way to solve the third world food crisis, rather then trying to force
Western farming methods on them. They have the land and labour after all.

Permaculture is ideal for small scale and home grown food production, I have never
disputed that. That is quite different to large scale grain production, as we practise it,
where organic farming is largely a failure.

Voodoo farming is what I call things, when people take on a touchy feely religious
fervour about their farming methods, rather then good science. That was evident
in the very article which you posted a link to.

I won’t comment on the Murray Darling, as its at the other end of the country, so
not my area of expertise. No doubt cows crapping in the river along its banks does
not help the algal bloom story. Yup, some overuse concentrated fertilisers.
The rising cost of those, should assist to make them use them more wisely in future.

The thing that you have to remember is that hunter gathering was the natural state,
farming was interfering with nature in the first place. I have yet to be convinced
that large scale cultivation of soil, over and over again to kill weeds, is better then
applying a litre of Roundup. I’ve seen too many peoples soils wash away with
cultivation, which is what organic farmers rely on, when they try to grow grain crops.

What we did wrong was simply to try and adopt European farming to Australian soils
and in some respects it has been a big failure. What you are now seeing is Australian
technology emerging to solve Australian problems. The result is higher crop yields
with less rainfall, better soil health and higher soil organic matter levels. We are
doing all this with concentrated fertilisers, which in this case makes far more sense
then anything which you have suggested :)

.

trade, just wondering what makes casein nasty?

I think you make a good observation about the increasing levels of allergies. It could be because of how "clean" we keep our children and their environment- anti-bacterial wipes, household germ killers etc.
http://voanews.com/english/Science/2008-05-29-voa31.cfm

rojo, Monday, 2 June 2008 10:54:58 PM: "I think you make a good observation about the increasing levels of allergies. It could be because of how "clean" we keep our children and their environment- anti-bacterial wipes, household germ killers etc."

You can tell that to the Aboriginal children who are very much at risk from the lack of basic hygiene in their environments eg., soap and water after the toilet and before preparing and eating food.

However the risk of salmonella alone in raw milk should dissuade you from feeding it to infants and at-risk adults.

Returning to coffee houses and other sellers of prepared food, if I was in that business, there is no way you could convince me to store and supply raw milk because the possible pathogens leading to cross contamination and food poisonings. There is also the likelihood that some of the growing ranks of litigious customers, upon finding out that raw milk was being used, could target my shop for the usual "give me $30k and I will go away" shakedown that is so common for small business owners.

rojo--just wondering what makes casein nasty?

On Monday, Radio National's Health Report titled 'Health Controversy surrounding Milk' featured a professor from Deakin Uni who discussed his review of work done investigating a couple of cow's milk proteins A1 and A2, the former being investigated for a possible link to type 1 diabetes and other illnesses-- Casein was mentioned. There is an audio transcript available,(sadly not a text transcript for this programme).
I used to drink raw milk when I lived in a rural area, but I knew the milker, who was fanatically clean. I also boarded someone's milking goat when they were vacationing without ill effect, but would never trust raw milk from just anywhere.