{"id":56508,"date":"2021-01-25T08:21:58","date_gmt":"2021-01-25T13:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=56508"},"modified":"2021-01-25T08:21:58","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T13:21:58","slug":"healthy-crops-a-new-agricultural-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=56508","title":{"rendered":"Healthy Crops: A New Agricultural Revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"banner-simple \">\n<h3 class=\"banner-simple__title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gaiafoundation.org\/healthy-crops-a-new-agricultural-revolution\/\">HEALTHY CROPS: A NEW AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"container\"><main><\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col-lg-10 col-xl-8 offset-lg-1 offset-xl-2\">\n<div class=\"cms-content\">\n<p class=\"intro-heading\">First published in 1985 by agronomist Francis Chaboussou,\u00a0<em>Healthy Crops: A New Agricultural Revolution<\/em>\u00a0is republished online in full here for the first time!<\/p>\n<p>A forgotten classic,\u00a0<em>Healthy Crops\u00a0<\/em>offers a critical exploration of the plant science behind the success of<i>\u00a0<\/i>organic, agroecological, biodynamic and other holistic agricultural approaches, as well as the catastrophic failure of chemically-intensive industrial agriculture.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a class=\"btn btn--default\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gaiafoundation.org\/app\/uploads\/2021\/01\/HealthyCrops_CHABOUSSOU.pdf\">READ HEALTHY CROPS: A NEW AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The book\u2019s central thesis, though technical, is put simply by Gaia ancestor and Brazilian organic pioneer Jose \u2018Lutz\u2019 Lutzenberger in the foreword:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cA pest starves on a healthy plant\u2026the more poisons we apply, the more diseases and pests we get\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h5><strong>Trophobiosis \u2013\u00a0 a challenge to chemical agriculture<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Francis Chaboussou\u2019s theory of \u2018trophobiosis\u2019 describes how and why, on a biochemical level, healthy crops which are getting what they need from the surrounding ecosystem \u2013 in terms of minerals, nutrients, fungi-\u00a0 are more resistant to pests and disease.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-287307 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gaiafoundation.org\/app\/uploads\/2021\/01\/review_new-ag-revolution.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 333px) 100vw, 333px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.gaiafoundation.org\/app\/uploads\/2021\/01\/review_new-ag-revolution.jpg 333w, https:\/\/www.gaiafoundation.org\/app\/uploads\/2021\/01\/review_new-ag-revolution-200x300.jpg 200w\" alt=\"\" width=\"333\" height=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Far from protecting these crops, Chaboussou argues that chemical pesticides undermine plant health and resilience, making pest attacks more likely and, by extension, undermining the health and resilience of all who consume them.<\/p>\n<p>Trophobiosis, he argues,\u00a0<em>\u201cexplain(s) the reasons for the failure of chemical pesticides, whether fungicides, insecticides, or (above all) herbicides.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Healthy Crops<\/em>\u00a0challenges the foundational assumptions of agro-chemical corporations the world over, whose business model is based not on promoting plant health, but eliminating pests by chemical means.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, it advocates for holistic, integrated approaches to maintaining plant health, as part of the wider agro-ecosystem, as the best and most effective means of reducing the impacts of pests and diseases.<\/p>\n<p>These approaches, which place plants and their health at the centre of agricultural concern, have the dual benefit of producing more nutritious produce, which Chaboussou argues should be considered alongside yield as a measure of success.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>A forgotten classic rediscovered<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/main><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HEALTHY CROPS: A NEW AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION First published in 1985 by agronomist Francis Chaboussou,\u00a0Healthy Crops: A New Agricultural Revolution\u00a0is republished online in full here for the first time! A forgotten classic,\u00a0Healthy Crops\u00a0offers a critical exploration of the plant science behind the success of\u00a0organic, agroecological, biodynamic and other holistic agricultural approaches, as well as the catastrophic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[1912,30859,30858,5720,30860],"class_list":["post-56508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-food-production","tag-gaia-foundation","tag-healthy-crops","tag-industrial-agriculture","tag-trophobiosis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56508"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56509,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56508\/revisions\/56509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}