Potatoes are one of our favorite crops on the Old Solar Farm. We grow about a half dozen kinds each year for sale at the farmers market, for friends and for our own enjoyment. Now, we're storing potatoes in our root cellar. They'll be tasty until next spring when they start to sprout. One of the great things about potatoes is that they're very easy to grow on a small scale. So much nutritious food comes out of such a little area. One 30 foot row can produce 60 pounds of potatoes.

We've found that potatoes grow well after a cover crop of winter rye is turned under. Tubers about the size of eggs are buried in loose soil. We pull a few weeds, hill-up and/or mulch the young plants to hold water, discourage weeds and encourage earthworms and spiders for insect control. We keep an eye out for Colorado Potato Beetles, squishing them when they appear. Then we harvest. We always get plenty of delicious potatoes, with very little work. The real key to success is our healthy soil.

With my interest in potatoes, and my skepticism about the headlong rush to genetically-engineer most of our food supply, the October 25th, New York Times Magazine cover story titled "Fried, Mashed or Zapped With DNA?" captured my attention.

The article, by Connecticut author Michael Pollan, is as interesting and startling for what it says about the food system in general, as it is for the thoughtful approach to its subject: Monsanto's new genetically-engineered potatoes. These spuds produce an internal pesticide which is supposed to kill the Colorado Potato Beetle. Mr. Pollan skillfully addresses some of the more serious questions about this new technology. In the process, he provides a window into the frightening reality of pesticide-use in large-scale potato production. He also clearly describes some important differences between organic and conventional agriculture.

His account of a 3,000 acre Idaho farm's potato-growing regime is chilling to me even after decades of work in organic agriculture. This farm's potatoes provide the raw material for French fries. It's hard to believe that all these chemicals could be sprayed on something that so many people eat. Listen to this!

Before planting, the ground is fumigated with a chemical toxic enough to kill all soil life. When the tubers are set in the ground, a systemic insecticide is applied to the soil to be absorbed by the young plants. Then, one or two herbicide sprayings keep weeds in check. This farmer also uses up to eight applications of fungicides to control blight (some of which aren't even approved for use by EPA), and two sprays for aphids (including an organophosphate pesticide so deadly that no one can enter the field for four or five days after its use). Up to ten applications of fertilizer are needed to feed the potato plants. Most of these chemicals are mixed with water and applied through a center-pivot irrigation system. This uses and pollutes taxpayer-subsidized water in order to grow potatoes in the Idaho desert. Now, there are two dozen more good reasons to avoid chips and fries.

After paying for all those inputs, in a good year, that large-scale farmer may make just $15 profit on the 20 tons of potatoes each acre can produce. The genetic engineering discussed in the article allows the farmer to skip one or more chemical sprays because the potato plant produces a pesticide in every one of its cells , even in the tubers. However, this new technology still encourages a large-scale, chemical-industrial approach.

Pollan also did a great job of capturing the nature of organic farms which focus on process rather than product. The organic grower used a variety of methods, including longer crop rotations, greater biological diversity and more resistant varieties. Yields were almost as large as the chemical grower, with many fewer inputs. Money was saved and environmental damage prevented.

Our society has begun a large-scale experiment. Not only are we feeding our children and ourselves ever-larger quantities of greasy, salty, processed potatoes (which have been grown with lots of toxic substances), the long distance industrial food system now uses spuds which contain a genetically engineered pesticide and fries them in oil from soybean, cotton and canola plants which are genetically-engineered to tolerate large doses of herbicides.

What kind of potatoes do you want to eat-- Local and organic or genetically-altered, industrial?

This is Bill Duesing, Living on the Earth

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