Attitudes Toward Farming

* Re “Pesticides and Public Health,” letters, March 7.

I find myself thoroughly confused. People vote for Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources (SOAR) laws to preserve open space and farmland, then want to shut down the agriculture business to “protect” themselves from farming, because farmers use pesticides too close to residential communities.

Non-farmers know pesticides are unnecessary because they have read papers on organic farming and are now experts in agriculture. I’m sure farming is difficult enough considering the vagaries of weather, irrigation concerns, maintaining arable soil (plus a host of other things to which I plead ignorance) without these experts looking over the farmers’ shoulders.

I have yet to see an article pointing out that developers bought adjacent farmland and created this dilemma by placing communities next to working farmland.

This is analogous to developing an area close to an airport: The land was cheap because it was next to an airport and so people didn’t want to live there. In the postwar years, veterans and others who didn’t have a lot of money for the American dream were willing to accept living close to an annoyance. As time went on and others moved into the area, the cry went out, “Move the airport!”

If crop yield was as good or better without pesticides, non-pesticide farming would be the order of the day. Obviously, it would be cheaper for a farmer to operate without this expense and provide an increased profit margin.

At the rate of world population growth the Malthus predictions may be closer than we think. It would be well to “cultivate” a friendlier attitude toward the farmer. We may need him if we are to survive.

GEORGE E. MARSHALL

Ojai