Organic Rice
August 7, 2007 – 8:48 pmI went to a wedding in Avon Connecticut this weekend. The groom was a great guy named Robbie I have known since I was 3. I got to talk to all sorts of interesting people about topics ranging from St. John’s College to entomology.
Robbie’s mom is an entomologist who works in India helping farmers use non-pesticide solutions to controlling pests in rice farming. She told me about an interesting happenstance pertaining to Certified Organic rice from her part of India. The rice buyers get the farmers to sign contracts that they will under no circumstance use chemicals to control pests. This means the farmers, when the organic controls fail, produce no rice and therefore earn no income.
She was telling me about how strange it was for her to be trying to talk the farmers out of signing those contracts, because occasionally the organic certified pest control process doesn’t work, and so the farmers should be allowed to spray in order to save the crop.
