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作者Donella H. Meadows1999-11-15
農業經營者與轉殖基因、有毒化學物質與輻射愈是糾纏不清，本地新鮮、有機、單純的食物就愈是有較好的市場。因為我們對將吃入嘴的東西，尤其是當這些東西可能會成為我們身體的一部份時，身為消費者的我們可是會非常小心謹慎的。
但是對於我們不吃的農作物呢？例如花呢？不管我們是自己種的，或是在店裡買的，我們有必要在乎它們是否含有殘留農藥或一段來自魚類的基因嗎？去買或是栽種有機花卉是有意義的嗎？
潛在著危險的美麗
我剛好看到了兩篇文章，提醒了我這些疑慮的可能性。一篇報導是關於拉丁美洲的花卉農場，它們一年四季向我們的花商出口。我曾在哥斯大黎加看過一些這樣的農場。你能想像一畝一畝的花田是在塑膠帳棚下嗎？這並不是要隔離宜人的氣候，而是為了用煙熏以防止熱帶的害蟲和黴菌。帳棚裡的土壤充滿了各式化學物質，其成份與濃度都是在美國本土所不允許使用的。美國的工人也不會被允許進入這樣有毒的環境中。
這些隔夜就以空運送達的花是那麼的美麗，去聞它們或欣賞它們，並不會傷害我們。那些哥斯大黎加工人至少也有了工作，出口所得的收入對拉丁美洲國家而言是重要的。
我們為什麼要在乎他們是怎麼種花的呢？
我們對這問題應該關心的理由是這些毒性物質並不是只會留在帳棚裡的。它們會飄出來，會沾在工人的衣服上被帶出來，會進入工人孩子們的身體裡，滲透到地下水中，循著熱帶食物鏈傳遞到鳴禽的體內，這些鳥類中不乏我們每年春天引頂等待其北返的候鳥。其中的一些化學物質會破壞覆蓋和保護我們的臭氧層﹔一些在蒸發後會變成雨雪下降在各地，包含了北極到新英格蘭區。所以，就如同我們和地球上循環的氣流連在一起那樣，我們在實質上是與那些花卉農場相連的。雖然這關係不比我們與我們要吃的食物間那樣的密切，但也強烈到足夠引起我們的關懷了。
我也關心那些工人們，我曾看過他們的臉孔，更無法漠視他們的健康、工作、或小孩。假如花卉是以有機的方式栽植的話，那將會有更多，而且更健康的工作機會。但以有機方式栽種所有種類的花是不太可能的，特別是對熱帶而言的外來種類。在一大片土地上都要種同一種花，也是不太可能的，農作物可能要混合種植、輪更、或者有所變化。
為你而盛開的花蕾
以有機方式種植的花也許會比較昂貴，但也可能不會，因為使用較少昂貴的化學物質可以抵銷僱用較多勞力的成本。花卉也許不會如我們所期的，在每個季節都可以有大量不同的種類上市。這是利用低劣的工資，犧牲當地人民的健康，與危害環境與資源的素質，以為有錢人提供便宜而便利商品之諸多例子中的一例。像這樣便宜的花卉，不論它是多麼的美麗與方便，我實在不願去欣賞。
我讀到的另一篇文章是有關於如何栽種我們自己的花卉。它是摘錄自歐格登(Shepherd Ogden)所寫的"有機花卉園藝指南"這本書。
Brooklyn植物園是全球最重要玫瑰的收集地之一。有一次歐格登問Brooklyn植物園的園丁是否化學噴劑來照顧園中的玫瑰，因為一般相信玫瑰需要定期的灑粉與噴藥才能成長良好。這個玫瑰管理員說不，他不用化學藥劑。當歐格登進一步問其原因時，這位園丁的回答是：「我喜歡玫瑰，在20年後我仍然想要在這裡欣賞它們。」
「灑粉與噴藥的問題是，這些藥劑並不只是停留在我們想要施用的地方。」歐格登說，「我知道很少有園藝從事者會實實在在地遵守殺蟲劑標示上完整而細節的使用指示。要這麼做，你得一整天穿上塑膠工作服，再不就要將穿過的工作洗兩次，而且要告訴小孩子不要待在草坪上或離開花園遠一點。我寧願很落伍的花費時間在花園裡用手抓去昆蟲。」
我不能想像任何一個人會在他自己的居處使用殺蟲劑，這不只是危險，而且也沒有必要。我種植了許多種花卉，採了一束束的花朵，從早春開花的黃水仙到化霜後的翠菊都有，而且我不用噴藥。但歐格登說，一般郊區的園丁在每一畝草坪或花園所使用的農藥劑量是農夫的六倍。
講講最切身的的關係吧！誰希望他們的貓狗、小孩或是自己，生活在這種有毒環境中呢？
在我週遭大部分的商業花卉種殖者都有用除蟲劑，雖然是儘量少用，而且有後悔感，但其悔意尚未到願為挽救瀕危植物而放棄自己的工作與事業。相信我，我是同情他們的處境的。農夫的時間與金錢總是被逼上臨界點，我會願意付較多的錢買不施用農藥的花，以減輕他們的負擔。我確實認識一些在熱帶和溫帶地區的花農，他們以不用農藥的方式達到商業生產的規模。我知道這是做得到的，就像歐格登所說的，因為他也是這樣做的。
歐格登說：「這些事實粉碎了欲以昂貴、高科技的化學方法，取代有效率、人道的手工生產方式者的騙局。它解放了我們，使我們回到了陽光和風底下，傾聽著鳥鳴，享受著觀察自然的寧靜時光，而不是鎮日處在嘈雜、惡臭的工業化世界裡。」
「雖說抱歉，但這樣的有機園藝早在商人和機器出現之前就已存在了，而且在石油用完之後，我們這些有機園藝者仍將會存在，而這世界也將會歸於平靜。」
Donella H. Meadows 是永續協會(Sustainability Institute)的理事長，也是達特茅斯學院(Dartmouth College)環境研究的助教授。
原文詳見： http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/citizen/
citizen111599.stm
版權歸屬 Earth Day Network，環境信託協會 (黃子晏 譯，吳海音審校)
中英對照譯稿請見http://news.ngo.org.tw/
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by Donella H. Meadows11.15.99
The more the agribusiness folks mess about with transplanted genes and toxic chemicals and irradiation, the better the market for local, fresh, organic, un-messed-about-with foods. When it comes to things we're going to put into our mouths, things that are literally going to become us, we consumers are cautious, and rightly so.
But what about crops we don't eat? What, for example, about flowers? Whether we grow our own or buy them in a shop, need we care whether they carry pesticide residues or genes from a fish? Does it make sense to buy or grow organic flowers?
Potentially dangerous beauties.
I've just come across two articles that remind me how much sense it makes. One is a report on flower farms in Latin America, which export to our florists year-round. I've seen some of those farms in Costa Rica. Imagine acres and acres under plastic tents, not to keep out the balmy climate but to allow fumigation against tropical pests and molds. Inside the tents the soils are doused with chemicals of sorts and at concentrations that would never be allowed in the United States. Nor would our workers be allowed to enter that toxic atmosphere.
The flowers, flown to us overnight, are beautiful.
Smelling and admiring them won't hurt us. Those Costa Rican workers do at least have jobs. The export money is important to Latin American countries.
Why should we care how they grow flowers?
We should care because those poisons don't stay inside the tents. They drift out, they walk out on the clothes of the workers, they enter the bodies of their children, filter into groundwater, work their way up the tropical food chain, at the top of which are songbirds whose return we await up north every spring. Some of those chemicals attack the ozone layer that stretches over and protects us. Some evaporate and fall as rain or snow anywhere from the North Pole to New England. We are materially connected to those flower farms, as we are connected to all the circulating flows of the planet. Not as intimately as if we were eating the flowers, but strongly enough to care.
I care about the workers, too. I've looked them in the face. I can't be unconcerned about their health or jobs or children. If those flowers were grown organically, there would probably be more jobs, and healthier ones. It might not be possible to grow all types of flowers organically, especially not types foreign to the tropics. It might not be possible to specialize in acres of a single flower. The crops might have to be mixed, rotated, varied.
This bud's for you.
Flowers grown that way could cost more, though maybe not, because the additional labor would be offset by fewer expensive chemicals. Flowers might not come to us as predictably in as great a variety at all seasons. This is one of those many situations where something comes easy and cheap to rich folks because it costs distant poor folks a lot, not just in lousy wages, but in health and in the debasement of their local resources and environment. That kind of cheap, however beautiful and predictable and convenient, I can't enjoy.
The other article that came my way was about growing our own flowers. It was excerpted from the book Step by Step Organic Flower Gardening by Shepherd Ogden.
Ogden once asked the rose gardener at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden whether he uses chemical sprays to take care of one of the world's most important rose collections. (It's commonly believed that roses are hard to grow, requiring constant dusting and spraying.) The rose curator said no, he didn't use chemicals. Why not? Ogden asked. "I love roses," was the answer. "I want to be here still enjoying them in 20 years."
"Dusts and sprays have a nasty habit of not staying where we try to put them," says Ogden. "I have known very few gardeners who actually follow the complete, detailed directions on pesticide labels. To do so, you would have to spend your days in a rubber suit or double washing clothes and telling the children to stay off the lawn or away from the flower garden. I'd rather spend my time in the garden handpicking insects, as archaic as that might seem."
I can't imagine why anyone would use pesticides on his or her own property. They're not only hazardous, they're unnecessary. I grow all kinds of flowers, I have knockout bouquets from early spring daffodils to post-frost asters, and I don't use sprays. But Ogden says the average suburban gardener applies lawn and garden chemicals at per-acre dosages six times those of farmers.
Talk about intimate connections! Who would want their dogs, cats, kids, or selves to live in that kind of toxic haze?
Most commercial flower growers around me use pesticides, usually minimally and apologetically, but not so much to save a threatened crop as to save work. Believe me, I sympathize with that motive. Farmers' time and money are always pushed to the breaking point. I'm willing to push them less by paying more for flowers grown without poisons. I do know farmers, in both tropical and temperate zones, who produce flowers on a commercial scale that way. I know it can be done, and so does Shep Ogden, because he does it.
Says Ogden, "This knowledge stops the swindle, the con whereby efficient, manual, and humane methods were replaced with expensive, high-tech mechanical and chemical methods. It frees us to go back out into the sun and the wind, to listen to the birds and enjoy a quiet moment observing the daily drama of the insects, ... rather than accommodate ourselves ... to the clamor and stench of industrialism.
"I'm sorry, but organic gardening was here long before the merchants and their machines, and we organic gardeners will still be here long after the oil is gone and the world has quieted down again."
Donella H. Meadows is director of the Sustainability Institute and an adjunct professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College.
http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/citizen/citizen111599.stm
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