Organic farmers’ fields are faeces-free

SO-CALLED ORGANIC crops, grown without recourse to synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, are credited with miraculous properties by many of their fans. Unfortunately, there is little scientific evidence that they are more nutritious than those produced by conventional means. But their supporters argue that the methods used to raise them bring other benefits, too. And here they may be correct. That, at least, is the conclusion of a study by Matthew Jones of Washington State University, in America, which he has just published in the .Contamination of fresh produce with bacteria-laden wild-animal faeces is a problem in many places. For this reason farmers often remove hedgerows, ponds and other habitats to discourage visits by such animals. That is necessarily (indeed, deliberately) detrimental to wildlife, and also requires the application of more pesticides because it reduces the number of insectivorous birds and mammals around. Dr Jones speculated that an alternative way of dealing with animal dung would be to encourage dung beetles to bury it and bacteria to break it down, and that this encouragement might be an automatic consequence of organic farming.