Where are they now? Timothy LaSalle heads up Rodale Institute

He heads an environmental non-profit in Pennsylvania that promotes organic farming. He believes that farmers are major contributors to the problem of global warming. He thinks the U.S. rate of goods consumption is out of control. And he was born and raised on farms in Kings County.

Kings County isn't known as the birthplace of environmentalist leaders, but in the case of 60-year-old Timothy LaSalle, it was just that.

Lasalle now heads the Rodale Institute, a Pennsylvania-based environmental organization that promotes organic farming, carbon reduction and a host of other things often associated with the environmental movement.

Forty-two years ago, LaSalle was a Hanford High graduate fresh out of the FFA and looking forward to a conventional career in agriculture.

He went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to major in ag. He graduated from Virginia Tech University with a degree in population genetics, a science that studies how to breed the best livestock. He returned to Cal Poly and ended up a full professor teaching in the dairy science department.

Then he became involved in the Agriculture Education Foundation, a non-profit that runs a two-year program to train agricultural leaders in California.

That's when his career veered off in a different direction.

Traveling to more than 80 countries, LaSalle said he saw the "degradation around the planet based on current methodologies of storing water and farming."

He became a convert to the environmental movement.

First and foremost is his advocacy of organic farming.

LaSalle maintains that organic farming is superior to chemical farming in every way: Better for the soil, better in drought years, healthier, even capable of yielding close to the same amount as conventional farming.

He believes conventional practices -- pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, etc. -- are contributing to global climate change.

"Agriculture as we now practice it is one of the biggest contributors to global warming, but it could be one of the biggest mitigators," he said in an interview last week with Grist, and environmental news and commentary Web site.

"I come from a chemical agriculture background and I used to believe in it; I was reared on it. I was convinced that this was the technology was going to feed us. But I now realize that this kind of farming is causing us to lose topsoil every year, the deplete the quality of the soil, to pollute our water. Today, I realize it's going to kill us," he said.

LaSalle's vision isn't catching on like wildfire in the San Joaquin Valley.

For good reason, according to Emile LaSalle, Timothy's father.

"I don't think this valley lends itself to well to organic farming," said LaSalle, who was the FFA director at Hanford High when Timothy was in the program.

LaSalle, at age 90, farms 800 acres of alfalfa near Stratford.

He said his alfalfa plants needs phosphorous and potash -- two fertilizer additives -- to grow productively.

"It's not feasible to just farm crops in this valley without adding the necessary fertilizer elements," he said.

He called his son's vision "idealistic."

"He's totally committed to making the planet a better planet. We need more people like that," LaSalle said.

Others agreed with Emile LaSalle's view of the dim prospects for large-scale organic farming in the San Joaquin Valley, which has a smattering of organic growers but is dominated by large farms that use pesticides, synthetic fertilizers and other techniques heavily criticized by the Rodale Institute.

One local crop advisor said he'd rather eat food that was grown conventionally "if it was a crop I knew could be a host to bacteria and parasites."

That quote is from Keith Backman of Dellavalle Laboratory, Inc., a Fresno farm testing and advising firm with an office in Hanford.

Of the opposition of organic farmers to all pesticides, Backman said, "People who make that statement are pretty much clueless to the way agriculture is done today."

Timothy LaSalle conceded that what he seeks is a complete change in thinking.

After leaving Cal Poly, he got his doctorate in "depth psychology" from the Pacifica Graduate Institute.

LaSalle defined depth psychology as the study of the way choices stem from deep-seated ways of thinking that are difficult to break.

He's out to break the conventional wisdom about the way agriculture is practiced.

"Unfortunately, there's a lot of special interests fighting policy changes," he said.

He admitted that most farmers aren't shifting to Rodale's organic techniques, but he noted the market for organically grown food is growing.

Robert LaSalle, Timothy's brother and a dairy operator in the Firebaugh area, doesn't think organic techniques are a one-size-fits-all solution, at least as they apply to dairy cows.

He noted some pluses and minuses to the practice as it relates to dairies.

Organic dairies have healthier cows who get more exercise and live longer, he said.

But on the down side, sick cows can't get antibiotics. And a lot of grazing land is needed, he said.

With acreage so expensive in California, organic dairies are hard to sustain, he added.

"I am a conventional dairyman," he said.

Robert LaSalle identified current practices he feels already fit into the organic model. He feeds cottonseed, almond hulls and other byproducts to his cow.

And like many Valley dairies with available farmland, LaSalle uses manure from the cows to fertilize crops that are fed to the cows.

"It's a total recycled process," he said.

Emile LaSalle believes he is a good steward of the land. He said he'll leave it better than he got it.

He was willing to call himself an environmentalist.

"I think I've been one all along and didn't know it," he said.

Meanwhile, the Rodale Institute continues to push its program of large-scale conversion to organic farming.

The organization is working to get federal incentives for farmers to shift away from chemical-based practices, Timothy LaSalle said.

"And we will continue to do research that's helpful to farmers," he said.

The reporter can be reached at 583-2432