Doctor Who

I don't know about that. Certification comes from a third-party, such as the USDA or other groups such as Oregon Tilth. I won't disagree that corporate farming interests are always working to shift the definition of what exactly "organic" is to be better-suited to their own needs. It's hard to farm organically, and if an organic food producer, from an individual with 10 acres or a corporation such as Earthbound Farms, has restrictions loosened on what chemical applications be done within the letter of the law, and still be be called organic, he/she/it would take full advantage of it.

So, knowing that, it would be fair to say that most farmers would lobby to make organic farming easier and more productive. Hence the recent policy disagreements over whether GMO's could be considered organic, or whether certain fertilizers could be labeled organic as opposed to inorganic. It's a complicated business, made more complicated by the in-flux nature of farm policy in America.

gosmsgo

I have a degree in agriculture and therefore I will not buy organic produce.

#1. Its not possible to feed billions of people that way.
#2. Organic farming wastes topsoil. No till large scale agriculture is far more efficient.
#3. Fruits and vegetables contain natural pesticides in far greater amounts than anything you would get from conventionally grown fruits and vegetables. Its their own natural defense mechanism. These pesticides have been proven to cause cancer in large amounts. Thats right, fruits and vegetables naturally contain cancer causing chemicals....even organically grown ones. That is because its not the chemical its the amount that is going to hurt you. There is no evidence anywhere that shows that eating foods grown with pesticides is going to hurt you. Organic farming is a niche market. Its a way to get more money for their produce...which is fine if you want to pay it. I guarantee you that if you knew much about science you would not spend your money on it.
#4. I just have this feeling that a local good old boy growing 1/2 acre of organic crops and hauling it 20 miles in his F-150 is not anymore energy efficient than large scale agriculture that is shipped a couple thousand miles. Local guy is probably tilling his land with a 1 horsepower briggs and straton tiller while large scale guy tilled that much land in 8 seconds with his huge JD tractor. Get it? I would really like to see the "local food" thing studied. I bet its not nearly as energy efficient as people think.

gosmsgo

One difference.

in organic farming all pesticides have to be made of carbon based compounds....like nicotine or BT.

In regular farming they do not have to be. so for example, while an organic farmer is shoving cow manure trucked in from a hundred miles away to gain nitrogen a regular farmer is spraying his field with synthetically made nitrogen. One the molecular level its EXACTLY the same thing but the organic farm is less efficient and therefore must charge more. That way, uneducated thinking types can spend more and feel better about themselves. Its a lot like people NOT shopping at walmart so they can shop at stores that charge more but pay their employees even less. It does not make sense but its the "hip" thing to do.

sounddevisor

Here's a quote from the Willamette Farm and Food Coalition website (www.lanefood.com):

sounddevisor

Found this article on commondreams.org: https://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/22/6548/

with the following pertinent quote:
This doesn't address the question of efficiency, but as far as wasting topsoil, I'd need to see a lot more evidence to convince me that organic farming is more wasteful of topsoil than conventional large-scale farming.

gosmsgo

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0722162434.htm

I just read this study which claims that organic farming builds the soil better than no-till farming.

The problem is that it states that it does this because organic farmers are constantly dumping compost and manure on their fields. I'm not sure that should count. I mean they are dumping more on their fields so of course it would turn out this way.

No till farming is where the seed is dropped right into the soil without anything being disturbed except a tiny grove being cut into the soil.

Organic farming requires lots of plowing and tilling which would result in soil run off and soil lost in the wind. If nothing was added to both farming types the no-till would win hands down.

This is another "study" which is just about as useless as can be.

Carbonfiberboy 

Yeah, my wife's brother went to ag school. All that stuff they taught you about factory farming being so wonderful isn't going to mean doodly-squat in another 20 years. Short term, maximize the profit next quarter, use those fossil fuels up. Of course organic farming isn't playing fair. All that constantly building up the soil instead of hauling it away. Tragedy of the commons, the whole earth being the commons now.

gosmsgo

What are you talking about exactly?

Please tell me who is hauling soil away and what did you mean by that. I meant that the organic farmers are essentially hauling organic material to their property and onto their fields constantly so that does not make that STUDY fair.

Get it?

sounddevisor

What do you mean, "I'm not sure that should count?" That's like saying "I'm going to study which is faster, rabbits or tortoises," and then when the rabbits turn out to be faster, saying "oh, but the rabbits don't have big heavy shells, I'm not sure that should count."

One of the benefits of organic farming is that the practices followed by the farmers end up being beneficial for the soil - how can that "not count?"

gosmsgo

Okay, I will try again.

Lets say that I decide to do a study to figure out who is better at saving money between two friends named Amy and Sandy.

I give both Amy and Sandy 100,000 dollars to start with. At the end of the 5 year study I will count how much money they each have and use that figure to determine the winner.

Amy does not work but only tries to conserve what she has (conventional farming that uses chemical inputs that do not add to soil matter)

Sandy decides to work so she brings in an additional 40,000 dollars per year (organic farmer dumping cow manure on their fields.)

Do you see how that study really does not show which girl saves money the best?

If not then I can not help you any further. Good Luck!!

sounddevisor

Sure, I understand your analogy with Amy and Sandy, but I think it's flawed for the following reason: in a scientific study, the idea is to control the conditions so that you can study one particular variable. So in the case of Amy and Sandy, if you are trying to study which one saves better, you would of course have to control the conditions by saying that Sandy isn't allowed to work, because of course that invalidates the test. But, if you change the terms of the study to be a little broader, and say that you want to study which of them is "better with money," then it would be fine for Sandy to work, since working and earning more money is part of her financial policy, and at the end of the study you would of course find that Sandy (organic farming,) who did something to improve her financial condition, was better off than Amy (conventional farming,) who just lived off what you gave her but didn't do anything to improve her situation.

So maybe you can see that in this case, the validity of the study really depends on accurately stating, and controlling, what it is you are trying to study. In the case of the soil study (to get back on track,) the same holds true: if the study was to determine which method of farming is better for the soil, then adding manure and compost are totally fair since they are an integral part of the method of farming which was being studied. If the study was trying to determine, in isolation, which method of farming is more detrimental to the soil, then you would have to control for that by not allowing additives - but you also would have to not allow the no-till farming to add any fertilizers or any other additives that might bias the results. Which, to me, seems like you wouldn't be getting a very accurate picture since neither approach is representative of the way people really grow crops - at that point you're pretty much just throwing some seeds in the ground and saying "let's see what happens."

Machka 

Organic certification is a very recent thing here in Canada ... as of July 2007. Prior to that there weren't any strict rules regarding organic food. I worked in a health food/bulk food store, and something was deemed "organic" when the person who sold it to us said it was. We were told that all "organic" meant to them (should it be contested in some way) was that it was living at some point ( https://www.onelook.com/?w=organic&ls=a ) and that perhaps someone might have made a small effort to use a little bit less in the way of chemical pesticides or something.

https://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/...061222be.shtml
https://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/...0070721e.shtml
https://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/.../orgbioe.shtml

And check out the article here: https://www.consumer.ca/

gosmsgo

If you go back and read my original statement you will see that you just agreed with me.

Organic farming, by its very nature of tilling the ground over and over for weed control, is losing topsoil.

kuan

Interesting. Can you be more specific, like what chemicals please?

Nickel

I am under the impression you would have to eat quite a bit of fruits and vegetables in order to see any effect from these chemicals. There are problems with everything we eat: solanine in sprouting potatoes that turn green (though you'd have to eat about 2lbs to have an issue), alfalfa sprouts (canavanine), cruciferous vegetables like broccoli can be a problem with people with a thyroid issue, nitrates in green vegetables, etc. However, I think the 'bad' chemical in all of these is different so by eating a wide range of fruits and vegetables, the effects are negligible. But if all the fruits and vegetables have a similar pesticide on them, then you are getting a bigger dose of a 'bad' chemical. I guess if there is a different pesticide for each type of veggie, then we are all good!

ModoVincere

yeah...I think what we are really talking about is the size of the dose.
No one cares if someone ingest .001 mg of naturally occuring solanine, canavanine, or even nicotine.
But when the same chemical is on every vegetable you eat, or worse yet, its absorbed into the plant, well then the doses are much greater.

kuan

I just won't eat my veggies that's all. Case closed.

ModoVincere

You Atkins follower!

gosmsgo

https://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/...al-pesticides/

This should answer your questions. If not then dig deeper. Its true. 99.9% of the pesticides you eat are naturally occuring. Many of these foods would not pass a "cancer" test like the ames test.

gosmsgo

MYTH: Pesticide residues in food cause cancer and other diseases.

TRUTH: The residues are largely harmless.

Ames laughs at the claims of chemically induced cancers, and he should know-he's the one who invented the test that first frightened people about a lot of those chemicals. It's called the Ames Test, and its first use in the 1970s raised alarms by revealing there were carcinogens in hair dye, and in the flame ******ants in children's pajamas. Ames helped get the chemicals banned.

Before the Ames Test, the traditional way to test a substance was to feed big doses of it to animals and wait to see if they got cancer or had babies with birth defects. But those tests took two to three years and cost $100,000. So Dr. Ames said, "Instead of testing animals, why not test bacteria? You can study a billion of them on just one Petri dish and you don't have to wait long for the next generation. Bacteria reproduce every twenty minutes."

The test proved successful. It was hailed as a major scientific breakthrough, and today, the Ames Test is one of the standards used to discover if a substance is carcinogenic.

But after getting the hair dye and the flame ******ants banned, Dr. Ames and other scientists continued testing chemicals. "People started using our test," he told me, "and finding mutagens everywhere-in cups of coffee, on the outside of bread, and when you fry your hamburger!"

This made him wonder if his tests were too sensitive, and led him to question the very bans he'd advocated. A few years later, when I went to a supermarket with him, he certainly didn't send out any danger signals.

DR. AMES Practically everything in the supermarket, if you really looked at it at the parts per billion level, would have carcinogens. Vegetables are good for you, yet vegetables make toxic chemicals to keep off insects, so every vegetable is 5 percent of its weight in toxic chemicals. These are Nature's pesticides. Celery, alfalfa sprouts, and mushrooms are just chock-full of carcinogens.

STOSSEL Over there it says "Organic Produce." Is that better?

DR. AMES No, absolutely not, because the amount of pesticide residues-man-made pesticide residues-people are eating are actually trivial and very, very tiny amounts! We get more carcinogens in a cup of coffee than we do in all the pesticide residues you eat in a day.

In a cup of coffee? To put the risks in perspective, Ames and his staff analyzed the results of every cancer test done on rats and mice. By comparing the dose that gave the rodents cancer to the typical exposure people get, they came up with a ranking of the danger. Pesticides such as DDT and EDB came out much lower than herb tea, peanut butter, alcohol, and mushrooms. We moved over to the mushrooms as the cameras continued to roll, and Dr. Ames put his mouth where his convictions were.

DR. AMES One raw mushroom gives you much more carcinogens than any polluted water you're going to drink in a day.

STOSSEL So you're saying we shouldn't eat fresh produce?

DR. AMES No. Fresh produce is good for you! Here, I'll eat a raw mushroom even though it's full of carcinogens.

Dr. Ames is widely respected in the scientific community, but he is not on many journalists' electronic Rolodexes. He's the real deal, and no help at all if you're looking for screaming headlines.

kuan

That's very interesting, thanks for the read.

Roody

Actually, for me the health benefits of organic food are one advantage, but not the main advantage. But the benefits to the environment are enormous. Most petroleum (natural gas) is used to produce the fertilizer through the Haber process. Pesticides that are not a health problem for humans on food can be a problem when you look at the runoff into ground and surface water. Entire aquifers are showing pesticide pollution in many agricultural areas. And of course bad effects to wildlife have been seen from pesticides for many years now. Fertilizer runoff is a major source of pollution in lakes, rivers and the ocean, leading to overgrowth of algae and other plants.

One problem is that agricultural schools don't study or teach much about organic farming--one reason being that they get a lot of funding from big petrochemical corporations. This might be why many people with agricultural degrees or farming backgrounds are poorly informed about the alternatives, even though they may know a lot about mainstream farming methods.

gosmsgo

Roody -

I'm calling bullsnot on your post and I must ask where you received your agriculture education at?

I learned quite a bit about organic farming....enough not to buy organic produce. I also learned quite a bit about IPM although I doubt that you know what that is. The problem is that scientists know and understand these things. They know it from the molecular level on up. Hence why I know more about these things than any of the other passionate people on here. Once you have a good level of understanding about these things you are less likely to be scared of them. Also, once you understand the shortcomings of organic methods the more likely you are to see a problem with feeding the world that way.

I would always rather use benificial insects, crop rotations, waste inputs if they are cheap, nematodes and GM foods to avoid using chemicals. That said, chemicals are needed on occasion.

If you are challenging my knowledge of organic farming then lets have a discussion. Ask me something about organic farming that you think I might not know. How long have you been farming?

Now I am going to teach you something else.

The run off you mention is a problem but its even more of a problem in cities. Farmers have an economic reason to measure their fields and test the soils adding only whatever inputs are needed. City lawn owners go to Lowes, buy a bag of something, and dump the whole damn thing on their yards. Some people put 10 times the amount of pesticides on their lawns then they are supposed to. To top it off they almost all water more then they should. The run off from cities are horrendous. Banning non-agriculture fertilizer and pesticide use would go a long, long way towards fixing the dead zone in the gulf not that I am advocating that.

Carbonfiberboy 

I put up this post originally because I thought some in this community might like to know that there exist scientific studies that show that we acquire pesticide residues in our bodies from eating non-organic produce. Conversely, those pesticide residues leave our bodies very rapidly when we eat organic produce.

Now it turns out that there are some people who think that pesticide residues are good for them. I cannot quote specific studies that show they are harmful in specific ways. So it's up to the reader to decide for themselves. To those who think pesticide residues are good, I encourage you to ingest more of them. If you live near a farming community, you can partake of whole tanks of the stuff before it's hooked behind tractors or loaded into aircraft for spraying. Please.

To those who may have been influenced in the direction of eating more pesticides, I would like to point out that Mr. Stossel, quoted previously in this thread, is a fabricator and prevaricator. See:
https://www.mindfully.org/Food/Organi...cide7may02.txt

To those who might have some interest in exactly how the FDA establishes allowable pesticide residues in food, see:
https://www.thefederalregister.com/d...09-29-03-24562
You might note that the approved tolerances were increased at the request of BASF Corporation, a German agrochemical manufacturer. Heh.

Good riding and good eating.

gosmsgo

No one said they were good. I will now consult "mindfully.org" for all of my scientific needs in the future.