Certified Organic

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

I certainly cannot dispute your answer, but perhaps a bit more information may be of interest. We have an organic garden, but the difference is that not only have we never applied any chemicals, living memory (pre-1935) states the land we occupy has never had chemicals. In fact, it was a jungle until we cleared it 5 years ago and there is no memory of it ever being farmed or gardened. It is situated on a mountain ridge, at the very end of the ridge, and the drive is 500 meters from the nearest (gravel) road, with no other vegetable farmers/gardeners/neighbors within another kilometer. We only use heirloom seeds, which may or may not be ‘seasoned’ with chemicals in a previous life, and we do not bring in any fertilizers, manure or outside composting materials. Having said that, the nearest ‘farm’ is rice fields, some 400 meters down the ridge in the lowlands. Chemicals are used there, however our water source does not tap into the water runoff as our aquifer is higher than the rice fields. So, with the exception of the potential ‘seasoned’ seeds, one would think we were totally organic.
Not so. Being on a mountain side, we have winds, and, of course visiting birds, insects and animals. So, while being virtual hermits (with enough owned land to ward off any encroachment of unwanted neighbors) we cannot stop Mother Nature. We live on a Filipino island that has no ‘commercial’ farms such as we know in the states, only small holdings, so our escape from corporate emissions is that it has to travel some 200 kilometers. But that can be possible given trade winds and typhoons. We do no-till and combat weeds by pulling prior to seeding and after sorting we use the very same weeds as mulch and compost. As an example, after piling unsorted weeds around our coconut trees about 2 feet high and 2 feet from the trunk, our production virtually doubled. Other, more sorted, weeds are used in the compost pile for our vegetables and fruits. Weeds, being the natural enemy of plants, suck up the water and minerals from the ground. Goats do not drink water, for the most part, they get their thirst quenched mainly from weeds. The weeds applied back to the dirt they came from returns those nutrients. As does the leaves and branches of trees as well as the roots and stalks of vegetables. You might think we are inundated with weeds, but each weed-pulling exercise returns less weeds than previously. Initially weeding every month is now down to about every 6 months, and takes far less time. Bugs? Garlic, onion and hot chili peppers blended well, diluted with water and sprayed solves the majority of the problems, with additional help from spiders, lady bugs, birds, lizards, dragon flies and other welcome insects. Can’t get them all, and as long as it is only the leaf they are eating we don’t bother. But, we hand-pick off the fruits and vegetables.
So, you are absolutely right, there is no such thing as a totally organic garden or farm. And, ‘Farm Fresh’? Just remember the phrase most likely means fresh from the farm, not that the farm is fresh.

ETA: Link to Column - Is it true they allow “certified organic” produce to be sprayed with chemicals? - The Straight Dope – Rico

2

The fact you cleared a jungle to plant a farm is probably more destructive to the environment than using a few chemicals and non-heirloom seeds.

The problem with organic farming is that it just isn’t a solution to feeding the world. You can’t grow enough food organically. Until the 20th century, there was no such thing as organic vs. inorganic farming. Until Fritz Harber created the Harber-Bosch process in 1909, there was no such thing at inorganic fertilizer.

Fritz Harber created the process because of the fear that Germany was running out of the ability to produce food for itself. This fear was widespread throughout Europe. The European population had grown beyond the ability for farms to produce enough food. Before artificial fertilizers, most of the nitrogen had to be pulled from bat guano reserves. The War of the Pacific between Bolivia, Peru and Chile was a fight over the nitrogen rich deposits in the Atacoma Desert. People were fighting wars over the control of organic nitrogen needed for fertilizer. Fritz Harber even won a Nobel Prize for his work in creating inorganic ammonia needed for artificial fertilizers in 1919.

We get overly concerned with organic vs inorganic as if one is good and the other is evil. People are against GMO crops even through there is absolutely no evidence of any harm. Golden Rice is a GMO rice that makes vitamin A and can save 1/2 million children each year from going blind. Yet, many anti-GMO activists have attacked the use of Golden Rice. Crops in the Philippines have been uprooted. In India, Vandan Shiva has prevented it from being widely used. Few have attack the rice itself as a product. Instead, they talk about how it threatens biodiversity or will encourage corporate farming. Meanwhile people are gong blind.

GMO and inorganic products are tools which can be used for good, or over used and be destructive. The same is true with organics too. Too much, and you can cause quite a bit of damage.

3

When you buy food that is (1) non-GMO, (2) grown locally, (3) by small farms, who (4) practice crop rotation, you tend to get healthier food which is better for you and better for the environment. When you buy food that is (a) monoculture, (b) patented and/or GMO, © stored in huge warehouses, and (d) shipped halfway around the world, and (e) highly processed… you tend to get food which is less healthy for you and not so good for the environment.

“Organic” is not the holy grail of healthy food. But it’s a signpost. When you see “organic” on the label, you usually get (1)(2)(3)(4) and you usually don’t get (a)(b)©(d)(e). The fact that there’s no pesticide sprayed on it is just icing on the cake.

A major challenge for the 21st century is how can we adjust to sustainable farming practices and still produce enough food to feed 10 billion people. How can we produce that much quantity without sacrificing quality? If we need to feed 10 billion people, is feeding them junk food made with white flour and corn syrup the only way to do it?

4

I’d like to see some research for that. My understanding is that food that fits your 4 points* is horribly inefficient compared to modern farming practices and would require much more land to feed the world. More farms is bad for the environment.

    • With the acknowledgement that defining what matches the 4 points can have a wide interpretation.
5

You make a lot of claims there and a lot of generalizations.

[ul]
[li] GMO Bad!: Why is this? Is Golden Rice which if it could be distributed in India and probably prevent about a quarter million children each year from going blind. Is it better that people eat non-GMO, organic, small farm food?[/li][li] Small farms: You basically argue that small farms are better because they’re small. Small farms are inefficient. They have less over site. They tend to have more runoff. They use more energy per acre. What makes a small farm healthier than the fact you like small farms?[/li][li] Locally grown: Why is locally grown healthier? Do you think it contains more vitamins? In the old days, people ate local, and in the winter, they ate little. It was root vegetables and pickles. Now, we can get fresh produce from south of the equator during the winter months. We can get a wider variety. I would assume this is healthier. And, farmers in other countries now have a market for their produce. They make more money. They are richer. They no longer are deforesting their land in order to have fuel for cooking. Isn’t this better for the environment?[/li][/ul]

You can’t simply make sweeping generalizations. “Small farms are better!” Why? What makes a small farmer better. And I mean besides some rigamarole about corporate farming. “Local is better” Why? Non-GMO is better. Where’s your evidence?

There is some new evidence that organic crops have more antioxidants, but then a recent study where people who took antioxidant supplements actually had a higher incidence of some cancers.

The big problem is that we have to feed 7 billion people on this planet, and there’s simply no way organic, small farms, locally grown, non-GMO produce will do this. We need inorganic fertilizer to help boost crop production. Spraying with insecticides increases yields even further. Large corporate farms are much better and more efficient than smaller farms.

This can’t be a religious issue. We can’t simply declare things good and bad based upon our feelings. We don’t want to encourage deforestation, so people can grow locally. We want to make sure that people in other countries can get out of poverty which means we need international trade.

Is everything good and fine? No. We use way too much fertilizer (both organic and inorganic) causing a lot of runoff into our steams and oceans. Too much of GMO has been concentrated on pest resistance and not enough on making food healthier and tastier.

The tomatoization of produce continues. I once looked forward to the summer fruit. But, peaches are hard and tasteless. Even watermelon has no flavor any more. Much of this isn’t due to corporate farming, but the market which for some reason doesn’t care much about flavor. Apples need to be enormous and red. Watermelon must make perfect melon balls. Tomatoes must slice in thin nice slices. No wonder people want to snack on potato chips!

However, if we want to solve the problems with our food production and our ecology, we need to firmly base our policies on facts. No more talk of frankenfood. No more talk of the people vs. corporations.

I am a member of an organic CSA. The produce is about 30% more expensive and we have to pay in advance. However, I love the garlic and leeks. I love the tomatoes which come fast and furious for about a three week period. One day I came a bit early, and the truck came a bit late. I sat around waiting for the truck. Suddenly I saw a thick plume of blue smoke coming down the road. The trunk was burning prodigious amounts of oil. It stopped where I was and I was engulfed in the oily cloud.

Well, their goes the idea that I’m saving the world, I thought.

6

There is so much wrong in these statements that the errors cannot be adequately covered in a brief response.

To solely address GMOs, there is zero good evidence that foods made with genetically modified crops are any less healthy for you than non-GM crops, and zero good evidence that eating “organic” foods is any more healthy than eating GM foods. To this point GM crops have arguably been better overall for the environment than their non-GM counterparts, seeing that a number of GM crops have needed less insecticide application (i.e BT corn), or have been bred to be used with less toxic herbicides. More here.

7

[quote=“qazwart, post:5, topic:693448”]

[li] GMO Bad!: Why is this? Is Golden Rice which if it could be distributed in India and probably prevent about a quarter million children each year from going blind. Is it better that people eat non-GMO, organic, small farm food?[/li][/QUOTE]
C’mon, those children in India don’t need no steenkin’ golden rice.

Their parents should just shop for healthy organic produce at their local Whole Foods store.

8

Citation needed.

In fact, the reality is that small farms and local foods are often worse for the environment. I’m reminded of a Galileo broadcast (Galileo is a local science, news, and “trivia” show here in Germany) which explained in no uncertain terms how just in terms of transport and storage, “locally grown” can often be worse (when buying off-season)!

Seriously, where the hell do people get this idea? Where do people get this ridiculous assumption that this is the case? I don’t get it at all. Please, if you have evidence, provide it. But don’t just blankly claim it with absolutely no backing.

What do you call Bt endotoxin? :rolleyes:

There is no significant difference between GM corn and organic corn, other than that organic corn takes far more space and often more water and fertilizer. It has fuck-all to do with what the crop is used on - you can use organic corn just as well as GMO corn to make shitty products full of HFCS. Or you can boil it and serve it next to a plate of greens and a pork chop - just like GMOs. I don’t even understand how this non sequitur came about, honestly. GMOs are a boon, not a curse, to the concept of sustainable farming practices.

9

I didn’t realize that saying “Local is better” was a controversial statement requiring wikipedia cites. If you can buy food that was grown 100 km away, that probably means less fuel was used in shipping it to your grocery store than if it was grown 8,000 km away. Sure, there are bound to be exceptions where long-distance transportation might be a price that’s worth paying in order to get other benefits. And, different modes of transportation maybe be more efficient than others. But, in general, the farther you have to ship the food, the more fuel is used to ship it, which means a larger carbon footprint. Plus there’s the increased amount of spoilage and contamination involved with long-distance shipping. These don’t seem like controversial ideas to me.

It may be true that that the carbon footprint of transportation is small compared to the energy cost of production. But that doesn’t mean the transportation costs should be ignored.

Here’s a New York Times article from six years ago:
Environmental Cost of Shipping Groceries Around the World

And here’s a more recent article from World Watch:
Is Local Food Better?

10

You implied fairly specifically that it’s healthier and better for the environment. It’s the first claim that I’m far more interested in, but when it comes to the second:

Of course, it may also mean that more fuel was used in storage. That cite’s in german, but this one isn’t. As is so often the case when it comes to environmental issues, the answer is “you mean well but it’s not that simple”. Check out the segment of that article that talks about Tomatoes and you’ll see what I mean - locally grown tomatoes in Sweden and Finland have a massive carbon footprint compared to tomatoes shipped in from the Mediterranean.

No, of course not. They’re common-sense ideas, which just happen to be far more nuanced and far more of a mixed bag than otherwise (although I do find it funny that you acknowledge that upwards of 80% of the carbon footprint of food is from production, and still think that increasing the distance is such a clear, un-muddied factor). But as said, I’m far more interested in what you claim to be health benefits. What in the world are you talking about?

11

“Locally grown food is better” is not a given.

For instance, if we’re going to move towards smaller, local farming operations to save on transportation costs, we’re also going to give up on economies of scale and land use, as well as face environmental costs of trying to grow produce in places not ideally suited to it.

“Forsaking comparative advantage in agriculture by localizing means it will take more inputs to grow a given quantity of food, including more land and more chemicals—all of which come at a cost of carbon emissions.
It is difficult to estimate the impact of a truly locavore farming system because crop production data don’t exist for crops that have not historically been grown in various regions. However, we can imagine what a “pseudo-locavore” farming system would look like—one in which each state that presently produces a crop commercially must grow a share proportional to its population relative to all producers of the crop. I have estimated the costs of such a system in terms of land and chemical demand…
A locavore-like production system would require an additional 60 million acres of cropland, 2.7 million tons more fertilizer, and 50 million pounds more chemicals
In order to maintain current output levels for 40 major field crops and vegetables, a locavore-like production system would require an additional 60 million acres of cropland, 2.7 million tons more fertilizer, and 50 million pounds more chemicals. The land-use changes and increases in demand for carbon-intensive inputs would have profound impacts on the carbon footprint of our food, destroy habitat and worsen environmental pollution.
It’s not even clear local production reduces carbon emissions from transportation. The Harvard economist Ed Glaeser estimates that carbon emissions from transportation don’t decline in a locavore future because local farms reduce population density as potential homes are displaced by community gardens. Less-dense cities mean more driving and more carbon emissions. Transportation only accounts for 11 percent of the carbon embodied in food anyway, according to a 2008 study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon; 83 percent comes from production.”

Like BPC, I’d like to see the evidence that locally produced food (and non-GMO food) is healthier for you.

12

I never said it was clear and un-muddled. On the contrary, I pointed out at several ways in which it is complex. My exact words were Sure, there are bound to be exceptions where long-distance transportation might be a price that’s worth paying in order to get other benefits. And, different modes of transportation maybe be more efficient than others. For example, shipping a crate of potatoes 500km by train very well might use LESS fuel than shipping it 50 km by truck. And it may be true that connecting through major hubs can be more efficient than merely following the shortest route. And longer distances can be worth it if your source uses less fuel in the production stage, enough to offset the increased fuel in the transportation stage. But the fact remains that, on average, longer distances mean more fuel.

I answered that already. I said that when you ship large quantities over long distances, you increase the opportunities for (1) spoilage, and (2) contamination. For example, if we’ve seen in recent years several outbreaks of e coli bacterial contamination (broccoli and peanut butter come to mind) and large shipments were recalled because they were all stored and shipped together. The same danger comes from cattle processing plants where a single diseased cow could wind up contaminating huge shipments of ground beef. When you put all your eggs into one basket, you are in big trouble when the basket breaks. As for the spoilage, the growers know that spoilage is a problem so they tend to select varieties which will remain fresh longer, rather than selecting varieties which are more nutritious.

And of course, I’m not claiming that local is always better. I just said it TENDS to be be better, on average, and it’s one of the many factors you can consider when deciding what food to buy.

13

I question whether locally produced food is any safer than that shipped long distances.

Certainly there is evidence that organic produce is no safer or more nutritious than non-organic (including GMO) produce.

"…the latest (research) results, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, suggest that buyers (of organic food) may be wasting their money. “We did not find strong evidence that organic foods are more nutritious or healthier than conventional foods,” says Dr. Crystal Smith-Spangler, an instructor in the division of general medical disciplines at Stanford. “And both organic and conventional foods seem to have a similar risk of contamination with bacteria, so consumers shouldn’t assume that one type of food has a lower risk or is safer in terms of food-borne illnesses. Both are equally likely to be contaminated.”

In the 19th century U.S., there were far more small farms and markets selling locally-produced food. Are we really supposed to believe that food-borne illness was much less common then?

14

Only if you ignore improvements in hygienic practices and disease theory since the 19th century.
Powers &8^]

15

All else being equal, local food is better than food produced far away. But all else is never equal, and the ways in which it’s unequal very often make it the case that the food from afar is better. How often? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were well over half the time. A thought experiment: If local food requires less fuel, then why is it usually more expensive? It obviously requires more of something– What is that something? And does that something, whatever it is, also carry environmental costs with it?

As for GMO food, have you ever actually eaten any non-GMO vegetable? I do, about once a year, when I have my traditional Easter dandelion salad… Do you eat dandelion? Purslane, maybe, or gramps? Because those are among the extremely few non-GMO veggies that humans ever eat. Non-GMO corn? It’s called teosinte, and it looks like this. Not exactly prime eating, there.

16

One point in error - GMO is Genetically Modified. Not Bred. Not the same thing.

Teosinte is natural, and Maize is bred over thousands of years from Teosinte to what we now recognize. But there is a difference in the method, if not necessarily in the result. Standard breeding methods are a slower process of selective guiding of evolution. GMO is intentional, specific cross breeding of things which don’t necessarily have the ability to interbreed naturally. Corn and cabbage can’t interbreed, but it’s possible through GMO to modify corn with cabbage DNA to get a different type of husk or something like that.

Most people have eaten non-GMO food at some point - standard Idaho baker potatoes were, at least a couple of decades ago, still genetically identical to the potato that Columbus brought back to Europe, because potatoes are usually cloned, not bred via flowering. This lack of genetic variation is why the Irish Potato Famine was so devastating - the potato plants had no variation so instead of killing some, or most of the plants it infected, it killed ALL of them.

But yes, if you live in the US, your diet consists of a lot of GMO food. And no, Genetic Modification doesn’t mean the food is necessarily any worse for you, and it can mean it’s better for you. That said, there’s a lack of data because GMO food is protected as patented and trade secrets, so it’s really hard to know if any particular GMO food might have adverse effects.

17

Err… what?

18

Selective breeding is one method of genetic modification. Corn does not have the same genome as teosinte, and it differs because of human action. It’s true that it’s not the same as the newer methods: The newer methods are much more controllable, and much less likely to produce unfortunate side effects.

19

The preferences for locally grown small-farm produce may also commonly have some ideological basis, which adherents might be hesitant to admit.

I choose at least some locally grown small-farm roadside fruit-stand produce. It’s commonly thought (is this true?) that this helps keep money circulating in the local economy (the well-known anti-Wal-Mart arguement). It presumably sends more money directly to the farmers themselves, omitting various layers of middle-men. And some of that money going directly to farmers is also the very money that isn’t going to the big evil agricultural conglomerates. Because, y’know, Big Bizness is teh Evil!

I personally believe at least some of the above is true (but I don’t know just how much), so it feels warm and fuzzy to buy some stuff at fruit-stands. I acknowledge that the reasoning is largely ideological.

But also: A lot of fruit-stand produce really is better. At least it tastes better. Others have mentioned above, for example, that mass-market tomatoes are bred to slice easily, rather than to be good. One hears it widely argued that store-bought produce just isn’t ripe, or not properly ripened.

I always thought (or assumed) that this was mainly a matter of store produce not being ripe, or not properly ripened, as opposed to a matter of, e.g., tomatoes actually being bred to be lousy (although I’ve heard things like that a lot too). The same seems true of a lot of stone fruit – tree-ripened, they are very good. But store-bought, mostly crappy. Same for many other kinds of produce.

20

I appreciate your sentiment, but this:

is tripe. Fritz HABER developed the Haber process (a) because he was a chemist, and it was an important problem, (b) because he was paid to do it, and (c) because WWI. Mainly (c).

Haber was the preeminent chemical warfare specialist of his day, and he was a complete and utter prick.