Just coming in to comment that the buffer zones for organic certification can provide lots of benefit – windbreaks, plantings hosting beneficial insects, erosion control, etc. Just because a crop isn’t being harvested there doesn’t mean there’s no benefit.
Partially true. However, crops are randomly tested for contamination beyond allowable background limits, and can be decertified if they don’t pass.
When residue testing detects prohibited substances at levels that are greater than 5 percent of the Environmental Protection Agency’s tolerance for the specific residue detected or unavoidable residual environmental contamination, the agricultural product must not be sold, labeled, or represented as organically produced.
I’m part of the organic-produce-buying public and the only thing from that list I want is not-pesticided. And I see it as a way to encourage the reduction in the general use of pesticides, rather than any immediate effects on me. Perhaps I’m not a typical organic produce consumer.
I’m not sure – for the particular things I’m growing, that’s not currently an issue.
It might be – a neighbor could have improperly applied something in a fashion that allowed it to get onto the organic operation’s fields. Somebody’s aerial sprayer may have gotten lost, for instance. And weather conditions can vary unexpectedly; barrier distances are at best a guess.
The thing about GMO’s is that they can, in effect, apply themselves.
– on that subject, as long as I’m in the thread, I’ll come back to this:
Roundup-resistant weeds are most certainly an issue. The resistance may come from various factors, however.
But there’s at least some evidence that GMO traits can persist in wild relatives. Here’s one specifically addressing mustard:
In 2001, hybrids between glyphosate-resistant canola and field mustard were found in field mustard populations growing in field margins on two farms in Quebec, Canada. Glyphosate-resistant canola had been planted on the adjacent fields, but after 2001 was no longer planted and no spraying of glyphosate occurred after 2002. One site was monitored for hybrids in 2003 and 2005. In 2003, 85 of 200 plants surveyed were glyphosate-resistant hybrids. In 2005, five out of 200 plants surveyed were glyphosate-resistant hybrids. The transgenic hybrids had reduced pollen fertility, but nonetheless produced fertile offspring. So despite reduced fertility and the lack of selective advantage (since no glyphosate had been sprayed since 2002), the transgene was incorporated into a weedy field mustard population.
Since at both sites transgenic canola volunteers were detected during the study period, ongoing new hybridization could occur, increasing the likelihood of long-term persistence of the transgene in field mustard populations.
Which presents problems, when what the public wants isn’t what the labels actually tell them. Something labeled “organic” might still be selectively bred, irradiated, mutated, GMOed, and drenched in pesticide. In fact, in many cases, the produce that meets the official standard for the “organic” label is worse in all of those categories than the “non-organic” equivalent, because most of the public doesn’t understand what those labels actually mean.
I suspect that claim is due to a lack of understanding.
Every farm crop, organic or conventional, is selectively bred, with the possible exception of a handful of specialty items generally wild harvested. I doubt the public cares about that.
Some crops, organic and conventional, are the results of irradiative breeding methods generations ago. I don’t know if this is in use at all for organic any longer; but even if so, I’d certainly need a cite that it’s more so for organic than for conventional crops. Irradiating the food itself, as a preservation technique, is prohibited in organic production.
Everything in existence these days, whether a crop or not, is the result of mutations. I don’t know what you even mean by throwing that in there.
Something labeled organic is far less likely than something that isn’t to be GMO’d according to the current common and legal usage of the term; deliberate use of the technique is prohibited, so at most there might be trace contamination. If you mean to include all conventional breeding in your use of the term, not only is that contrary to the sense the general public’s using it in (those who are using it at all); it still isn’t going to affect organic crops even more than conventional.
Every cite that I’ve seen claiming that organic crops are even more “drenched in pesticide” than conventional presents either a failure to understand how organic growers use permissible pesticides, or a deliberate deception on the subject. The pesticides permissible for organic use are used only after other methods fail; most organic growers will use few, and some none, in any given year, and some don’t use any in any year. Using none on any given crop in most years is quite common.
I was just using the same terms that @LSLGuy used in the post I quoted. And there are probably a lot of consumers who think (for some reason) that their organic produce “isn’t mutated”.
And what’s defined as another method “failing”? Is it enough that the other method costs too much? If that’s the case, then, like every other farmer, the organic farmer will use whichever method is cheapest.
“Most organic growers”? Sure, that sounds completely believable. Most growers are individuals or small co-ops. Who make up a negligible fraction of the total organic market.
What’s the label marking that goes with that crop management standard that you linked? Because according to the USDA, all that’s needed is refraining from using prohibited substances for three years. It says nothing about how much of permitted substances you’re allowed to use.
So, does “organic” imply or require “non-GMO”? I’ve assumed they are two different things, because I have seen signs in the tin-hat establishments about “no GMO products used in this process”. Otherwise they could have just said “organic”.
Of course, to get back to OP, that could be non-GMO selective breeding too. Weeds on the periphery get smaller doses of pesticides, leading to emerging resistance. However, unlike say, STD’s, the generation cycle for weeds in measured in weeks and months, the generational cycle in STD infections is measured in hours. Plus, to produce Roundup resistance would imply not just spraying the pesticide, but the same one for many years without switching to a different chemical.
I cited the USDA organic standards language, above.
Label markings may be the USDA organic seal (presuming the grower’s in the USA), or the seal of the specific certifying agency, or both.
And that is most certainly not all that is needed. I didn’t cite anywhere near the entire language, or even the entire language having to do with crop production. There is definitely language about how much of various substances one is allowed to use, and under what circumstances; which is of course specific to the exact substance in question – the allowable amount and timing of chicken manure, for instance, is entirely different from the allowable amounts and requirements for use for copper sulfate. There is also considerable language (some but nowhere near all of which I did cite) about what one does have to do to qualify as growing organically; it most certainly isn’t only ‘refrain from using these substances for three years.’
“Organic” requires “non-GMO”. “Non-GMO”, however, does not require “organic”; a product might be non-GMO, even certified non-GMO, without being organically grown.
I don’t know what “process” you’re referring to. For a lot of things, there aren’t any GMO’s available; in which case the claim would be something like “cholesterol-free” on an all-vegetable product. For others, it could make sense in itself; but unless they’re also saying that it uses organically grown ingredients, it probably doesn’t. There are specific rules about what percentage of organic ingredients have to be in a product to label it in specific fashions.
Yes, that’s part of what I meant by “the resistance may come from various factors.” Researchers checking the genetics sometimes do find the GMO trait; sometimes they find the plant is using different resistance techniques that didn’t come from the GMO. That was in my first cite in my post #64.
Standard recommendations are indeed to not use the same pesticide continuously for years – not only for Roundup, but for pesticides in general. But a significant amount of Roundup resistance actually has developed in weeds over the years since it came on the market (again I’ve provided a cite, I can provide more if you want, it’s a well recognized problem); so obviously enough of it is in use in enough years, in actual practice, to encourage the resistance.
Sorry, I meant it’s things like organic bakeries or other food establishments that are touting their products did not use GMO products as input.
Of course it seems now we would need a DNA lab to verify this claim, or certification nothing within half a mile(?) was planted with GMO, and non of the seed came from somewhere that may have experienced pollen drift from GMO. Recall in the second court case mentioned, Bowman simply guessed (correctly) that ordinary seed from a normal commercial source would be significantly GMO. I’m not sure how one produces “certified non-GMO” seed in quatity without a closed environment. (Or import from some isolated area that has never allowed it)
IMHO it seems the genie is out of Pandora’s bottle, and absent a distinct effort to eliminate it, all of North America is eventually going to be part of the cross-bred Brave New World.
Then how does any organic farmer ever use any pesticide or herbicide? If cost is never an acceptable issue, then there’s always the option of just paying enough workers to pull every single weed and swat every single insect. And yet, organic farmers do, in fact, sometimes use those “last resort” methods, before resorting to that.
Ah. Baked products could certainly contain corn or canola oils, for both of which there’s a good deal of GMO around, so it’s not a pure nonsense claim.
If they’re saying the bread ingredients are all organic, then they don’t really need to add that they’re non-GMO; but they might be labeling that way because they think they’ve got customers who want non-GMO and don’t understand that. If only some of their bread ingredients are organic, then they might be saying ‘that particular ingredient isn’t organic, but at least it’s non-GMO!’
– this is probably the non-GMO certification program they’re using:
and as near as I can tell the standard is 0.25% for some seed and 0% for other seed, 0.9% for items ingested or topically applied for humans or pets, 5% for livestock feed, 1.5% for items for human or pet use that aren’t eaten or applied but are packaging etc. And yes, DNA testing labs are involved.
Depends on the crop. You may need a considerable distance; but there are areas where that can still be accomplished.
Some companies selling seed do get their seed lots DNA tested, for the crops for which that’s a concern; and most of the organic seed does pass, so it seems to still be possible.
Hey, farmer, farmer, put away your DDT
I don’t care about spots on my apples
Leave me the birds and the bees
Please!
-Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi
As I understand, acceptable pesticides etc. are organic ones. You can fertilize with (organic) manure, you can spray with organic substances to shoo the bugs away. I’m pulling an example out of my butt, but let’s pretend onion juice or clove extract worked as a pesticide - I assume that’s OK. Glycophosphates or Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane - not.
That is sort of right in a rule-of-thumb way; but it gets complicated.
For one thing, there are some synthetic materials that are allowed under some circumstances (not all of them things that most people would think of as “synthetic”; alcohols as tool disinfectants, for instance, and newsprint with only the right types of ink, and insect pheromones, and copper, and fish emulsion are all on the synthetics list. Section 205.601, for crop production. Livestock and processing have separate lists.) For another, there are some non-synthetics that are forbidden – rotenone, for instance, and tobacco dust, and a number of others. For a third, a number of things that are allowed are allowed only with restrictions of various sorts – manure, for instance, has restrictions both on rates and on timing of applications; and copper, for another instance, can only be used in a manner that doesn’t cause excess buildup in the soil. (A little of it is a required nutrient, for both humans and plants. Too much is toxic.) For a fourth, spraying anything is, as I said earlier, not the first resort: other techniques must be in use, if they’re insufficient then permissible sprays may be used. And for a fifth – all of this is part of an individual farm’s overall plan, which has to be approved by the certifier for that particular farm.
So what happens in practice is: when I send in my annual paperwork, I tell the certifying agency what materials (not only pesticides; also everything from fertilizers to biological inoculants to potting soils, etc.) I think I might be going to use. And not only in general: specific brands and formulations. They’ll approve that particular list for my farm – or they might not; they could tell me something’s not approvable, or they could tell me they need more information about a product before they can decide. If I decide, later in the season, that I want to use anything not on that list – specifically, including if I just can’t find the same brand and want to use a different company’s apparently equivalent product – I need to clear it with the certifying agency first.
Whenever I buy anything, I keep the receipts. The certifying agency may ask to see them and expects me to have them available. And they can ask to check them against my financial books.
Then, through the year, whenever I apply anything – anything at all, other than footsteps, clean water, and permissible seed – to any crop/field, I write it down. Date, field applied to, crop applied to, specific material, rate per acre or row feet or whatever, who applied it. The certification agency asks me for that record at least twice a year, as part of the re-application and during the routine annual inspection. They can ask me for it at any time. (They can also inspect at any time, including without notice; though for the routine annual they have to set up an appointment, as I need to be there to discuss any questions and to show them all sorts of paperwork, including often financial records, which I’m not going to just leave out where someone showing up unexpectedly could get at them.) If they think I’m using something improperly – something that’s allowable only in certain circumstances that I haven’t got, something in excessive quantities, a restricted synthetic when I could have used a less restricted non-synthetic, something that I wouldn’t need to use at all if I were using a basic management practice such as providing habitat for beneficials or good air flow to discourage disease growth – I’ll hear about it. De-certifying a farm is rather a process, but it’s possible, and sometimes happens.
And that record needs to be consistent with the overall farm plan – which also has to include management practices which discourage pest problems and which don’t involve applying pesticides, either synthetic or natural. That’s section 205.206, which I believe I already linked to above – yes, it’s in my post #68 in this thread. The inspection will check for this, also.
– also has to be consistent with those receipts. Receipt says you bought 100 lbs of X, fertilizers/amendments sheet says you used 20, show the inspector where that other 80 lbs is in storage? (and is the storage suitable)?
Then there must be a hell of a lot of failure in organic farming.
Is using, say, 30 pounds per acre of “organic” copper fungicide safer and better for the environment than a far lesser amount of a synthetic fungicide?
That cite has some science blunders of its own… For instance,
LD50 isn’t half of a lethal dose. It’s the dose that’s half-lethal. That is to say, 50% of the population exposed to that amount will die. At twice that dose, you’ll probably still have some survivors, and at half of the LD50, you’ll probably still have some deaths.
It’s going to take me a while to take that article apart, and this is really not the time of year for me to be doing that, though I might get to it. But for a short answer: if the soils in question are copper-deficient, quite possibly so. If the fields in question have excess copper, then not – which is why copper is, as I’ve already said, restricted for organic use so that it won’t be used in that fashion.
The likelihood of damage by any material also has very little to do with the relative weights of materials. If you swallowed as much vitamin D as you do water, you wouldn’t last very long; or for that matter as much strychnine as alcohol. So talking about comparison rates in pounds per acre between different materials is just nonsense.
I’ll also say, rapidly, that the article’s conflating the use of Bt as an occasional application in organic use in a fashion in which it breaks down quite quickly, with the use of GMO Bt as an integral part of the plant, present in all parts of the plant all the way through the growing season and to some extent in the field after harvest.
