Nice that you cut off my quote before the part about genetically modified plant varieties - which organic producers are precluded from using. Organic agriculture is also prone to employing heirloom and other open-pollinated crop varieties, which were not generally bred for fungal disease resistance. Conventional farming uses a variety of anti-fungal disease strategies, including hybrids achieved through standard breeding and genetic modification.
Posters holding up the Center for Media and Democracy as a big-time source for exposing biased information about GMOs have gotten awfully quiet.
Determining who is using intelligent, factually sourced arguments requires assessing whether good evidence is presented, instead of baseless scaremongering. If unsure, don’t rely on any one source and check the scientific literature.
It’s true that organic producers are precluded from using GMOs. However organic producers are required to use resistant varieties as part of their overall organic plan. And we most certainly are allowed to use hybrids achieved by standard breeding.
We may be more likely to use heirloom varieties due to flavor issues or to adaptation to local microclimates and/or growing techniques. A particular variety may actually be more resistant to the production problems present on a specific farm using specific methods; and varieties bred for conventional growing and designed to be used with the particular pesticides they were bred to work with may be reliant on those pesticides while varieties bred for organic production may work well without them. This may well include specific heirlooms; their disease resistance is highly variable, as is the pressure of any particular disease and strain of that disease on a specific farm.
Many organic growers use hybrids, though on average we may be more likely to use OP’s because we may be more likely to be saving our own seed, more likely to be engaging in active landrace breeding, and/or more concerned about the overall massive risks involved in having the food supply of everyone on the planet more and more controlled by a small number of companies and/or more and more limited to a narrow range of genetics.
However in either case resistance to particular diseases that are a problem for the individual operation (an issue which is affected both by specific location and by various management techniques) is definitely going to be part of the decision in choosing varieties.
Quite possibly neither.
Organic farming is an issue about which, as I said to a poster on a different board some years ago in reply to his having said he’d read a great deal on the issue, it’s quite possible to have read a great deal of argument both for and against while still not having read anything from anyone who knows what they’re talking about. There is a great deal of nonsense being spread by people appearing to be on both sides; sometimes due to genuine ignorance, sometimes not.
I know next to nothing about the Center for Media and Democracy and agree that if they’re backing Oz they’re suspect. The only thing I’ve said about them earlier in this thread was that the article referenced was an interesting read. There are various things in the article itself that was posted by Jackmannii in post #78 that lead me to suspect a biased source; but that’s due in part to seeing the same sort of misleading claims come around over and over and over again during the past 50 years, and while that gets tiring I don’t expect others in this thread to have that same experience or particularly to credit mine. I have explained multiple times, however, why the claim about the relative weight of pesticides used in California is nonsense even if the statistics are accurate; and the emphasis on that claim is one reason why I suspect the authors are either biased or ignorant.
And yet you haven’t demonstrated any inaccuracies in that article.
Its thrust is that 1) organic farming advocates point fingers at conventional agriculture for using chemicals, while
ignoring the fact that organic agriculture uses numerous chemical pesticides, including ones like copper sulfate and methyl bromide for fumigation, that can have harmful effects on the environment and/or humans
Obviously, it’s a sore point with you that sizable amounts of certain “organic” chemicals like copper compounds have been shown to have seriously deleterious environmental effects. But in many cases, the dose (or repeated dosage) indeed does make the poison.
It’s long been a tactic among anti-science types (for example, antivaxers, pro-medical quackery advocates and anti-GMOers*) to wield the shill gambit. It’s intended to taint useful and effective sources of information as “corrupt”, typically with distortion and innuendo. Research articles have been summarily dismissed if one of the authors once accepted a research grant from a drug company, even if the article has nothing to do with a product sold by that company. Shill accusations have even targeted researchers employed in academia, if their university ever obtained funding from industry, despite there being zero connection between that funding and the area the researcher works in.
Frequent targets of the shill gambit have included Quackwatch, Science-Based Medicine and those who speak out in favor of the benefits of genetic modification technology.
Even when pseudoscience advocates get caught in the crossfire (U.S. Right To Know and Just Label It!, two anti-GMO organizations have been outed as getting substantial contributions from the organic industry), their purpose is often served - people may conclude that both sides are corrupt, and they fall back on undocumented anecdotes and personal predilections that often run contrary to sound science and good sense.
Real Clear Science put it well: “Evidence is what really matters. Don’t be distracted by cries of “corporate shill.””
*in case it’s felt unfair to lump anti-GMO protesters in with antivaxers, there’s overlap between the two (take for instance the Organic Consumers Association, which is vehemently anti-GMO and antivax).
**note that endorsement of medical quackery, anti-GMO beliefs and antivax advocacy tends to be even more common on the far right, exemplified by such figures as Alex Jones and Mike Adams of Natural News. Stoking these fears can be quite lucrative.
Methyl bromide is a prohibited synthetic. Organic growers have not been using that. Why are you trying to claim that we are?
It is a sore point with me that you and others keep insisting that the use of copper compounds, in doses that do not cause deleterious environmental effects including when they are repeated doses, are causing those effects.
I have considerable work to do today, and am getting very tired of repeating myself in this thread.
“Organic agriculture is very dependent on copper as a fungicide…The Bordeaux mixture (copper sulfate) is widely used in organic agriculture worldwide since it is considered to have low toxicity for humans and the environment. However, when in excess, copper can lead to oxidative stress and other harmful effects in humans with a predisposition to copper imbalance. Chronic exposure to copper in people susceptible to copper dyshomeostasis, as revealed by higher than normal levels of non-ceruloplasmin copper, has been linked to accelerated cognitive decline and an increased risk of (Alzheimer’s Disease).”
Methyl bromide use as a fumigant has largely been phased out in organic and conventional agricuture in the U.S., with the exception of approved “critical use” applicstions.
Get used to it. Most of the people on the Dope are hostile to the very concept of organic farming and refuse to learn anything true about it. It is one of several topics that I always regret speaking up about. They cherish such deep misconceptions that I believe it’s impossible to break through them.
And, for about the fifth time in this thread alone, those problems are caused by copper in excess and organic agriculture does not allow using copper in a fashion that allows an excess to build up.
There is a temporary exemption for conventional strawberry transplants in cases in which the needed varieties are unavailable as organically grown, yes.
As commercial availability of organic strawberries is in its infancy, and so far only a few varieties are available as organically grown and even fewer in sufficient quantity to go around; and as most varieties of strawberries cannot be grown from seed; many organic strawberry growers do buy conventionally-grown bare root strawberry transplants, yes. We are required, before doing so, to search for the varieties or suitable substitutes as organically grown; and to give clear reason why the varieties available organically are not suitable (and I’ll repeat myself again, “they’re more expensive” doesn’t count.) The range of varieties and the quantity available are growing slowly, but they’re growing.
Some of those conventionally-grown bare root (soil is not transferred with the plant) strawberry transplants are still grown in soils fumigated with methyl bromide, yes.
To say that organic growers are ourselves “using” methyl bromide because it was applied to the soil in different fields entirely, by different operations entirely which were making no claim to be organic, and a full year before we purchased the plants (it’s a pre-planting application only), is absurd.
Oh, I’m used to it; and not only here. But there’s only so much time I’m going to give to it – especially at this time of year, when planting, weeding, harvest, and market all overlap.
I’m not hostile to organic farming, as long as its practices and alleged benefits are presented honestly.
What I take issue with is when organic farming proponents mischaracterize useful and beneficial things like genetic modification technology, or as in the case of the Organic Consumers Association, spread Covid-19 misinformation and antivaccine lies.
Who the hell are the Organic Consumers Association? Their Wikipedia page claims almost a million members, but their 2021 form 990 says they are not a membership organization.
They come across as bitter anti-science nutjobs–but they also don’t have any claim to representing the organic farming or consuming community. It’s misleading to mention them as though they’re an important group, and highly misleading to mention their anti-COVID stuff in a conversation about the science of GMOs (seriously, why on earth would you bring that up in this thread?)
(After reading more of their Form 990, I’m not sure whether they also do any good work in addition to their executive director’s anti-science rants. They may, because people are complicated and organizations are complicated–but AFAICT they’re a very minor player in the organic farming community)
I have mostly dropped out of this thread because I don’t know that the relevant things to say are FQ-appropriate–I’m surprised that this thread is still open, to be honest–but this particular bit of bizarre citing needed to be clarified IMO. Thanks to @thorny_locust and @Ulfreida for explaining, over and over and over, what needs explaining. I, at least, am reading and appreciating the clarity of what y’all are posting.
Just because you ostensibly haven’t heard of the Organic Consumers Association doesn’t mean they haven’t been influential. The OCA was one of the major campaigners for GMO labeling (it has funded other anti-GMO groups with similar goals) and started the “Millions Against Monsanto” campaign in the '90s to fight “biotech bullies responsible for poisoning the world’s food and the environment” (their words, showing a most science-based view of GMOs. ). According to their
Wikipedia entry they had a reported 850,000 members as of a few years ago. They are described as a:
…“non-profitadvocacy group for the organic agriculture industry based in Minnesota…
The activities of (their) associated lobbying bodies have been called “antiscientific” and “akin to climate change denialism” by scientists, alleging also that they seek primarily to engage in harassment of food scientists…”
“OCA was embroiled in controversy for work they did with Andrew Wakefield to mislead the Somali immigrant community about the safety of vaccines… The Washington Post reported that (antivax leader and Covid Disinformation Dozen member Joe) Mercola had donated $3.3m to OCA.[6] Mercola and Ronnie Cummins, the founder of OCA, published a book titled The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing the Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal: Why We Must Unite in a Global Movement for Health and Freedom which the McGill Office for Science and Society described as “monumentally wrong”.”
If the organic industry the OCA stumps for has qualms about these activities, they’ve been remarkably quiet about them.
Further note on methyl bromide fumigation, used on transplants purchased by organic strawberry growers: the gas has been implicated in destruction of the ozone layer, and bromide can be taken up into plants,
resulting in potentially toxic residues. These facts don’t make organic farming terrible, but they do show it presents its share of environmental and health hazards.
Are you suggesting that humans should quit farming altogether? because it’s conventional farmers who are actually using the stuff. And they were using it in actual fruit production until it was banned for that use, while organic growers weren’t.
First you said that "organic growers have not been using (methyl bromide). Then you acknowledged that:
The latest:
Kind of confusing.
BTW, another organic industry-funded organization, the Environmental Working Group, has been involved not only with spreading dubious claims about GMOs and promoting the idea that organic food is more nutritious than its conventional counterpart (most recent research has concluded there’s no significant difference between the two), but has also contributed to antivax claims about mercury-based preservative that was used in a few vaccines supposedly causing autism - a disproven allegation.
The organic food industry is big business in the U.S. - $57.5 billion in sales in 2021. So there’s a lot to protect, which is fine if done honestly.
You don’t know the difference between producing nursery plants for sale and producing fruit for sale?
Two entirely different lines of business, only rarely combined on the same operation, and for good reason.
There are a whole shitload of groups that either primarily or secondarily talk about organic farming. Some of them are at odds with each other – and this includes groups claiming to speak for organic, some of which want regulations loosened so they can (they think) make more money, others of which want regulations better enforced and/or tightened. Some of them talk nonsense, either specifically about organic farming or about other subjects they’ve decided to go on about. I’m sure you can keep on cherry picking all day, or all year, in order to find somebody who’s said something either ignorant or deliberately misleading about the subject, or about some entirely unrelated subject. I see no need for me to spend time researching and commenting on every organization on the planet that claims to say anything about organic farming.
The only information I got about covid from any organic farming group that I’m a member of or follow was information about conferences being held online instead of in person, and instructions on how inspections had to be conducted so as to follow CDC guidelines at the time and so as to, according to information available at the time the instructions were given, not cause risk to either the farmers or the inspectors; as well as some entirely sensible advice on how not to cause risk to one’s customers and about styles of marketing that might work if/when usual routes were shut down.
– no, discobot, I’m having this conversation in public for a reason! And need to go get something else done, now.
Last I checked, strawberries were considered fruit.
Good to hear you’re not down with influential organic industry groups promoting false and misleading information about GMOs and organic foods. It’d be nice if major industry sources publicly rejected such claims.
Thanks for taking valuable time out of your activities to address these issues, when clearly you have better things to do.
My understanding is that the entire conventional strawberry industry used methyl bromide for basically 100% of their nursery propagation and fruit production until it was outlawed.
I want aware that it’s still legal for nursery propagation of strawberries. But if that’s the case, i would guess it’s still used for close to 100% of conventional strawberries grown for conventional fruit production. So this doesn’t seem like an interesting difference between conventional and organic production, except that maybe organic producers are a little less likely to rely on nurseries that use it.
I haven’t actually looked up the current conditions, so I’m open to correction if my facts are wrong. But from what little i know, this sounds like organic producers are being called out for something where they are using strictly less toxic stuff than conventional producers.
Related: I’m also a little bemused by comparing the weight of pesticides used. I’ve used both “organic” pesticides (including kaolin dust) and “conventional” pesticides. Yeah, i used a lot less weight of conventional pesticide when i used it. But what i used had a much more significant environmental impact. Literally the only precautions i took with the clay were to wear a face mask when i handled it, so i wouldn’t breathe too much of it. But once it adhered to the tree, i believe it was totally non-toxic. It doesn’t even kill the caterpillars, it just gets in the way of their eating.
I’m bemused by objections to comparisons between organic and conventioanl agriculture by pounds of pesticides used, when organic farming advocates (here, the Organic Trade Association) routinely attack conventional farmers by the tactic of using alarmist figures on pounds of pesticides used.
When comparisons using pesticide weight show organic farming in an unfavorable light, suddenly outrage ensues.
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