Food grown without pesticides; grown without artificial fertilizers; grown in soil whose humus content is increased by the additions of organic matter, grown in soil whose mineral content is increased by the application of natural mineral fertilizers; has not been treated with preservatives, hormones, antibiotics, etc.For the record, I think these are very worthy ideals. I just differ in how I think we can actually achieve them. Unfortunately, we can't actually feed ourselves using "purely organic" techniques activists advocate. This was already true probably 50 or so years ago. The modern organic industry admits this too. As it is defined in the US, organic amounts to little more than a label to make you pay more for a product that is essentially the same. It amounts to nothing more than a bunch of giant companies preying on your bucolic fantasies about food production.
These fantasies can be effectively summarized as the "naturalistic fallacy." It is the insistence that anything grown in the "natural way," however that's defined, is somehow better for you. That's obviously not true. Plenty of things can be "natural" and incredibly dangerous. Thousands of plants are poisonous. E. coli is a naturally occurring thing and catching it is still a rotten experience.
Even though organic food companies love to play up the "natural" side of their products, It's a common myth that organic somehow means "chemical free." While many of the massive food companies peddling organic products prey on the fact that you think that, it's absolutely not true. Organic farming uses lots of chemicals, and many of them are incredibly dangerous to human health. The two most popular of these are copper sulfate and pyrethrum, both of which are highly dangerous neurotoxins. In a report to Parliament in 1999, the Committee on European Communities actually concluded that copper sulfate is more toxic to humans than any synthetic pesticide, and it provides no additional environmental benefits either. In fact, that toxic copper solution that organic farmers use as a pesticide is not biodegradable, staying within the soil forever.
By amount of food produced, organic farmers actually use more pesticides. This becomes especially true once you start considering the amount of pesticide reduction offered by the newest generation of GM products. The infamous Bt protein that Alex Jones rants about in corn is regularly sprayed by organic farmers. Since it's applied externally, you have to spray it a lot. In India, for example, switching to Bt cotton has cut pesticide use by something like 80 percent.
But that's just pesticides. What about fertilizer use, which is causing "eutrophication," the poisoning of our water supply by the addition of too many foreign nutrients? Organic fertilizers (i.e animal manure) are just as guilty as artificial fertilizers. We also know that these fertilizers are incredibly dangerous, since they contain things like e. coli and salmonella. The e. coli outbreak from organic bean sprouts that started in Germany is just one of many examples of the problems with organic fertilizer. So, no, in this regard we can't really consider the chemical agents used in organic fertilizer safer either.
If you go back to the Mark Lynas article, you'll see that land usage is not some trite issue. It's a fundamental part of the debate, as it is a direct measurement of the impact agriculture makes on the environment. And it's not just yields either. Organic farms use at least a third more land as conventional farms, since manuring means leaving unproductive fields to sit for long periods of time (and you need to have animals around to supply that). If we switched exclusively to organic farming, for example, pretty much all of the world's forests would have to be chopped down. How is this an improvement?
Food activists are creating a false dichotomy by insisting that organic farming is somehow superior to conventional methods. All forms of technology, including GMO's, have an important role to play if we are to address the very real environmental challenges of the next twenty years. Using genetic engineering, for example, we will be able to develop staple the crops with the ability to fix their own nitrogen in the soil. This would be a huge environmental benefit, eliminating the need for most fertilizers. We will get even better at developing crops that do not need pesticides, respond better to droughts and provide much-needed nutrients to the world's poor. But getting there requires a much healthier attitude towards science. We have to drop our gut reactions to things that might seem initially scary, while conditioning ourselves not to fall for common myths because we find the labeling (like "natural" or "organic") to be emotionally satisfying.
But that's just pesticides. What about fertilizer use, which is causing "eutrophication," the poisoning of our water supply by the addition of too many foreign nutrients? Organic fertilizers (i.e animal manure) are just as guilty as artificial fertilizers. We also know that these fertilizers are incredibly dangerous, since they contain things like e. coli and salmonella. The e. coli outbreak from organic bean sprouts that started in Germany is just one of many examples of the problems with organic fertilizer. So, no, in this regard we can't really consider the chemical agents used in organic fertilizer safer either.
If you go back to the Mark Lynas article, you'll see that land usage is not some trite issue. It's a fundamental part of the debate, as it is a direct measurement of the impact agriculture makes on the environment. And it's not just yields either. Organic farms use at least a third more land as conventional farms, since manuring means leaving unproductive fields to sit for long periods of time (and you need to have animals around to supply that). If we switched exclusively to organic farming, for example, pretty much all of the world's forests would have to be chopped down. How is this an improvement?
Food activists are creating a false dichotomy by insisting that organic farming is somehow superior to conventional methods. All forms of technology, including GMO's, have an important role to play if we are to address the very real environmental challenges of the next twenty years. Using genetic engineering, for example, we will be able to develop staple the crops with the ability to fix their own nitrogen in the soil. This would be a huge environmental benefit, eliminating the need for most fertilizers. We will get even better at developing crops that do not need pesticides, respond better to droughts and provide much-needed nutrients to the world's poor. But getting there requires a much healthier attitude towards science. We have to drop our gut reactions to things that might seem initially scary, while conditioning ourselves not to fall for common myths because we find the labeling (like "natural" or "organic") to be emotionally satisfying.
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