BBC Story on Organic Food.

[tvashtarkatena]

Hey Bill:

 

I think that those are related, but separable questions, and it's reasonable to consider them separately and ask whether or not there's evidence to support each of the specific claims made on behalf of organic foods. Consequently I think it's fair to conclude that anyone who claims that organic foods are more nutritious is making a claim that's at odds with the best evidence available to us at this point.

 

It certainly may be true that people are concerned about exposure to pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics in non-organic food. Are their concerns sincere? I'm sure that they are, but it's fair to ask whether the concerns that you mentioned have their basis in a scientific consensus or not.

 

There isn't - at least as far as I'm aware - any scientific consensus that supports the claim that eating food produced via conventional methods exposes people to any measurable health risks vis-a-vis organic foods. Nor is there any evidence that supports the claim that if the same people ate organic food exclusively they'd be any healthier or live any longer.

 

It's also not clear to me that there's a bright red line that delineates all organic methods from all conventional methods, nor is it clear that the bits of agriculture that does fall one one side of the line or the other can be objectively classified as good or bad, beneficial or harmful.

 

I think that there's a pretty clear consensus of opinion that starvation is bad, habitat destruction to increase cropland is bad, increasing water pollution is bad, etc, etc, etc - but most of the time we're confronted with a series of trade-offs and value judgments that make determining what's best extremely problematic and highly dependent on the all of the conditions and variables at play in a particular context.

 

I'm generally of the opinion that starvation and malnutrition are objectively bad and that their effects on health are substantially more severe than any adverse effects that hormones, antibiotics, and pesticides might have. I'm also of the opinion that that the social effects of starvation and malnutrition can lead to effects on the environment that are many times worse than the cumulative effects of hormones, antibiotics, fertilizers, and pesticides.

 

I'm glad that well-fed people in prosperous countries can buy food that's consistent with whatever value system they want to employ, whether there's any scientific evidence to support all or part of their motives for doing so, but I'd hate to see them impose the same constraints on other people who aren't as well-fed.

 

Well spoken as always Jayb. I'm even willing to give folks who want to spew that the nutritional value is higher the benefit of the doubt. Frankly, I remember buying some organic Oranges at natures once, that tasted so good that my kids and I ate them all and immediately went back and bought another sack most of which we ate immediately. The taste was so significantly better it would be hard not to believe it to have more nutrients than the nearly unpalatable bland cardboard masquerading as oranges at the Safeway store. If someone cannot separate taste and nutritional content, I can live with it. Like you, what ever floats folks boats.

 

I think separating out the various health risks of organic or not as it relates to food may be the more prudent approach. Antibiotics, for example, may have different health risks than growth Hormones and pesticides, and it seems clear that there are huge and widespread health issues in the process of cropping up from this practice. Here's some links of scientific consensus starting to form. Perhaps the evidence is less than startling conclusive, yet if you could avoid unwanted antibiotics from possibly screwing up our children, wouldn't you want that?

 

New England Journal of Medicine articals

 

www.cals.ncsu.edu/waste_mgt/natlcenter/sanantonio/Ohl.ppt

 

 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/safe/overview.html

 

opps, looks like my 2nd link, which is a powerpoint presentation, didn't take and will be cut and past for you. Here are the abstracts for anyone to look up.

 

* White DG, Zhao S, Suler R et al. The isolation of antibiotic-resistant salmonella from retail ground meats. N Engl J Med 2001;345:1147-54. Abstract

* McDonald LC, Rossiter S, Mackinson C et al. Quinupristin-Dalfopristin-Resistant Enterococcus faecium on Chicken and in Human Stool Specimens. N Engl J Med 2001;345:1155-60. Abstract

* Sørensen TL, Blom M, Monnet DL et al. Transient Intestinal Carriage after Ingestion of Antibiotic-Resistant Enterococcus faecium from Chicken and Pork. N Engl J Med 2001;345:1161-6. Abstract

 

 

 

Have you tried the public restrooms at Volunteer Park? Cuz you are exceptionally adept at publicly sucking the cocks of your favorite 'alpha males'.

Edited August 3, 2009 by tvashtarkatena

[prole]

No, 'mainsteam environmentalism' does not rely on any Malthusian approach; it focuses on the sustained environmental and cultural health of local communities.

 

If this is the case, then you'd be better off going after these fucks:

 

MTV's Teen Cribs

 

than the global poor, who're well aware of the problems facing their local communities.

 

 

 

Edited August 3, 2009 by prole

[Bug]

Blame it on the Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

 

"Go forth and multiply and subdue the earth".

 

 

Of course, in those areas where there is no welfare of any kind and "retirement" depends totally on one of your kids surviving long enough to take care of you, having large families is an insurance policy.

 

 

[Ponderosa]

People are also starving around the world because they are too many...which is largely a public policy, not agricultural, issue.

 

The idea that we need to overdrive and destroy the soil now (pretty much the definition of the so called Green Revolution), at the expense of future generations, because certain nations a) can't seem to resolve their ongoing civil wars and b) aren't willing to take on much needed family planning policies, is, on it's face, moronic.

 

Human beings: subject to the same population growth/resource constraints as any other species. Not exactly a surprise, there, at least to some of us.

 

Your delineated "a" is a functional solution to your "b".

 

"Not exactly a surprise, there, at least to some of us."

[prole]

Blame it on the Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

 

"Go forth and multiply and subdue the earth".

 

 

How then to account for the long periods of history in which these religions existed without explosive population growth?

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Blame it on the Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

 

"Go forth and multiply and subdue the earth".

 

 

How then to account for the long periods of history in which these religions existed without explosive population growth?

 

because population growth has been "explosive" since antiquity - nothing new today

[Ponderosa]

Blame it on the Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

 

"Go forth and multiply and subdue the earth".

 

 

How then to account for the long periods of history in which these religions existed without explosive population growth?

 

They called it "The Black Death".

[prole]

How then to account for the long periods of history in which these religions existed without explosive population growth?

 

because population growth has been "explosive" since antiquity - nothing new today

 

 

Please explain.

 

 

[prole]

Here's another:

 

 

 

[KaskadskyjKozak]

How then to account for the long periods of history in which these religions existed without explosive population growth?

 

because population growth has been "explosive" since antiquity - nothing new today

 

 

Please explain.

 

 

looks exponential to me.

[prole]

You look like you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground to me.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

You look like you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground to me.

 

FOAD, you little bitch

[olyclimber]

[prole]

You look like you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground to me.

 

FOAD, you little bitch

 

Okay, okay...I'm sorry.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

Prole would be more interested in a plot correlating communism to butt pirates

[prole]

Prole would be more interested in a plot correlating communism to butt pirates

 

Edited August 3, 2009 by prole

[j_b]

It'd be interesting to compare current and projected yields per acre for conventional vs some fixed definition of organic cultivation and see what the data suggest.

 

Comparisons of organic and conventional chemical farming systems

 

A survey of recent studies comparing the productivity of organic practices to conventional agriculture provides an excellent example of the wide range of benefits we can expect from a conversion to sustainable agricultural methods. The results clearly show that organic farming accomplishes many of the FAO’s sustainability aims, as well as showing promise in increasing food production ability.

 

Sustainable Agriculture Farming Systems project (SFAS) at UC, Davis.

An ongoing long-term comparison study, SFAS is an interdisciplinary project that compares conventional farming systems with alternative production systems that promote sustainable agriculture.

 

The study examines four farming systems that differ in crop rotation design and material input use: a 2-year and a 4-year rotation conventional system, an organic and a low-input system.

 

Results from the first 8 years of the project show that the organic and low-input systems had yields comparable to the conventional systems in all crops which were tested - tomato, safflower, corn and bean, and in some instances yielding higher than conventional systems (Clark, 1999a). Tomato yields in the organic system were lower in the first three years, but reached the levels of the conventional tomatoes in the subsequent years and had a higher yield during the last year of the experiment (80 t/ha in the organic compared to 68 t/ha in the conventional in 1996). Corn production in the organic system had a higher variability than conventional systems, with lower yields in some years and higher in others.

 

Both organic and low-input systems resulted in increases in the organic carbon content of the soil and larger pools of stored nutrients, each of which are critical for long-term fertility maintenance (Clark, 1998). The most important limiting factor in the organic system appeared to be nitrogen availability (Clark 1999b). The organic system relied mainly on cover crops and composted poultry manure for fertilization. One possible explanation for a lower availability in the organic system, is that high carbon inputs associated with nitrogen to build soil organic matter, thus reducing nitrogen availability for the organic crops. During the latter 2 years of the experiment, soil organic matter levels appeared to be stabilized resulting in more nitrogen availability. This was in agreement with the higher yields of organic crops that were observed during those last two years. The organic systems were found to be more profitable in both corn and tomato among the 4-year rotations mainly due to the higher price premiums (Clark, 1999b).

 

Farming Systems Trial at the Rodale Institute — Soybean study.

Initiated in 1981, the Farming Systems Trial compares intensive soybean and maize production under a conventional and two organic management farming systems.

 

The first organic cropping system simulates a traditional integrated farming system. Leguminous cover crops are fed to cattle and the resulting manure is applied to the fields as the main source of nitrogen. In the second organic system, the leguminous cover crops were incorporated in to the soil as the source for nitrogen before corn or soybean planting.

 

Corn yields were comparable in all three cropping systems (less than 1% difference) (Drinkwater, 1998). However, a comparison of soil characteristics during a 15-year period found that soil fertility was enhanced in the organic systems, while it decreased considerably in the conventional system. Nitrogen content and organic matter levels in the soil increased markedly in the manure—fertilized organic system and declined in the conventional system. Moreover, the conventional system had the highest environmental impact, where 60% more nitrate was leached into the groundwater over a 5 year period than in the organic systems (Drinkwater, 1998).

 

Soybean production systems were also highly productive, achieving 40 bushels/acre. In 1999 however, during one of the worst droughts on record, yields of organic soybeans were 30 bushels /acre, compared to only 16 bushels/acre from conventionally- grown soybeans (Rodale Institute, 1999). "Our trials show that improving the quality of the soil through organic practices can mean the difference between a harvest or hardship in times of drought" writes Jeff Moyer, farm manager at The Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania (Rodale Institute, 1999). He continues, "over time, organic practices encourage the soil to hold on to moisture more efficiently than conventionally managed soil." The higher content of organic matter also makes organic soil less compact so that root systems can penetrate more deeply to find moisture. These results highlight the importance of organic farming methods and their potential to avert future crop failures both in the US and in the rest of the world.

 

Broadbalk experiment at the Rothamsted Experimental Station, UK

One of the longest running agricultural trials on record (more than 150 years) is the Broadbalk experiment at the Rothamsted Experimental Station in the United Kingdom. The trials compare a manure based fertilizer farming system (but not certified organic) to a synthetic chemical fertilizer farming system. Wheat yields are shown to be on average slightly higher in the organically fertilized plots (3.45 tones/hectare) than the plots receiving chemical fertilizers (3.40 tones/hectare). More importantly though, soil fertility, measured as soil organic matter and nitrogen levels, increased by 120% over 150 years in the organic plots, compared with only 20% increase in chemically fertilized plots (Jenkinson, 1994).

 

Organic grain and soybean production in the Midwestern United States

A comprehensive review of a large number of comparison studies of grain and soybean production conduct by six Midwestern universities since 1978 found that in all of these studies organic production was equivalent to, and in many cases better than, conventional (Welsh, 1999). Organic systems had higher yields than conventional systems which featured continuous crop production (no rotations) and equal or lower yields in conventional systems that included crop rotations. In the drier climates such as the Great Plains, organic systems had higher yields, as they tend to be better during droughts than conventional systems. In one such study in South Dakota for the period 1986-1992, the average yields of soybeans were 29.6 bushels/acre and 28.6 bushels/acre in the organic and conventional systems respectively. In the same study, average spring wheat yields were 41.5 bushels/acre and 39.5 bushels/acre in the organic and conventional systems respectively.

 

When comparing the profitability of farming systems, the study found that organic cropping systems were always more profitable than the most common conventional cropping systems if the higher premiums that organic crops enjoy were factored in. When the higher premiums were not factored in, the organic systems were still more productive and profitable in three of the six studies. This was attributed to lower production costs and the ability of organic systems to outperform conventional in drier areas, or during drier periods.

 

The author of the report remarked: "What is most surprising is how well the organic systems performed despite the minimal amount of research that traditional agricultural research institutions have devoted to them." (Welsh, 1999).

 

Comparison of conventional and organic farms in California.

Lastly, a study which compared ecological characteristics and productivity of 20 commercial farms in the Central Valley of California gives us a better understanding of how a conversion to organic would fare in a commercial farm setting.

 

The farms compared had a fresh market tomato production. Tomato yields were shown to be quite similar in organic and conventional farms (Drinkwater, 1995). Insect pest damage was also comparable in both cases of organic and conventional farms. However, significant differences were found in soil health indicators such as nitrogen mineralization potential and microbial abundance and diversity which were higher in the organic farms. Nitrogen mineralization potential was three times greater in organic compared to conventional fields. The organic fields also had 28% more organic carbon. The increased soil health in the organic farms resulted in considerably lower disease incidence. Severity of the most prevalent disease in the study, tomato corky root disease, was found to be significantly lower in the organic farms (Drinkwater, 1995).

 

Much more here: http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~christos/articles/cv_organic_farming.html

[tvashtarkatena]

You look like you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground to me.

 

Um...how much math did you take in high school?

 

Looks like not much to me.

[j_b]

I think that there's a pretty clear consensus of opinion that starvation is bad, habitat destruction to increase cropland is bad, increasing water pollution is bad, etc, etc, etc - but most of the time we're confronted with a series of trade-offs and value judgments that make determining what's best extremely problematic and highly dependent on the all of the conditions and variables at play in a particular context.

 

I'm generally of the opinion that starvation and malnutrition are objectively bad and that their effects on health are substantially more severe than any adverse effects that hormones, antibiotics, and pesticides might have. I'm also of the opinion that that the social effects of starvation and malnutrition can lead to effects on the environment that are many times worse than the cumulative effects of hormones, antibiotics, fertilizers, and pesticides.

 

Except that you are putting the problem on its head. Most people who go hungry (most are in developping nations) aren't starving because they don't know how to grow food or because we don't grow enough food. They are starving because industrial agriculture gets all of the financing and it has booted small farmers off the land to grow cash crops for export, animal feed and biofuels. Agribusiness isn't the solution, it is the problem.

 

"The investments are not so much about producing more food but about changing the way food is produced and who it is produced for. Take China, for instance. Beijing has made the political decision that it wants big agribusiness, not peasants, to supply its growing market for meat and dairy. All levels of government are doing everything possible to lay out a red carpet for food corporations, both Chinese and foreign, from providing subsidies to rewriting land laws and food regulations. Investment in the Chinese dairy and livestock sectors has exploded as a result, as has the number of factory farms, which already topped 53,000 in 2003. [13] A small number of Chinese corporations and foreign joint ventures are emerging as the titans of the industry, often bankrolled by high-rolling foreign private equity firms such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR). Meanwhile, the tremendous feed requirements for these farms are supplied by the likes of Cargill and Bunge, who import GM soya from their operations in the Americas. The integration of China into the global agribusiness web is so complete that COFCO, the country’s largest grain company, is rumoured to be negotiating to take over US-based Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer in the world, of which COFCO already owns 5%.

 

While agribusiness thrives in China, people are suffering, particularly peasants. Zhou Guanghon, a professor at Nanjing Agricultural University, predicts that with China’s current policies the national share of meat produced by small farmers will fall from the current 80% to 30% by 2020, and that hypermarkets will move from a 15% market share of the retail market for meat to a 40% share over the same period. [14] Millions more peasants will be driven off the land, even as the collapse of jobs in export manufacturing is sending equal numbers of peasants back to the countryside in desperation.

 

Chinese consumers are also being hit hard. While the government has been forced to step in to keep prices of meat and dairy down, to the extent of setting up the world’s only state meat reserve, food safety problems are spiralling out of control. Last year’s melamine scandal, which left at least six infants dead and another 300,000 ill, was a direct result of the rapid industrialisation of production and supply. The growth of factory farms has also generated new, more lethal diseases, such as bird flu, that are not only deadly for humans, but hugely disruptive for China’s meat supply. The country’s poultry industry says that bird flu is a major reason why poultry numbers are down by about a third in the first quarter of this year. [15] A couple of years ago, an epidemic of a new lethal strain of blue ear disease laid waste to upwards of a million pigs in China and was seen as a key factor in the spike in pork prices.

 

It would be unfair to single out China, though, since this is a global phenomenon. In the United States, the shining star of the agribusiness model and its modern food-“safety” system, one in eight Americans went hungry in 2007 – and that was before the current economic tailspin began. [16] Moreover, one in four Americans suffers from a food-borne illness every year, a number that does not include those whose health is affected by other parts of the industrial food chain, such as the estimated 45,000 agricultural workers who are poisoned by pesticides every year. [17] The swine flu epidemic has focused attention on how the factory farms of the US multinational meat companies are incubators for deadly human diseases. The World Health Organisation said in late June that 311 people had so far died from the swine flu outbreak, but a shocking 18,000 people in the US die each year from a “superbug” called MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), which is rampant in US pigs and pork sold to consumers. MRSA is believed to have evolved through the overuse of antibiotics in industrial pig farms. [18] Today, the same corporations are taking advantage of trade and investment agreements to set up or relocate their gigantic factory farms in poorer countries, where labour is cheap and regulations lax or non-existent – such as Mexico, Romania and China."

 

more here: http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=607

[tvashtarkatena]

I think that there's a pretty clear consensus of opinion that starvation is bad, habitat destruction to increase cropland is bad, increasing water pollution is bad, etc, etc, etc - but most of the time we're confronted with a series of trade-offs and value judgments that make determining what's best extremely problematic and highly dependent on the all of the conditions and variables at play in a particular context.

 

I'm generally of the opinion that starvation and malnutrition are objectively bad and that their effects on health are substantially more severe than any adverse effects that hormones, antibiotics, and pesticides might have. I'm also of the opinion that that the social effects of starvation and malnutrition can lead to effects on the environment that are many times worse than the cumulative effects of hormones, antibiotics, fertilizers, and pesticides.

 

Then you might also be of the opinion that topsoil destruction might also be bad...and that growing tons of food for the next twenty years to feed an exploding population...then growing zero food for the next 100,000 years because it's no longer possible, might also be bad.

 

 

[tvashtarkatena]

Or not.

[prole]

Dude, as a consumer in the free-market you can always take your business elsewhere and buy another topsoil from a different producer. Or wait the 100,000 years for the market to correct itself.

[tvashtarkatena]

Hormones, biofuels, pesticides, blah, blah, blah.

 

Dirt. It really is that simple.

[Hugh Conway]

My goodness - quite the impassioned response to a fairly simple article.

 

When I see dudes wandering around in Bunny Suits in the strawberry fields because the chemicals can kill them, successful lawsuits about chemical contamination from field runoff, and other nastiness my first thought isn't "this shit sounds good to eat"

 

 

you sound like a creationist JayB

 

 

 

I agree. There's no relationship between dose and toxicity.You should employ the same logic with all chemicals. Pharmaceuticals, ethanol, you name it.

 

I believe you've applied that exact logic to smoking JayB.

[j_b]

There is a relationship between dose and toxicity but we shouldn't assume that we really know what is it. We certainly don't know what it is for cocktails of compounds that are today commonly found in diet, water and the environment. Numerous studies link various types of cancer and endocrine disruption (gender bending) to pesticides and other nasties. 10,000's of new chemical compounds have been introduced in our environment since ww2 for which no toxicity studies have been done. Not that short term studies are likely to tell us much about adverse effects that may demand long term exposure to reveal themselves, and the industry can always claim there isn't sufficient direct evidence (think tobacco, asbestos, ddt, PCB's, ... to appreciate the amount of direct evidence needed for anything to be done)

 

Acceptable doses are continually lowered even though regulatory organizations and industry always claim they know what they are doing. Instead of treating populations like laboratory rats, a sensible application of the precautionary principle would be in order but it doesn't suit the needs of those who put profit before people. Precautionary Principle: The precautionary principle [..] states that if an action or policy might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action.