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  • From: Dan Conine <dconine@bertramwireless.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Organic Myths
  • Date: Wed, 14 May 2008 15:17:44 -0500


Date: Wed, 14 May 2008 08:26:08 -0600
From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
Subject: [Livingontheland] The great organic myths:
To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
Message-ID: <200805140826080609.079424E1@mail.lobo.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"


Anyone want to pick this apart?

Organic Farming: Myths and Facts
<http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/the-great-organic-myt
hs-rebutted-822763.html>

The great organic myths:
Why organic foods are an indulgence the world can't afford
by Rob Johnston
Independent.co.uk (May 01 2008)


They're not healthier or better for the environment - and they're packed
with pesticides. In an age of climate change and shortages, these foods
are an indugence the world can't afford.


Myth one: Organic farming is good for the environment

Also, organically reared cows burp twice as much methane as
conventionally reared cattle - and methane is twenty times more powerful
a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Meat and poultry are the largest
agricultural contributors to greenhouse gas emissions emissions. Life
Cycle Assessment counts the energy used to manufacture pesticide for
growing cattle feed, but still shows that a kilo of organic beef
releases twelve per cent more greenhouse gas emissions, causes twice as
much nutrient pollution and more acid rain.

Life Cycle Assessment relates food production to: energy required to
manufacture artificial fertilisers and pesticides; fossil fuel burnt by
farm equipment; nutrient pollution caused by nitrate and phosphate
run-off into water courses; release of gases that cause acid rain; and
the area of land farmed. A similar review by the University of
Hohenheim, Germany, in 2000 reached the same conclusions (Hohenheim is a
proponent of organic farming and quoted by the Soil Association).


This assumes that we need as much beef as we are raising. Truly, organic farming works best when considered as part of the entire Life Cycle of the Earth and the human species as a whole, not simply the coddled, competitive rich countries. Once nutritional guidelines are followed, then much less beef would be eaten overall, and a few local cows eating grass and producing methane, butchered at home is less destructive than everyone eating McDonalds hamburgers shipped around the world by trucks and raised with feed gathered by tractors. The problem is the general disconnect which leads to overconsumption in general, not necessarily how what is eaten is grown. If the true life-cycle system is considered, then we have to consider reducing populations, but the rich won't consider reducing THEIR populations, even though they are the worst consumers and polluters. Criticism of the 'conventional' farming systems and their supporting factories is the same thing as saying "Eat the Rich", but the Rich are the ones with the law and the guns on their side. Violence always flows downhill, just like the bulls_it.
Myth two: Organic farming is more sustainable

Organic potatoes use less energy in terms of fertiliser production, but
need more fossil fuel for ploughing. A hectare of conventionally farmed
land produces 2.5 times more potatoes than an organic one.
You don't have to plow for potatoes. Ruth Stout taught how it can be done, but it takes manual labor. Rich doctors like Johnston don't want to accept that the reason we use so many tractors is because he's too cheap to pay laborers to grow his food. That's why the rich like to push 'free market' labor practices and they hate birth control for the masses: they gotta keep the poor fighting each other for jobs to keep wages low. All of the measurements for 'efficiency' require cheap energy to replace cheap (but more expensive) labor. Petrofood is based on petroleum. Petroleum creates the same effect as though the Rich get to "drill for slaves".
Heated greenhouse tomatoes in Britain use up to 100 times more energy
than those grown in fields in Africa. Organic yield is 75 per cent of
conventional tomato crops but takes twice the energy - so the climate
consequences of home-grown organic tomatoes exceed those of Kenyan imports.

Defra estimates organic tomato production in the UK releases almost
three times the nutrient pollution and uses 25 per cent more water per
kilogram of fruit than normal production. However, a kilogram of wheat
takes 1,700 joules of energy to produce, against 2,500 joules for the
same amount of conventional wheat, although nutrient pollution is three
times higher for organic.
Why do people need hothouse (or imported) tomatoes? I put them in the same class as air travel: unnecessary and wasteful. Dumb to compare the efficiency of one dumb idea to an idiotic idea. The other statements are pure bluster. Nutrient pollution is related to practices that are neither organic or conventionally specific. If you dump manure on frozen ground, it washes into the streams. We haven't been using conventional agriculture long enough for the soils to completely fail, so the depletion and compaction issues of burning out the humus have not been considered yet by government agencies. Some comparisons are just common sense, and using bad examples for one while using selective examples for the other is cheating. Nobody likes a cheater.

Myth three: Organic farming doesn't use pesticides

Food scares are always good news for the organic food industry. The Soil
Association and other organic farming trade groups say conventional food
must be unhealthy because farmers use pesticides. Actually, organic
farmers also use pesticides. The difference is that "organic" pesticides
are so dangerous that they have been "grandfathered" with current
regulations and do not have to pass stringent modern safety tests.

For example, organic farmers can treat fungal diseases with copper
solutions. Unlike modern, biodegradable, pesticides copper stays toxic
in the soil for ever. The organic insecticide rotenone (in derris) is
highly neurotoxic to humans - exposure can cause Parkinson's disease.
But none of these "natural" chemicals is a reason not to buy organic
food; nor are the man-made chemicals used in conventional farming.

Few small organic operators are using rotenone on all of their crops, while virtually ALL conventional farmers use pesticides, and usually not according to label directions, either.
Copper is only used as a fungicide, and fungus problems are generally sporadic, not ubiquitous. Copper itself is a basic necessary mineral to all life. Saying it is toxic in the soil forever is an outright lie. Areas with a shortage of copper are susceptible to prion diseases.
Myth four: Pesticide levels in conventional food are dangerous

The proponents of organic food - particularly celebrities, such as
Gwyneth Paltrow, who have jumped on the organic bandwagon - say there is
a "cocktail effect" of pesticides. Some point to an "epidemic of
cancer". In fact, there is no epidemic of cancer. When age-standardised,
cancer rates are falling dramatically and have been doing so for fifty
years.

If there is a "cocktail effect" it would first show up in farmers, but
they have among the lowest cancer rates of any group. Carcinogenic
effects of pesticides could show up as stomach cancer, but stomach
cancer rates have fallen faster than any other. Sixty years ago, all
Britain's food was organic; we lived only until our early sixties,
malnutrition and food poisoning were rife. Now, modern agriculture
(including the careful use of well-tested chemicals) makes food cheap
and safe and we live into our eighties.
This guy is a DOCTOR? If a farmer only uses one type of pesticide, why would the cocktail effect show up in farmers first? Vitamin D is the biggest contributor to lowering cancer that I've seen, and farmers get more of it from the sun (and the right kind), so of course, their cancer levels are lower. The real danger of conventional pesticides (or rotenone) is the destruction of local fauna balance and the killing of soil organisms. THAT's what should be considered as part of the holistic diet of humans, not whether they are exposed to something less toxic than their cell phones.

Myth five: Organic food is healthier

To quote Hohenheim University: "No clear conclusions about the quality
of organic food can be reached using the results of present literature
and research results". What research there is does not support the
claims made for organic food.

Large studies in Holland, Denmark and Austria found the food-poisoning
bacterium Campylobacter in 100 per cent of organic chicken flocks but
only a third of conventional flocks; equal rates of contamination with
Salmonella (despite many organic flocks being vaccinated against it);
and 72 per cent of organic chickens infected with parasites.

This high level of infection among organic chickens could
cross-contaminate non-organic chickens processed on the same production
lines. Organic farmers boast that their animals are not routinely
treated with antibiotics or (for example) worming medicines. But, as a
result, organic animals suffer more diseases. In 2006 an Austrian and
Dutch study found that a quarter of organic pigs had pneumonia against
four per cent of conventionally raised pigs; their piglets died twice as
often.

Disease is the major reason why organic animals are only half the weight
of conventionally reared animals - so organic farming is not necessarily
a boon to animal welfare.

No, animals with lower caloric intakes are healthier. Weight is no measure of the health of an animal unless it is starving. Badly raised organic animals suffer more diseases, but the same applies to badly raised conventional animals. Also, some parasites are actually beneficial to immune systems, and there have not been enough studies on holistic practices to be able to make definitive statements about death rates, etc. My father raised animals with very few or none of the conventional practices for his whole life. His animals were always in better shape than other people who got their advice from the latest university studies or from the drug salesman. Clean stalls, plenty of fresh air, low population densities.
Almost all of the examples that Johnston is citing are one confinement system to another confinement system.
Try comparing homeschool kids to conventional kids for disease rates....
Myth six: Organic food contains more nutrients

The Soil Association points to a few small studies that demonstrate
slightly higher concentrations of some nutrients in organic produce -
flavonoids in organic tomatoes and omega-3 fatty acids in organic milk,
for example.

The easiest way to increase the concentration of nutrients in food is to
leave it in an airing cupboard for a few days. Dehydrated foods contain
much higher concentrations of carbohydrates and nutrients than whole
foods. But, just as in humans, dehydration is often a sign of disease.

The study that found higher flavonoid levels in organic tomatoes
revealed them to be the result of stress from lack of nitrogen - the
plants stopped making flesh and made defensive chemicals (such as
flavonoids) instead.

And this is a problem? No, it's the way plants grow naturally. What doesn't kill them makes them taste better. I'm sure that now this wonderful bit of Johnston's wisdom is out there, Monsanto will come out with a spray to stress tomatoes and increase their flavinoid levels.

Myth seven: The demand for organic food is booming

Less than one per cent of the food sold in Britain is organic, but you
would never guess it from the media. The Soil Association positions
itself as a charity that promotes good farming practices. Modestly, on
its website, it claims: "... in many ways the Soil Association can claim
to be the first organisation to promote and practice sustainable
development". But the Soil Association is also, in effect, a trade group
- and very successful lobbying organisation.

Every year, news outlets report the Soil Association's annual claim of a
big increase in the size of the organic market. For 2006 (the latest
available figures) it boasted sales of GBP 1.937 billion.

Mintel (a retail consultantcy hired by the Soil Association) estimated
only GBP 1.5 billion in organic food sales for 2006. The more reliable
TNS Worldpanel, (tracking actual purchases) found just GBP 1 billion of
organics sold - from a total food sector of GBP 104 billion. Sixty years
ago all our food was organic so demand has actually gone down by 99 per
cent. Despite the "boom" in organics, the amount of land being farmed
organically has been decreasing since its height in 2003. Although the
area of land being converted to organic usage is scheduled to rise, more
farmers are going back to conventional farming.
This can have many causes, most likely the credit bubble and lack of cheap labor to farm organically, plus the hassle factor of all the paperwork which is only necessary to get certified, which is only necessary for larger organic farms who need to ship things anonymously someplace. The anonymity of the commodity system is the original problem. It is one thing to buy wheat from a grain elevator, quite another to buy it from your neighbor.
The Soil Association invariably claims that anyone who questions the
value of organic farming works for chemical manufacturers and
agribusiness or is in league with some shady right-wing US free-market
lobby group. Which is ironic, considering that a number of British
fascists were involved in the founding of the Soil Association and its
journal was edited by one of Oswald Mosley's blackshirts until the late
1960s.

All Britain's food is safer than ever before. In a serious age, we
should talk about the future seriously and not use food scares and
misinformation as a tactic to increase sales.
_____

Rob Johnston is a doctor and science writer
And apparently, an attack dog of the pesticide and processing consortium fascists....? "Our fascists are better than your fascists."






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