Posted on 09/14/2007 12:42:58 PM PDT by Daffynition
It’s a booming trend, driven by public perception that food produced minus pesticides and fertilisers is healthier and better for the planet. We examine the science to see if the evidence stacks up.
I love my local organic food store. From the moment I enter, I enjoy the aromas that greet me and the folksy look of the place. But is organic food really any better for me? The perceived wisdom is that it's more 'pure' and 'natural', devoid of disease-causing pesticides; that organic farming "generates healthy soils" and "doesn't poison ecosystems with toxic chemicals".
Organic food is riding a surge in popularity; across the globe, sales of organic food are burgeoning. The global market in 2006 was estimated at close to an impressive US$40 billion (A$47.9 billion) by Organic Monitor, an industry research body, and growing 20 per cent annually in the U.S. and Canada.
And where consumers go, the multinational food companies follow: everyone from Uncle Tobys to Kraft, Heinz, Kelloggs and even Coca-Cola has jumped on the bandwagon. And developing countries are joining in too: China's organic exports grew 200-fold in a decade to reach US$200 million in 2004. Australia is also a major exporter, and plans to increase its organic produce by 50 per cent by 2012.
But is this belief in organic food based on faith, or evidence?
THE SURPRISING FACT IS that this mass migration to organic food has not been on the back of scientific evidence. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find comprehensive evidence that organic food is healthier – either for us or the planet. Nevertheless, in the public consciousness, organic farming is unquestioningly bundled with the reigning moral imperatives of sustainability, protecting the environment and reducing greenhouse gases.
Certainly there are historical reasons for concern. In the 1950s and 1960s, the pesticide DDT was blamed for the widespread thinning of bird eggs across North America, and the rapid decline of the bald eagle and peregrine falcon. Over-intensive grain farming in the U.S. Midwest led to fertiliser run-off into the Mississippi River that ultimately created a 20,000 square kilometre dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, as algal blooms sucked up available oxygen. Soils that were tilled for decades without crop rotation or replacing organic matter led to dust storms that wreaked havoc across Australia in the 1960s and the American and Canadian prairies in the 1930s, the latter so vividly depicted in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.
These days, modern farming techniques have evolved after decades of pressure from the environmental movement and decades of work by a generation of scientists inspired by environmental awareness. In fact, conventional farming is starting to look a lot like organic farming.
The earthworm-rich soils, so prized by organic farmers, are being achieved through contemporary no-till (or no-plough) techniques. In Australia, most farmers use rotation to get crops out of synchronisation with weeds and to return nutrients to the soil. Natural predators are being used to control pests, and companies such as Dow Chemical are producing safe, short-acting pesticides. In fact Dow's latest pesticide, Spinosad, is also happily used by organic farmers because it is naturally produced by bacteria.
"There's been a quiet revolution in Australian farming over the last decade," says Mark Peoples, the assistant chief of the Division of Plant Industry at Australia's national research agency CSIRO.
ON THE OTHER HAND, organic farmers are bound to an ideology that demands they only use natural techniques. In some cases, such purism gets in the way of practices that are better for the environment and more sustainable for farmers. For example, organic farmers will use litres of BT spray (BT is a 'natural' pesticide made by the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis), yet they often demonise the genetically modified (GM) cotton crops that carry an inbuilt supply of BT, and which therefore require less spraying.
If people would take time to read actual studies on DDT they would find that DDT was not the cause of thinning eggshells. The decline of the peregrine falcon was largely due to hunting (it was considered a pest) and eagles thinnest eggshell measurements were taken 5 years before the use of DDT.
And strong evidence that researchers massaged the lab studies on DDT by feeding their birds calcium poor diets.
And strong evidence that eggshell thinning was caused by benzene in the water.
Unfortunately, treehuggers need to keep believing DDT was bad or else they might have to accept responsibility for the hundreds of millions of people who have died from malaria and other pest borne diseases since it was banned. Ignorance makes genocide easier on the conscience.
Female Chimpanzees ‘Sell’ Sex For Fruit
Telegraph.co.uk | 11/09/2007 | Auslan Cramb
Posted on 09/14/2007 5:34:17 PM EDT by DogByte6RER
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1896710/posts
Define organic. There can only be degrees of something being organic. There are so many variables in growing food to me the term is almost meaningless. How good are seeds to begin with?
Ahhhhhh ... organics ......driven by consumer demand. ;-D
Genetic engineering scares the bejesuss out of me.
I asked my clones, and they, like me, were offended by that remark. ;’)
That’s okay, as long as I’m still part of the great chain of being.
Utensil, metensil, everybodytensil.
I hope no one misunderstands that graphic on December 7th. ;’)
Or on the 8th ... the anniversary of John Lennon’s death. ;-D
And amazingly enough, his murder was nearly 27 years ago, more than half my current age.
Amazing talent... you can type with your fingers crossed. 8-P
:’{P
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