Is Organic Agriculture a Myth, or a Viable Reality?
“Myth” #2: Organic Foods are Healthier
I won’t be pulling quotes from this part of the piece, because the case is pretty weak. The studies that are cited in this section only serve to show that the same plant, grown under different conditions, will be largely the same afterwards. This is because the crops which are being grown in these studies are the same ones that have been carefully bred for their ability to transport well, be picked by machines, and look pretty when ripened away from the bush. But if you compare heirloom varieties, such as those which were in broad usage in the 1950’s, with today’s produce, you find that the modern plants are significantly less nutritious. And very few to no heirloom varieties are grown in conventional agriculture. And the flavor of heirloom varieties is excellent. I dare say that if you put an old fashioned tomato on a plate next to a modern, truck ripened one, any one who couldn’t tell the difference would have to be suffering from a disorder of their sense of taste or smell.
Myth #3: Organic Farming Is Better For The Environment
More quotes:
“As an ecologist by training, this myth bothers me the most of all three. People seem to believe they’re doing the world a favor by eating organic. The simple fact is that they’re not – at least the issue is not that cut and dry.”
Are they not, or is the issue not cut and dry? Perhaps the author should step back to basic logic before they move on to ecology, writing sentences that self-contradict is only good writing if your intention is to confuse and deceive.
“Yes, organic farming practices use less synthetic pesticides which have been found to be ecologically damaging. But factory organic farms use their own barrage of chemicals that are still ecologically damaging, and refuse to endorse technologies that might reduce or eliminate the use of these all together.”
Good thing we aren’t required to buy our organic food from factory organic farms, ’cause that would be quite a shame. This sentence is a textbook straw man argument.
“Take, for example, organic farming’s adamant stance against genetically modified organisms (GMOs). GMOs have the potential to up crop yields, increase nutritious value, and generally improve farming practices while reducing synthetic chemical use – which is exactly what organic farming seeks to do.”
Indeed, genetic modification technology does have the potential to up crop yields, and increase nutritional value, but can the author point to a single instance in which such a modified organism has made it to market? I was aware of two good projects that were working on improving the nutritional value of rice and cassava, but both have had their funding either cut or constantly jeopardized. You know what does get to market? Stuff that makes a lot of money, like herbicide-resistant plants that encourage farmers to dump far too much herbicide (which the same company, coincidentally, sells) on their fields. This practice has resulted in the emergence of herbicide-resistant superweeds that are likely to destroy any benefits that the resistant crops provided in the first place as time passes.
And you know one major benefit of spraying BT toxin on plants rather than engineering it into the plant itself? You can wash off the toxin in the first case, but not in the latter one. And, evidently, BT doesn’t get destroyed in the mammalian gut like we were all told, soothingly, by the GMO producers. A study at the University of Sherbrooke Hospital Centre in Quebec found that 93% of infants in the study had BT in their blood! I am perfectly willing to accept making exceptions in the organic standard for modified plants that actually do improve nutrition, or allow the use of marginal soils. But if we were to do so today, we would have to write exceptions for exactly zero GMO plants.
“But the real reason organic farming isn’t more green than conventional is that while it might be better for local environments on the small scale, organic farms produce far less food per unit land than conventional ones. Organic farms produce around 80% that what the same size conventional farm produces (some studies place organic yields below 50% those of conventional farms!).”
This study which the author cites as proof of this statement dates from 2002, which is practically ancient in terms of the pace of modern crop science. More recent studies do not support the contention that more land would have to be used under novel management systems than under conventional agriculture. In some cases, organic methods have been shown to have significantly higher yields than conventional methods. Hiding behind starving people is a common refuge for proponents of conventional agriculture, but those people are starving under a system which is dominated by conventional agriculture. If we spread simple, low-cost and locally appropriate organic methods to the people who are starving, instead of expecting them to take out a loan for a tractor, some GM seed and a load of herbicide, perhaps they wouldn’t be starving in the first place. (Editor’s note: this is exactly what the United Nations is now proposing — small, ecologically-friendly farms.)
—-> On to “Myth” #4 & Conclusion
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Latest CleanTechnica.TV Video
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
