Mythbusting: Organic Farming

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2011/07/18/mythbusting-101-organic-farming-conventional-agriculture/

by jessekeys • 15 years ago

17 2 15 years ago

blogs.scientificamerican.com

bh42222• 15 years ago

Myth #1: Organic Farms Don’t Use Pesticides

tl;dr: They do... well OK, only natural ones - but ONE of them is as bad as any other pesticide! Crazy anecdote huh!

The article also points out that shockingly just because something is natural it's not necessarily safe. Which is both true and obvious but no less FUD.

Myth #2: Organic Foods are Healthier

This is highly contested. Study after study, keep finding conflicting results. There are very strong indications some high yield variates have more calories or water, but less of everything else. But that's the varieties, not how they are grown. Overall this is anything but clear cut at this point.

But when researchers had people put their mouths to the test, they found that people couldn’t tell the difference between the two in blind taste tests.

I hate to also bring anecdotes to this anecdote filled articles, but I can instantly taste the difference between an organic banana and a conventional one. I don't need to know which one it is. I've blindly picked up and bought bananas and every time if it's just not as good, I check and it turns out to be conventionally grown. This could be due to them being different varieties, maybe longer time on the vine, maybe farm size affect flavor, or maybe my bias is so powerful it's completely skewing how I experience the world!

Organic Farming Is Better For The Environment

The simple fact is that they’re not – at least the issue is not that cut and dry.

Ah yes, it is not that cut and dry, but the first part that sentence claims exactly that.

GMOs have the potential to up crop yields, increase nutritious value, and generally improve farming practices while reducing synthetic chemical use

That's a lot of potential, but we've seen little of it come to pass yet. Specifically it turns out its more profitable to make crops pesticide immune/resistant and then use MORE pesticides to help the crop out-compete weeds.

Theoretical genetic engineering sounds fantastic, the actual GM we currently have is rather practical and not at all that great. That doesn't mean GM isn't good, it just means that conventional GM mass produced commercial crops today are not particularly good.

Yet organic proponents refuse to even give GMOs a chance, even to the point of hypocrisy. For example, organic farmers apply Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin (a small insecticidal protein from soil bacteria) unabashedly across their crops every year, as they have for decades. It’s one of the most widely used organic pesticides by organic farmers. Yet when genetic engineering is used to place the gene encoding the Bt toxin into a plant’s genome, the resulting GM plants are vilified by the very people willing to liberally spray the exact same toxin that the gene encodes for over the exact same species of plant.

Apples and Oranges. The Bt toxin and bacteria sprayed on the plants can be easily washed off. The toxin inside very single cell of the plant you're eating - kind of a different animal. Probably still safe, but to shout hypocrisy is FUD.

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 produces16 (some studies place organic yields below 50% those of conventional farms!).

Ah, but other studies have shown organic farms can out produce conventional farms. Again, anything but cut and dry. One thing that is pretty clear is that human labor can have a HUGE impact on yields. Add a lot more labor and you get A LOT more. Obviously manual labor is very expensive. (Yes, even at migrant workers wages, it is very expensive in terms of what fruits and vegetables cost).

Myth #4: It’s all or none

The point of this piece isn’t to vilify organic farming; it’s merely to point out that it’s not as black and white as it looks.

I could have sworn the point was to spread FUD: "Scientific American says Organic food no better than conventional!"

jholman• 15 years ago

I don't get it, why would you assume that the article is FUD?

The article starts off by saying "I'd like to bust a few myths", and proceeds to (allegedly) do so. It also deliberately points out that there are good things about the organic farming movement, AND points out that all of the "bad stuff" is done by some but not all farms, both organic and conventional. It does nothing more or less than what it purports to, and I don't see the first hint of FUD.

And while you appear desperate to rebut it, the best you can do is "I know anecdotes suck, but here's mine!" The funny thing is, unlike your response screed, the article has no less than 18 references. I'm happy to assume that the reference are cherry-picked to back up the author's points, but even so, it's pretty hard to find a blog post that even manages this. What more could you wish for? What more could you wish for than a piece that wishes to "point out that it's not as black and white as it looks".

Mythbusting: Organic Farming

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