Organic Food

[RichardMNixon]

I just want to say that the comments I've seen in this thread have been so remarkably and universally uninformed with regard to modern science that I'm deleting my account immediately. Any website, group, or organization that can produce so many people so willing to expound on a topic about which they clearly possess absolutely no factual knowledge should, I think, be alarming to anyone reading these forums.

I'm going to start by pointing out what a toxin actually is, including an explicit note that you're using it wrong in a way most commonly done by "alternative medicine" practitioners. When I see someone complain about generic "toxins," I immediately brace myself for the pseudoscience BS to come. It never fails. Hell, Mac's fear of evil "toxins" in apple skins was the subject of a joke on Always Sunny. Use actual science if you want to be taken seriously.

Now that you know what a toxin is, would you care to explain what in conventional produce is so bad for us? Or do you just hate topsoil? It's pretty important for agriculture, you know.

 

[Aught3]

I joined this site less than 24 hours ago.

I just want to say that the comments I've seen in this thread have been so remarkably and universally uninformed with regard to modern science that I'm deleting my account immediately. Any website, group, or organization that can produce so many people so willing to expound on a topic about which they clearly possess absolutely no factual knowledge should, I think, be alarming to anyone reading these forums.

Sorry that you feel hard done by, but jumping on arguments we think aren't very good is how it is done around here. 'Toxins' is one of those weasel words that sound impressive but doesn't actually mean anything. I hear it all the time from the alt med crowd.

Anyway for a more scientific discussion of this issue check out this thread: http://www.leagueofreason.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=1963

 

[borrofburi]

Everyone keeps saying that organic crops have lower yields... Is this true? Do we have studies?

I joined this site less than 24 hours ago.

I just want to say that the comments I've seen in this thread have been so remarkably and universally uninformed with regard to modern science that I'm deleting my account immediately. Any website, group, or organization that can produce so many people so willing to expound on a topic about which they clearly possess absolutely no factual knowledge should, I think, be alarming to anyone reading these forums.

Seriously? Your response to people disagreeing with you with "no factual knowledge" isn't "you're wrong about basic facts, and here's 30 scientific studies and illustrations of precisely what the facts are and where you're wrong"? Instead you chose the "you're all wrong so I'm going to take my ball and go home" method?

 

[kenandkids]

Everyone keeps saying that organic crops have lower yields... Is this true? Do we have studies?

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0531-05.htm
http://reason.com/archives/2002/06/05/organic-alchemy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_food

Some of the more flattering sites and their numbers. There is an abundance of material and studies done, most of it on the sceptical or outright "anti-organic" side.

 

[Giliell]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0531-05.htm
http://reason.com/archives/2002/06/05/organic-alchemy

I think if you look at those two sites you'll see why and that this whole debate is characterized by little reason and a lot of lobbying (on both sides, but it is indeed a David against Goliath situation)

You wouldn't think that both articles actually talk about the same study.
The article on a site ironically named "Reason.com" starts with the headline "Organic Alchemy - Organic farming could kill billions of people."
Yes, and Bill Gates also wants to kill billions of people with vaccines, probably organic ones...

Then tbhe article starts with something that's valid criticism of organic farming, it's unfounded adherence to Rudolf Steiners Anthroposophic bullshit. But the way it's presented is nothing like fair criticism.

Biodynamic farming uses such novel preparations as manure fermented in a cow's horn that is buried in the soil for six months through autumn and winter....

, as if all organic farmers were treehugging hippies who overdid on LSD.
they follow that path further in mentioning that:

Other inventions, such as high-yielding crop varieties and modern farm equipment, have also been vital to boosting food supplies. For example, when farm tractors arrived after the 1920s, they replaced draft animals that consumed a quarter of the crops grown in the United States.

Making it look as if organic farmers wanted to get back to horse and ox and low-yield varoeties.

Their claim that organic farming could kill billions of people is based on, well, that

the University of Manitoba agronomist Vaclav Smil credits the Haber-Bosch method of producing nitrogen fertilizer, invented in 1909, with sustaining two billion people today.

Ah, yes. That totally proves a global organic genocide conspiracy...

Then, there are two people who get a say in this article and the one who gets the most space is Alex Avery, director of research for the Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues, a, conveniantly not mentioned in this article, neoconservative libertarian think tank institute.
He's a dishonest lobyist fuckwit, based on his statements in those two articles article.
He claims that

"The Swiss researchers are not thinking globally, they're only acting locally,"

when he himself, as quoted in the other article is concerned with:

Avery also contended that crop rotations and reduced yields of 15% to 40% would devastate American farmers.

He's also advocating for scientific dishonesty:

Defending conventional production, Avery said: "What's interesting about the Swiss paper is what's not in it." A new conventional system avoids erosion by eliminating plowing to dislodge weeds.

"Instead of tilling, you use herbicides,"

He's making it look as if the Swiss researchers cherry-picked their data in favour of organic farming when that's what in reality is what he's advocating.
Remember, the study was done over 21 years.
So, what do you do in science to get good results? Yes, large samples, if possible only one factor that's different. So comparing large sample data collected over 21 years to a cherry-picked small sample data would be absolutely dishonest.

The "Alchemy" article even goes to far to call the herbicides:

Also, since weed control is achieved using environmentally benign herbicides instead of mechanical remo word val through plowing, even more fuel is saved.

Ahhh, yes, and the evidence for that claim somehow escaped their ability to link to actual studies.

In a summary, they make the issue look like it was an epic battle of benevolent conventional farmers who work hard to feed the world versus evil organic farmers who want to commit genocide by starvation.
No word about the fact that the western world uses a high amount of its crops to produce meat. I tried to dig up credible data on the percentage but couldn't find any links that didn't go to vegan-animal-rights-sites, if you have any, let me know.
No word about the fact that we're throwing away billions of tons of food.
No word about the negative impact on rivers, environment, health and so on. They act as if fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides just fall from heaven and disappear by magic afterwards.
And just to show how this is "an open market of ideas", here's a post from pharyngula where PZ Meyers complains about the censorship of an agro-business critical movie:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/09/um_backs_down.php

Now, the other article discussing the study has a bias more towards the organic farming, but I'd call it on average more balanced. It highlights the positive aspects the study found and actually quotes one of the authors. It also quotes an American scientist who published an article in nature about apple farming that found organic farming to be superior. Sure, we can't feed the world on apples, but maybe instead of ideological dogmatism we should look at different fields of farming in detail and see what's best for each crop.

An aspect that the author of the study also mentiones is the hidden overall costs:

However, a true figure would be hard to calculate. "Costs like soil erosion, or pollution of ground water or climate change, these costs are not covered when you run comparisons between organic and conventional products," Fliessbach said. "Society is paying these costs."

Another aspect not discussed in either article is that of third world countries, where we're not talking about large scale heavily industrialized farming. Their yields are significantly lower than ours and organic farming methods are easier and less cost intensice to achieve.
From the wiki-article:

Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, responds to this by pointing out that the average yield of world agriculture is substantially lower than modern sustainable farming yields. Bringing average world yields up to modern organic levels could increase the worlds food supply by 50%.[17]

A 2007 study[18] compiling research from 293 different comparisons into a single study to assess the overall efficiency of the two agricultural systems has concluded that

...organic methods could produce enough food on a global per capita basis to sustain the current human population, and potentially an even larger population, without increasing the agricultural land base. (from the abstract)

The researchers also found that while in developed countries, organic systems on average produce 92% of the yield produced by conventional agriculture, organic systems produce 80% more than conventional farms in developing countries, because the materials needed for organic farming are more accessible than synthetic farming materials to farmers in some poor countries. On the other hand, communities that lack sufficient manure to replenish soils would struggle with organic farming, and the soil would degrade rapidly.[19]

Remember how Avery accused organic farmers of not thinking globally? And how we were told that organic farming would kill billions?

As said before, I'm not an organic farming theist, but I think that we have to change our farming practises drastically to sustain our planet and population.
Only I don't think that there's currently much chance of doing so because of the power of the big agro-industry and their effective lobbying.

 

[borrofburi]

I started this thread mostly because I've recently been told, continually, that organic farming has at least as much yield as "modern farming", and that it's the only sustainable way... My natural response is, of course "sure, it's the only sustainable way, but you can't feed the world off of it (so I guess that means that the world is unsustainable)"... But in truth I don't have any evidence for this.

So then maybe it is true, some sort of "organic farming" is the only way forward...

 

[Giliell]

So then maybe it is true, some sort of "organic farming" is the only way forward...

Well, unless you have an idea of how to sustain conventional farming that relies on fertilizers made of oil once the oil is gone, yes.

 

[borrofburi]

So then maybe it is true, some sort of "organic farming" is the only way forward...

Well, unless you have an idea of how to sustain conventional farming that relies on fertilizers made of oil once the oil is gone, yes.

Can organic feed 9 billion people?

 

[RichardMNixon]

So then maybe it is true, some sort of "organic farming" is the only way forward...

Well, unless you have an idea of how to sustain conventional farming that relies on fertilizers made of oil once the oil is gone, yes.

That's as much a need for sustainable hydrogen production as it is for organic farming.

 

[Giliell]

That's as much a need for sustainable hydrogen production as it is for organic farming.

What?
hydrogen production?
BUt I made a factual error I should correct: The main fertilizer is made from coal and gas, not oil. Of course, they're not going to last forever either and the mehane is often derived via steam cracking from, you guess it, oil.

 

[RichardMNixon]

That's as much a need for sustainable hydrogen production as it is for organic farming.

What?
hydrogen production?
BUt I made a factual error I should correct: The main fertilizer is made from coal and gas, not oil. Of course, they're not going to last forever either and the mehane is often derived via steam cracking from, you guess it, oil.

Fertilizer is produced from ammonia which is made from hydrogen and nitrogen. We get hydrogen from methane or coal, which is why those are required for fertilizer. If we can make hydrogen renewably (using solar energy to split water is a really attractive option in the future), we won't need fossil fuels for fertilizer.

 

[Duvelthehobbit666]

That's as much a need for sustainable hydrogen production as it is for organic farming.

What?
hydrogen production?
BUt I made a factual error I should correct: The main fertilizer is made from coal and gas, not oil. Of course, they're not going to last forever either and the mehane is often derived via steam cracking from, you guess it, oil.

We still have a lot of natural gas from conventional left and when we count unconventional sources, the amount left more than doubles.

 

[Duvelthehobbit666]

Fertilizer is produced from ammonia which is made from hydrogen and nitrogen. We get hydrogen from methane or coal, which is why those are required for fertilizer. If we can make hydrogen renewably (using solar energy to split water is a really attractive option in the future), we won't need fossil fuels for fertilizer.

It is even possible to use gasification on biomass to get syngas. This can be filtered to get hydrogen. It is a way to compensate for the lack of capacity for the method you mentioned. What you mentioned is very efficient but has a small capacity.

 

[Giliell]

Fertilizer is produced from ammonia which is made from hydrogen and nitrogen. We get hydrogen from methane or coal, which is why those are required for fertilizer. If we can make hydrogen renewably (using solar energy to split water is a really attractive option in the future), we won't need fossil fuels for fertilizer.

It is even possible to use gasification on biomass to get syngas. This can be filtered to get hydrogen. It is a way to compensate for the lack of capacity for the method you mentioned. What you mentioned is very efficient but has a small capacity.

Yes, only it doesn't make sense since you have to grow the biomass first, using, you guess it, fertilizer.

It also doesn't adress the other negative side-effects of conventional farming which, as I believe, oount of could be minimized. Sensible crop rotation that greatly reduces the need of fertilizer is one means. The pollution of rivers, land erosion and such will not be solved by getting an infinite amount of fertilizer

 

[Duvelthehobbit666]

Yes, only it doesn't make sense since you have to grow the biomass first, using, you guess it, fertilizer.

It also doesn't adress the other negative side-effects of conventional farming which, as I believe, oount of could be minimized. Sensible crop rotation that greatly reduces the need of fertilizer is one means. The pollution of rivers, land erosion and such will not be solved by getting an infinite amount of fertilizer

Partly wrong. Waste wood.

 

[Giliell]

@Duvell
Yes and if we used all the waste wood in the world we'd get how much biomass to produce biogas? I'm not diminishing the posibilities of alternative energy resources, but currently we us almost 2% of total energy consumption for the Haber-Bosch process which makes me doubt that biogas could account for that

 

[rushye]

All I can say is that organic food doesn't taste good.
Aside from not tasting good, it costs too much than the regular food.
For me, why pay more when you don't get the satisfaction you want from food?

 

[RichardMNixon]

@Duvell
Yes and if we used all the waste wood in the world we'd get how much biomass to produce biogas? I'm not diminishing the posibilities of alternative energy resources, but currently we us almost 2% of total energy consumption for the Haber-Bosch process which makes me doubt that biogas could account for that

"Waste wood" isn't necessarily limited to trees but can include many cellulosic sources. Brazil is already using sugarcane bagasse to heat their homes. Right now we grow great fields of corn and then only use the "fruit" so to speak for fuel; the stalks largely go to waste because they're harder to deal with chemically. It would be a tremendous boon if we could figure out how to do that. It wouldn't even interfere with the food supply, we could grow corn for eating and use the stalks for fuel/fertilizer.

Also I don't think crop rotation is viable any more. The figure given for the number of people Haber-Bosch feeds is, by my understanding, primarily due to the fact that fertilizer obviates the need for rotation, so we can grow crops on formerly fallow fields.

 

[Giliell]

It wouldn't even interfere with the food supply, we could grow corn for eating and use the stalks for fuel/fertilizer.

Also I don't think crop rotation is viable any more. The figure given for the number of people Haber-Bosch feeds is, by my understanding, primarily due to the fact that fertilizer obviates the need for rotation, so we can grow crops on formerly fallow fields.

You do notice that you're promoting a perpetuum mobile here?
And for other crops, the issue isn't that simply. Staw is used already in life stock farming, but there it is used in the production of semi-liquid manure which is also an important fertilizer.
Crop rotation has some other benefits one of them being a diversification of farming and less dependency on a few crops like wheat, soy and corn. Diseases of those crops could be devastating and starve millions.
The problems with all those numbers are that they are a lot of speculation and there are many possibilities.

Claim A: The H-B process feeds 2 billion people
Claim B: If all argiculture were as effective as first world organic farming, we would have 50% more food today
Claim C: Even today we could feed 12 billion people if we all became vegetarians.

Might well be that all 3 of them are true, but each of them has a specific agenda behind it and instead of finding ways to optimize the whole fucking agriculture, dogamatism and of course strong economic interests (can you think of a more devatating scenario for Monsanto, BASF, Dupont and the likes than largely self-reliable farmers who produce a variety of locally processed goods?).