Organic foods

[NAOS]

(since salt13 is doing it, I'll go ahead...)

yo guis, what's the difference between an organic chickpea and an organic potato?















































I've never paid $50 for organic potato on my face

 

[RandyForRubio]

No, you're not going to get sick, but over the long term they may be resulting in increases in cancer -- like radiation exposure. Long term, low-level exposure can result in cancer; it has a cumulative effect, like x-rays from the sun. I know it's very controversial, and if you're not a scientist, it's hard to know who to believe, especially when there are scientists on both sides.

About the soil -- I saw this film "Symphony of the Soil" that discusses the harmful effects of GMO cultivation on topsoil. Because the pesticides / herbicides kill everything but the GMO plant, it ruins the ecosystem and the natural elements that create the soil. You also say you can use less pesticides / herbicides in cultivating GMOs -- since you're a farmer, you ought to know, but I have read that it's also spurred the growth of superweeds, resulting in the need for larger doses of pesticides / herbicides. Believe me, it's hard to know who to believe. It's a war of words, a propaganda war out there.

Oh cool, didnt know we were basing things on what might happen. Let me know when you have scientific data that states GMO's cause cancer. Thanks.

Haven't heard anything on GMO's ruining soil. Sounds like a bunch of unverified hogwash to me.

As far as super weeds, blame the farmers for that. A chemical rotation is just as important as a crop rotation (very), and even though they're told to do it, they still don't. Overuse of one specific chemical will lead to immunity, duh. I wouldnt blame that on GMO's though.

Honestly, the propaganda is very one sided. It's not difficult to see who's spinning more bs than not. All of the science is one one side, the other side is just emotion and lack of logic.

 

[Deleted member 848]

In regards to cancer and pesticides, read Bruce Ames studies. It makes a ton of sense.

As far as GMO's, they do result in a decrease of pesticides. Pretty brilliant tbh. I would love to hear your case for why/how GMO cultivation is wrecking our soil, that should be pretty interesting.

You make it sound like organic farmers are the bastions of truth and Monsanto is pure evil. The truth lies more in the middle. Organic farmers can make a lot of money, they're not all ideologues. Why do you think so many dropped out and went back to conventional farming when organic prices dropped? Now all of a sudden they're back into organic farming again? Smells like money chasers to me. Anyways, I wouldn't worry about pesticide damage to your body. You're not the one applying it, and most of the toxins in your foods are natural anyways. Chances of a person getting sick from pesticides in their food are incredibly remote. Blame it on the GMO's though.

history has tirelessly shown that we are not to trust chemical-producing corporations when they provide assessments on the safety of their compounds (the recent DuPont controversy, as well as exxonMobil come to mind).

 

[Deleted member 848]

Oh cool, didnt know we were basing things on what might happen. Let me know when you have scientific data that states GMO's cause cancer. Thanks.

Haven't heard anything on GMO's ruining soil. Sounds like a bunch of unverified hogwash to me.

As far as super weeds, blame the farmers for that. A chemical rotation is just as important as a crop rotation (very), and even though they're told to do it, they still don't. Overuse of one specific chemical will lead to immunity, duh. I wouldnt blame that on GMO's though.

Honestly, the propaganda is very one sided. It's not difficult to see who's spinning more bs than not. All of the science is one one side, the other side is just emotion and lack of logic.

GMOs dont cause cancer, and they basically almost never cause allergies. The genetics of them tends to be clean. However, it does rob millions of agroautonomy. Not only that, but it also is a disingenuous "cure to world malnutrition" when agrobiodiversity is still needed at the end of the day to provide a host of various nutrients to citizens in need (despite what the creators of Golden Rice will imply).

 

[Deleted member 848]

In regards to yield, yeah they can get pretty close, but not on large acreage plots. We're talking 2-4 acres in general. Sometimes more, but that's mainly with stuff like wheat. Biggest problem is there's very little weed control. So you get lots of weeds, which means it's very difficult to grow certified organic seed, which is a very big issue. Another issue is labor. Organic farming is very labor intensive. Out here, there are dry land farmers who can farm 2000 acres with 2-3 workers...you need more than that to do a couple acres on organic. Where are those workers going to come from? I assure you the work isn't much fun, and doesn't pay overly well.

So yes, based off of small plot studies we could feed the world, but realistically, not a chance.

https://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1799/20141396.abstract

Agriculture today places great strains on biodiversity, soils, water and the atmosphere, and these strains will be exacerbated if current trends in population growth, meat and energy consumption, and food waste continue. Thus, farming systems that are both highly productive and minimize environmental harms are critically needed. How organic agriculture may contribute to world food production has been subject to vigorous debate over the past decade. Here, we revisit this topic comparing organic and conventional yields with a new meta-dataset three times larger than previously used (115 studies containing more than 1000 observations) and a new hierarchical analytical framework that can better account for the heterogeneity and structure in the data. We find organic yields are only 19.2% (±3.7%) lower than conventional yields, a smaller yield gap than previous estimates. More importantly, we find entirely different effects of crop types and management practices on the yield gap compared with previous studies. For example, we found no significant differences in yields for leguminous versus non-leguminous crops, perennials versus annuals or developed versus developing countries. Instead, we found the novel result that two agricultural diversification practices, multi-cropping and crop rotations, substantially reduce the yield gap (to 9 ± 4% and 8 ± 5%, respectively) when the methods were applied in only organic systems. These promising results, based on robust analysis of a larger meta-dataset, suggest that appropriate investment in agroecological research to improve organic management systems could greatly reduce or eliminate the yield gap for some crops or regions.

 

[RandyForRubio]

history has tirelessly shown that we are not to trust chemical-producing corporations when they provide assessments on the safety of their compounds (the recent DuPont controversy, as well as exxonMobil come to mind).

They're not the ones doing the testing. Carry on though.

 

[RandyForRubio]

https://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1799/20141396.abstract

Dawg. Are you gonna sit here and tells that multi-cropping and crop rotations are an organic only thing? Lmao. Get out. Right now. We've been doing that for over 20 years. Unless I read wrong, they're comparing organic yields with a crop rotation to conventional yields without one, that's a poor study. Absolutely ludicrous tbh. In the other study, there was a 20% yield difference. That's incredibly high. Just on wheat, that would be a $300,000 difference for us in one year. And again, I'm not even saying organic is bad, just that it's not as efficient, and the return quality is not as good.

As for your other post, explain how we're losing millions of agroautonomy, and the loss of diversity. I want to make sure i know what you're talking about. I have a good idea, but I want to clarify.

 

[Deleted member 848]

Dawg. Are you gonna sit here and tells that multi-cropping and crop rotations are an organic only thing? Lmao. Get out. Right now. We've been doing that for over 20 years.

Don't put words into my mouth. Straw men harm your legitimacy.

Unless I read wrong, they're comparing organic yields with a crop rotation to conventional yields without one, that's a poor study.

You might want to access the entire paper.

Absolutely ludicrous tbh. In the other study, there was a 20% yield difference. That's incredibly high. Just on wheat, that would be a $300,000 difference for us in one year. And again, I'm not even saying organic is bad, just that it's not as efficient, and the return quality is not as good.

No one has ever argued that the yield of organic is greater, and that it feels in more profit. The question was: can organic farming every be feasible to address hunger on a global scale? If the only downside is a 20% (max) drop in yield, then the answer glowingly becomes "well, probably".

As for your other post, explain how we're losing millions of agroautonomy, and the loss of diversity. I want to make sure i know what you're talking about. I have a good idea, but I want to clarify.

I have to leave for work shortly here. It's what you think it is-- mossnto has ownership over seeds, not the farmer. I'm not sure why you think I said agriautonomy loss results in millions lost. In results in a loss of agroautonomy. I approach farming for a provision-standpoint-- you clearly approach it from a financial one. Also, reading comp pls-- I never said a loss of diversity. I said diversity is still needed-- regardless of whether millions are invested in super crops

 

[Deleted member 848]

They're not the ones doing the testing. Carry on though.

Corporations have a long history of bringing harmful chemicals to market with full knowledge that the testing infrastructure of the government would lack the sophistication to notice its deleterious impacts

 

[RandyForRubio]

Good grief kid, you don't listen.

The reason you couldn't feed the world on organic crops isn't because of the reduced yield, it's because of the increased work load. You're not going to get enough people to work, hell, we can barely get enough people to work on farms right now! If you think the only downside is to organic crops is reduced yield, then you're beyond out of touch. I've detailed most of it already in this thread, but apparently you're just gonna pass it on by. But don't listen to me, I don't know anything about the agriculture business. Nothing at all.

Anyways, yes Monsanto owns a lot of seeds. They don't own all of them. Colleges still own quite a few, as well as many other companies. Westbred, Croplan, I could go on and on. It's not like I enjoy paying royalties to these companies to grow crops, but they are better products than the past. It's not as big of a problem as you think. If people followed the rules they wouldn't get sued...I don't know if you're familiar with how it works, but the buyer (farmers) sign a contract stating they won't regrow the seed from that crop. Many farmers still grow a crop from that seed. Then they get pissed when they get sued for breaking a contract they signed. Sure some of the rules are dumb, but we still have to follow them. If you're going to talk about diversity of varieties available...then well...I don't know what to tell you. There's more wheat varieties than there have ever been. More pea varieties than ever. Corn is increasing, same with soybeans. There are more potato varieties than ever. People are always trying to create new varieties, to breed the next great variety. I can't even keep up with them and I try to follow them fairly close. I guess that's not diverse enough tho.

That article you posted is garbage btw. Awful research.

1) Most conventional farmers employ a multiple year rotation with different crops. For example, our farm has a 5 year rotation with 4 different crops. There are still people who do straight wheat, which is obviously a problem, but it's something that is being stressed and eliminated.

2) They're comparing a multiple crop rotation organic yield to a straight crop (no rotation) conventional yield. Literally apples to oranges. I could detail why, but I honestly don't think you're interested in learning. If you are, ask and I'll explain.

This is my job Dala. My life. Maybe I seem like some corporate hack to you, but I can assure you that I care about what I do, and I want to ensure my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren can do what I do. With our practices our soils have dramatically improved over the last 50 years that we've owned it. We are in constant touch with world renowned scientists. I know what I'm talking about when it comes to this subject, I can assure you of that.

 

[RandyForRubio]

Corporations have a long history of bringing harmful chemicals to market with full knowledge that the testing infrastructure of the government would lack the sophistication to notice its deleterious impacts

lololololololol

Compare the chemicals we use today to the stuff that was around 20 years ago. If you can't see the progress, then you aren't trying. You don't have to believe me, because I know all corporations are evil, but the chemicals we have now are safe. When you can find me proof that they aren't, I'll be here waiting.






/gonna be waiting a long *** time

 

[Dr. Jones]

Chemicals suck.
And so do good wifeys.