Organic and Economy

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Yeah, but that doesn't make it smart for me to intentionally eat them or fling them around the environment in quantities RADICALLY more vast than in the plants etc they came from

Plus which, modern chemistry can come up with much more toxic and persistant products than exist in nature.

So, what is "organic" other than a label for a nostalgic simple lifestyle of the past that some are advocating to market their products produced in a disadvantaged manner that is less efficient in the use of extra steps for the input of raw materials and more costly in time and labor than other more modern methods , and certifications all in the name of being "more healthy"?.

Let's look at that.

"produced in a disadvantaged manner": nope. Costs way less to produce, in some respects (since you don't have to buy all them chemicals to make it happen, for a large variety of reasons, not all of them obvious). Cost on the market has a much to do with demand as anything. For home-grown small-scale stuff, the difference is even smaller. Studies have REPEATEDLY shown that organic crops have equal or sometimes superior yields to fertilizer-and-pesticide-grown crops, the difference tending to be greatest in droughty years.

"that is less efficient in the use of extra steps for the input of raw materials": nope. All the chemistry, mining, transportation and big machinery used in typical industrial agriculture are MORE extra steps and MORE energy used, not less. For commercial crops, it does often require somewhat more man-hours in the field to grow them organically, but still, not less efficient overall.

"more costly in time and labor": why stop there, why not also add in the OTHER costs, like costs of reduced future harvest as the soil is ruined and farmland made PERMANENTLY unusable by typical modern agricultural practices, the cost of all the health problems caused by fertilizers and pesticides, the cost of putting all your production eggs in just one or a few baskets, the cost of having many MORE pest problems to deal with in a great big monoculture than with a greater diversity of crops (as is done in organic farming/gardening), etc etc.

"all in the name of being more healthy": well, if you look at the statistics on the health problems experienced by agricultural workers, you'll see that 'more healthy' is not imaginary; and why is more healthy *bad*; but remember that's NOT the only, nor necessarily even the major, reason for wanting to raise things organically. SUSTAINABILITY is, to me, the biggie. Organic methods are much, much more sustainable in the long run. I don't think trading very short-term gain for long-term disaster is smart, and that's where modern agricultural methods tend to go.

It is unfortunate that the whole "organic" thing is so poorly understood by its opponents. It really is NOT mainly about 'I don't want to eat pesticides so I won't spray'. You need to do FAR more than that to garden/farm organically (building up the soil's health is a real biggie, also raising diversified crops), and there are FAR more benefits than just 'no spray on my apples'.


Pat​

 

[patandchickens]

As an afterthought: IMO the single thing that would MOST contribute to people eating better food would be their raising more of it themselves. Rather than depending on vast commercial monocultures for nearly everything they eat.

People've jsut gotten real, real lazy about food in these parts of the world.

That would also free up more budget for paying enough to have things that most people can't raise themselves, like cows, raised under healthier conditions.

Pat

 

[dancingbear]

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Um, Dude, that's pretty darn close to organic. You've built organic raised beds. You're not using pesticides or herbicides. You're using mulch and compost. That's what organic gardeners with crappy soil do. Yay, you!

Quote:
You had two different varieties, one heirloom, one hybrid? That's not the diff between organic and not organic, that's the diff in breeding. You can grow hybrids organically. You can't call it certified organic for selling purposes unless you had organic seed, and certification, but you can get organic hybrid seeds now, from some sources. I think Bountiful Gardens (they have an on-line catalog) has some, now, but I'm not certain. I didn't pay much attention to where I read it because I prefer heirlooms and traditional, myself. If you want a true side by side comparison, grow organic of a specific variety in a bed separate from non-organic seeds of the same variety. I bet your results would be pretty darn close, if all your other factors are the same.

Quote:
So again, the problem is not with organic methods, but with a handful of dishonest, unscrupulous marketers, making everybody else look bad. I can't disagree with you on that, I get PO'd about the same thing. I don't trust labeling either, on either organic or non-organic. They can both lie like cheap rugs. They don't always, but they can.


Quote:
Beautiful garden, beautiful main squeeze! Nice place, Will!

 

[Rosalind]

If a person selling organic meat comes down with a sick animal, how do we know he didn't administer antibiotics to get the animal to processing in order not to lose money.
If they are raising organic chickens and 10 out of 50 become ill. Will they separate the 10 or will they add antibiotics to the water of all 50.

Oh, I agree w/ this 100%. That's why I stick with locally-shot venison and fish I caught myself. At least I know where they've been.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

To me it's like buying used cars with low miles on them from people who have disconnected the odometer.I know that not all people will do this but if there is a market for cars with low miles people will find ways to get it.I feel the same about the organic label.

I like this statement!....​

 

[Bossroo]

I seam to remember back when I was in college, a few free and easy dancing flower children peace at any cost classmates who flunked out of college. The movement for the nostalgic more simple life of the past was formed since they didn't have the education to do anything other than manual labor if they wanted to follow their ideal. So they whent into organic and hydroponic farming on their cheaper and less productive lands using the Isrealy Kibutz as their model forming communes.They produced vegatables to sell on street corners in town . Soon they found that to be lacking. But, that was an ideal cover for their real crop called something like mary wanna that they sold as their main cash crop in town. After eating the baked cookies or smoked their rolled cigarettes from that crop,the customers partied, danced about and giggled and freaked out, then couldn't remember where they were. One of the more inteligent tinkered with chemicals and produced a more lucrative cash crop that they sold as acid (LSD). This is still the model for the production of illegal drugs albeit the production of the cash crop is now shifting to hydroponics and flourescent lighting inside homes in town and rented or abandoned remote farm buildings for acid production due to the smells given off in cooking to produce the LSD. While some have gone this route, many more have opted to produce their own food in the manner of their forefathers.

 

[dancingbear]

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Have you ever seen an Amish or Mennonite farm?

How do you think people grew food before all the pesticides and herbicides were invented? Were our ancestors that you mentioned just a bunch of stoned druggies, too?

There was a USDA report back in the 1950's that showed that agricultural soils in the US were mineral depleted. That's because crops take up over 70 minerals as they grow. Modern ag practices only routinely replaces 3. It's only gotten worse, since then. Using large amounts of chemicals, and failing to replace proper nutrients in soil, and failing to rebuild organic matter, you can grow food that looks good, but it's not very nutritious, and it lacks flavor as well.

Mocking organics won't change that.

BTW, there are successful organic farms, even in the Southwest.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

How does Amish play into this? I'm not sure they have the answer either.

I'm not a fan of Amish Farmers or their practices. They abuse the system worse than most truthfull americans.

They may be decent with producing produce but their ethics with animals is way off base and out of touch.

 

[dancingbear]

I was just using Amish as an example of organic farmers who are not a bunch of stoner college students, which is an extreme mis-characterization of the group of people who prefer natural methods of raising crops and/or animals.

I'm sorry the Amish in your experience have been less than honest. The ones I've known were honest and dedicated to doing things right. I saw for myself what they used on the soil. Their cows were healthy. The horses were healthy. The goats were healthy. So were the chickens, guineas, ducks, and geese.

As far as "abusing the system" goes, they weren't even in the system. They weren't selling certified organics, they just sold the crops, what they didn't use themselves. They built and maintained their own roads, at their own expense, in the little community I used to visit. They neither paid nor collected Social Security. They lived completely off grid, so no tax money going into that, either. They had their own wells, or got water from a spring or some such on their own property.

I have seen a great many products marketed as "Amish-made", some of which I seriously question. My DH picked up a cook book of supposedly traditional Amish recipes, which is laughable. I doubt the old time traditional recipes called for such things as Bisquick or instant pudding. I have no idea how much of it is actually produced by Amish, how much is an outright lie, how much is produced by people who were born Amish but left the community, etc.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

See that's a lot different from the Amish here. My tax dollars goes to paving the roads that their buggies and horses tear up. I have no problem with them, but with my experience they abuse there stature in life. They claim to be self sufficient but in reality if that's the case why am I paying for the roads they're tearing apart...

That is just one example of why I don't think too highly.

Your right on the money though with the term AMISH made... it seems like it brings more money just like the term organic. It just goes to show that you have your good and bad in everything.