Why Organic?

[DrakeMaiden]

Hmmm . . .

The Hudson Institute

vs.

The University of Michigan

Not sure who to believe on that one.

I'll give you a week to give me an unbiased source.

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

Quote:
What happens after one week?

To receive my degree from Purdue I had to pledge an oath to never trust anything or anyone from Indiana University or the University of Michigan. HE HE HE

Jim

 

[greginshasta]

So I have to express interest Jim. This has been a fun food fight and all, and we even managed to avoid having the thread locked while you were away all day, but...

What's your point that you wanted to end up making or learning in this thread?

The number of us that lean toward organic lifestyle, not just for chicken feed, is pretty evident from today's posts. As least among those who replied. It's pretty lopsided from what I can tell. Pretty passionate too...

So... Spill the beans - what's your side in all this???

You don't believe in organic and want it to go away? You have an open mind and are thinking about contributing to the organic movement? Or what?

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

Quote:
That is a fair question. I don't want Organic to go away, nor do I want it to replace conventional agriculture. I am a fan of prudent antibiotic use, no-till crop production, and botanicals in livestock feeds. I am not a fan of the moldboard plow, organic at all costs, or losing the freedom to choose the type of food I want. I like having access to a variety of fruits and vegetables all year long.

I truly wanted to understand why people are willing to pay 4 to 5 times for organic feed, that wat the motive behind my post. I have serious issues with Dennis Avery as I do Organic zealots. I think Organic in the mainstream is more of a marketing ploy currently.

Jim

 

[1acrefarm]

No marketing ploy for me. I grow as much of my own food as I can. I do not spend 4-5 times the amount for any of my organic goods. I grow them myself. A couple dollars in seeds goes a long way when you do not buy fertilizer or pesticides. My animals do not get all organic food and neither do I. What organic food we get makes me, my family, my animals and my soil healthier. Plus it just plain tastes better.

 

[greginshasta]

Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay :

Dennis Avery

I have not come across Avery, but just this book title alone makes be believe that I don't buy his world view.

http://books.google.com/books?id=u8kCAAAACAAJ&dq=inauthor:Dennis+inauthor:T+inauthor:Avery

And I hope you are wrong about your view of organic products being a marketing ploy, but you are the guy involved in the industry and I'm just a guy trying to live a fairly health-conscious lifestyle.

Wondering if you live in a circle of friends and influences that are not conscious of advocates of organic food, or if your perspective of the peddlers of feed products has made you cynical, or what?

Please tell us how you come to form your opinion?

I'll tell you one thing about my reaction to the prices I have seen for organic feed: I'd like to see the price go down so it would be easier to afford. Perhaps wider adoption of the product would help drive prices down?​

 

[panner123]

Myself, I could care less one way or the other about organic. I know what goes in my animals and myself.
What I don't understand is how people can think they are getting organic from a large grower. It would be far to costly for them to divide their fields up, one for organic the other for non organic. Even if they could do that, how could they keep the non organic materials from blowing across the road onto the organic? Yes, someone could grow their own, but even if a commerical grower wanted to go all organic, how could they stop the surrounding growers from using non organic materials. I believe the vast majority of the so called organic is not. Those selling it as such may believe it is. I do believe it is close.

 

[CarlaRiggs]

I think most people would like to grown 'organically'. The reason we have all the chemicals now was because organic farming just didn't work as well as it should have. Business attempted to come up with a solution. And now there's a backlash. If someone writes with an wholesale mistrust of the large agri corporations, then his/her protestations don't ring as credulous.
Take the situation with DDT. It was discovered after being used in a myriad of ways, that it weakened birds' eggs. An instant ban worldwide; no discussion. Now that ban is being reconsidered as tens of thousands of people in Africa are dying of malaria because of the ban on DDT in all forms.
Ridiculous.
The dust bowl of the 30's wasn't the first drought and famine endured by the nation. Things have changed because of agribusiness, and we are now the leading exporter of food to other countries. Our country is recognized for its charitable feeding of countless developing countries. Millions of people depend upon our country and agribusiness.
The problem with the U of M's 'study' on organic methods is that it doesn't ring true. The authors are "Catherine Badgley, research scientist in the Museum of Paleontology, is a co-author of the paper along with several current and former graduate and undergraduate students from U-M." Why would a paleontologist have anything to do with a paper on organic farming practices? I don't see anyone on this with actual credentials of someone who has made this his field of study.
Developing countries don't have the luxury of rotating cover crops; this whole premise strikes me as odd. There are no references to what comprised their studies... there's just not any information to read of this 'study'. I would want to read the entire study itself, not just a few paragraphs of someone's synopsis.

And as for nuclear energy (I'm assuming DM meant me when writing that

"Really? Do you believe nuclear energy is an answer? Where do you suggest we store all the waste then? We are talking pollution that won't go away in a time frame that is significant to the survival of our species. Shall we send it in rockets directed at the sun and hope we don't have any Challenger incidents? Shall we bury it and cross our finger that it won't leak into ground water? Shall we dump it in the ocean and continue eating all the fish (which by the way has already happened).

The rhetoric doesn't help to educate.... nobody's sending it in rockets, etc. Nuclear energy is much cleaner than oil based energy. If we had developed our energy along these lines, a myriad of problems would never have arisen. These are a few of the problems....
A study in Utah (during the 80's??) showed that particulates in the air were a main component of pollution and poor lung health. Nuclear energy has no particulates. Nuclear power is NOT going to wipe out 'our species'. Pollution from oil based energy is everywhere ~ air from smokestacks and cars, planes, etc. ~ countless oil spills from ships, pipelines and trucks that foul the waters (the Arizona from Pearl Harbor is still leaking oil after all these decades!), kill fish, oxygen, birds, coral, plantlife from all over the world.
Possibly we would not have been involved in the Middle East with less dependency on their oil; ie, no Kuwaiti war involvement, no Iranian students take-over of the US embassy, no OPEC threats of higher oil prices.
France is 75-80% powered by nuclear energy. European countries use nuclear energy. During the 70's and our first run-in with OPEC, they saw the writing on the wall and took steps to lessen their dependency on oil. We began to do so, and then the anti-nuclear insanity swept the country. There was no logical debate on this.

As a nation, as a world, we cannot go back to simpler times.
This is not black and white. These things need to be weighed carefully and then acted upon. Life is complex and becoming more so. It's just the way it is.​

 

[gardener]

Before the industrial revolution everybody was pretty much organic just didnt have a name for it. It was just the normal way to live. My reasoning is I support those that dont use the polluting chemicals to grow their crops. It has to do with good stewardship of this great planet.

 

[kstaven]

Lazy J Here is something for you to consider RE your post on organic study being falsified. It is from Cornell and clearly shows the flaws in the counter argument concerning SRI. Clearly shows compost over chemical fertilizers for max production. http://ciifad.cornell.edu/sri/proc1/sri_10.pdf

It is all about choice and informed choices. I use organic feed. I know the mill where it comes from. So I know exactly what goes in it. I pay 30% more for it than conventional feed and to me it is worth it. If your area is charging 4 to 5 times for organic feed as you say, the consumers are getting ripped off and gouged by the mills, the feed stores OR BOTH.

I choose not to ingest pesticide residue. Did you know it has been proven that many GMO crop pesticides that these plants naturally create are reactivated by enzymes in our digestive systems?

Bio Dynamic farming practices consistantly produce higher average yields.