Organic Farming Examined

Yokai writes "An article to be released in Science shows that organic farming makes sense. The 21 year study by a Swiss team shows that even though the organic patch had 20% less yield than conventional farming, the input of fertilizer and energy was reduced by between 34% and 53%, and pesticide use by 97%, leading them to believe that organic farming makes sense. Also, the soil from the organic plot was healthier and held more organisms- including those that kill pests."

Comments

correct link

[Kraft]

here

Organic farming or . . .

[linzeal]

Some clearly uninformed hippies in california do not consider genetically engineered crops to be "organically" grown even if they do not require fertilizer. Give me GM-food anyday over food that may decompose quicker or have other quirks that are easily routed around with engineering. "California organic farming" is the bane of feeding the poor in undeveloped nations. If colleges and universtities would just get off their asses and produce departments willing to donate gm crops to poor countries with no strings attached they may be able to finnally solve most of the world hunger not related to despotism.

Re:Organic farming or . . .

[caca_phony]

If colleges and universtities would just get off their asses and produce departments willing to donate gm crops to poor countries with no strings attached they may be able to finnally solve most of the world hunger not related to despotism.

If you add "market forces" to your despotism, we could probably feed them with a couple of carrots.

Ok, I know that is an exageration, but inavailability of food is rarely reducable to a lack of food. It is simple economics- the price of food is low, the producer cannot make a profit at that price, the producer keeps the food in a warehouse until the demand can raise prices, the food rots, people die, the price goes up. This seems crazy, but it happens over and over through modern history. Even in drought conditions, there is always an economic factor - otherwise one could live on imported food. Do not blame nature for the invisible hand's actions (though nature can be quite sadistic herself).

Re:Organic farming or . . .

[linzeal]

Thats the point though. Give them gm crops that work in drought conditions, defeats local varmints, etc.

Re:Organic farming or . . .

[Mr. Slippery]

Give them gm crops that work in drought conditions, defeats local varmints, etc.

Or how about stopping the promotion of global agri-monoculture and helping them bring back the native crops that work in drought conditions, defeats local varmints, etcetera.

GM crops are not only an environmental disaster waiting to happen (since plants and their pollen have this annoying habit of spreading outside where your plant them), and a corporate bastards' wet dream of controlling global food supplies, they are a solution in search of a problem.

Take this "golden rice" bullshit. The areas they're hyping to grow this stuff already have native crops that provide plenty of vitamin A - but these crops are being squeezed out by globalized agriculture.

Re:Organic farming or . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the article. Quite frankly if their religious beliefs get in their way of surviving famine than maybe the world would be better off without them. This is absurd to expect people to take into account every little nuance of another culture so that when they produce something for them they do not get pissed off.

Re:Organic farming or . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy for you to say, hippie, since you're not the one starving to death, or going blind due to Vitamin A deficiency.

Funny how those native crops have done a singularly poor job at keeping the people fed.

Pesticide math?

[molo]

the input .. was reduced by ... and pesticide use by 97%

How does that work? I thought organic farming used NO pesticides, not 3% of the pesticides. Can someone clarify?

Re:Pesticide math?

[caca_phony]

It is not pesticides that cannot be used in organic farming, but rather non-biological ones (you can use all the ladybugs or BT you want- both are technicly pesticides, though they are organisms).

Re:Pesticide math?

[Pulchellissima]

Organic farming implies limited pesticide usage. All the pesticides have to be approved as organic; they are usually plant based (rotenone comes from marigolds for example) and have no to very few environmental side effects. You generally can eat produce sprayed with these things right after spraying. You can't use most chemical herbicides, you have to enrich the soil with compost (usually carefully composted manure). You can use high tech methods like row covers, spun bonded polyfiber frost blankets, micro irrigation...

Organic farming has now been defined by the FDA. There's a big list of what you can and cannot do as an organic farmer. If you wish to call your produce 'organic' you must submit to onsite inspections, follow all the FDA guidelines, and get certified every year at a minimum cost of several thousand dollars. In other words, organic is now Big Business.

I was an organic farmer. I now grow 'farm fresh', 'wholesome' and 'traditional' foods, as I have been shoved out of the organic field by the FDA's rulings. I can't afford the certification, so, I can't use the organic term which the FDA decided it owns.

Re:Pesticide math?

[Anonymous Coward]

let me preface this by saying i'm a strong advocate of organic fFarming.

on the subject of pesticide math, here's what i'm wondering. and the article doesnt really address this.

ok, lets say pesticide costs $100, and fFood will sell fFor $100. i'm using generic amounts and simple dollars, because it's an example and the labels arent exactly important.

if my fFarm is non-organic, i have spent $100 and made $100. i have gained nothing. on the other hand, if my fFarm is organic, and yeilds $80 of fFood, and i only spent $40, i have made $40.

but, let's say my fFood actually sells fFor $1000, and pesticides cost $10.

if my fFarm is non-organic, i have spent $10 and made $1000. i have gained $990. on the other hand, if my fFarm is organic, and yeilds $800 of fFood, and i only spent $4, i have made only $796. the overall gains are $194 LESS with organic.

does this make sense? so the question is, sure the PERCENTAGES are vastly improved with organic, but they assume the prices work out in the fFavour of the fFarmer.

in effect, what this article fFails to mention is actual monetary gain of organic fFarming, not just abstract percentages.

The same goes for your lawn

[bihoy]

Today many homeowners use chemicals on their lawns. The use of products such as Scotts "4 step" actually give your lawn a chemical dependency. They don't allow them to function in a natural organic fashion. In addition they contribute to the pollution of water tables and watersheds. You would be amazed at how far away from a lake, river, or stream that a watershed extends. Basically the use of these chemicals is simply the easy no hassle way to have green lawn. It not necessarily a healthy lawn or healthy for the environment but people don't think about that.

Re:The same goes for your lawn

[Cyno01]

sometimes these super green lawns look unhealthey anyway, in suburbia (shudder) there are subdivisions that seem like they have neighborhood regulations about the color of grass, every single lawn the exact same disgustingly unnaturally bright looking green

Re:The same goes for your lawn

[Anonymous Coward]

What a crock. Typical city folk showing their unfounded bias.

Obviously someone who hasn't looked into real estate or owns his own property--oh, yeah, you can't, because you're getting screwed by the local city district income taxes and the high rate of real estate in an absurdly high demand area that keeps you a renter.

Real estate folk and observant, intelligent people know--Subdivisions have the same color of grass because usually land for housing is nowadays usually owned by a single person who then, instead of selling plots, develops it all at once or in succession rapidly plot by plot. Usually the general contractor gets a contract with a landscape developer to do all the groundwork. That landscape developer probably has a singular source; same grass seed they like, some local sod seller that they have a deal with. Even in areas where plots are sold and developed years apart, the number of different contracters and landscape developers are small, because the home buyer usually ask or see and then use the same or what is recommended by their neighbors.

Given that and a concept known as rain, which usually hits an entirety of a neighborhood, the grass is going to develop pretty much the same way. Furthermore, you'd be surprised how the housing in certain areas are actually rentals or condos under a single property management; lawn care and treatment is essential done in "bulk".

Or, you may be looking at a really upper class neighborhood which paints their grass to piss you off (aside, cbs's csi actually had a case involving a golf course that did this if you don't believe this is done).

The smog from the city you lived in must be getting to your neurons. Last I checked, surburbia is a hell of a lot more green, with gardens, trees, bushes, etc., compared to cities (and I know, living 2 in 2 major ones). And less cars idling in 5-6 o'clock (oh, sorry, 3-7 o'clock for you city folks) dumping tons of crap in the air going nowhere. This idling easily loses out to the weekly output of mowers and tractors (whose exhaust/energy efficiency are horribly regulated) required for a lawn.

Oh, I forgot. Most *real* and recent regulations actually restrict water usage for lawns, along with flyers telling people to simply cut, no bag, and all that. Plus, we probably recycle more than you do (every surburbia I've lived in had recycling laws as well as easy recycling pickup; the 2 cities I lived in did as well, but I hardly saw anyone use them, esp. in apartment complexes, where they just trashed everything except newspapers).

Not related to despotism

[hackwrench]

So, how much of the world's hunger is not related to despotism, and why if the U.S. values human life as the government claims, isn't anyone sending them food. Or is it that the U.S. as a whole doesn't value human life and the terrorists have a legitimate reason to fight the U.S.

Re:Not related to despotism

[linzeal]

Does anyone here think that corporations value human life when they encourage fast food, smoking, and alcholism?

Re:Not related to despotism

[Anonymous Coward]

lmao, we value life above anything else, well most of us, it happens to be the ones that succeed in a market econemy are those that value money, and you don't make money by giving stuff away. and btw, terrorists had no reason to attack, if they valued human life they would not have killed thousands of civilians, they would have killed the few hundred that prevent morals from governing our behaviour.

Re:Not related to despotism

[Anonymous Coward]

you are so incredibly missinformed, you are either a brainwashed terrorist wannabe or you are a little 8 year old kid who talks before he thinks, either way i pity you..

Re:Not related to despotism

[stefanlasiewski]

And yet the US donates more food to needy people then any other country (or bloc of countries).

The horrors committed by US generocity.

Certainly, we can be doing alot more (allowing the countries to feed themselves instead of providing beef cattle for McDonalds, for example); but the US isn't the only one that needs to do it.

Re:Not related to despotism

[eXtro]

Terrorism isn't about the value of human life, its about religious zealotry, centuries of rage, an imbalance of power and perceived injustices. You've got a group of people who believe that upholding their interpretation of their religion is worth more than human life. You've also got a religious war thats been going on for centuries, with one side getting a lot of assistance from outsiders who belong to neither religion. You have an impoverished and downtrodden people who can be warped to believing that suicide is the way to heaven if you take some of the enemy with you. You've also got depots willing to bend religious fervour to further their own agendas. Just for fun throw in a hotly contested strip of desert as well.

I don't know that the U.S. values human life to any great extent per se, but they go about devalueing it less violently.

Re:Not related to despotism

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone here think that corporations value human life when they encourage fast food, smoking, and alcholism?

Oh, please. They give people what they want. Fast food tastes good. Smoking and drinking are fun.

Not everyone is happy sleeping on a concrete floor and living off tofu and rice cakes. If you are, more power to you.

People like you never leave it at that, though. You want to force everyone else to live according to your morality.

You're no different from John Ashcroft, though I have no doubt you consider yourself morally superior to him (as he no doubt considers himself morally superior to you).

Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

the input of fertilizer and energy was reduced by between 34% and 53%, and pesticide use by 97%

What a load of shit, if you use ANY fertilizer or pesticide it's NOT ORGANIC FARMING.

Re:Bullshit

[Cyno01]

look at your post title, wouldn't you agree that thats a pretty organic fertilizer, and theres certaintly enough of it around to fertilize the worlds crops

Re:Bullshit

[skotte]

you really dont have a good understanding of fFertilizer, do you? strictly speaking, water is fFertilizer. no, i'm not so jaded as to think of water as fFertilizer, but the idea here is "things you add to the dirt to make stuff grow".

or did you think all you had to do was throw seeds into some dirt and it will grow, without any help whatsoever?

an organic fFarm -- that is, a place which is built on the idea of fFarming en masse -- will probably have several compost depots. these will be mounds of dirt and decomposing leaves and sticks and such. this is generally considered organic (although the pursit will sift throuhg everything in their compost to take out what might not pass)

US does send food

[texchanchan]

The US does send food and a lot of it, too. Get the details here. MT = metric tons

Excerpt from one of the reports: "A major shipment of U.S.-donated relief food for the Southern Africa region arrived in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on May 26. The U.S.-chartered vessel "Liberty Glory" carried the 33,230 MT of food commodities, valued at $13.3 million. The shipment included 16,940 MT of maize, beans, and vegetable oil for Malawi, valued at $8.9 million, and 8,500 MT for Zambia, worth $2.9 million. These commodities were quickly off-loaded for onward transport to Malawi and Zambia via truck and rail. The "Liberty Glory" is scheduled to arrive in Maputo, Mozambique on June 5-7 in order to deliver the remaining 9,890 MT of food, valued at $4.8 million, for use in Mozambique. In addition, USAID/FFP is in the process of procuring approximately 36,450 MT of additional emergency food commodities, worth $16 million."

Is this labor-intensive?

[texchanchan]

The real question is, how labor-intensive is organic farming carried out on a large scale? For small plots that fit between Swiss mountains, I can imagine it working a lot better than on a Kansas wheat farm.

Who is going to be out there doing the labor? How many more field workers does it take? Where are they going to come from?

Re:Is this labor-intensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

We've got heaps of people who could be doing it. Maybe one farmer should feed ten people, instead of one farmer feeding one hundred people. Current agricultural practices seem to require not much labour, but a huge amount of expensive machinery and diesel to run them. Maybe we just need more farmers. Surely SOMEBODY wants to be a farmer.

Re:Is this labor-intensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point.

You can have all the organic farming you like, but if it is going to be more costly in energy terms to actual farming it, then it may actually damage the environment more.

Another point is the space. In many countries, such as Netherlands, space is at a premium, so much so they are building high-rise farms. If organic farming has less of a yield per m^2 then you need more agricultural space, which could displace natural environments.

But on the whole, I would much prefer to eat organic food. Here in Australia we just discovered that the food we were eating was fertilised cheaply with radioactive cadmium from China. The moral: never trust cheapskate farmers.

Re:Is this labor-intensive?

[skotte]

why would it be labor intensive? did i miss something?

actually, it is my understanding in fFact this is actually easier on labour. instead of laying fFertilizers 5 times a year, they are only doing it twice a year, and then the loads are lighter and work more on their own.

fFor example, a load (so to speak) of manure sits quietly on the dirt and sinks into the soil. as opposed to chemicalstuff, which has to be replenished regularly to keep active. or something of this nature.

Re:Is this labor-intensive?

[benjamindees]

I think a major point of the organic movement is to effect a change in the perception of value of food. Most people see a 1 lb apple and think it is of great quality. Or they see a shiny, bright red apple as opposed to a dull one and think it is better. Ag-companies have played upon these misconceptions for years to sell more products and put smaller growers out of business. As the article hinted, organic foods are generally higher in nutritional value than non-organic. There is a fundamental economic problem with the way farmers are paid per pound of crop, instead of taking quality into account. As the article said, organic methods may only produce 80% of the yields of conventional farming, but the higher quality of the food more than makes up for this loss.

Re:Is this labor-intensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious, why do you use fF for words that begin with the letter f?

fFnord.

Hmmm

[Hard_Code]

Wow, this is nothing like indigenous people have known, um, forever...before we introduced them to "correct" farming by ripping up the ground with a plow and stuffing it with chemicals and pesticides. They should thank us for indebting them to big agribusiness/chemical companies instead of falling for all that "sustainable" mumbo jumbo.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Bull Fucking Shit.

Look at the land formerly known as the Fertile Crescent.

Look at the repeated cycles of soil depletion in pre-Columbian Central America.

The idea that preindustrial farmers lived in harmony with the trees and the flowers and the bunnies and the rainbows is simply absurd.

Not to mention that in preindustrial times a crop failure in your area (and crop failures ALWAYS occur) meant that your family starved. Now it means nothing, since the Evil Technology allows food to be shipped in from other regions that didn't have crop failures.

Also in preindustrial times a large portion of the populace suffered from scurvy in the wintertime and general malnutrition (including the protein deficiencies that limit body growth and stunt mental abilities) almost all the time.

Agribusiness has made it possible for 90% of us to leave behind the life of a subsistence peasant, laboring 16 hours a day just to survive. Those of use who still ARE employed as farmers carry out our jobs from the air-conditioned cab of a motorized combine, rather than digging in the hot sun with a stick.

You don't have a clue.

At what point

[hackwrench]

...in my statements am I horribly misinformed?

Re:At what point

[Anonymous Coward]

Well DUH! You said "America is BAD!"! America is the home of FREEDOM LoVING PEOPLE. Not terrorists. Like for example, America invented the computer, not terrorists. So if you think America is so bad, STOP USING THE INTERNET!

You may be confusing...

[hackwrench]

net human life versus gross. If the terrorists believe that their values once the U.S. is eliminated would result in increased human life, it may justify in their minds the short term loss of life as a result of the attack.

Re:You may be confusing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you.

That does possibly answer a question for me.

I've always wondered why any religion would take up arms.

Christians, defending themselves seems absurd to me.

situation: you a christian, your life is threatened-- you can defend yourselve (with the possibility of sending the attacker to hell), or you can die and go to heaven with the possibility that the attacker will find salvation late adn join you in heaven (which should be what you want-- if you're *really* a christian).

I'd guess the same would go you other religions.

But now I've talked myself out of liking your answer. Religious zealots don't hold human life dear. They hold eternal life dear.

Somebody wants to do this for a living:

[Pulchellissima]

Me.

I do this for a living. I really enjoy it too. I also code for a living. The two nicely complement each other, and allow me an enormous amount of freedom.

There are probably quite a few other people who would be willing to do farmwork if our society valued the work. We don't, so they don't. Hard to fault them such as it is.

Re:Somebody wants to do this for a living:

[texchanchan]

Most people, though, prefer even the most degraded urban life to peasant life. I don't know why because I haven't tried peasant life myself. However, look at the industrial revolution and the current Third World. They aren't all driven off the land. Millions of people go to the cities and live in slums because they prefer it to subsistence farming.

Re:Somebody wants to do this for a living:

[Cmdr Taco (luser)]

I think you may have missed the main thrust of the poster to whom you replied. Restated, can organic farming be scaled to commercial operations? Not small-time stuff like selling your organically grown tomatoes at the roadside, I mean single operations that grown *tons* of produce. A Kansas or Oklahoma wheat farmer may work anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand acres of land. In 1997, Kansas produced a record 492.2 million bushels of wheat. Thats a lot of bread. That wheat really does feed the world.

That's all well and good, but the economy of wheat production is an unstable affair. Many smaller farm operations (ummm, less than 1000 acres) literally "bet the farm" every year. Usually, it's a fairly safe bet. The costs and cashflow are unlike those of other businesses. A new 4WD tractor from John Deere or Case can pull an unbelievable number/size of ploughs or drills and allow 1 or 2 people to work all that land, but they cost more than the farmer's house. During the planting and growing seasons, there is *no income*. You borrow from the bank.

When June/July rolls around, the yield must be just right. If the yield is too low, you may find it difficult to finance the next crop. If the yield is very high on average (not just your farm), the selling price will nosedive and you may find it difficult to finance the next crop.

The costs associated with planting, growing and harvesting are fairly well understood. An infestation of pests is guaranteed to reduce your income. Let alone, your yield will be too low. Hiring a cropduster and paying for the chemicals is money right out of the bank.

Organic gardening methods, which I practice in my 0.125 acre vegatable garden, just don't scale to "feed the world" proportions.

Re:Somebody wants to do this for a living:

[Pulchellissima]

Actually, as I commented somewhere else on this topic, organic farming in the United States is BIG business. Big, like Monsanto gets involved big. It scales quite well to wheat farming, not monocropping though. It's big business because there's a lot of people willing to pay more for the 'organic' label, and because government now owns that label, and can bestow it upon those passing their tests, and paying their fees.

The label protects consumers from businesses passing off their produce as organic when it isn't. It also protects businesses from any sort of challenge by smaller family farmers, by effectively pricing them out of the ability to use the label. It doesn't matter really; my customers know what I can produce, what it tastes like, how it looks, the freshness of it, and they choose it over the big business' organic produce. Is this a model for most of agriculture? I don't know. It's proving ground has just really begun.

Re:Somebody wants to do this for a living:

[Pulchellissima]

Are you sure they are leaving for the cities because they prefer it? The trend to urbanization, which started accelerating in the 1800's and now is quite fullblown, isn't so easily quantified. Many move to cities because they are forced. Remember many peasants do not, and never did, own their land. They work it for hire, giving part of their produce or profit as rent.

Subsistence farming is a hard hard life, I'm sure starving in a city is too. Perhaps it's simply this; once the farmer and his family have left the land, they can't go back for a variety of reasons, whether they would wish to or not.

As I said above, this society denegrates (to a certain extent) the idea of working with one's hands. If I introduced myself as a farmer, what would your image be of me? What if I introduced myself as a PhD (which I will be soon)? Or a programmer in C and Python? The different assumptions each introduction engenders are quite telling, and yet I'm all three. So perhaps the idea that peasants must be choosing to live in a city is less a truism about them, and more a truism about us.

That would imply...

[hackwrench]

that you have no zeal for human life. For it has been my understanding that most religious zealotry has been for a God that the zealot believes ensures the continuance of human life against which all else works against, and I have yet to see a confirmed case otherwise.

Re:That would imply...

[flewp]

For my religion (Call it evolution, physics, science, whatever you want) these terrorists (not just terrorist either, anyone who would rather war than work something out) are quite counterproductive.
I've yet to see a confirmed case otherwise.

Where did I say America is bad

[hackwrench]

There are good things about America and there are bad things about America and I will not limit fighting to the evil in the hearts of terrorists.

Ephesians 6:12 For we fight not against flesh and blood but against...(the translation here is confused)

TACO STRIKES AGAIN

[raduga]

yes, i realise the quote of the day changes so frequently, its hardly worth the karmic holocaust of pointing out a problem with it, since by the time some well-meaning person reads this the quote will have changed anyway, but,

"Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal." - Zaphod Beeblebrox in "Hithiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

has a typo. IT IS REALLY SAD that taco and company have seen fit to edit the quotes to their own standard of typoing. alas :(

Re:TACO STRIKES AGAIN

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU ARE A MORON.

It's true. See, the "quote of the day" is actually "fortune" which is standard with most BSD and Linux distributions. It's not Taco's stuff, it belongs to the whole Internet. Blame someone else. Oh, and try to actually USE Unix once in your life before you die.

Re:TACO STRIKES AGAIN

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't fortune usually give more than just one-liners, thou loudfaced braggart?

Will that really work?

[TheLink]

Who is going to _give_ them gm crops? AFAIK the corps don't want to give anybody anything - all they want to do is _license_ some seeds for _one_ crop. The farmer will be Big Corp's slave.

And whatever it is, people will still starve - it's nothing to do with agricultural efficiency. There's plenty of food to go around, but other people don't want them to get it. People are starving because there is evil in the world (not that we should give up trying to help of course).

Example: in Sudan, when food is being distributed, the Sudanese gov drops bombs - that's because Sudanese gov wants to wipe out the people receiving aid.

Just do a google search on Sudan bombs food.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/from _our_ow n_correspondent/newsid_1287000/1287188.stm

--
And very often in other places the people in power steal the food and resell it.
--
Over here often there is a chicken glut, and some farmers actually _burn_ the chickens :(.

Other countries farmers pour milk onto the fields etcetc.
--
In the old days when farmers have a great harvest they throw a celebration. Now they throw the harvest!

Re:Will that really work?

[linzeal]

No No

We need to have a GPL for biology, genetics, biochemistry, geology, chemistry, engineering, ad nauseum. Without the fundamental right to have a scientific infrastrusture these coutries wane in and out of existance like flickers in the face of civilization. How did it become ours to judge the worthiness of fellow man in such a contradictory way? In one instance of our "justice" we allow such technology to flourish as the principal crop sown in the fields of our hallowed intellectual disciplines, and along even further from anything encroachable we enshrine the efficacy of desire when we sow deep the culture of opulance as reward for treachery directed deep at the roots of freedom.

Make no mistake the industrial revolution may have obliviated the need for ethnic hatred that bred the likes of the master and slave economy; this monster we have unleashed is far more able to be brutish beyond bounds of any compassion.

Re:Will that really work?

[texchanchan]

what?

Re:Will that really work?

[RetsamYthgimla]

You know, I had to read that twice to see the double/triple meanings of the metaphors you used. Very interesting.

Are these your own thoughts, or are you part of or subscribe to an organization that has more information? Do you have a website that I can visit?

I'm not trying to be a troll or anything. I just am torn between defending capitalism and the USA and other developed countries, and the need for humanity which sometimes seems to fly right in the face of the ideals this country functions on today.

Pesticide free works for myself

[BetaJim]

In my garden the Colorado Potato Beetle is my summer nemesis. Growing up, Dad would always use pesticides to control them. It didn't work very well. We still had to pick the larva off the plants by hand.

Now, for my garden, I've ditched the pesticides. After doing some research on the potato beetle, I found out that they quickly become resistant to one pesticide, unless you continuously use different type of pesticides (this explains my father failing to control them.)

My solution? I control the bug by hand. Once a week I examine the plants and squish and kill all the egg clusters, larva, and adults that I find. This keeps the population managable to the point that predators of the potato beetle keep things under control. This method works very well.

I don't expect that large farms can invest in this much labor, but for my home garden this is a good solution. Oh, large farms also use other pesticide-free methods to control the beetle, such as plastic lined trenchs that catch and trap the bug.

Devils Advocate

[4of12]

pesticide use by 97%,

For the record, I

• like organic farming,
• prefer to buy organic produce when I can,
• dislike GM foods or GM anything else (there's too much unknown about biochemical interaction in our ecosystem),
• dislike livestock loaded with hormones and antibiotics, etc.

But.

I have to wonder about how sustainable the non-use of pesticides can be.

Think about human vaccinations against childhood diseases. Overall, it's a great idea. On an individual basis, if everyone else's child has been vaccinated, then you can forego the risks of vaccination, secure in knowing that your child will probably play only with other vaccinated children that will not subject your child to those diseases. Also, by not vaccinating your child, you don't suffer the one in several hundred thousand risk that your child will actually get sick. Great.

Great, until more and more other parents also decide that they don't like the risks of vaccination on their children, either. Then you end up with a sufficient pool of unvaccinated children, where there is increased risk that the diseases will take hold and be communicated in that group.

Is it not similar to an organic farmer sitting in the middle of California's Central Valley, with all his neighbors using all manner of ugly pesticides to effectively sterilize their fields? The small organic farmer has little to worry about: he's not going to catch any pests from his neighbors.

You see my point. At some critical level of non-use of pesticides, the pests will start to propagate much more than they do now.

Pay up, criminal

[Anonymous Coward]

You have confused Douglas Adams' book "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" with my new book "Hithiker's Guide to the Galaxy". You will now pay me [pinky to corner of mouth]100 BILLION DOLLARS![/pinky...] for infringing on my copyright. If you don't comply, I will have Jack Valenti come to your house and sing showtunes until you pay up.

Organic Markets

[wbtittle]

If organic farming is so much cheaper than conventional farming, why is it that they charge so much more for the produce? I don't buy organic for the simple reason that I don't taste much difference, and I don't like spending that much extra money.

There are very good reasons that we use pesticides and fertilizer and they have nothing to do with "conspiracies." It all comes down to growing crops cheaper so you can make money in a competitive system.

If organic was actually cheaper, I guarantee you the farmers would have found out a long time ago.

brad

Re:Organic Markets

[skotte]

i agree in concept. but in truth, there's a couple things to take into consideration.

fFirstly, supply and demand. it's quite likely you eat more or less organic fFood without knowing it. but when people put a little label on it, this makes it really worth something. so the price goes up.

and because people are willing to pay the premiums. people like to fFeel like they are getting more than they are getting. my mother in law will eat only organics if she can. and she maintains my next point.

the fFood is simply better fFor you. the yeild may be less, but it is a higher quality. so the price actually is higher fFor the higher value. to put this into more common terms, compare Mcdonalds with the Ritz Steak House. the ritz makes more money per meal, because the price is higher. but not everyone eats at the ritz all the time. sometimes ya just wanna crummy burger and fFries. or its all you can afford right then. likewise, organic has a higher payout fFrom a higher price fFor higher quality fFood. but not everyone is willing/able to buy the better stuff.

Re:Organic Markets

[Mr. Slippery]

If organic farming is so much cheaper than conventional farming, why is it that they charge so much more for the produce?

Because industrialized agriculture gets to exernalize much of its costs.

If argibusiness had to pay for all the soil erosion, pesticide and fertilizer run-off, medical costs of pesticide-contaminated food, et cetera; and if big farms didn't have massive subsidies for water; and if we all paid the true price for a gallon of fuel, including enviromental costs and military costs to keep the oil flowing; then it would be obvious that the true cost of organic agriculture is much lower.

But until we have an economic system with some basis in reality when it comes to natural resources, you'll have to take all this into account yourself.

Re:Organic Markets

[Anonymous Coward]

" ...I don't taste much difference..."

This isn't a function of organic vs inorganic. That's a function of variety of produce, freshness, and was it picked at the right time.

Re:Organic Markets

[Anonymous Coward]

Because industrialized agriculture gets to exernalize much of its costs.

Yeah, and if it weren't for those kulak counterrevolutionaries, the 5 Year Plan would have produced overwhelming prosperity for the New Soviet Man.

Organic farming producing LESS?

[Miska]

I seem to remember having read different stories about organic farming actually yielding more produce than conventional farming.

(The difference was largely attributed to crop rotation being used in organic farming, leading to the soil becomming less 'exhausted' than on a single-crop scheme)

Here's one...
http://www.projectcensored.org/stories/200 1/12.htm l

.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

[Organic Farming has] 20% less yield,[but] fertilizer and energy was reduced by between 34% and 53%, and pesticide use by 97%.

Initial response: Wow! 97, 34, and 53 are big numbers, and 20 is a smaller number.

Reasoned Response: Time for a little algebra. Say 'g' is the gross income from crop sales (yield * price per bushel), and 'p' is the total cost of pesticides, fertilizers, energy, etc. in a conventional farm. so:
(1*g - 1*p) is the amount of money left over after paying for pesticides, etc. in conventional farming
Let's say that organic farming results in a 60% decrease in total costs of energy, fertilizer, pesticides etc. (60% is a round number near the average [61.3] of 34, 53 and 97 %) so:
(0.8*g - 0.6*p) is the amount of money left over after paying for pesticides, etc. in organic farming.

Let's compute the "break even" point for the percentage of pesticide costs as a fraction of gross profits.
1*g - 1*p = 0.8*g - 0.6*p
0.2*g = 0.4*p
p = 0.5*g

So in order to make a switch to organic farming economical for a farmer, the cost of pesticides, fertilizer and energy has to account for at least 50% of the *GROSS* income, leaving less than half to take care of the morgage payments on the land, the cost of seed, morgage on the machinery, machine maintainence, cost of hired help, taxes, living expenses for the farmer's family, etc.

The savings would be nice, but I doubt farmers spend the majority of their income on fetilizer, pesticides and energy.

Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

[skotte]

ahhhh .. this is a much better version of what i was trying to illustrate over here:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=33492& cid=3625213
although i think mine sounds like simpler english, you have nicely asked what i was struggling to get at. the basic actual math of the loss/gain difference.

at any rate, all this doesnt mean they are "lying", per se, just not giving us all the data. consider, what is the time difference involved, or more specifically, the labour-pay rates. (are organic methods more/less labour intensive, or do they require a more/less skilled hand, which would require more/less pay?)

this is a great study. but this article alone doesnt give anywhere near enough data to convert an entire industry.

Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you are totally wrong on that one... in fact fertilizer, pesticides and fuel probably accounted for 90% of the total cost of production when I grew up on a farm

Farming, at least the large acreage corn-soybeans-wheat that I am familiar with, is a high volume low margin operation.

This reminds me totally of the "minimum-till" practices that were so radical when first introduced and now nobody even remembers that it wasn't always done that way.

Junk Science Debunked

[DigitalRover]

So let's try to sum this whole thing up: Organic farming is "better" because it produces ~20% less yield but there are more bugs in the ground. Yeah.

But let's delve deeper into the actual methodology. How big was the plot of land that they studied. One would assume that they would devote several hundred acres so that minor local anomalies would skew their results. Well, one would be wrong. The plot was about 3.5 acres. And what about the "ecological benefits" that make the smaller yields palatable? How was this actually measured? Did they look at chemical content in the earth? How about in the crops? No, they counted the number of worms and insects. How is that ecologically meaningful, especially with such a small sample size?

While there is a need for greater efficiency in the chemicals and methods of modern day farming, this "study" proves nothing. If anything, it shows that anyone who buys "organic" crops is getting ripped off. After all, if "organic" farming is so much more efficient (get a load of how they caculated that!) why do they cost more at the store!?

This, and other garbage science, is debunked on a regular basis at JunkScience.com

Re:Junk Science Debunked

[benjamindees]

After all, if "organic" farming is so much more efficient (get a load of how they caculated that!) why do they cost more at the store!?

The same way a car that is more "fuel-efficient" costs more than one that is not. The study used efficiency in the proper, (energy-input)/(product output) sense. This has nothing to do with economics, it's called "science". Go read a highschool physics textbook and get back to us.

Re:Junk Science Debunked

[mess31173]

I may get flamed for this but, I don't know if I trust a source that cant even get the first sentence of their article right. I would tend to believe the organic peoples results over a guy who cant write an english sentence. Just a thought.

Re:Junk Science Debunked

[ammonoid]

I went and looked at JunkScience.com. As a working scientist I am always on the lookout for sites I can refer people to that debunk bad work. I had a hunch about the quality of this site from the tone of the post, but being the enquiring type I am off I went. JunkScience seems very selective in the issues it describes as examples of junk. I looked at the sites definitions of who uses "JunkScience", and was entertained to read that gun-control advocates did, but not anit-gun control advocates. I have seen statistics from both lobbies that are flawed. I fear "JunkScience" is a blatantly political site that has a (not very) hidden agenda. The point is to reinforce political views, not debunk bad statistical practice. For an exmaple of a site that does demolish bad science try http://www.badastronomy.com/ This is the sort of tenor I would expect from a site genuinely concerned with debunking the abuse of science. Compare and contrast.

Re:Junk Science Debunked

[texchanchan]

thanks... junkscience seemed so promising a concept... but then I went and looked at it. Man, why can't people just get things straight without adding in their politics? And usually a high level of indignation ("the amphetamine of the emotions"TM)

Re:Junk Science Debunked

[Anonymous Coward]

The fifth paragraph turned me off of the article.

"They are from the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture and the Swiss Federal Research Station for Agroecology and Agriculture."

Great. A bunch of tree huggers think organic farming is better than using pesticides.

For the record, I'm a tree-hugger, I just wish they had a more credible-sounding source of this data.

Anti-Biotics in Beef? Chemical Fertalizers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Same issue. On one side we have the fast cheep path on one side we have the long hard path. In both cases by dropping technology we save money on capital expenidutes but loose money on yeild.

Dropping anti-biotics from meat production would cost the average AmeriKan consumer $9.00 per year. Wow too much for me! I want anti-biotic staph infections killing me after I go to the Dr. for a simple checkup! Yummy fun!

Same deal with chemical fertilzers. But wait there's more. Most of the cheical fertalizers in this country come from reliaming minearl in smoke stacks. Yum, TODAYS INDUSTRIAL WASTE IS TOMOROWS DINNER!

In this case NERDS ARE WRONG. Technology has no place in soil food production. If you want to use technology for farming organic-aeroponics or nothing. Give up on soil you Jackasses!

Re:Anti-Biotics in Beef? Chemical Fertalizers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the GUI has triumphed after all, since illiterates can now use a computer.

another possibility...

[DuckDodgers]

is that one guy spends $300 on pesticides for $1000 of crop and the other spends $3 on pesticides for $800 crop. In that case, yield is better for the organic farmer.

I have no idea if that is the case. I just wanted to illustrate that the lack of completeness in the statistics could swing the argument either way.

Not that it matters, since the thread is dead...

[DuckDodgers]

But I have to say... how libertarian of you! I don't know if that's what you intended, but that's how it came out.

Re:Not that it matters, since the thread is dead..

[Mr. Slippery]

how libertarian of you!

You can generally find me somewhere between the Greens and the Libertarians, hanging around with the libertarian socialists and Zenarchists. :-)

I used to use the "DuckDogers" nick playing QuakeWorld.

Sustainability is the only issue

[Zen Mastuh]

Agriculture is an ~8,000 year old undertaking. Most of the changes in agriculture have occured in the last hundred years. In that time much of the arable land has been developed or paved over. We have increasing food production demands and a decreasing quantity of land with which to produce food on. Hence the need for food science.

Brief segue: I read an article online [maybe here?] about research for food/air/water/waste systems for a mission to Mars. The major requirement is that the systems on the spaceship must use the waste from the other systems to minimize resources used and to keep the human cargo alive for the entire trip. Planet earth can be thought of as a space ship--and it has--and that puts everthing into a more clear perspective.

Will our spaceship be able to sustain its human cargo? Our current system of chemo-geneto-monoculture guarantees high yields for now, but has problems of its own. For example, monoculture requires high levels of fertilizers. Most chemical fertilizers have a chloride content in the teens percentagewise--eventually the salt content in the soil will become high enough to render the soil infertile. The lack of rotting organic matter in the soil causes the soil to hold very little water, which calls for additives to increase water holding. Other posters have pointed out the production costs which are borne by the rest of society--such as fertilizer runoff and cross breeding by GM crops--so I won't elaborate on that. There is also the practice of using Roundup-ready GM crops which can survive high doses of that product. What happens to that soil once the GM crops are banned or if Monsanto pulls the plug on that product? The soil becomes poisonous and incapable of growing any crops.

There is only one system of agriculture that employs sustainability in the heart of its philosophy: organic. Yes, it is labor intensive. Yes, it is expensive. However it does appear to be the only way to travel. Call me a hippy or engage in whatever ad hominem attack that your threatened sensibilities deem necessary, but don't raid my crops when your farming methods fail.

Re:Sustainability is the only issue

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens to that soil once the GM crops are banned or if Monsanto pulls the plug on that product?

Nothing, since Roundup isn't a long-persistence herbicide. Of course, if nutbars like you don't get their way the GM crops won't be banned in the first place.

There is only one system of agriculture that employs sustainability in the heart of its philosophy: organic. Yes, it is labor intensive.

I take it you're volunteering to be the one doing the labor?

I didn't think so.

Have a rebuttal, Mr. AC

[Zen Mastuh]

Roundup isn't a long-persistence herbicide

It isn't effective for long, but still toxic. Don't forget runoff and the other costs to society that you "non-nutbar" types conveniently leave out of your analysis.

I take it you're volunteering to be the one doing the labor? I didn't think so.

Sorry, bud--I already do! Really, your cynicism prevents you from thinking objectively. You are being angry with me because our society doesn't value farm labor but [for example...] pays people thousands of dollars a day to model clothing in front of a camera.