So where's the parallel? Organic food is treated as the opposition, just like Naturopathy or any other form of alternative medicine. The link I'm about to post is on a site called "Skeptoid: Critical Analysis of Pop Phenomena." How the fuck is the alternative food sector "Pop Phenomena"? Citizens of some states have lengthy drives between them and any popular organic food grocer or health food store, even Whole Foods - the Wal-Mart of industrial organic. I doubt some people have even seen a Whole Foods when they're not watching Good Eats. What constitutes "Pop Phenomena," a trend amongst the Hollywood elite? Also: how the fuck can I take a "skeptic" serious or even consider somebody a skeptic when they're a proponent of the "winning" side of the argument? I know it can still make sense semantically, but it's just stupid. You're not a "skeptic" in my eyes, you're a jackass who's trying to reinforce what the majority already believes. Stay tuned, and keep stroking your dicks.
anyways, here is the article
Right on its onset the first paragraph already has an aggressive tone:
"Today we're going to put on our tie dyed shirt, grow our hair long and dirty, claim hatred for science and corporate America, then walk into the most expensive specialty supermarket in town and purchase one of the most overpriced products on the market today: Organic food."
Wow. This article teems edginess, it's practically its second language. I don't even know where to begin with my retort. I can't quit looking at the dude's smug, shit-eating smirk on his face. Actually, a response probably isn't even in order. He's just trying to be witty; I doubt he sincerely believes that every individual who walks into a healthfood store fits that archetype.
Moving onwards, price: the number one thing people are going to bitch about when they're arguing against organic food. If I was going to make a "Defensive GMO Bingo" like that popular "Defensive Omnivore's Bingo," (here) price would be the fucking block in the top left corner. It's a fair assumption that the writer of the article knows more than I do about economics, so shouldn't he know that prices are driven by supply and demand? Organic crops, even industrial organic, don't have the same market power as transgenic crops. My workplace, along with any other grocery store, is (putting it as indelicately as possible) greedy. It costs a lot to order organic foods, considering most major retailers outside of the West Coast have to order their large scale, industrial organic products all the way from California, Arizona, etc. Earthbound farms supplies most grocery stores unspecialized in healthfood in the Midwest. Not only is the shipment longer, more costly, and the organic food naturally has a shorter shelf life - but the product is also stored in a warehouse for extended periods of time waiting to be ordered, making its shelf life even shorter. It's expensive for larger grocery stores unspecialized in healthfood to supply organic options for these reasons (in addition to low demand), and most of them don't deem it worth their cut in profit. I've watched the organic options fluctuate constantly at my workplace, and I have to throw away tons of product firsthand. So it's a given that grocers don't want to spend the extra money and are "greedy" and insensitive to environmental or health concerns, but the large scale organic agri-businesses are also susceptible to greedy practices. This is what most proponents of transgenic food will argue, and it's true. They realize that they're offering a specialty product, so they can demand a higher markup. However, how is that any better or worse than RoundupReady corn or any other herbicide-tolerant seeds that demand monopolies for Monsanto or other similar corporations? Is that any less greedy? How is that any worse than things like runoff from chemical fertilizers? The smaller amount you're paying for transgenic food is ultimately churned back into higher taxes because of more environmental destruction and government subsidies.
Also you have to consider the working conditions at the grocery stores versus healthfood stores. Let's just compare Whole Foods against Wal-Mart; the average wage for a "team-member" at Whole Foods is $11. Holy shit?! I wish I could get paid that money to work in produce like I do right now. Not only that, but Whole Foods offers discounts for its workers, which (as far as I know) Wal-Mart does not. My workplace doesn't even offer any discounts, even though my workplace offers a few benefits and union membership. Where do low prices come from at major retailers? Cutting hours and eliminating operating costs. It makes sense that healthfood stores would have higher prices when their workers have higher wages, more benefits, and more hours. It's not fucking rocket science.
Now let's talk about farmer's markets and the famous Westside market in Cleveland. My favorite produce stand in the Westside market, the Basketeria offers food that's organic, local, and from Amish farms that's cheaper than most produce at even my Super Wal-Mart! Organic food doesn't always necessarily cost more money, you soggy dicks.
Yes, mass-production generally makes a product cheaper - but that should just be common sense. There are plenty of unlisted costs for genetically modified food (potential crop mutation, run-off, soil degredation, health costs, subsidies, etc). Organic food doesn't necessarily cost much more to produce, so long as cover crops are planted and on-site manure is used.
Further down the article the author states that,
"The food itself is identical [which it's not], but it's prepared in such a way to conform to different philosophical standards [....] for animals it requires that they have not been kept healthy through the use of antibiotics." (Skeptoid.com)
The reasons why the animals are given antibiotics are because they're living in such close confines in such high volumes, and because of the poor diets they're fed in place of grass diets to maximize and marbelize their fat. Why the hell would I want to eat an animal that has antibiotics in its daily feed when I won't even take antibiotics myself? The diet of the animals you eat is as important as your overall diet itself, just as a grandmother's diet is ultimately a factor in a grandchild's health, wellness, and proper development. If you're in some totally hypothetical forced cannibalism, would you rather eat a guy in a "tie dyed shirt" with "long and dirty hair" who buys all his produce from local co-ops or a lardass Hell's Angel with a handlebar moustache and clogged arteries, who spends all his freetime eating bar food and drinking cheap domestic beer?
The author of the linked article then follows to say:
"All right, let's take for granted the position that major food producers deserve to be struck with a blow. I'm sure the starving millions in Africa appreciate the sentiment." (Skeptoid.com)
The hunger problem in Africa isn't entirely a result of a lack of arable land, or Americans not helping out "enough" - it's largely the result of the global marketplace. Listen and let me make my argument before anybody dismisses it:
It's a granted that different crops grow well under different conditions, correct? Certain crops demand less precipitation, use fewer or more nutrients from the soil, store carbon differently, grow well in different climates and temperature ranges. Things like corn are not meant to grow well in arid regions! If the Africans were more concerned with growing things like sorghum and bulgur they could get higher crop yields. Not to mention:
"[...] as American and European farmers were also discovering, while fertilizers were a necessary ingredient for modern high-yield agriculture, they were not sufficient to ensure its success. Although African farmers saw massive yield increases within the first few years of adopting the new techniques, in a relatively short time, something odd happened - yields fell unless farmers added steadily greater applications of nitrogen and other fertilizers. This effect was so dramatic that over the course of twenty years, a farmer would need to double his nitrogen applications simply to maintain his yields at their initial level." (The End of Food, Paul Roberts, pp.154)
What does this mean? Well, synthetic fertilizers are ammonia based. Most of that synthetic ammonia is produced using natural gas. The middle east happens to be the largest supplier of natural gas. In attempting to imitate Western growing methods they're consuming large amounts of subsidized chemical fertilizers, and creating economic dependencies upon other nations.
P.S. Now I'm not personally a buyer of all that nationalist bullshit, but if you're going to be one of those assholes who says buying weed supports the middle east (I in no way support marijuana usage, but I don't employ this particular argument) or that you're not a supporter of the current war, then how can you even think for a moment that you're blameless when you're buying transgenic crops en masse that are almost wholly dependent upon middle eastern natural gas?
The following paragraph in End of Food states:
"Why this change occurs isn't entirely clear, but research suggests that under intensive agricultural methods, soils will lose not just macronutrients - nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, which can be replenished synthetically - but the carbon-rich organic matter left over by decaying plants and animals. The organic matter is key to good crop yields. The more organic matter in the soil, the more rainwater the soil can absorb and retain [...] The problem is that soil organic matter, or SOM, can be depleted when farmers raise too many crops without replenishing nutrients with cover crops or manure or other fertilizers. And once SOM begins to fall, the soil's capacity to hold and transport synthetic nutrients also falls, which means that farmers have to add steadily more nitrogen simply to maintain their yields." (The End of Food, Paul Roberts, pp. 154-155)
The real problem is one of the same problems the United States has - monocultures and too much farm land without enough cover crops being planted. A large portion of the corn (very variable in its yields) being grown in Africa that isn't being directly consumed by its citizens is being sold on the global market. Admittedly, most nations want to bring prosperity and potential jobs to their home countries - not excluding those in Africa. Growing corn year round like the Americans is an attempt to stay healthy in the global market, along with the many cash crops native to countries like Kenya - such as coffee, tea, and pineapples. Much of their already meager crop is being sold on the global market instead of being as widely distributed to its citizens, not to mention they're the wrong crops being grown.
One problem with distribution is poor road systems. If we really wanted to help starving nations in Africa, we shouldn't just pump our leftovers onto their plates (ie. giving them a fish, instead of teaching them how to fish in that popular adage) - we should be improving their road systems and helping them build better irrigation systems. We're also not helping their economies by giving them our produce, as opposed to helping their domestic farmers and using our wealth to buy up their products; if anything we're just dragging down their prices and hurting their already struggling farmers even more. As for helping themselves, they should focus more on growing crops native to their regions and quit growing as many crops solely for competition in the global marketplace.
Brian Dunning, the writer of the skeptoid article I linked, continues by saying:
"Make no mistake, organic food is big, big business. The days when the organic produce section of the supermarket represented the product of a small local farmer are long gone. California alone produces over $600 million in organic produce, most of it coming from just five farms [...] the same producers of most non-organic food in the state." (Skeptoid.com)
At this point, the article says something that's undeniable truth - even if it's lacking in its considerations and it involves incredibly surface-level reasoning. Quoting Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan,
"All but one of the vegetables I served that night bore the label of Cal-Organic Farms, which, along with Earthbound, dominates the organic produce section in the supermarket. [...] As part of the consolidation of the organic industry, the company was acquired by Grimmway Farms, which already enjoyed a virtual monopoly in organic carrots. Unlike Earthbound, neither Grimmway nor Cal-Organic has ever been part of the organic movement. Both companies were started by conventional growers looking for a more profitable niche and worried that the state might ban certain key pesticides. [....] Philosophy, in other words, has nothing to do with it." (Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan, pp.174)
The "problem" with Dunning's article is that with its strongly anti-organic undertone, it neglects to recognize with any sort of followup that smaller organic farms still do exist. The options are still extant, with the "beyond organic" farms (like Joel Salatin's Polyface Farms) mentioned in Omnivore's Dilemma, options at local farmer's markets, most produce that comes from the Amish, and even the possibility that the reader him/herself could do small scale organic gardening. Nobody is locked into the prices that are offerred at the supermarket, and it's not our only source of food. Everybody should aspire to not be that detached from their food source by making such base assumptions.
Dunning continues to use Trader Joe's as an example of large scale organic businesses fooling their customers into thinking they're buying something from a family business atmosphere. I don't think that this is a fair assessment, because along with Whole Foods it's the largest national organic grocer. Are you really going to use that as the example? This should already be common knowledge to most people. The sad thing is, so many people think that shopping at Nature's Bin or Mustard Seed or Trader Joe's is the acme of ways they can contribute. I will partially agree with Dunning's overall theme of his article, large scale organic isn't much better than large scale transgenic - but it's still partially better, and it's still a "lesser evil." Dunning even mentions a previous argument of mine but fails to address it, by citing the starting salary for Trader Joe's supervisors. Does he not take into account that the prices we pay at the register directly affect workers' pay? Their salaries or hourly rates aren't necessarily based on profit per se, but the location's profit helps pay for labor and the allocation of more available hours. When more hours are available and workers have higher wages, prices will be higher for the customer. Honestly though, Trader Joe's is consistently one of the cheapest among its competitors - including conventional supermarkets, so they were already a poor example to use if you're trying to convey the idea that organic food is generally more expensive. Trader Joe's even placed second, only under New York's popular Wegmans, in Consumer Report's list of the best received supermarkets (based on customer satisfaction) covered in The Plain Dealer about a year ago with low price being one of its best selling points. What exactly is cheaper than Trader Joe's in Northeast Ohio, from personal experience? Marcs, Wal-Mart, Aldis, and maybe some farmers markets. That's it.
In Dunning's next paragraph, he argues that organic farming creates a breeding ground for disease like ecoli:
"Most local Chinese farming uses organic methods, in that the only fertilizers used are human and animal waste [...] In the case of China and other poor Asian nations, the reason for organic farming has less to do with ideology and more to do with lack of access to modern farming technology." (skeptoid.com)
I can't say I'm personally well read in regards to Chinese farming history, or their current farming conditions. I can say, however, that in the case of Joel Salatin's Polyface Farms, his products rated higher in food safety tests than the average farming operation. Michael Pollan states regarding imposed processing regulations that, "The specifications and costly technologies implictly assume that the animals being processed have been living in filth and eating corn rather than grass." (Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan, pp.250) How are we to not assume that Dunning is making a fallacy by assuming that it's solely their use of organic manure and not the result of poor care, poor diets of those contributing the manure (animal or human), or some other related issue? Shouldn't Joel's farms have ranked lower in food safety tests if it's solely the result of using manure, something used since the advent of agriculture? Also, are you fucking kidding me? Is that even implying that chemical fertilizer is somehow superior to organic matter, including manure?
In addition, if you're going to bitch about fermented urine being used as an organic pesticide - I'll take my pissed on produce, and you can have your carcinogens. Urine is an infinite source of ammonia, unlike natural gas. At the end of a long paragraph about naturalistic fallacy, Dunning closes by saying, "By no definition can 'all natural' mean that a product is healthful." (skeptoid.com) The coin can be reversed, and you could easily make the same statement about synethetic products - but nobody wants to question the integrity of almightly science and its crucified technology, right?
In the next paragraph, Dunning highlights conventional growers' desire to eliminate unforeseen problems by using the most efficient processes and thereby cutting operating costs, and how farming is a highly regulated industry:
"What's the best way to improve the profit margin? To buy less pesticides and fertilizer. This means they must use far more advanced and efficient products. The idea that pesticides leave dangerous residues is many decades out of date. Food production is among the most regulated and scrutinized of processes, and today's synthetic pesticides and fertilizers are completely biodegradable. They're supported by decades of studies that demonstrate their total safety." (skeptoid.com)
The problem is this, and I appologize if my response is a bit "childish" or cliched anti-corporate ramble - much of that research is funded by the producers of the pesticides in question, including Monsanto. There are loopholes that can be evaded at any corner if the money is present. Chemical runoff from farms in Iowa does travel downstream into the Gulf of Mexico and hurt biodiversity. Chemical fertilizer does degrade soil quality, and as I already stated in my discussion of Africa - can ultimately strike demand for placement of greater amounts of fertilizer. I can understand that proponents of organic farming that bring up health concerns regarding chemical residue can be a bit questionable in their sources (chances are a good source would be hard to find anyways, since most studies would be funded in the interests of larger chemical companies), and it's nothing that I'd actively use in my arsenal and expect to be taken seriously. I personally wouldn't put those thoughts too far out of the realm of possibility, but I wouldn't expect them to be key striking points in any argument. If you're comfortable supporting the use of chemical fertilizers that degrade soil quality, maybe not always directly but at least by not returning macronutrients into the soil through organic matter or cover crops, then be happy furthering our dependence upon other countries (including those that most Americans rally at any chance to hate in the middle east). I'm not an opponent of the middle east, but I am a strong supporter of a country producing as many of its commodities as possible, slashing the amount of imported goods, and creating domestic jobs wherever possible. Plus the transport of all those transgenic crops alone is less sustainable, because all of that chemical fertilizer has to be shipped from an offsite source.
One of Dunning's final contentions is that organic farming is ultimately worse for the environment, since it requires more acreage. Well, let's just step back for a second and consider all of the land that's used to grow inedible type 2 corn for byproducts, including ethanol, chemical preservatives, animal feed, and most importantly high fructose corn syrup. Let's also consider all of the rainforests that are being tore down to grow soybeans. Well, last time I checked - soybeans are a very effective cover crop, and pull nutrients (including nitrogen) back into the soil. How about we cut back on the production of inedible corn at least a few months of the year, and instead plant those soybeans we're tearing down rainforest to cultivate? How about we just cut back on the amount of subsidized, inedible corn produced period, and instead plant more edible plants? How about we cut the subsidy programs altogether and give incentive to grow other crops? Ethanol, preservatives, animal feed, and HFCS are all fucking horrible things to begin with - and I hate thinking that so much of my nation's soil is used to produce corn that's stripped down to any one of the four.
Farming should be a small scale operation that isn't stigmatized or associated with negative stereotypes. More educated people should be farmers, and thereby quit being cronies for corporate interest, and sell more of their product at local farmers markets (thusly eliminating storage time, transportation costs, and create a friendly and personal atmosphere). We should also have more of our workforce willing to be farmhands.
I'm well aware that we're on the verge of another food system collapse and another mass starvation. It's very idealistic of me to assume that with our current overpopulation issue that any drastic change could occur anytime soon without consumers demanding their surpluses. Cuba is able to have a self sustaining food system, and China has made a valiant attempt despite its astronomical overpopulation problem. We, as a nation, need to band together and eat less food (meat in particular), put more preparation into our diets and place less emphasis on convenience, form self sustaining farmers market networks in every state, and quit shopping at supermarkets (I'll excuse you if I'm put out of a job because my workplace isn't seeing enough profit). It's a slight possibility within my lifetime, and a definite fallback if a mass starvation does occur. Transgenic farming is simply not sustainable. Energy is lost when you're using chemical fertilizers, since they're highly dependent upon a finite resource. Manure, on the other hand, can be fueled via the sun energy that grows the grass that feeds the cows. You're only complicating issues by attempting to mask one mistake caused by technology with a newer technological fix that has its own set of problems. Technology did not die for our sins, it has its comfortable seat in Hades contemplating more ways to fuck over our species and, unfortunately, planet.
Also, for the record, organic produce is healthier by at least one reputable study:
"A study by University of California-Davis researchers published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry in 2003 described an experiment in which identical varieties of corn, strawberries, and blackberries grown in neighboring plots using different methods (including organically and conventionally) were compared for levels of vitamins and polyphenols. [...] The Davis researchers found that organic and otherwise sustainably grown fruits and vegetables contained significantly higher levels of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and a wide range of polyphenols. [...] Why in the world should organically grown blackberries or corn contain significantly more of these compounds? The authors of the Davis study haven't settled the question, but they offer two suggestive theories. The reason plants produce these compounds in the first place is to defend themselves against pests and disease; the more pressure from pathogens, the more polyphenols a plant will produce. These compounds, then, are the products of natural selection and, more specifically, the coevolutionary relationship between plants and the species that prey on them. Who would have guessed that humans evolved to profit from a diet of these plant pesticides? Or that we would invent an agriculture that then deprived us of them? The Davis authors hypothesize that plants being defended by man-made pesticides don't need to work as hard to make their own polyphenol pesticides. Coddled by us and our chemicals, the plants see no reason to invest their resources in mounting a strong defense." (Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan, pp.179-180)
Which makes perfect sense.
Organic foods are the best, i enjoyed everytime i have an organic food delivered in our house because the fruits were very fresh. I really love it since I found it.
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