> Although the levels of individual pesticides are within legal limits, activists fear the combination of multiple chemicals could be particularly damaging to people’s health.
This is the important part. Activists' fear should not dictate health policy. That should be done by scientists.
This organization, Pesticide Action Network, is opposed to GMOs and other modern farming techniques that kicked off the green revolution, seemingly on principle more than anything else. Consumers absolutely should be vigilant, because industrial food production has a bad track record. But with 7 billion humans to feed and counting, it is not realistic to roll back the green revolution.
You're implying that because they're within legal limits everything is A-OK (how are the limits set? Exhibit A: US drinking water pollutant limits, which were raised by Bush, not based on science)
...then launching into an ad hominem attack (either the pesticide amounts are safe or not, and it has nothing to do with who is asking "is this safe or not?")
...and jumping on the word "fear" (I say "I fear the gun you've pointed at me is loaded and the safety off, would you stop pointing it at me until you check it?" You: "Oh ho look who says they're about to get shot based on NOTHING BUT FEAR". No, I'm asking you to CHECK the gun, and in the meantime stop pointing at me, because the nonzero chance of me suffering harm)
...followed by a lot of personal opinion about modern farming techniques
...including a bunch of hand-waiving about how an incredibly complex problem will be magic-bulleted (or even helped) by rolling back the incredibly loose environmental rules farmers are required to follow.
The reason we have 'trouble' feeding 7 billion humans is because of trade policies and protectionism. For example, corn in Mexico is artificially high in price because the US turns a fuckton of its corn into ethanol (which is an energy-negative process) and high fructose corn syrup (which is only cost-effective because the price of sugar imports is kept artificially high by government regulation, to protect US sugar producers.) It's also because we do things like dump food in countries with hunger, thus collapsing prices for local farmers (who then can't survive and stop farming), instead of helping those countries produce or buy more food.
Also, please provide evidence that EU farmers (using lower pesticide amounts) have lower yields than US farmers. Don't forget to account for the cost of the pesticides vs reduced yield.
> You're implying that because they're within legal limits everything is A-OK (how are the limits set? Exhibit A: US drinking water pollutant limits, which were raised by Bush, not based on science)
The obverse is also true: "XY detected in ZY" on its own is not very meaningful, because many compounds can be detected in staggeringly low concentrations.
We found out the hard way that you can have manganese sediment in your drinking water to the point that the water comes out brown and full of sand and it doesn't violate EPA regulations just their recommendations as it clogs all your plumbing fixtures and sets you up for a huge repair bill. And the water company is absolutely not responsible in any way.
Long ago, I had worked at EPA OPP division, the office of pesticide protection. In general, the regulations are not enough. I won't be able to share all the details, but I can say that these kinds of regulations sometime help the pesticide companies because they can legally do the illegal/unethical things.
Another example: EPA allows up to 15 µg/L of lead in drinking water. But lower levels are known to be dangerous:
“Researchers now know, blood lead levels in children as low as five micrograms per deciliter — the Centers for Disease Control's "level of concern" — can lead to IQ deficits and increases in behavior problems like ADHD and conduct disorder.
In adults, low-level exposure of 10 micrograms per deciliter can cause high blood pressure and kidney problems.”
And the CDC has said that no level of lead in blood is safe.
> This is the important part. Activists' fear should not dictate health policy. That should be done by scientists.
I think anyone should be able to raise an objection - and then we should look at the science to decide how valid it is.
The activists seem to be worried that while individually the chemicals are fine, maybe they aren't in combination. I have no idea if that's true or not, but it doesn't sound impossible, and there have certainly been other cases in other contexts where a combination is toxic but the individual parts aren't. If that's been studied great, if not we should definitely study it to find out.
> individually the chemicals are fine, maybe they aren't in combination
I'm sure I've heard colleagues (more on the 'ag' side of the 'agtech' company) mention that, things that can't be used in combination, but I can't see where it would be listed (or find an example where it is) in the pesticides register: https://secure.pesticides.gov.uk/pestreg/prodsearch.asp
I'll ask next week if I remember, curious now, since it seems fairly obvious? Just like you can buy all sorts of safe household & garden chemicals for cleaning etc. but which if you know what you're doing (I don't) and want to (I certainly don't) can be used to construct very not-safe things.
So, once you've reached the truth, like "climate change exists and will have various negative impacts", or "cigarettes are killing millions via cancer", what next?
Look at the dtory of Mediator in France. Same story. Take a substance that's known to cause cardiac valve defects but makes a ton of money, add an easily cleavable chemical group to it, make money until anybody notices, claim you didn't do it on purpose...
> This is the important part. Activists' fear should not dictate health policy. That should be done by scientists.
The default is that vendors dictate health policy. It should be up to them to conclusively prove that these chemicals are not harmful at the concentrations they are used.
Do you think sceintists who have in the past worked for the pesticide producers and are still affiliated with them in various ways should be included in the decisionmaking?
Do you think these scientists are more or less trustworthy than activists with an education and a strong interest in human health?
This is an area where I'm torn. Should I be buying only organic produce or should I be spending the same money and energy on eating less sugar and more of any kind of produce?
There is a tradeoff... with young kids and a full-time job the time I can spend buying or preparing meals is pretty limited. I don't fully understand the magnitude of the risks of, say, eating too much vs. eating too much pesticide.
I'm also kind of irrationally mad at organizations like the Environmental Working Group; as far as I can tell their "dirty dozen list" comes from taking public domain FDA data about toxins in food, dividing the guideline safe amounts by about 10 arbitrarily, and publishing that the public numbers are higher than their (apparently made up?) lower safety thresholds. I just don't understand the science here -- how much extra death are they saying I'm incurring by eating non organic produce and what are the error bars?
42% of people are obesse in usa. That seems like very obviously the more immediate risk by many orders of magnitude. The risk of pesticides (that are within legal limits) is a bit more nebulous, but seems almost certainly nowhere near as pervasive as obesity. If you have a known risk that's significant, probably best to focus there.
However is this really the trade off? For the most part you can't really buy pesticide free food that's unhealthy.
the (magnitude of) risk isn't certain yet, but it's unlikely zero, given our history of poorly quantifying the harmfulness of a variety of substances. a reasonable hedge is to buy organic for the dirty dozen and non-organic for other produce. eat less processed sugar regardless, whether you replace it with fruit or not.
Yeah the fact that it took us years to identify issues with like, BPA or trans fats -- and the constant churn on stuff like glyphosate where it feels like regulators continue to be slower than data -- have me worried. Maybe we should be buying more organic ... It's not any extra time and not overall a huge amount of extra money in the grocery budget.
yah, washing produce thoroughly also helps reduce (but doesn't eliminate) the extra chemicals. these couple precautions don't add too much mental/physical burden, imo.
“In terms of washing, it should remove some residues on the skin of a product (which will often be fungicides used to prevent rotting during storage and transportation). However, many modern pesticides are what are called ‘systemic’ which means that they are absorbed into the plant and distributed throughout its tissues, reaching any fruits or flowers. As a result, pesticide residues are often contained within the body of the produce itself and therefore washing the surface won’t remove them.”
yah, that’s what i’d dimly remembered from when i looked into it last. it’s good to wash right before eating to get rid of other contaminants too, but it won’t remove all pesticides.
>the (magnitude of) risk isn't certain yet, but it's unlikely zero, given our history of poorly quantifying the harmfulness of a variety of substances. a reasonable hedge is to buy organic for the dirty dozen and non-organic for other produce. eat less processed sugar regardless, whether you replace it with fruit or not.
If the goal is to reduce ingestion of substances applied to crops, then what you describe is not a reasonable hedge as both "organic" and conventional crops use pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. You're better off saving your money by buying conventional produce than spending extra money on the purchase of the same thing.
>It’s not about reducing substances–it is about substances that are healthy.
I agree that such substances should not post a risk to human health, but there is no argument that organic crop products are any better for humans than conventional products.
> This is an area where I'm torn. Should I be buying only organic produce or should I be spending the same money and energy on eating less sugar and more of any kind of produce?
Well, if I were you, I would do both, and I would stop working a full-time job so that I could focus on raising my kids.
I would also stop trusting the FDA or any other large org, because they have shown themselves to be untrustworthy and corruptible.
At least in the US and Canada this should work. Of course not everyone can do it and it's not for everyone.
You gotta live in the right place and know the right stuff. You want some acreage. That's where you'll grow your organic veggie garden. This doesn't need too much of the acreage but you also want woodlands that you can get your fire wood from sustainably. You also want to be close enough to somewhere you can legally hunt and know how to hunt. Then you home school the kids. Et voila!
If you want an example of someone that is at least close enough to this (AFAIK they live 50% of the year w/ their parents in Florida and 50% is what I described above) look into the guy that won season 8 of Alone.
Yeah, that is a nice lifestyle but unattainable for 99.999% of humanity. And not very sustainable in terms of land and resources unless you do it as a community. Even then, you could only sustain a tiny, tiny fraction of earth’s current population like this.
I never suggested it is sustainable for anyone else but one individual, the hypothetical individual being a combination of your situation and my perspective and experience applied to my admittedly limited understanding of your situation.
For me the answer to that question, as with most things in life, is a do a bit of both. Don't just buy the same food from the same place all the time.
Most people choose, conciously or not, to trust in organisations like the FDA to work in their interests, and I don't think that trust is wholly misplaced - sure, guidelines might be stretched sometimes in the interests of getting a pesticide product to market, but it's rare that you hear of someone taking a bite of an apple and dropping dead. The issues that arise from toxicity in food come with small doses of the stuff building up over time. You can aleviate this by varying the source and the type of food you consume. The body is pretty resilient and has mechanisms for dealing with managable levels of toxicity. Potatoes, tomatoes and peppers are all from the nightshade family, one of the nastiest natural poisons, and yet we consume tonnes of these with no ill effect.
Try to buy seasonal produce - organic or not, things grown and sold locally will have way less chemical treatments applied to them.
Take the kids to your local farmers market once a month - talk to the stall holders and learn whats fresh and where it comes from. You get a fun family outing and a bit of variety in your food. A little bit of the good stuff is bound to help your body process the chemicals from the bad stuff you buy the rest of the time. It doesnt have to be all or nothing.
It's often more expensive (if not in cash, than in time and effort of preparation) to live on healthy calories versus cheap ones sourced from corn syrup.
Organic requires far more land, more water, more fertilizer and more energy than traditionaly farmed produce. In addition, the pesticed sprayed on crops do not penetrate the skin, and can be removed easy by rinsing the produce with water. But organic crops contain endogenous pesticides that cannot be washed off. Organic crops have been selectively bread over many years to be pest resistant, so that they could be grown commercially by factory farming. They achieve this by producing more natural pesticides, which permeate through all parts of the fruit or veg and make organic produce far more toxic than than traditional food.
(Also the argument that applied pesticides are on the surface of plants/produce only is incorrect as a blanket statement. There are many systemic insecticides on the market and they are usually preferable due to duration of protection.)
“ In terms of washing, it should remove some residues on the skin of a product (which will often be fungicides used to prevent rotting during storage and transportation). However, many modern [synthetic] pesticides are what are called ‘systemic’ which means that they are absorbed into the plant and distributed throughout its tissues, reaching any fruits or flowers. As a result, pesticide residues are often contained within the body of the produce itself and therefore washing the surface won’t remove them.”
Is probably saying that plants accumulate deterring substances against plagues, but this can be applied only in some cases
Such plants would assure to remove unpleasant substances in mature fruits, that are carefully designed to be eaten and to be as safe as possible.
Because different plant species compete for our attention. A plant that keeps putting harmful substances in its fruits is losing the game at middle term. We would just spread more seeds of its tastier competitors instead.
Tubers, bulbs or leaves would compete in a different league in that case
> A plant that keeps putting harmful substances in its fruits is losing the game at middle term. We would just spread more seeds of its tastier competitors instead.
Humans indeed find some endogenous pesticides unpleasant; but we enjoy others very much, to the point of addiction. For example, nicotine from tobacco dust was used historically as a pesticide on other plants, and many modern synthetic pesticides are nicotine analogs (neonics). On a milder note, the compounds that give many herbs their flavor are also insecticides--it's easier to grow basil without an aphid problem than lettuce. The question of why we evolved to enjoy those poisons is interesting, with no clear answer:
That said, the original claim makes little sense. Natural pest resistance often arises from higher concentrations of endogenous pesticides, but this would generally just mean something like "stronger-tasting herbs", not any harm. Even if it were harmful, conventional growers prefer varieties with good natural resistance too.
I don't think that defensive substances to made the plant unpalatable should be put in the same category as modern pesticides, designed to kill everything by contact (including predators) instead of to deter the plant eaters. Is a totally new level.
> ..modern pesticides, designed to kill everything by contact (including predators) instead of to deter the plant eaters..
This is not an accurate statement, obviously modern pesticides are not as targeted as would be optimal but they are most certainly not designed to kill everything by contact. For example I will apply Coragen later in the season when I need Grasshopper control, despite greater expense, because it is much less harmful to bees than more cost-effective options.
>This is an area where I'm torn. Should I be buying only organic produce
No.
>should I be spending the same money and energy on eating less sugar and more of any kind of produce?
Yes.
It is no surprise you feel torn. Tons of money is invested into the marketing of "organic" produce when it has, in-fact, ZERO positive gain over conventional produce. The FUD being forced down everyone's throat by the "organic" industry is designed to make you feel exactly like that. When you introduce doubt, you create a path to convince folks into spending money on your product.
But don't take my or anyone else's word for it. If you can muster the time, spend an hour or so perusing Wikipedia, reading articles and collecting sources and you'll find in relatively short time the "organic" thing is solely a money grab. With "organic" food, you are getting the same exact thing grown by conventional methods but at a higher price.
Groups such as the one mentioned in this article don't want you to perform your own research, they just want you to believe what they have on their web site. It's bogus.
>If you are going to make such unequivocal statements you should back them up with sources, otherwise you are just adding more noise than signal.
You're correct. But as I am not on my personal machine, my catalog isn't available to me and the time it would take to recall all those URLs I don't have. There's good news, however, my statements aren't novel and are very easily backed by less than 3 minutes between a web search and Wikipedia. I hope you hold the author of this article, as well as those within the group mentioned, to the same standard as they have also supplied no reputable sources.
> With "organic" food, you are getting the same exact thing grown by conventional methods but at a higher price.
But thats the problem: you have no way of knowing if "conventional methods" (i.e. no pesticides) were used to grow the produce unless there is a label signaling it. That label is called "organic".
>But thats the problem: you have no way of knowing if "conventional methods" (i.e. no pesticides) were used to grow the produce unless there is a label signaling it. That label is called "organic".
I don't follow. Both "organic" and conventional agriculture use pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers.
USDA certified organic foods are grown and processed according to federal guidelines addressing, among many factors, soil quality, animal raising practices, pest and weed control, and use of additives. Organic producers rely on natural substances and physical, mechanical, or biologically based farming methods to the fullest extent possible.
Produce can be called organic if it’s certified to have grown on soil that had no prohibited substances applied for three years prior to harvest. Prohibited substances include most synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. In instances when a grower has to use a synthetic substance to achieve a specific purpose, the substance must first be approved according to criteria that examine its effects on human health and the environment (see other considerations in “Organic 101: Allowed and Prohibited Substances”).
Conventional pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers are more effective and sustainable. Conventional products require less of the substance to be applied and less frequently. If the concern is about the impact on the environment and humans, then the logical choice between the organic method and conventional is conventional.
Sodium Bicarbonate, commonly known as Baking Soda works well as an efficient and cost effective fungicide and insecticide. It is actually registered with the EPA for use against certain plant fungi, powdery mildew. As a foliar spray used in the garden, it works wonders against fungus and bugs.
There’s approximately no amount of sodium bicarbonate a person could reasonably ingest, in this context or any other, that would be either immediately harmful or prove to be detrimental long term.
The point is that if a product is twice as toxic to humans (or bees, or some other off-target species) but four times as toxic to the target pest, then the grower can use a quarter as much and the adverse impact is half. The relevant factor is that "therapeutic index", not toxicity per gram. By that standard some organic pesticides are better than the conventional average (e.g. azadirachtin), while others are worse (e.g. pyrethrin, or rotenone until it was banned).
Also, please don't take gardening advice from whatever website you're quoting. Sodium bicarbonate is not an effective insecticide. It's a marginally effective fungicide, though potassium bicarbonate would be less toxic to the plants. It's indeed pretty safe for humans, but the dose makes the poison even there and people have died from sodium bicarbonate overdose:
Unfortunately consumer gardening advice seems to be the domain of SEO specialists, not gardening specialists. University extension offices publish high-quality information with much less visibility, like:
Might apply to vinegar, too, another insecticide, although I don’t know if consuming huge quantities of vinegar is bad for you. I’m guessing not as bad as the same quantity of Round-up or a variety of other synthetics.
Many plants would die quickly if you use vinegar and it gets in the soil, same with baling soda. Thats stuff that will work for house plants but not really in a field unless you have a lot of people with tiny brushes...
Sodium bicarbonate isn't actually used in farming like this. Copper pesticides[1] are though, and they are not without their own downsides and consequences.
This article touches on pesticide use in organic farming[2].
I like organic farming, but a lot of what passes for "organic" in the US is far from ideal and feels more like regulator-sanctioned scam. I'd feel more confident buying organic produce if there were stricter guidelines and enforcement.
Theoretically if the pesticide is below a certain threshold I should be fine. However if I mix thousands of dangerous chemicals together while keeping each portion below the danger threshold until I have a cup of this stuff I can gulp down than in theory I should be fine.
However if I suffer from ingesting such a concoction then logically this theory of keeping chemicals below certain danger thresholds does not logically hold weight.
A friend of mine is a mycologist who studies fungi that grow in hydroponic greenhouses. I feel fairly safe saying that there's no such thing as a "clean" environment where anything is allowed to grow. In the best case: if it's clean but nutritious enough to support life, it's ripe for rapid colonization, and probably by something nasty.
It is all good until it isn't and then it's massively expensive replacing or sterilising everything. I wonder how long realistically such level of cleanliness could on average be managed...
I’m assuming there is different list for different countries? Are these “dirty 12” a good representation in the US? If not, anyone can point me to a list similar but for the US?
the dirty dozen concept seems global at this point. i've referred people to this list by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), though i don't know that it's better than any other: https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/dirty-dozen.php
note that the recommendation for these produce items is to buy organic. there's a complementary list (clean fifteen) of the least polluted produce, for which buying regular is fine: https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/clean-fifteen.php
>the dirty dozen concept seems global at this point. i've referred people to this list by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), though i don't know that it's better than any other: https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/dirty-dozen.php
>note that the recommendation for these produce items is to buy organic. there's a complementary list (clean fifteen) of the least polluted produce, for which buying regular is fine: https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/clean-fifteen.php
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a political lobbying group for the organic industry.
yes, it's not an independent body, but one of many from which to triangulate a reasonable position. hopefully it was an obviously neutral recommendation.
This article has so much misleading information. It's bonkers.
>The official figures, analysed by Pesticide Action Network (PAN), found 122 different pesticides in the 12 most polluted products, which the charity calls the “dirty dozen”. Many of these are hazardous to human health; 61% are classified as highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs), a concept used by the UN to identify those substances most harmful to human health or the environment.
>The list of pesticides includes 47 with links to cancer, 15 “reproductive or developmental toxins” that can have adverse effects on sexual function and fertility, and 17 cholinesterase inhibitors that can impair the respiratory system and cause confusion, headaches and weakness. A quarter of the pesticides found are suspected endocrine disruptors that can interfere with hormone systems, causing an array of health problems including birth defects and developmental disorders.
>Every fruit or vegetable on the list contains two or more types of pesticide, with some containing up to 25. Although the levels of individual pesticides are within legal limits, activists fear the combination of multiple chemicals could be particularly damaging to people’s health.
"Although the levels of individual pesticides are within legal limits"
This is buried but this is what it all comes down to.
If you're wondering why you have yet to die from consuming these foods or why our average life expectancy hasn't declined since we began applying these products, it's because they are in-fact not harmful to humans in the quantities allowed for agricultural application.
>“The best way for people to avoid pesticides is to buy organic. Of course, almost no one in the UK can financially afford or access a fully organic diet so that is why we publish the dirty dozen – to help consumers prioritise which produce to avoid,” she said.
Here, again, is the misconception "organic" foods are produced without the application of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizer. Of course these "organic" crops have pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizer applied. If they didn't, there wouldn't be enough output to sustain the size of the "organic" industry we see today.
"Organic" crops may not use the same products as conventional agriculture because of seemingly arbitrary rules they came up with governing the make-up of such products. Now here's where it gets especially frustrating: The "organic" variety of these products are less effective than the more advanced variety used by everyone else. More of the chemical is required to achieve the desired output. More, not less, of these "organic" chemical products are being applied to the "organic" foods you consume.
>There are also environmental implications: half of the top 12 pesticides found are groundwater contaminants, meaning they persist in water bodies, potentially affecting aquatic biodiversity or drinking water quality. The list includes the neonicotinoid acetamiprid which, while thought to be less toxic to pollinators than other neonicotinoids, PAN says could still represent a potential threat to bee health.
This is true for all applications of such chemicals; including the chemicals used to treat "organic" crops. When you put stuff in the environment, it will become detectable in the environment.
>Mole added: “Consumers presume that their food has been through rigorous testing and that if an item is available for sale in the UK then it must be safe. Unfortunately, this is not necessarily the case. [...]”
Yes it is. Rigorous testing is being conducting on a nearly constant basis. Whether we find something in the future that is harmful to humans does not mean testing had not taken place, it means our science and understanding has advanced to the point where we're capable of discovering such a thing.
> [...] We actually have very limited understanding of the long-term impacts to human health of consuming small amounts of tens of different pesticides every day of our lives.”
No we don't. We have a pretty good understanding of the long-term impacts to human health of consuming small amounts of different "organic" and conventional pesticides.
>A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “All food sold in the UK must meet strict rules on pesticide residue to ensure it is safe to eat. These are enforced via a comprehensive residues monitoring programme overseen by an independent specialist body and in 2020 more than 97% of tested samples were compliant.
And buried at the end of it all is this. But why should we believe the government when this interest group is scaring us into buying more "organic" produce?
This is bananas. I am genuinely surprised such a low-quality, low-effort article, spreading blatant fear, uncertainty, and doubt was published by The Guardian.
---
I've enclosed the term "organic" in quotes in some context because the word is absolutely meaningless when used to describe foods. All food is organic. "Organic" is this context is a marketing term and nothing more.
> More of the chemical is required to achieve the desired output.
We need to take in mind what pesticides can be used also to produce less fruits. Pesticides are used to produce fruit that can be sold later. They are not necessarily linked with bigger harvests or more people feed.
Organic trees are able to produce massively without pesticides. Is a myth to say that they can't. Pesticides are just one tool in the box. Sometimes can be replaced simply with a brown paper bag.
You’re entire argued through the comments here seem to be that we should trust the government, current monitoring practices, existing limits, and the current science.
This is a very fucking shaky foundation to base an argument.
We have every reason to be highly doubtful of all of those and to continue to seek more refined certainty.
>You’re entire argued through the comments here seem to be that we should trust the government, current monitoring practices, existing limits, and the current science.
I have mentioned government once and even in that comment was in the context of comparing it to an entity which should not go unquestioned much less anything concerning regulations. That's a straw man.
>This is a very fucking shaky foundation to base an argument.
>We have every reason to be highly doubtful of all of those and to continue to seek more refined certainty.
I have made zero arguments concerning any of this. I don't understand what you're getting to.
> All food is organic. "Organic" is this context is a marketing term and nothing more.
This is a straw-man. "Organic" here refers to the growing methods, not the food... no, the people who coined the terms were not as stupid as you are trying to make them out to be.
And yes, "organic" is marketing term, but it is a regulated marketing term that provides some useful information to the customer.
> I've enclosed the term "organic" in quotes in some context because the word is absolutely meaningless when used to describe foods. All food is organic. "Organic" is this context is a marketing term and nothing more.
I think you mean "natural" not organic? Everything in the universe is inherently natural.
Cynicism about "organic" labels used to be grounded, but at least in the USA, use of the term is now regulated by the USDA and it has a very specific definition.
I used to have similar cynical beliefs about "organic" food. And i think even 10 years ago that cynicism was justified, but not anymore. I encourage you to update your knowledge and to keep an open mind.
Having said that, i think the anti-GMO movement is nonsense. There's nothing wrong with GMO produce as far as i can tell. In the USA, i do not think GMO crops make the harvest non-organic. In other words, GMO status is not related to organic status. I think. Of course thats unlikely to be true in the EU where GMO crops are demonized. Please correct me if wrong.
>I think you mean "natural" not organic? Everything in the universe is inherently natural.
No, I meant organic.
>I used to have similar cynical beliefs about "organic" food. And i think even 10 years ago that cynicism was justified, but not anymore.
My comments aren't derived from cynicism. The information I've provided is widely available and easily consumable. I have not introduced any novel idea or position.
>I encourage you to update your knowledge and to keep an open mind.
Having an open/closed mind has no affect on whether information is correct.
I'm not sure what you're meaning to say by giving that link, but there isn't anything there to refute anything I've commented on. With respect to the organic argument, every topic mentioned in that article applies to organic crop products just as well.
So, 74 'Highly Hazardous Pesticides' from just 12 fruit. And likely with significant crossover, so you get double and triple-dosed.
We know they're more toxic than your ex, and we know that there's people out there eating all these fruits and grains, like your mum.
So why do we have debate on Round-ups' toxicity, or the 'economic benefits' of robot-powered, topsoil-eroding mono-cultures with no life in them?
Why do we talk about MDMA piss polluting rivers after festivals, instead of the persistent petrochemical pesticides fucking up all our water and insects and birds and insides?
We know organic perma-culture is better; for our bodies, for the soil, for the water and birds and bees.
... But there are statuses to quo I guess, so fuck us.
>We know organic perma-culture is better; for our bodies, for the soil, for the water and birds and bees.
It's not better. Not a thing about it makes it better than conventional agriculture. Indeed one could make the argument it is worse than conventional agriculture for the items you listed because of the less effective methods used for "organic" pesticide, herbicide, and fertilizer application.
Permaculture is vague and hand-wavey but some core notions IMHO are thinking about the suitability of sites for agriculture of a given nature, whilst increasing biodiversity (including non-agricultural biodiversity) and reducing reliance on foreign inputs. These are good ideas that generally lead to higher outputs for a given land area and a stronger and more resilient ecosystem.
The catch, however, is labour. You need to be OK with harvesting by hand, eating in season, weeding by hand, etc. And even if you do the full "food forest" approach (note: 5 years to get started) you are going to need a lot of land to support relatively few people. It's primarily a lifestyle thing and not practical at societal scale.
That said, however, it is "better; for our bodies, for the soil, for the water and birds and bees". If you can't see this, you are perhaps insufficiently schooled in biology or being mislead through the use of a simplistic accounting approach typical of traditional agriculture, which externalises costs such as soil and water degradation and assigns no value to sustainability, freshness, local processing, genetic diversity and so-on.
(Full disclosure: I am no farmer, but I operate in the food area and have an interest in related systems. I am from Australia, the origin of permaculture.)
If I believed that synthetic pesticides were harmless, I would probably have the same reaction. It’s ok to disagree. Personally I think his data is old and needs to be refreshed, but he does not see it that way.
This is the important part. Activists' fear should not dictate health policy. That should be done by scientists.
This organization, Pesticide Action Network, is opposed to GMOs and other modern farming techniques that kicked off the green revolution, seemingly on principle more than anything else. Consumers absolutely should be vigilant, because industrial food production has a bad track record. But with 7 billion humans to feed and counting, it is not realistic to roll back the green revolution.