Giving "Organic" a real meaning

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I don't know the exact definition of "sustainable" in politics but in common sense usage I assume it'd mean "something that can be sustained" and in that sense I don't like how it is used in politics since it implies that anything that is not under the umbrella terms "sustainable" can't be sustained.

This is another word the organotards have hijacked for their special brand of stupidity.

My family owns farms. I presume we use "unsustainable" methods, since they are not "organic" farms. The land we own has been farmed for well over 100 years, and during those 100+ years, the trend has been ever increasing yields. But since we are using "unsustainable" methods, at some point the yield should start trending down, eventually approaching zero. And yet.....

I'd really like it if one of these nuts could tell me when our land will start its inevitable downward slide, because I'd like to sell it at that point. But when I ask, all I hear is the sound of crickets chirping.

 

[Cuddles]

Sustainable with some real certification for sourcing is long overdue.

Part of the problem is that there are various different attributes of production that are often in conflict with each other. Sustainable is not necessarily non-polluting, and neither of those are necessarily fair to the producers.

I think the big problem with labels like "organic", "green", and so on, is that they ignore these conflicts and try to lump everything good together under one term. Fairtrade cocoa could still mean cutting down rainforests. Sustainable farming could still mean fertilisers and pesticides poisoning fish. In the end, any activity on a large enough scale will have an impact on the surrounding environment. The trouble with just calling a certain set of practices "green" is that its a huge over-simplification that seems to lead to many people not even realising these issues exist at all.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Wow... And I thought "organic" was pretty hilarious... I'm now imagining everything in my local grocery store that's currently labeled "organic" as being labeled "biological". Yikes!

Out of curiosity, how does that work with things like soap and clothing? Around here, we've got a large market of "organic" non-food items. Would one wear biological pants (oh dear that sounds bad) while eating biological beet roots and soaking their feet in a biological bath?

In Germany they use the "bio" label too. And yeah, I too thought it's beyond ridiculous to buy tomatoes labelled as biological. Are the other tomatoes produced by a Star Trek kinda replicator?

Though I have an example which for me topped even that. On a tube of calcium tablets at the supermarket they felt a need to mention in big bold letters, "made from natural minerals". Yeah, I'd hate to get some artifficial calcium in my system

 

[Safe-Keeper]

In Norway, like in Sweden, it's "ecological", with the "bio-" prefix as an additional marketing term.

Though I have an example which for me topped even that. On a tube of calcium tablets at the supermarket they felt a need to mention in big bold letters, "made from natural minerals". Yeah, I'd hate to get some artifficial calcium in my system

Norwegian Coca-Cola bottles currently proudly state that the drink contains no artificial ingredients. Wow, guess Coca-Cola is incredibly healthy, then!

 

[Dymanic]

I teach chemistry, including a large portion of organic chemistry.

Yesterday I had an argument with a student who insisted that gold was organic. Because it's natural, which means the same thing, apparently.

And, apparently, you were both making the same mistake, which is to assume that "organic farming" and "organic food" are equivalent. This is easily forgiven, as an enormous amount of commercial advertising has been dedicated to creating precisely this mistaken impression. In that commercial sense, the term "organic" reminds me a lot of the way "Indian Made" has been used (and abused) in the jewelry industry.

In its original context, the phrase "organic farming" does not refer to chemistry, nor does it refer to food per se; it is about farming -- and the idea of "the farm as organism" is invoked metaphorically:

"An organic farm, properly speaking, is not one that uses certain methods and substances and avoids others; it is a farm whose structure is formed in imitation of the structure of a natural system that has the integrity, the independence and the benign dependence of an organism."
- Wendell Berry, "The Gift of Good Land"

There may still be considerable room to debate how meaningful the word "organic" is in the context of agricultural practices, but that debate is not settled on the observation that it is an essentially meaningless distinction on the grocery store shelf.

 

[Madalch]

In Norway, like in Sweden, it's "ecological", with the "bio-" prefix as an additional marketing term.
Norwegian Coca-Cola bottles currently proudly state that the drink contains no artificial ingredients. Wow, guess Coca-Cola is incredibly healthy, then!

Of course. It contains -real- water, -real- carbon dioxide, -real- sugar, -real- caramel colouring (made by burning -real- sugar), -real- cola and coca extracts, -real- caffeine, -real- phosphoric acid, and -real- citric acid. What's artificial about that?

 

[Madalch]

And, apparently, you were both making the same mistake, which is to assume that "organic farming" and "organic food" are equivalent.

Huh? I wasn't even talking about organic food or organic farming- she was using the term "organic" to mean natural, whereas I was using it to mean -organic- (as in, having to do with compounds containing carbon-carbon or carbon-hydrogen bonds. You know, the -actual- use of the term organic when in a chemistry class).

 

[Dymanic]

Huh? I wasn't even talking about organic food or organic farming- she was using the term "organic" to mean natural, whereas I was using it to mean -organic- (as in, having to do with compounds containing carbon-carbon or carbon-hydrogen bonds. You know, the -actual- use of the term organic when in a chemistry class).

Perhaps if I rephrase. The meaning of that term in a chemistry class is just as misapplied in this context as are some vague and bambi-esque notions about what is "natural". You and she were equally wrong.

 

[Madalch]

Perhaps if I rephrase. The meaning of that term in a chemistry class is just as misapplied in this context as are some vague and bambi-esque notions about what is "natural". You and she were equally wrong.

Really? And you know exactly in which context we were speaking, for me to have been so terribly wrong in context?

I'll give you a clue (in which you seem to be so terribly lacking). This was in a chemistry class.

 

[Dymanic]

Really? And you know exactly in which context we were speaking, for me to have been so terribly wrong in context?

I'll give you a clue (in which you seem to be so terribly lacking). This was in a chemistry class.

I see that I was hasty there. I assumed that your relating of that exchange was somehow connected with the discussion we're having here, and I now realize that it was not. So you weren't equally wrong; you were equally irrelevant. My apology.

 

[SRW]

Going back to the article listed in the OP, does anyone feel that this effort will work?

Or are the ideas of organic and sustainable forever to be used as marketing slogans by industry and "tree huggers (for lack of a better term)" meaninglessly?

A broad-based consortium of retail heavyweights, trade associations and environmental organizations (from Wal-Mart to Natural Resources Defense Council) are testing out a system to measure everything from pesticides and irrigation runoff to greenhouse gas emissions and wildlife habitat conversation. Although the so-called Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops isn’t as sexy as biodiesel tractors and turbine-fueled farms, the metrics could give the ag industry a triple-bottom-line yardstick.

“There is so much greenwashing going on,” says Tim York, founding member of the Stewardship Index and president of Salinas-based produce purchaser Markon Cooperative. “It’s not well defined what is or isn’t sustainable. Sustainability has to be specific, measurable and verifiable.”

 

[Dymanic]

Going back to the article listed in the OP, does anyone feel that this effort will work?

Or are the ideas of organic and sustainable forever to be used as marketing slogans by industry and "tree huggers (for lack of a better term)" meaninglessly?

I find that tricky to answer. What about the possibility that it may not be strictly either/or? It may be that some of the efforts will work for what might arguably be considered the wrong reasons; exaggeratiing the health benefits of "organic" foods may create an increased market demand for products which involve agricultural methods that are easier on the land, etc.

 

[Dymanic]

My family owns farms. I presume we use "unsustainable" methods, since they are not "organic" farms. The land we own has been farmed for well over 100 years, and during those 100+ years, the trend has been ever increasing yields. But since we are using "unsustainable" methods, at some point the yield should start trending down, eventually approaching zero.

Entirely possible. It certainly wouldn't be the first time in the history of agriculture that such a thing has happened. You'd have to be more specific about just what methods we're talking about here. Not all who have concerns about soil depletion can be casually dismissed as "organotards".

The logic of your anecdotal argument doesn't work, by the way. Doing something for a hundred years says nothing about how sustainable the practice is. There may have been someone who once said something like: "My family has been hunting dodos for over a hundred years..."

 

[SRW]

I find that tricky to answer. What about the possibility that it may not be strictly either/or? It may be that some of the efforts will work for what might arguably be considered the wrong reasons; exaggeratiing the health benefits of "organic" foods may create an increased market demand for products which involve agricultural methods that are easier on the land, etc.

But that sounds like the "greenwashing" that is currently going on.

 

[TraneWreck]

I know of people who take colloidal gold and silver as a "nutritional supplement".

To paraphrase the great Dave Chappelle: "gotta have that dookie sparkle!"

 

[yomero]

One of the main issues food wooers have against vegetables grown with modern technology, is the presence of toxins. They seem to think that "organic" food doesn't contain them. However, a plant cultivated without artificial insecticides will produce natural toxins to repel those bugs that attack it. They may be natural, but they are still toxins. A plant treated with artificial pesticides is not stimulated to increase the manufacture of its defences. I don't know whether this true for most crops. Washing your vegetables before eating them could eliminate much of the artificial toxins on the surface of the vegetable, and less of the natural ones.

I read that some artificial fertilizers (granulated nitrogen) are as effective as manure, without its toxicity.

http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/000000005545.htm

http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/00000002D21D.htm

 

[Dymanic]

But that sounds like the "greenwashing" that is currently going on.

Similar in some respects and different in others, I'd say. First of all, "going green" and "greenwashing" are not the same thing. If a practice has demonstrable environmental benefits, and is implemented for that reason, then its value for you rests on whether you agree that the relevant environmental concerns are valid to begin with. But claiming environmental benefits where they do not actually exist (or are overstated, or unproven), or if it is merely a token gesture, then that includes a disingenuous element. The former is what I'd call "going green", and the latter "greenwashing".

What I'm really talking about is what might be considered socio-economic side-effects of widespread concerns about the perceived health consequences of exposure to "chemical toxins", etc, or popular (and often vague) notions about the superior vitamin and nutrient content of food grown using organic methods. Not every person who is concerned about that is equally aware of or concerned about loss of species diversity, soil depletion, greenhouse gases, etc (though, to be sure, many are).

I guess what I'm really saying is that people are mostly selfish and rather short-sighted; if they think THEY will feel better tomorrow or next week by paying premium prices for organically grown foods today (which I suspect is less true than many of them think), that's a stronger motivator than spending that extra money because they think it will be good for the environment some years down the road (which I think probably is mostly true). Similarly, I also think that the commercialization of organic food is (generally speaking) more motivated by profit than by any genuine concerns about the health of the consumer or damage to the environment.

In short: if people take their sloppy new-age thinking to the grocery store and support more environmentally sound and sustainable farming methods by increasing the profits of farmers who use those methods and the distributors who sell them, then they go home happy, the farmers and distributors make money, and the environment benefits. (If they also refrain from robbing me at gunpoint because they're afraid it will result in them spending eternity in a burning lake of fire, then that works for me too).

 

[SRW]

In short: if people take their sloppy new-age thinking to the grocery store and support more environmentally sound and sustainable farming methods by increasing the profits of farmers who use those methods and the distributors who sell them, then they go home happy, the farmers and distributors make money, and the environment benefits. (If they also refrain from robbing me at gunpoint because they're afraid it will result in them spending eternity in a burning lake of fire, then that works for me too).

So you do not think, the effort to come up with a "measuring stick", to quantify what is and what is and what is not "green", is worth the effort? Sorry, do not mean to put words in your mouth, if that is not what you believe. You seem to be saying it is better to go on with the sloppy system because some good comes from it despite the abuse of the term.

Personally I stay away from the higher priced "organic" products because I have no way of being sure that the efforts to grow in that manner are truly beneficial. But if the growing numbers of "organic" products are an indication, there must be a lot of people who fit into your sloppy new-age thinking.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

And, apparently, you were both making the same mistake, which is to assume that "organic farming" and "organic food" are equivalent. This is easily forgiven, as an enormous amount of commercial advertising has been dedicated to creating precisely this mistaken impression. In that commercial sense, the term "organic" reminds me a lot of the way "Indian Made" has been used (and abused) in the jewelry industry.

In its original context, the phrase "organic farming" does not refer to chemistry, nor does it refer to food per se; it is about farming -- and the idea of "the farm as organism" is invoked metaphorically:

But that's equally bogus IMHO.

1. "Organic" had a very well defined meaning. Just because a snake oil peddler wants to reuse it for his woo, doesn't mean I should go along and pretend the old meaning has ceased to exist.

Same as just because "quantum" now is all the rage in snake oil pendants, it doesn't mean we should redefine what "quantum" means.

2. It's empty handwaving anyway. That farm still is a living organism either way. There still are plants growing, bacteria in the soil, insects pollinating it, etc.

But farming always also meant basically controling what that organism is.

Whether you pull out the weeds by hand, or use herbicides, you still control that that organism should include more of plant X and less of plants Y and Z. Even ploughing, a major reason it caught on is because it destroys the roots of what's already there before you plant your own seeds.

And you always controlled, to the best of your ability, what insects you want there. E.g., the reason we still have wine in Europe is that the local sorts were transplanted on rootstock on which phylloxera didn't thrive or by growing the vine in sand. Maybe not as efficient a way as pesticides, but nevertheless it was a way of controlling that insect and its effects.

And you still controlled the nutrients in the soil, to the best of your possibilities. Be it by spreading manure, or the three field system. The legumes tended to replenish the nitrogen in the soil, for example, and then you'd use that for the crops which needed more nitrogen.

Basically the old ways still didn't mean being particularly gentle to that organism, much less letting it do whatever the heck it wished. "Organic" or not, it still involved coaxing that organism to be like _you_ want and do what _you_ want.

So basically defining one set of methods as "organic" and the other as "not organic" is still bull, even with that handwaving and sophistry.

 

[Dymanic]

So you do not think, the effort to come up with a "measuring stick", to quantify what is and what is and what is not "green", is worth the effort?

I absolutely think it is worth the effort. I'm not optimistic about the prospects of reaching a firm consensus on all of that anytime soon, but there may be a lot to learn just from making that effort.

You seem to be saying it is better to go on with the sloppy system because some good comes from it despite the abuse of the term.

I'm also not optimistic about the prospect of ever rescuing the term from the abuses of commercialism and some of its sloppy-thinking customers. Noting that maybe not all of the effects are negative is probably just me trying to cheer myself up.

But if the growing numbers of "organic" products are an indication, there must be a lot of people who fit into your sloppy new-age thinking.

Is there really any question about whether a LOT of people practice sloppy new-age thinking?