Giving "Organic" a real meaning

[Dymanic]

"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.

Yeah, well the word "gay" once had a very well defined meaning too, and I've never much cared for the way it was co-opted to mean something completely different, but I don't see what there is to gain from griping about it. Meanings do change over time, and words which have a particular meaning in one context often mean something quite different in another; intelligent people handle this by adapting to change, and being sensitive to context. Perhaps the word "organic", applied to farming, does easily lead to confusion. That's tough. Maybe "organismic" would have been better -- providing that we could all trust ourselves to pronounce and type it correctly. The way I see it, we're locked in on "organic", and whether it gives chemistry teachers fits or not, we may as well try to make the best of it.

It's empty handwaving anyway. That farm still is a living organism either way.

I'm glad that you at least accept the metaphor as valid. Unfortunately, I have to agree that there is quite a bit of empty handwaving, but I don't feel that that is enough to render the concept itself empty or flawed.

There still are plants growing, bacteria in the soil, insects pollinating it, etc.

So now it's really a matter of how healthy the "organism" is; the extent to which it is independent and integrated; capable of sustaining itself without artificial life support (in the form of material imported from somewhere else); the extent to which it is made more vulnerable to insects and diseases by compromises to the demands of mechanization and economies of scale (high density planting, crops that all mature at the same time, etc) -- compromises which themselves necessitate further measures like spraying of pesticides and herbicides. Industrial-scale monoculture farming bears very little resemblance to the natural biological systems which organic farming (in principle) emulates.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

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..."

So I'll ask you - at what point will yields begin to decrease?

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

So now it's really a matter of how healthy the "organism" is;

In as much as it grows what that farmer wants to grow, it's as healthy as it ever was.

the extent to which it is independent and integrated; capable of sustaining itself without artificial life support (in the form of material imported from somewhere else);

Actually, it _never_ was capable of just sustaining itself without "life support". Otherwise we wouldn't have needed all those people with ploughs and whatnot.

Even adding other matter, it happened already. That's what those legumes did every third year. They added nitrogen from the air.

The only difference is that we now have better means. And that some people just want to define that some life support forms are good, but some other forms of life support are bad. Nitrogen fixed by the legumes is good, but nitrogen fixed in a factory and brought by truck is baad, even though the net effect is the same.

And besides artifficially defining that everything should happen in one place, just tells me some people haven't figured out this newfangled division of labour concept. It's only been documented since Adam Smith, after all Do they insist on the plough being hammered locally with muscle power too?

the extent to which it is made more vulnerable to insects and diseases by compromises to the demands of mechanization and economies of scale (high density planting, crops that all mature at the same time, etc)

Technically it's less vulnerable than ever. Plagues of locusts are even mentioned in major religions as major disasters, and ergot infestation occasionally had whole cities dancing in the streets and having visions and revelations. ETA: or I don't remember the phylloxera or the boll weevil going "nah, we'll leave those farms alone because they'd doing the natural thing." And so on.

Besides, again, we're not doing anything new. Grain was always planted too dense for what the soil can sustain, or we wouldn't have needed that crop rotation in the first place. Or in Egypt the flood bringing new nutrients each year. We always planted it as dense as we possibly can without losing the crop. Now we just got better at it. Some woosters just try to define some vague and ill defined limit as one of those modern evils.

compromises which themselves necessitate further measures like spraying of pesticides and herbicides.

Yes, we need modern technology to be as good as we are at it. That's the whole point of technology. It allows us to do stuff better, faster or in less space. The evil there is...?

Industrial-scale monoculture farming bears very little resemblance to the natural biological systems which organic farming (in principle) emulates.

Organic farming itself bears buggerall resemblance to real, natural ecosystems. Both organisms are a man-made Frankenstein's monster, but we just have one group of woosters trying to argue that their hand-sewn monster is more natural than the one put together with screws and antibiotics.

Basically it strikes me as just one of those cases where really all that's peddled is the illusion that something modern is bad, and something pretending to be done like in ye goode olde days (except not really) is all natural and good.

 

[Dymanic]

The only difference is that we now have better means.

Better means which, for some inexplicable reason, depend heavily on government subsidies in order to thrive.

Nitrogen fixed by the legumes is good, but nitrogen fixed in a factory and brought by truck is baad, even though the net effect is the same.

Ignoring the (arguably trivial) energy aspect of the equation, the net effect is certainly not the same from a standpoint of soil conservation. Is the reason obvious to you?

Besides, again, we're not doing anything new. Grain was always planted too dense for what the soil can sustain, or we wouldn't have needed that crop rotation in the first place. Or in Egypt the flood bringing new nutrients each year. We always planted it as dense as we possibly can without losing the crop. Now we just got better at it.

I don't disagree with what some of I think you're saying here. There certainly are historical examples of societies which failed due to poor soil conservation practices. What we've gotten good at is compensating.

Yes, we need modern technology to be as good as we are at it. That's the whole point of technology. It allows us to do stuff better, faster or in less space. The evil there is...?

We're speaking in very general terms here, but I'll play. If "doing stuff better" really is the point, no evil -- but the point of a lot of technology seems to be fixing problems technology created in the first place. I can think of a fine example in an event taking place in the Gulf of Mexico right now.

Organic farming itself bears buggerall resemblance to real, natural ecosystems. Both organisms are a man-made Frankenstein's monster, but we just have one group of woosters trying to argue that their hand-sewn monster is more natural than the one put together with screws and antibiotics.

I again find myself not completely in disagreement; people with vague and ignorant notions about things "natural" bug me nearly as much as they appear to bug you. This objection seems almost to be a philosophical one, and perhaps there is something to that.

If we treat ecosystems ("organisms", in the "organic" metaphor) as our very own Frankenstein's monsters -- built solely to dance to our tune -- then we had better be DAMNsure we have all the relationships worked out, because we depend utterly on maintaining total control at all times. On the other hand, if we see ourselves (and our farms) as having a place in natural ecosystems (where the relationships have worked themselves out over long periods of evolutionary time), and regard those "organisms" more as our symbiotes than our slaves, that difference in philosophical outlook will likely be reflected in the way we practice farming (and forestry, and watershed management, and wildlife preservation, and a bunch of other things).

 

[TFian]

I've always been told "organic" food was more healthy than canned or otherwise "non organic" food. Some of my friends are big into that movement. I've always been a bit skeptical and on the fence about it though...

 

[Bob Blaylock]

I've always been told "organic" food was more healthy than canned or otherwise "non organic" food. Some of my friends are big into that movement. I've always been a bit skeptical and on the fence about it though...

There is no such thing as “non-organic” food. Everything from which we are capable of obtaining any nourishment is organic. This is simple scientific fact, and not anything about which one can rationally be skeptical or “on the fence”.

 

[DC]

here we have bio "seals" and its not just a kind of brand everyone can use, you are geting controlled and your products are beeing tested so that label isnt abused, dont know how that is done in your countrys. but here its not just something you can stick on your product and ask more money for it.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Better means which, for some inexplicable reason, depend heavily on government subsidies in order to thrive.

Yes, paradoxically we got _too_ good at it. Since the Great Depression we're basically producing too much food, so the prices fell dramatically, so the farmers wouldn't make enough money without those subsidies.

ETA: basically the only way to not need those subsidies would be for food to be a lot less abundant, so supply-and-demand drives the prices to some point where those farmers can make enough money that way. But I don't think any of the "organic" woosters is really prepared to go on record as saying that more people should starve world-wide.

But it's a non-sequitur anyway. Now you've shifted the goalpost from that organism being somehow healthier to government subsidies.

Ignoring the (arguably trivial) energy aspect of the equation, the net effect is certainly not the same from a standpoint of soil conservation. Is the reason obvious to you?

Is it obvious to you? Because it boils down to answering TCS's question. I see lots of handwaving that "but we're sacrificing the _future_!!" around, but I haven't seen an example of any of that subsidized land in the western world becoming too depleted to grow stuff on it yet.

I don't disagree with what some of I think you're saying here. There certainly are historical examples of societies which failed due to poor soil conservation practices. What we've gotten good at is compensating.

No, the point is that we always had to compensate. Now we're just able to do it more, and thus grow more stuff.

We're speaking in very general terms here, but I'll play. If "doing stuff better" really is the point, no evil -- but the point of a lot of technology seems to be fixing problems technology created in the first place.

Only if you define those as problems in the first place. Since basically all I see there defined as "problems" is boiling down to "but we couldn't do that without modern tech." Considering that growing more stuff in less land was the whole point in the first place, I don't see why those are problems to start with and not results.

I can think of a fine example in an event taking place in the Gulf of Mexico right now.

Which would be an association fallacy. Yes, nobody said that technology is some utopian pure-good thing. After all Hiroshima also saw some top tech at the end of WW2. But I thought we were discussing actual problems of agriculture, and that has nothing to do with oil drilling. Unless agriculture has changed a lot lately

I again find myself not completely in disagreement; people with vague and ignorant notions about things "natural" bug me nearly as much as they appear to bug you. This objection seems almost to be a philosophical one, and perhaps there is something to that.

If we treat ecosystems ("organisms", in the "organic" metaphor) as our very own Frankenstein's monsters -- built solely to dance to our tune -- then we had better be DAMNsure we have all the relationships worked out, because we depend utterly on maintaining total control at all times. On the other hand, if we see ourselves (and our farms) as having a place in natural ecosystems (where the relationships have worked themselves out over long periods of evolutionary time), and regard those "organisms" more as our symbiotes than our slaves, that difference in philosophical outlook will likely be reflected in the way we practice farming (and forestry, and watershed management, and wildlife preservation, and a bunch of other things).

But the point is neither is. If that organic farmer takes a couple of years off, that organism won't continue to exist either.

And there was no evolution to just exist like that, ever. It was always an unsustainable "organism" or "ecosystem" which even had to be killed each year, and replaced with one who can repair the damage the first one did. If you actually tried to sustain the same one for long, then you'd get a desert. That was the whole _point_ of crop rotation.

And it always involved destroying whole swathes of the ecosystem which you didn't like, not learning to coexist with them or anything.

Basically the whole notion puts me in a mind, if you'll excuse the crass metaphor, of hearing a group argue that buggering the dog with a sheepskin condom and sunflower oil is more natural and organic than buggering the dog with a polyurethane condom and KY Jelly. In reality neither is, and neither is some "ecosystem", nor "evolved to function together." The sheep didn't evolve for that, and the sunflower didn't evolve for that, and I'm pretty sure the dog didn't either. And at the end of the day the more important part is still that they're both buggering the dog.

And, yes, it seems to me like agriculture at any point bore as much resemblance to an actual natural ecosystem, as buggering the dog resembles natural sexual reproduction.

 

[DC]

but I haven't seen an example of any of that subsidized land in the western world becoming too depleted to grow stuff on it yet.

thanks to Fertilizers

 

[TFian]

There is no such thing as “non-organic” food. Everything from which we are capable of obtaining any nourishment is organic. This is simple scientific fact, and not anything about which one can rationally be skeptical or “on the fence”.

Erm, I was referring to the popular label of how some foods are produced (IE organic food vs. processed food) rather than if they were actually "organic" in a biological sense. No need to be hissy about it rudeness.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

thanks to Fertilizers

Exactly.

 

[Complexity]

Organic words are 100% natural.

OK, now you're just trying to push my buttons.

'natural', indeed.

At least you didn't say '110 %'.

I might have imploded.

 

[Dymanic]

Yes, paradoxically we got _too_ good at it. Since the Great Depression we're basically producing too much food, so the prices fell dramatically, so the farmers wouldn't make enough money without those subsidies.

Of course, with those subsidies, they're just making money hand over fist, aren't they? So tell me: in your laughably simplistic picture of the history of ag policy in the US, when the price of one type of crop fell dramatically, why didn't farmers just plant something else?

Now you've shifted the goalpost from that organism being somehow healthier to government subsidies.

I plead not guilty. My position is that industrialized farming essentially amounts to mining the soil, and that government policies have been a major driving force in that.

Is it obvious to you? Because it boils down to answering TCS's question. I see lots of handwaving that "but we're sacrificing the _future_!!" around, but I haven't seen an example of any of that subsidized land in the western world becoming too depleted to grow stuff on it yet.

If you take the same all-or-nothing approach to gauging everything, you must spend a fair amount of time hiking alongside the road with a gas can. (I chose to ignore TCS's purely rhetorical and loaded question for precisely the same reason).

Look: If you're prepared to grow crops hydroponically, and if there isn't any problem with obtaining fresh grow medium, then there isn't any point in time at which the tub you're using becomes too depleted to support a crop; you just keep filling it back up. If you are using cropland in essentially the same way -- as little more than a big sponge upon which to pour chemical fertilizer -- then you can keep doing that as long as the fertilizer holds out. But, beyond a certain point, it's no longer a matter of whether that represents the "better" way of doing things, because you no longer have a choice to do it any other way.

In many agricultural areas, soil is eroding at a rate of several tons of soil per acre per year or higher. http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/ag101/cropsoil.html (see the map about half a page down).

"It is estimated that total annual cost of erosion from agriculture in the USA is about $44 billion per year, about $100 per acre of cropland and pasture."
http://soils.usda.gov/use/worldsoils/landdeg/ld99.html

And here's a real cheery little gif that shows how government conservation programs have helped slow the rate of erosion -- from 3.1 billion tons in 1982 to a mere 1.9 billion tons in 1997:
http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/NRI/maps/lgif/m5848l.gif

You may regard soil degradation as a trivial concern, but the USDA and the EPA apparently do not. There is an irony here, because much of the damage done in previous decades was a direct result of government policy (we all remember Earl "get-big-or-get-out" Butz, right?) Farmers are now being schooled (in articles titled "Ag 101") on such rudiments as using cover crops to reduce erosion -- measures with benefits which are, yes, quite obvious to the "organic" farmer, but not strictly necessary under industrialized agriculture, as they do not immediately lead to significant improvements in crop yield.

But I thought we were discussing actual problems of agriculture, and that has nothing to do with oil drilling.

Modern industrialized agriculture has a lot more to do with oil drilling than you appear to realize (it has even more to do with natural gas, the feedstock for ammonium nitrate fertilizer).

 

[Eos of the Eons]

I think that people should be beaten with the words that they have abused.

Perfect! Absolutely! quote of the day!!!

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Of course, with those subsidies, they're just making money hand over fist, aren't they? So tell me: in your laughably simplistic picture of the history of ag policy in the US, when the price of one type of crop fell dramatically, why didn't farmers just plant something else?

Pretty much because the price of all crops fell.

I plead not guilty. My position is that industrialized farming essentially amounts to mining the soil, and that government policies have been a major driving force in that.

And the difference between that and any other form of agriculture is...?

If you take the same all-or-nothing approach to gauging everything, you must spend a fair amount of time hiking alongside the road with a gas can. (I chose to ignore TCS's purely rhetorical and loaded question for precisely the same reason).

I see a lot more ignoring inconvenient questions than actually answers from the "organic" camp anyway.

Look: If you're prepared to grow crops hydroponically, and if there isn't any problem with obtaining fresh grow medium, then there isn't any point in time at which the tub you're using becomes too depleted to support a crop; you just keep filling it back up. If you are using cropland in essentially the same way -- as little more than a big sponge upon which to pour chemical fertilizer -- then you can keep doing that as long as the fertilizer holds out. But, beyond a certain point, it's no longer a matter of whether that represents the "better" way of doing things, because you no longer have a choice to do it any other way.

But the same thing could be said at any other point of history. E.g., when they switched to this newfangled three-field system, past a point they couldn't do it any other way, or not without a third of the population starving. E.g., when they switched to horse drawn ploughs, same deal, you just couldn't go back to oxen that easily.

But generally I fail to see the problem with technology when the argument against it boils down to "but you'll need the technology." Well, yes. That's the whole idea.

In many agricultural areas, soil is eroding at a rate of several tons of soil per acre per year or higher. http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/ag101/cropsoil.html (see the map about half a page down).

"It is estimated that total annual cost of erosion from agriculture in the USA is about $44 billion per year, about $100 per acre of cropland and pasture."
http://soils.usda.gov/use/worldsoils/landdeg/ld99.html

And here's a real cheery little gif that shows how government conservation programs have helped slow the rate of erosion -- from 3.1 billion tons in 1982 to a mere 1.9 billion tons in 1997:
http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/NRI/maps/lgif/m5848l.gif

You may regard soil degradation as a trivial concern, but the USDA and the EPA apparently do not. There is an irony here, because much of the damage done in previous decades was a direct result of government policy (we all remember Earl "get-big-or-get-out" Butz, right?) Farmers are now being schooled (in articles titled "Ag 101") on such rudiments as using cover crops to reduce erosion -- measures with benefits which are, yes, quite obvious to the "organic" farmer, but not strictly necessary under industrialized agriculture, as they do not immediately lead to significant improvements in crop yield.

So, basically, your argument for "organic" agriculture there is something that the "non-organic" crowd can and does too? I'm sorry, but if the only problem there is its being non-obvious, well, so what? We learned to live with lots of non-obvious stuff in the meantime, including using a computer or driving a car.

Besides it seems to me like you haven't shown how much less erosion, if any, does organic farming cause. It's hard to make a comparison unless the figures per acre are presented for both, and preferably in similar conditions (earth type and density, etc.)

I'm saying that because it's not really that new a problem. E.g., the Vikings lost most of the arable land in Greenland to exactly that phenomenon. Unless you're telling me that they used ammonium nitrate and combine harvesters in 1000 AD, surely those are no the only situations where you lose some soil.

So exactly how much better _is_ that organic farming?

Modern industrialized agriculture has a lot more to do with oil drilling than you appear to realize (it has even more to do with natural gas, the feedstock for ammonium nitrate fertilizer).

But using the gulf disaster as an argument for what's wrong with farming, is still an association fallacy.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

I'm saying that because it's not really that new a problem. E.g., the Vikings lost most of the arable land in Greenland to exactly that phenomenon.

Well, that and the fact that the world cooled down considerably, so that the parts that used to be arable in Greenland are now too cold for any useful farming.

 

[Dymanic]

I see a lot more ignoring inconvenient questions than actually answers from the "organic" camp anyway.

I don't claim to speak for "the organic camp". And I didn't find those questions inconvenient; I found them ridiculous. Since you appear to want to continue to flog this, let's take another look at TCS's question: "at what point will yields begin to decrease?" That doesn't strike me as something coming from a person who spends much time dealing with things like crop yields, which fluctuate on a year-by-year basis and are influenced by a large number of factors. All I can do is go to an analogy: if you drive off in your car, and I know that you have no way of refilling your fuel tank, I can confidently predict that at some point you WILL run out of gas. That I cannot predict exactly where that will occur -- especially not knowing anything about your particular driving habits, or the mechanical condition of your car, or the type of terrain you'll be driving on -- does not render my prediction flawed.

So, basically, your argument for "organic" agriculture there is something that the "non-organic" crowd can and does too?

Assuming that I've correctly parsed that: yes, of course they can, and yes, some of them do; did I not just say as much? What is significant is that government farm policy in recent decades has not provided incentive for soil conservation. In fact, quite the opposite; the incentive is to wring as much as possible from the land, exporting the surplus if necessary, or pretending that we'll be helping meet our energy needs by making ethanol out of it. It was not always so. Subsidies during the New Deal era paid farmers to leave land fallow when prices dropped. The main objective was to stabilize prices so as to protect farmers from price drops and consumers from price spikes. That it was also easier on the land was something of a side benefit, but not entirely; the dust bowl experience was still pretty fresh in everyone's minds at that time.

I'm sorry, but if the only problem there is its being non-obvious, well, so what? We learned to live with lots of non-obvious stuff in the meantime, including using a computer or driving a car.

I'm sorry, but the meaning of all that is non-obvious to me.

Besides it seems to me like you haven't shown how much less erosion, if any, does organic farming cause. It's hard to make a comparison unless the figures per acre are presented for both, and preferably in similar conditions (earth type and density, etc.)

That's a very good point. I'll see what I can come up with on that, but it might be a few days before I'll have a chance to get back to you.

But using the gulf disaster as an argument for what's wrong with farming, is still an association fallacy.

It was you who framed things in more general terms: "Yes, we need modern technology to be as good as we are at it." As we were then speaking more about technology in general, I considered it appropriate to follow your lead. Ready to move on now?

 

[TheDaver]

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.

From this exchange, she decided that I must like McDonald's food.

Wow, people that dumb shouldn’t be educated, they should rendered and used as animal feed.

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.

On the other hand, there may be the occasional chemical defense mechanism from a plant that actually proves beneficial to humans who consume it. (I’m currently reading Joseph Schwarcz’s An Apple A Day.)

I've always been told "organic" food was more healthy than canned or otherwise "non organic" food. Some of my friends are big into that movement. I've always been a bit skeptical and on the fence about it though...

They’re plainly wrong, and the opposite is often true – using ineffective “organic” fertilizers makes for puny, nutrient-deficient crops, and avoidance of preservatives means the food spoils faster. Quite frankly, anybody who thinks organic food is better for them than ordinary food is either ignorant or delusional. And that’s just vegetable and grain products. I’d be ESPECIALLY leery of “organic” meat and dairy products, since as I understand it, when diseases and infections crop up, organic farmers are limited in how they can handle them, or at least reluctant to use pharmaceuticals. There’s also Rolfe’s story of how an “organic” chicken farm he was called to had the chickens living in abysmal conditions and pecking each other to death and only ever being “treated” for infections with homeopathic remedies.

 

[macdoc]

There are abusive farmers on both side of the coin and also responsible ones.

You are just adding to the polemic noise with posts like this.

You clearly know very little about sustainable farming.

You are as ill-informed in your knowledge of the topic as you accuse others of being

Here's the case studies...

http://www.extension.org/article/18364

 

[Dymanic]

Besides it seems to me like you haven't shown how much less erosion, if any, does organic farming cause. It's hard to make a comparison unless the figures per acre are presented for both, and preferably in similar conditions (earth type and density, etc.)

Still haven't had time to do much digging (so to speak), but before the thread scrolls off the first page, here's this:

Organic farming produces the same yields of corn and soybeans as does conventional farming, but uses 30 percent less energy, less water and no pesticides, a review of a 22-year farming trial study concludes.

The study compared a conventional farm that used recommended fertilizer and pesticide applications with an organic animal-based farm (where manure was applied) and an organic legume-based farm (that used a three-year rotation of hairy vetch/corn and rye/soybeans and wheat). The two organic systems received no chemical fertilizers or pesticides.

"First and foremost, we found that corn and soybean yields were the same across the three systems," said Pimentel, who noted that although organic corn yields were about one-third lower during the first four years of the study, over time the organic systems produced higher yields, especially under drought conditions. The reason was that wind and water erosion degraded the soil on the conventional farm while the soil on the organic farms steadily improved in organic matter, moisture, microbial activity and other soil quality indicators.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/July05/organic.farm.vs.other.ssl.html

The study was published in the July 2005 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Bioscience. I don't have access, but this webpage provides a little more detail on that ongoing trial:
http://newfarm.rodaleinstitute.org/depts/NFfield_trials/0903/FST.shtml

"Datasets from the FST include weather records; energy and labor inputs; corn, soybean, wheat, and forage yields; weed, crop, and cover crop biomass figures; nutrient analyses of crops and cover crops; soil carbon and nitrogen levels; soil percolation rates; nitrate, phosphate, and pesticide leachate data; soil biodiversity surveys; and economic return evaluations."