Genetically modified crops largely a failure, says consumer group

[Shane Costello]

Originally posted by Rob Lister:
Sure it is, even here. The local Farm Fresh stores have a whole twenty feet of produce section they devote to 'organic', but few other stores do. When they first introduced it it confused me -- the prices -- until I realized what it was -- thanks to forums like this -- and found identical -- read larger, plumper, tastier, cheaper -- items just across from the organic section in the 'regular' produce section (several hundred sqft).

IOW, where you are organic is a big deal but it certainly isn't in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I suppose in California (certain cities anyway) it would be just as big a deal.

As far as I can see, once you exclude the marketing hype, there is zero benefit in growing/buying/eating organic. It's sort of like buying a home computer from IBM.

Or Apple. <---ignore that. I just wanted to ruffle a feather or two from Mac owners.

The organic fad --- and that's what it is, a fad --- will fade away like the hoola-hoop. Sure, like the hoola-hoop, it will spring back from time-to-time, decade-to-decade, and cause some trouble but in the long run it is a fairly worthless way to spend your money.

I'm not worried a bit.

I'll do a bit of digging (no pun intended) for info over the weekend. The last organisation I worked for did quite a bit of analysis and forecasting of food industry trends, and I'm fairly sure that they were putting money on organic food being a sustained phenomenon, if only ever as a lucrative niche market. From my own observations it isn't that big in this part of the world yet.

Originally posted by Jorghnassen:
Is it really that sad? Why is it sad anyway?

The organic lobby are dishonest purveyors of pseudoscientific nonsense, who are making money spreading dangerous and pernicious lies. There is no serious scientific basis to their anti-GM claims. OTOH organic farming is ultimately unsustainable and would likely have serious environmental consequences if it replaced conventional agriculture. If organic farming were to have any hope of meeting the world's nutritional needs then it would require more land for agriculture (organic yields would be lower), which would be bad news for woodlands, nesting grounds etc.

There'd also be increased demand for "organic fertiliser", or what is commonly known as bull****. The term "organic fertiliser" is nonsense, since fertiliser, whether it comes from a chemical plant or a cow's colon, consists of inorganic compounds. If we go with the bovine digestive system then to produce the product we've got to feed Daisy. But if the nutritional needs of people are putting pressure on agricultural land, and yields are decreasing, how are we going to feed all those cattle?

 

[Jorghnassen]

OK... the doomsday argument...

Why are you so scared of "organic" food? Do you really think the world is going to switch (or at least could switch unless someone stops it now) to organic farming and then go into a big famine plus ecological disaster? Might as well be scared about vegetarians and vegans.

Let me make a little prediction for you: organic farming will stay marginal. Why? Because most people only care about cheap stuff and large quantities (very few care about taste and most people have a weird concept of quality, which explains the existence of a market for "red delicious" apples, but I digress). Organic isn't cheap, and can't produce as much as conventional farming (in fact I don't think it aims to), so it can never become as cheap or cheaper than conventional food and hence most people won't buy a lot of organic food.

/not scared by organic food or GM-food, or raw-milk cheese either...

 

[jay gw]

It's not possible for all the crops of the world to be grown organically. The reason that pesticides etc. are used is to keep costs down.

Organic food is about 30 percent higher than non organic.

 

[Shane Costello]

Originally posted by Jorghnassen:
OK... the doomsday argument...

Why are you so scared of "organic" food? Do you really think the world is going to switch (or at least could switch unless someone stops it now) to organic farming and then go into a big famine plus ecological disaster? Might as well be scared about vegetarians and vegans.

I'm not "scared" of organic food. However the claims made by it's proponents as to it's nutritional and environmental benefits are at variance with the empirical evidence and reasonable hypotheses. The organic lobby would have us believe that a wholesale conversion to their methods of farming and food production would be ecologically positive. Is it really symptomatic of fear on my part to point out that the opposite would be more likely? As for your point about vegetarians and vegans I really have no idea what your point is.

Let me make a little prediction for you: organic farming will stay marginal. Why? Because most people only care about cheap stuff and large quantities (very few care about taste and most people have a weird concept of quality, which explains the existence of a market for "red delicious" apples, but I digress). Organic isn't cheap, and can't produce as much as conventional farming (in fact I don't think it aims to), so it can never become as cheap or cheaper than conventional food and hence most people won't buy a lot of organic food.

I agree completely, it's just that I find it hard to reconcile these comments with earlier ones of yours that didn't seem to see anything wrong in the proliferation of organic food. And if you don't think the organic lobby believes organic farming can and should replace conventional agriculture then read this.

 

[pgwenthold]

OK... the doomsday argument...

Why are you so scared of "organic" food?

Remember, the comment was that it was "sad..very sad."

And I agree with that assessment, not because of any "suppose it took over the world" concern, but in the "the public is being snowed into paying higher prices for products that have no real advantages, healthwise or environmentally, over the cheaper products sitting right across the aisle" sense.

It's like the audio companies charging outlandish prices for speaker wire that is indistinguishable from normal copper, and convincing the consumer that they should buy it.

Lastly, there is this impression that organic farmers are in it because they care about things like the land, their animals, and/or people's health. Anecdotally, I note the two dairy farmers I know who switched to "organic" farming did it for one reason, and one reason only: they weren't cutting it with conventional farming and saw it as an opportunity to make more money. They couldn't care less about whether it was healthier or better for anything, all they know is that 1) they get higher prices for their products (and note because they were ineffective farmers initially, they don't take as big of a hit in their production as would successful farmers), and 2) provided the follow the rules.

It doesn't help that at least one is strongly anti-vax (and anti-science in general - they are religious nuts, "God will provide"), and has claimed that it was vaccines that caused the disease that he used to have in his conventional herd. It couldn't have been because he was a poor farmer at all...

 

[Jorghnassen]

As for your point about vegetarians and vegans I really have no idea what your point is.

Well, vegetarians and vegans want the world to stop producing meat or stop exploiting animals in any way altogether. But we all know that it's not going to happen, so no one comes up with doomsday scenarios about what would happen if the world suddenly turned vegetarian/vegan. Consequently, since organic farming will remain marginal like vegeterianism/veganism, there is no point in demonizing it with a silly apocalyptic vision of an all-organic-farming future.

I agree completely, it's just that I find it hard to reconcile these comments with earlier ones of yours that didn't seem to see anything wrong in the proliferation of organic food. And if you don't think the organic lobby believes organic farming can and should replace conventional agriculture then read this.

I can't access the link you gave. I don't have time to elaborate on why I see no problem in the existence of organic farming in itself (since I know it won't replace conventional farming) but I'll mention that the entire "philosophy" (for lack of a better word) behind it is not without its merits, and that there are some points in which I find benefits over conventional, though here I should really say industrial farming.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

and that there are some points in which I find benefits over conventional, though here I should really say industrial farming.

Please name some points that are a benefit over regular farming

 

[Jorghnassen]

Please name some points that are a benefit over regular farming

Now I have a feeling that, if you've never eaten cheese made from unpasteurized milk, you won't understand my arguments.

First, I know you will dismiss it but anyway: more ethical treatment of livestock. Second (though that isn't exactly exclusive to organic farming), smaller scale production with emphasis on higher quality (taste-wise, because, as I've mentioned before, food-wise many people have a weird concept of "quality") produce for a niche market (which is why you see a substantial amount of small farms switching to organic production when they can't compete with bigger farms in the conventional farming market). You'll never see an organic mega-pig farm, the kind of farm that, in my province, clears woods to make room for all that pig crap they have to put somewhere.

 

[Mojo]

Please name some points that are a benefit over regular farming

Well, I suppose the main potential benefit of GM crops is to be able to produce food containing less pesticide residues, by making them resistant to pests so that chemical pesticides are not needed. Unfortunately the current plan of GM agriculture (e.g. Monsanto with its "round up ready" crops) seems to be to produce a plant that's resistant to a particular herbicide, thus enabling the farmer to swamp the field with that herbicide (bought, obviously, from the same company that sold him the seed) without hurting his crops.

 

[Jorghnassen]

Well, I suppose the main potential benefit of GM crops is to be able to produce food containing less pesticide residues, by making them resistant to pests so that chemical pesticides are not needed. Unfortunately the current plan of GM agriculture (e.g. Monsanto with its "round up ready" crops) seems to be to produce a plant that's resistant to a particular herbicide, thus enabling the farmer to swamp the field with that herbicide (bought, obviously, from the same company that sold him the seed) without hurting his crops.

Eos of the Eons' question was about organic food, but anyway, I concur that one should be skeptical of the claims of GM food producers as well. In both cases, the reality differs a lot from the promises.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Now I have a feeling that, if you've never eaten cheese made from unpasteurized milk, you won't understand my arguments.

First, I know you will dismiss it but anyway: more ethical treatment of livestock. Second (though that isn't exactly exclusive to organic farming), smaller scale production with emphasis on higher quality (taste-wise, because, as I've mentioned before, food-wise many people have a weird concept of "quality") produce for a niche market (which is why you see a substantial amount of small farms switching to organic production when they can't compete with bigger farms in the conventional farming market). You'll never see an organic mega-pig farm, the kind of farm that, in my province, clears woods to make room for all that pig crap they have to put somewhere.

What exactly is "Organic Animal Farming"? From what I've seen it is unethical, depriving them of vaccines and not giving the right feed (farmers getting misinformatin on how to raise the animals).

For the amount of people you need to feed, and they want healthy animals, then "organic animal farming" is very very expensive. You would have to clear the country for all that free-roaming space required for "organic" farming.

So it's not that they can't compete with bigger "conventional" farms, it's that the methods required for "organic" farming are so darn tough. Not being able to treat animals with antibiotics when they get sick, not being able to protect them from microbes with vaccines. It's tough to keep them alive in large numbers "organically".

In contrast to the other diseases, parasite-related diseases affect the health of livestock in organic farming more than in conventional farming (Lund and Algers, 2003). One reason to this appearsto be the condition of outdoor management in ecological farming. It increases the animal well being, but also the risk of vector or intermediate host-transmitted parasite infections (Schnieder, 2003). The infestations with gastrointestinal nematodes are an important cause of reducedproduction of meat, milk and wool in domestic livestock (Kloosterman et al., 1992).

http://www.safonetwork.org/publications/ws2/wp2pub/2_SAFO_pro.pdf
Heck they have to be fed more expensive organic food as well. Ouch.


http://www.agr.gov.sk.ca/docs/organics/organic_agriculture/organicFactsheet.pdf
It doesn't take much to look at the expectation and requirements of organic farming and see the limitations it causes.

There is so much misinformation out there when it comes to organic herds. The woo claims that animals don't need vaccines and medications since their immune systems will be better when raised "organically"..blah blah, unfounded, just like the claims about humans faring better without vaccines.

The whole idealism about "organic" is hard to marry to reality. Thus, people try to get around the expectations and requirements that they would need in order sell the resulting product as "organic".

Misleading beef labelling:
http://www.consumerreports.org/main...R<>folder_id=162689&ASSORTMENT<>ast_id=333139

If you ask me, it's a nightmare...just my opion based on all the studies and reports minus the "idealised" versions from the people wanting to push Organic as the "ideal".

More on plant organic farming:

Organic Food Has 'Significantly Higher' Contamination, Study Finds

Science vs Belief on Organic farming:

http://www.scri.sari.ac.uk/SCRI/upload/annualreportdocuments/99Indiv/06OrgFar.pdf

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Well, I suppose the main potential benefit of GM crops is to be able to produce food containing less pesticide residues, by making them resistant to pests so that chemical pesticides are not needed. Unfortunately the current plan of GM agriculture (e.g. Monsanto with its "round up ready" crops) seems to be to produce a plant that's resistant to a particular herbicide, thus enabling the farmer to swamp the field with that herbicide (bought, obviously, from the same company that sold him the seed) without hurting his crops.

Round up is for Wheat. I think people are more worried about pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables since we eat their skins.

I'm curious as to what the toxicology of Round up is compared to the types of pesticides used on fruits and vegetables. I'm also curious as to what amount of residue remains on the wheat once it is processed into flour and such.

 

[Shane Costello]

Originally posted by Jorghnassen:
Well, vegetarians and vegans want the world to stop producing meat or stop exploiting animals in any way altogether. But we all know that it's not going to happen, so no one comes up with doomsday scenarios about what would happen if the world suddenly turned vegetarian/vegan. Consequently, since organic farming will remain marginal like vegeterianism/veganism, there is no point in demonizing it with a silly apocalyptic vision of an all-organic-farming future.

Potential strawman, depending on the motives of vegetarians and vegans. If people conclude that eating meat is wrong for purely ethical reasons, then that's a view that ought to be respected, and certainly not "demonised". OTOH if lobby groups for vegetarianism spread untruths about livestock farming then this should be challenged, regardless of the potential spread of vegetarianism.

I really must challenge your characterisation of my earlier analysis as a "demonisation" of organic farming. It is a perfectly valid hypothesis of the potential ecological and nutritional damage that could be caused by a wholescale conversion to organic farming. If you can't provide a competing analysis then you ought to reserve your own comment instead of engaging inn some "demonisation" of your own.

Now I have a feeling that, if you've never eaten cheese made from unpasteurized milk, you won't understand my arguments.

When my grandfather milked a small dairy herd I drank unpasteurised from time to time, but having been raised on the pasteurised stuff that came from a carton I never got a taste for it. Now what this has to do with anything is beyond me.

First, I know you will dismiss it but anyway: more ethical treatment of livestock.

Until you actually provide us with some facts, yes I will.

Second (though that isn't exactly exclusive to organic farming), smaller scale production with emphasis on higher quality (taste-wise, because, as I've mentioned before, food-wise many people have a weird concept of "quality") produce for a niche market (which is why you see a substantial amount of small farms switching to organic production when they can't compete with bigger farms in the conventional farming market).

And the evidence that organic farming produces better quality food is what, exactly?

You'll never see an organic mega-pig farm, the kind of farm that, in my province, clears woods to make room for all that pig crap they have to put somewhere.

But like I said before, if organic farming proliferates then more woods will have to be cleared and you'll be seeing, not to mention smelling, a lot more animal crap.

Eos of the Eons' question was about organic food, but anyway, I concur that one should be skeptical of the claims of GM food producers as well. In both cases, the reality differs a lot from the promises.

An earlier link you seemed to have missed noted that in less than a decade all of the Soy and Cotton grown in the US is GM, as is 50% of all wheat. The reality is that GM can marshall some pretty impressive facts, organic farming can't.

 

[Jorghnassen]

What exactly is "Organic Animal Farming"? From what I've seen it is unethical, depriving them of vaccines and not giving the right feed (farmers getting misinformatin on how to raise the animals).

Go watch a documentary called Bacon. What is more ethical: castration at birth and life in an enclosed space so small the animal can't move or not being given large amounts of antibiotics (as far as I've seen, vaccines are allowed in organic farming, though possibly with some regulations/restrictions)? Industrial farming is all about maximizing the amount of food produced, and minimizing the cost, which means a large amount of animals in a small amount of space. Well-being of the animals isn't considered (prevention of sickness and disease exist only for the maximizing production POV).

For the amount of people you need to feed, and they want healthy animals, then "organic animal farming" is very very expensive. You would have to clear the country for all that free-roaming space required for "organic" farming.

Again, as I've pointed out before, I don't see organic farming as something more than marginal for a niche market, so there is no question of "amount of people you need to feed". How many people actually get an all "organic" diet? As a marginal phenomenon it is benign. Just like hunting and gathering would not sustain the whole population, yet they still exist, because moose and deer and wild blueberries are tasty and there is a demand for them. Same with raw milk cheese, pasteurization is a great thing, and should certainly be widely used for "feeding the world" purposes, but that doesn't mean that cheeses from unpasteurized milk (and if you've ever had any you know they are superior in taste and just as safe as regular cheeses) should completely disappear.

So it's not that they can't compete with bigger "conventional" farms, it's that the methods required for "organic" farming are so darn tough. Not being able to treat animals with antibiotics when they get sick, not being able to protect them from microbes with vaccines. It's tough to keep them alive in large numbers "organically".

You misread what I wrote. I said (some) small conventional farms, unable to compete with large conventional farms, switch to organic, because they can make a living as a small organic farm(where there is a market for the more expensive/labour intensive food, and in some cases the farmer can sell directly to local consumer) and cannot make a living as a small conventional farm.

There is so much misinformation out there when it comes to organic herds. The woo claims that animals don't need vaccines and medications since their immune systems will be better when raised "organically"..blah blah, unfounded, just like the claims about humans faring better without vaccines.

It's not all woo. Stress weakens the immune system, large amount of creature in a small space means quicker spread of disease when it occurs. Now whether less stress and more space without antibiotics is better than more stress, less space but using antibiotics is another story.

Anyway, I'll explain my point one more time, and try to put it differently. I don't see a problem with organic farming because:
1-I believe it to be a marginal phenomenon that will remain marginal, and so whichever impact it has on the environment will stay negligeable compared to the impact of industrial farming;
2-in the sense that it is a niche market of pricier products, highly correlated with small farms and small shops where the emphasis is on quality (in taste, but certainly not in shelf life, say), and not volume (so the producers have an intent of making a living out of fancy food and not feeding the population, that's for the big conventional farms to do);
3-I guess, most importantly, I do not see it as a threat to conventional farming, which is apparently what a lot of proponents of GM foods do (when you dig just a little bit, you see all those articles saying how bad organic food is, you always find someone with vested interest in GM crops).

I should add that I do not have an idealized view of industrial farming either, because I look beyond the promises and ever-increasing-production mentality.

 

[Jorghnassen]

I really must challenge your characterisation of my earlier analysis as a "demonisation" of organic farming. It is a perfectly valid hypothesis of the potential ecological and nutritional damage that could be caused by a wholescale conversion to organic farming. If you can't provide a competing analysis then you ought to reserve your own comment instead of engaging inn some "demonisation" of your own.

Have I been demonising anything? Anyway, I see no point in arguing about the potential of a wholesale conversion to organic farming because such a process would be gradual and obviously, the impact of it would be assessed and the methods of production adjusted over time (whether that means doing "conventional" farming again or merely developping different "organic" techniques, as organic farming isn't an unevolving process).

When my grandfather milked a small dairy herd I drank unpasteurised from time to time, but having been raised on the pasteurised stuff that came from a carton I never got a taste for it. Now what this has to do with anything is beyond me.

Well, I'll say it again. If your mentality is only towards production in volume and shelf life, then by all means pasteurize. If you want volume and shelf life in food production, stick to conventional farming. But cheese from unpasteurized milk is tastier and just as safe, and since there is a market for it, then there is no point in opposing its production. Similarly if there is a demand for organic food, however marginal, it should be allowed to exist.

Until you actually provide us with some facts, yes I will.

See my response to Eos of the Eons.

And the evidence that organic farming produces better quality food is what, exactly?

Well, it's not the process per se if you ask me, but more about the small scale production with emphasis on quality rather than volume. I assume this should be achievable with a similarly minded conventional farm (hence my useage of the word industrial in many occasions, I am willing to bet small farm, conventional or organic, makes tastier produce than industrial farm, conventional or organic, because in the latter case the production is optimized for volume).

But like I said before, if organic farming proliferates then more woods will have to be cleared and you'll be seeing, not to mention smelling, a lot more animal crap.

It's not going to happen. The entire mentality and labour intensiveness of organic farming prevents it from having as large scale pig farms as industrial ones, so it's a problem that cannot arise.

An earlier link you seemed to have missed noted that in less than a decade all of the Soy and Cotton grown in the US is GM, as is 50% of all wheat. The reality is that GM can marshall some pretty impressive facts, organic farming can't.

Have I been ragging on GM crops at any point?

 

[pgwenthold]

So it's not that they can't compete with bigger "conventional" farms, it's that the methods required for "organic" farming are so darn tough. Not being able to treat animals with antibiotics when they get sick,

Is this true? I am under the impression that animals can be treated when they get sick, even in "organic" farming.

For a while, I was passing this question around: What does an organic dairy farmer do when a cow gets mastitis?

Mastitis is a nasty infection, and is not something that clears up easily on its own. And even in small herds, mastitis will be a problem (in fact, the incidence rate will probably be higher in organic herds that don't use disinfectants, like iodine dip).

I was told that they could treat infected cattle, but I am sure there are some regulations to it.

 

[Jorghnassen]

Is this true? I am under the impression that animals can be treated when they get sick, even in "organic" farming.

For a while, I was passing this question around: What does an organic dairy farmer do when a cow gets mastitis?

Mastitis is a nasty infection, and is not something that clears up easily on its own. And even in small herds, mastitis will be a problem (in fact, the incidence rate will probably be higher in organic herds that don't use disinfectants, like iodine dip).

I was told that they could treat infected cattle, but I am sure there are some regulations to it.

I haven't looked too much into it, but there is definitely reliance on pseudoscience when it comes to treating sick animals in "organic" farming. The theory is to allow only "natural" treatments, such as homeopathy (might as well give the animals a big fat natural placebo) and herbal remedies (now are they using actually proven ones, if there are any?).

 

[pgwenthold]

I haven't looked too much into it, but in there is definitely reliance on pseudoscience when it comes to treating sick animals in "organic" farming.

As I noted in my post above, one of the organic dairy guys I know is an anti-vaxxer, and a major woo in general.

 

[Mojo]

I haven't looked too much into it, but there is definitely reliance on pseudoscience when it comes to treating sick animals in "organic" farming.

Is this actually part & parcel of organic farming, or is it because people who go into organic farming are more likely to be the sort of people who use CAM?

 

[Rolfe]

I haven't looked too much into it, but there is definitely reliance on pseudoscience when it comes to treating sick animals in "organic" farming. The theory is to allow only "natural" treatments, such as homeopathy (might as well give the animals a big fat natural placebo) and herbal remedies (now are they using actually proven ones, if there are any?).

This is a great concern for many veterinary surgeons. "Organic" farmers are prohibited from using properly tested and licensed medicines on pain of stringent sanctions and withdrawal of their "organic" status for a period. As a rough rule of thumb, withdrawal periods which have been scientifically validated and which already incorporate a bit of precautionary leeway, are doubled for organic farms. So, if you use a product with a nominal three-week withdrawal period, you're not "organic" for six weeks.

So instead, farmers try to source unlicensed alternatives, preparations which haven't been tested for either safety or efficacy, and use these instead. Some "natural" insect repellants don't actually work, but may have more of a residue concern than proper licensed products. Stuff something herbal up an udder with mastitis, and you don't have to keep the milk out of the bulk tank at all. Or get scammed into using homoeopathic remedies, in the mistaken belief that these are in some way validated and "proper medicine" which just magically has no withdrawal period.

And if the half of what the organic advocates say about not having to use preventative medicine (anthelmintics and vaccines and so on) because of their husbandry practices was true, nobody would use these things - nobody likes paying for them, and if there was a practical way to avoid this by husbandry modifications, it would be done by everyone.

An awful lot of what the organic advocates say about animal health and welfare under their system sounds like bare-faced lies to me, and I know many vets get seriously frustrated at their inability to help sick "organic" animals because of the anti-medicine rules.

Until these guys start to realise that the medicines regulations which apply to normal farming are (if enforced) quite sufficient to guarantee no residues or unwanted effects in the animal products, and stop denying their poor animals the benefits of these medicines, I will go on refusing to allow any "organic" animal products to pass my lips.

Rolfe.