AgTalk Home
AgTalk Home
Search Forums | Classifieds (113) | Skins | Language
You are logged in as a guest. ( logon | register )

Organic/non-gmo farming
View previous thread :: View next thread
   Forums List -> Crop TalkMessage format
 
Chimel
Posted 2/9/2014 13:50 (#3676023 - in reply to #3673610)
Subject: Re: Organic/non-gmo farming


Gerald J. - 2/8/2014 12:48
The fundamental premise of organic is that anything from the earth and not processed in a factory is good, any factory processing is bad. Which ignores problems of bacteria in manure

Wow, you have a really simplified view of organic farming. There are also no bad bacteria in proper organic practices, like composted manure. True, the USDA NOP authorizes uncomposted manure, but no sane organic farmer would ever do so even with a delay before planting, too much risk of introducing weeds and pathogens when you don't have many pesticides to fight them.

All based on one man's concept, one Rodale. Because the use of factory made chemicals is not allowed organic growing is expensive requiring more hand labor and machine cultivation so the product is expensive.

Rodale pioneered organic farming in the U.S. but modern organic farming is researched and taught at most if not all ag unis, it's one of the techniques farmers can choose, no moral value or judgement is passed on organic or conventional farming in these schools. It's also a whole community, and there were many more persons involved worldwide at its beginnings than Rodale, many British people for instance. Lots of French farmers followed suite, with the Nature & Progress organization publishing many technical studies, reviving ancient grains, etc. The Swiss and Germans even explored biodynamism based on the visionary Rudolf Steiner. I wouldn't go that far, but I had to admit that in over 30 years, I have never found a sunflower oil as bright yellow, nutty and tasty as in one specific biodynamic farm. So even if it's not my thing, kudos to them and to diversity in the farming practices.

You are right that organic farming is more labor-intensive and costlier. On the other hand, it means that it provides much more jobs per acre than conventional farming. Is that a bad thing in the current economy? But I am also concerned by the cost, and hope that the robotic weeders in the lab will soon make it out into the farms and especially the organic ones within the next two decades. That's the only sustainable weeding practice to me. We'll see how that goes.

Non-gmo crop avoidance is based on some consumers worried about "frankenstein" plants modified by laboratory gene insertion.

I agree there is a lot of misinformation and extreme ridiculous positions out there. Personally, I don't think there is any health risk, studies don't show any, lots of GM food is ultra-processed so it does not contain proteins when it reaches humans as food (sugar from sugar beets is pure sucrose, HFCS is glucose and fructose, vegetal oil is pure lipids). I probably eat a bit of GM squash and sweet corn without knowing.

Sometimes the old breeds don't produce as well as modern breeding and GMO has developed

Most organic farmers are not archeologists and they grow modern varieties. Very few GMOs have been selected for increased yield so far, this has happened mostly from conventional selection, but it is starting to appear so we could see more of it. Mostly, the increased yields were an indirect side-effect of pest reduction. We are seeing some GMOs with increased resistance to stress caused by high plantation density, that could increase yields more directly.

With gmo crops so universal in production agriculture its really hard to claim a crop grown organically or non-gmo is truly clean when delivered.

It is not hard at all, "clean" is legally defined by a certain percentage that can even be different for the internal U.S. market and the export market and even different across countries or buyers. It's never been about being 100% "clean."
Top of the page Bottom of the page


Jump to forum :
Search this forum
Printer friendly version
E-mail a link to this thread

(Delete cookies)