12 ms·

Denmark is on its way to becoming an organic food country

51 points by finid 10y ago

olau 10y ago
While I think it's true that organic is big in Denmark, e.g. common kindergartens in my area generally seem to be using mostly organic food in their kitchens, I don't think the summary is accurate in the sense that there's a long, long way before the whole country has switched to organic production. Or consumption for that matter. If it will ever happen. The article is quoting the previous government, by the way, the current one just announced it's going to cut the temporary subsidies given to farms switching to organic production.
finid 10y ago
In the U.S., fast food workers are struggling to get a respectable increase in pay. But in Denmark, the fast food industry pays its workers at least $20 an hour. That's at least $5 more than the $15 minimum wage the same class of workers are fighting for here (in the US).
- dvcc 10y ago
  A quick search shows that a meal at McDoanld's is 50% more in Denmark than in the US. I am not really sure on the accuracy of Numbeo, but the comparative price of a meal to wage is interesting. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=Denmark https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_resu...
  - Svip 10y ago
    Well, since we are talking about McDonald's, you could also look at the Big Mac Index: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index But yes, a cheeseburger here costs 10 DKK. That's 1.50 USD. I don't know what a cheeseburger costs in the US, but I'd imagine it's 1 USD.
    - Kalium 10y ago
      More like $4.
      - overcast 10y ago
        Cheeseburger at McDonalds is about $1.29ish in the US.
        dalke 10y ago
        To confirm, http://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/ http://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/ lists $1, then add tax.
      - 3pt14159 10y ago
        That's a big mac, not a cheeseburger.
        Kalium 10y ago
        You're right, I assumed big mac from the index.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  - lumberjack 10y ago
    American Fast Food chains are more expensive in most of Europe compared to the US. Is that a bad thing?
    - ptaipale 10y ago
      Not just American fast food chains. Everything is more expensive. Yes, I can see how people think it is bad.
  - Reason077 10y ago
    A quick search shows that a meal at McDoanld's is 50% more in Denmark than in the US. This has more to do with the cost of labour than that of the underlying food ingredients.
- whenwillitstop 10y ago
  Love the constant propaganda that is literally everywhere
- overcast 10y ago
  Have you been to Denmark before? I can't speak for the rest of the country, but Copenhagen is SERIOUSLY expensive.
  - okket 10y ago
    Even from a German perspective Denmark is 30-50% more expensive. Beautiful country and fast Internet, though :)
  - runj__ 10y ago
    Yes, they still have a pretty high PPI though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... In Sweden we usually talk about marginal tax rates and how Denmark usually has got us beat on that front but it seems it's mostly their high VAT that makes that possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates
marcoperaza 10y ago
Organic food is pseudoscience. The only good reason to buy organic is that it is often a proxy for higher quality in general, but that's not universally true. Modern inorganic farming methods are necessary for feeding the world. If the whole world switched to organic farming, there would be cataclysmic mass starvation.
- biehl 10y ago
  > organic is [...] often a proxy for higher quality in general, but that's not universally true. Agree. > Modern inorganic farming methods are necessary for feeding the world. If the whole world switched to organic farming, there would be cataclysmic mass starvation. Most certainly false! By reducing meat consumption or increasing labor intensity organic agriculture could easily support the whole world. For many of the places where food security is needed the most, increased soil quality, as supported by organic agriculture, would help a lot. http://www.unep.org/pdf/SmallholderReport_WEB.pdf http://www.unep.org/pdf/SmallholderReport_WEB.pdf
- finid 10y ago
  Organic food is pseudoscience. Really? Care to elaborate on that? The article lists the many reasons why organic foods are better than non-organic ones. You should read it.
  - TheMagicHorsey 10y ago
    Listen to this podcast by the NPR Planet Money guy's Gimlet Media: https://gimletmedia.com/episode/5-organic-food/ https://gimletmedia.com/episode/5-organic-food/
  - marcoperaza 10y ago
    It's a propaganda article on a food-hipsterism advocacy website. Do the research for yourself. Very quickly though, their points about organic food being more efficient, tastier, healthier, non-GMO, and pesticide-free are either wrong, conflating correlation with causation (as overpriced luxury food is more likely to be organic), or misleading (as GMO and many pesticides are totally safe).
Svip 10y ago
There are some problems with this article. For one thing, it's from January 2016, and it mentions Food and Agriculture Minister Dan Jørgensen, but Jørgensen wasn't minister back in January, his government stepped down in June 2015, when a new centre-right government took over. And exactly agriculture is one of the areas that the new government have changed a lot. It was growing into a big scandal around when this article was written, that cost the agriculture minister of that government her job.[0] So between when I am writing this post, and when Jørgensen said that in 2015, there have been three different agriculture ministers. Given the new relaxed rules by the ministry on farmers and what they can do to the soil, I think it is safe to say that the ambitious plan that the article refers to has pretty much been scrapped. The article is very out of date right now, but it was even out of date at the time it was written. The plan was published in January 2015. The general election was in early June 2015. The new agriculture law came into effect around February 2016 (but its contents was known by December 2015). [0] https://www.thelocal.dk/20160229/danish-pm-announces-cabinet-shake-up https://www.thelocal.dk/20160229/danish-pm-announces-cabinet...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
7sigma 10y ago
The article is quite misleading with its claims of organic being better than conventional agriculture 1) The UNCTAD report that is cited actually has the following text: "The views expressed in the articles contained in this Review are the personal views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their respective organisations and institutions." Many of the authors have ties with the organic industry (see https://thoughtscapism.com/2015/09/21/myth-un-calls-for-small-scale-organic-farming/ https://thoughtscapism.com/2015/09/21/myth-un-calls-for-smal...) 2) Organic food has less pesticides exposure. Not necessarily as organic agriculture also uses pesticides (naturally occuring ones). Though they tend to degrade quicker than synthetic ones, they are not as effective and need to be applied more often. Also the use of copper sulfate is allowed, which doesn't biodegrade and builds up in the soil. The following is also completely rubbish "Yes, pesticide residues are regulated by the U.S. Food Quality Protection Act, but the tolerance levels assigned for some pesticides pose potential health risks, even though they are considered “allowable.”" 3) Organic foods are more nutritious and taste better. Nope. The article just cherry picks a few studies. Following meta study comes to conclusion that organic food is not more nutritious https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22944875 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22944875 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11833635 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11833635 4) Organic foods help achieve biodiversity and soil fertility Maybe on the area farmed, but it tends to not be as efficient as conventional farming, so increase acreage is needed which reduces biodiversity. Regarding soil fertility, GMOs have actually helped thanks to no till agriculture. 5)Organic foods have no GMOs. GMOs actually can help reduce pesticide use (but its not a silver bullet) http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111629 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....
- jcranmer 10y ago
  I did look at the UNCTAD report a bit, and it's disquietingly short on actual data to confirm their theses. The main thrust of what I read seemed to be focussing on the idea of empowering small landholders rather than industrial-scale farming, which actually isn't all that bad of an idea. But there doesn't seem to be any examination of things like crop yield effects of organic versus non-organic agricultural methods. Also, on pesticides: organic pesticides are usually more toxic to humans than synthetic pesticides. (This makes a lot of sense: think of the optimization functions used to select pesticides in natural evolution versus synthetic production). I did laugh on the "more nutritious and tastes better" bit. As you say, most studies and meta-studies find no effect on nutrition.
macandcheese 10y ago
"Organic" food doesn't mean a whole lot, and it's produced at such large scales that the ecological benefits attributed to "organic" food aren't there. Now, on the other hand, you can apply those to small scale, locally produced, sourced, and distributed food. Buying locally grown food is a benefit to your community yourself, and often your environment, whereas organic is just a marketing word.
TheMagicHorsey 10y ago
I visited Denmark from San Francisco in 2014. The food there was atrociously expensive. ATROCIOUS. Denmark does many things better than the US ... such as bicycle lanes. But food isn't one of those things. Plus, much of organic food theory is total pseudoscientific bunk. Check out this survey of research on organic food in the Gimlet Media podcast: https://gimletmedia.com/episode/5-organic-food/ https://gimletmedia.com/episode/5-organic-food/
- the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
  > I visited Denmark from San Francisco in 2014. The food there was atrociously expensive. ATROCIOUS. I live in Austria where food is also expensive and most is organic but that's mainly because there is a 20% VAT tax on it, not because production is that much more expensive. I do think that our vegetables are tastier than in the US but I doubt it has anything to do with organic.
  - xyzzyz 10y ago
    I don't know how about Austria, but in many European countries there's a separate VAT rate for raw unprocessed food. E.g. in Poland, regular VAT rate is 23%, while it is 8% or 5% for basic food items like bread, milk, butter, meat etc.
    - olau 10y ago
      In Denmark it's 25% VAT on everything.
    - open-source-ux 10y ago
      In the UK, most food and drink is zero-rated for VAT. Exceptions include snacks, confectionery, crisps, alcohol etc.
- Svip 10y ago
  You are saying that we don't do food better because it's more expensive? But it's expensive to you. The local purchasing power in Denmark is higher than it in the US. To Danish people (such as myself), it doesn't feel expensive. Although, it doesn't feel cheap either. We are quite aware that we have the third highest cost of living. But seriously, food being expensive is not the same as not doing food right. The few times I've been in the US, I've always been disappointed about the food available in supermarkets. It's hard to find stuff such as good milk or butter.
oldmanjay 10y ago
How does one find the magical line with food whereby doing millennia of untargeted poorly-understood genetic engineering is what nature intended? Does it only become artificial when we get good at it? I think I have too much of a scientific bent to understand the religious reasoning involved.
- istorical 10y ago
  You seem to be conflating 'GMO' with 'organic'. Organic food is more about avoiding pesticide residue, artificial hormones or antibiotics, etc. And if you don't find things like carcinogens or endocrine disruptors scientific then I'm sorry to tell you that you're underinformed.
  - jcranmer 10y ago
    Uh, organic foods DO have ample pesticides used on them. Generally more pesticides, and more toxic pesticides, in fact.
    - istorical 10y ago
      "Organic foods" is an idea. Organic foods in practice may often fail to live up to their ambition though, you're correct.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    "Organic" food is not about avoiding pesticide residue; it is about using pesticides approved by certifying parties and paying for this certification. Avoiding hormones and antibiotics is more relevant. Carcinogens are everywhere.
- jcranmer 10y ago
  It's easy. If it comes from a highly-regulated industry requiring substantial investment in safety and efficacy studies to get anything to market, then all of those studies are clearly lies and everything is from the spawn of Satan. If it comes from an industry which law prevents any agency from regulating any claims of safety and efficacy and that can't be bothered to actually put the listed ingredients in their products, then everything they say is gospel truth and there is absolutely no harm. I would say it's a simple everything-corporate-is-evil philosophy, but there are some pretty big corporations behind the alternative medicine/organic farming stuff that are good at hiding the fact that they're big corporations.
a-priori 10y ago
The findings of a 2013 report from the United Nations titled, “Wake Up Before It’s Too Late,” say small-scale, organic farming is the only way to sustainably feed the world. The report they're referring to can be accessed here: http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ditcted2012d3_en.pdf http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ditcted2012d3_en.pd... That report is not an official statement by the United Nations nor any of its working groups. It's published by a UN committee, but it's merely a collection of papers by individual authors. They say right in the introduction (page 3) that the opinions expressed in it are not those of the United Nations or any of its member States. So it's misleading to call it a "report from the United Nations". It's not even clear to me which article they're specifically referring to. I only skimmed it (it's 321 pages long) and did some keyword searches, but I don't see a direct "we must do only 'organic' farming or we all die" statement. Addressing concerns like crop monocultures can be done incrementally, without abandoning the benefits of pesticides and genetic modification. But even then, when you're talking about 'feeding the world', crop yields are the name of the game. And my understanding is exactly the opposite of this article: crop yields under organic farming techniques is lower than conventional modern farming (by ~20% according to http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X1100182X http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X11...). Further, I recall that this gap is below the level to sustain the world's current population. In other words, by advocating for 100% organic farming, you're intentionally advocating for a practice that will lead to starvation of part of the world's population. I can't see how that's conscionable.
Hermel 10y ago
Am I the only one who finds the word "organic" stupid? Taken literally, it means that there are no anorganic ingredients, e.g. no salt and no water. Most countries use the term "biological" instead (implying an absence of chemicals), which I find a much better fit.
- Svip 10y ago
  In the context of Denmark, Danish/Denmark uses the term »økologi« which is closest to 'ecology' in English.
tibarun 10y ago
Look at Cuba's organic farming.

51 points by finid 10y ago

olau 10y ago

While I think it's true that organic is big in Denmark, e.g. common kindergartens in my area generally seem to be using mostly organic food in their kitchens, I don't think the summary is accurate in the sense that there's a long, long way before the whole country has switched to organic production. Or consumption for that matter. If it will ever happen. The article is quoting the previous government, by the way, the current one just announced it's going to cut the temporary subsidies given to farms switching to organic production.

finid 10y ago

In the U.S., fast food workers are struggling to get a respectable increase in pay. But in Denmark, the fast food industry pays its workers at least $20 an hour. That's at least $5 more than the $15 minimum wage the same class of workers are fighting for here (in the US).

dvcc 10y ago
A quick search shows that a meal at McDoanld's is 50% more in Denmark than in the US. I am not really sure on the accuracy of Numbeo, but the comparative price of a meal to wage is interesting. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=Denmark https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_resu...
- Svip 10y ago
  Well, since we are talking about McDonald's, you could also look at the Big Mac Index: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index But yes, a cheeseburger here costs 10 DKK. That's 1.50 USD. I don't know what a cheeseburger costs in the US, but I'd imagine it's 1 USD.
  - Kalium 10y ago
    More like $4.
    - overcast 10y ago
      Cheeseburger at McDonalds is about $1.29ish in the US.
      - dalke 10y ago
        To confirm, http://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/ http://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/ lists $1, then add tax.
    - 3pt14159 10y ago
      That's a big mac, not a cheeseburger.
      - Kalium 10y ago
        You're right, I assumed big mac from the index.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- lumberjack 10y ago
  American Fast Food chains are more expensive in most of Europe compared to the US. Is that a bad thing?
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    Not just American fast food chains. Everything is more expensive. Yes, I can see how people think it is bad.
- Reason077 10y ago
  A quick search shows that a meal at McDoanld's is 50% more in Denmark than in the US. This has more to do with the cost of labour than that of the underlying food ingredients.
whenwillitstop 10y ago
Love the constant propaganda that is literally everywhere
overcast 10y ago
Have you been to Denmark before? I can't speak for the rest of the country, but Copenhagen is SERIOUSLY expensive.
- okket 10y ago
  Even from a German perspective Denmark is 30-50% more expensive. Beautiful country and fast Internet, though :)
- runj__ 10y ago
  Yes, they still have a pretty high PPI though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... In Sweden we usually talk about marginal tax rates and how Denmark usually has got us beat on that front but it seems it's mostly their high VAT that makes that possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates

marcoperaza 10y ago

Organic food is pseudoscience. The only good reason to buy organic is that it is often a proxy for higher quality in general, but that's not universally true. Modern inorganic farming methods are necessary for feeding the world. If the whole world switched to organic farming, there would be cataclysmic mass starvation.

biehl 10y ago
> organic is [...] often a proxy for higher quality in general, but that's not universally true. Agree. > Modern inorganic farming methods are necessary for feeding the world. If the whole world switched to organic farming, there would be cataclysmic mass starvation. Most certainly false! By reducing meat consumption or increasing labor intensity organic agriculture could easily support the whole world. For many of the places where food security is needed the most, increased soil quality, as supported by organic agriculture, would help a lot. http://www.unep.org/pdf/SmallholderReport_WEB.pdf http://www.unep.org/pdf/SmallholderReport_WEB.pdf
finid 10y ago
Organic food is pseudoscience. Really? Care to elaborate on that? The article lists the many reasons why organic foods are better than non-organic ones. You should read it.
- TheMagicHorsey 10y ago
  Listen to this podcast by the NPR Planet Money guy's Gimlet Media: https://gimletmedia.com/episode/5-organic-food/ https://gimletmedia.com/episode/5-organic-food/
- marcoperaza 10y ago
  It's a propaganda article on a food-hipsterism advocacy website. Do the research for yourself. Very quickly though, their points about organic food being more efficient, tastier, healthier, non-GMO, and pesticide-free are either wrong, conflating correlation with causation (as overpriced luxury food is more likely to be organic), or misleading (as GMO and many pesticides are totally safe).

Svip 10y ago

There are some problems with this article. For one thing, it's from January 2016, and it mentions Food and Agriculture Minister Dan Jørgensen, but Jørgensen wasn't minister back in January, his government stepped down in June 2015, when a new centre-right government took over. And exactly agriculture is one of the areas that the new government have changed a lot. It was growing into a big scandal around when this article was written, that cost the agriculture minister of that government her job.[0] So between when I am writing this post, and when Jørgensen said that in 2015, there have been three different agriculture ministers. Given the new relaxed rules by the ministry on farmers and what they can do to the soil, I think it is safe to say that the ambitious plan that the article refers to has pretty much been scrapped. The article is very out of date right now, but it was even out of date at the time it was written. The plan was published in January 2015. The general election was in early June 2015. The new agriculture law came into effect around February 2016 (but its contents was known by December 2015). [0] https://www.thelocal.dk/20160229/danish-pm-announces-cabinet-shake-up https://www.thelocal.dk/20160229/danish-pm-announces-cabinet...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

7sigma 10y ago

The article is quite misleading with its claims of organic being better than conventional agriculture 1) The UNCTAD report that is cited actually has the following text: "The views expressed in the articles contained in this Review are the personal views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their respective organisations and institutions." Many of the authors have ties with the organic industry (see https://thoughtscapism.com/2015/09/21/myth-un-calls-for-small-scale-organic-farming/ https://thoughtscapism.com/2015/09/21/myth-un-calls-for-smal...) 2) Organic food has less pesticides exposure. Not necessarily as organic agriculture also uses pesticides (naturally occuring ones). Though they tend to degrade quicker than synthetic ones, they are not as effective and need to be applied more often. Also the use of copper sulfate is allowed, which doesn't biodegrade and builds up in the soil. The following is also completely rubbish "Yes, pesticide residues are regulated by the U.S. Food Quality Protection Act, but the tolerance levels assigned for some pesticides pose potential health risks, even though they are considered “allowable.”" 3) Organic foods are more nutritious and taste better. Nope. The article just cherry picks a few studies. Following meta study comes to conclusion that organic food is not more nutritious https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22944875 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22944875 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11833635 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11833635 4) Organic foods help achieve biodiversity and soil fertility Maybe on the area farmed, but it tends to not be as efficient as conventional farming, so increase acreage is needed which reduces biodiversity. Regarding soil fertility, GMOs have actually helped thanks to no till agriculture. 5)Organic foods have no GMOs. GMOs actually can help reduce pesticide use (but its not a silver bullet) http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111629 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

jcranmer 10y ago
I did look at the UNCTAD report a bit, and it's disquietingly short on actual data to confirm their theses. The main thrust of what I read seemed to be focussing on the idea of empowering small landholders rather than industrial-scale farming, which actually isn't all that bad of an idea. But there doesn't seem to be any examination of things like crop yield effects of organic versus non-organic agricultural methods. Also, on pesticides: organic pesticides are usually more toxic to humans than synthetic pesticides. (This makes a lot of sense: think of the optimization functions used to select pesticides in natural evolution versus synthetic production). I did laugh on the "more nutritious and tastes better" bit. As you say, most studies and meta-studies find no effect on nutrition.

macandcheese 10y ago

"Organic" food doesn't mean a whole lot, and it's produced at such large scales that the ecological benefits attributed to "organic" food aren't there. Now, on the other hand, you can apply those to small scale, locally produced, sourced, and distributed food. Buying locally grown food is a benefit to your community yourself, and often your environment, whereas organic is just a marketing word.

TheMagicHorsey 10y ago

I visited Denmark from San Francisco in 2014. The food there was atrociously expensive. ATROCIOUS. Denmark does many things better than the US ... such as bicycle lanes. But food isn't one of those things. Plus, much of organic food theory is total pseudoscientific bunk. Check out this survey of research on organic food in the Gimlet Media podcast: https://gimletmedia.com/episode/5-organic-food/ https://gimletmedia.com/episode/5-organic-food/

the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
> I visited Denmark from San Francisco in 2014. The food there was atrociously expensive. ATROCIOUS. I live in Austria where food is also expensive and most is organic but that's mainly because there is a 20% VAT tax on it, not because production is that much more expensive. I do think that our vegetables are tastier than in the US but I doubt it has anything to do with organic.
- xyzzyz 10y ago
  I don't know how about Austria, but in many European countries there's a separate VAT rate for raw unprocessed food. E.g. in Poland, regular VAT rate is 23%, while it is 8% or 5% for basic food items like bread, milk, butter, meat etc.
  - olau 10y ago
    In Denmark it's 25% VAT on everything.
  - open-source-ux 10y ago
    In the UK, most food and drink is zero-rated for VAT. Exceptions include snacks, confectionery, crisps, alcohol etc.
Svip 10y ago
You are saying that we don't do food better because it's more expensive? But it's expensive to you. The local purchasing power in Denmark is higher than it in the US. To Danish people (such as myself), it doesn't feel expensive. Although, it doesn't feel cheap either. We are quite aware that we have the third highest cost of living. But seriously, food being expensive is not the same as not doing food right. The few times I've been in the US, I've always been disappointed about the food available in supermarkets. It's hard to find stuff such as good milk or butter.

oldmanjay 10y ago

How does one find the magical line with food whereby doing millennia of untargeted poorly-understood genetic engineering is what nature intended? Does it only become artificial when we get good at it? I think I have too much of a scientific bent to understand the religious reasoning involved.

istorical 10y ago
You seem to be conflating 'GMO' with 'organic'. Organic food is more about avoiding pesticide residue, artificial hormones or antibiotics, etc. And if you don't find things like carcinogens or endocrine disruptors scientific then I'm sorry to tell you that you're underinformed.
- jcranmer 10y ago
  Uh, organic foods DO have ample pesticides used on them. Generally more pesticides, and more toxic pesticides, in fact.
  - istorical 10y ago
    "Organic foods" is an idea. Organic foods in practice may often fail to live up to their ambition though, you're correct.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ptaipale 10y ago
  "Organic" food is not about avoiding pesticide residue; it is about using pesticides approved by certifying parties and paying for this certification. Avoiding hormones and antibiotics is more relevant. Carcinogens are everywhere.
jcranmer 10y ago
It's easy. If it comes from a highly-regulated industry requiring substantial investment in safety and efficacy studies to get anything to market, then all of those studies are clearly lies and everything is from the spawn of Satan. If it comes from an industry which law prevents any agency from regulating any claims of safety and efficacy and that can't be bothered to actually put the listed ingredients in their products, then everything they say is gospel truth and there is absolutely no harm. I would say it's a simple everything-corporate-is-evil philosophy, but there are some pretty big corporations behind the alternative medicine/organic farming stuff that are good at hiding the fact that they're big corporations.

a-priori 10y ago

The findings of a 2013 report from the United Nations titled, “Wake Up Before It’s Too Late,” say small-scale, organic farming is the only way to sustainably feed the world. The report they're referring to can be accessed here: http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ditcted2012d3_en.pdf http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ditcted2012d3_en.pd... That report is not an official statement by the United Nations nor any of its working groups. It's published by a UN committee, but it's merely a collection of papers by individual authors. They say right in the introduction (page 3) that the opinions expressed in it are not those of the United Nations or any of its member States. So it's misleading to call it a "report from the United Nations". It's not even clear to me which article they're specifically referring to. I only skimmed it (it's 321 pages long) and did some keyword searches, but I don't see a direct "we must do only 'organic' farming or we all die" statement. Addressing concerns like crop monocultures can be done incrementally, without abandoning the benefits of pesticides and genetic modification. But even then, when you're talking about 'feeding the world', crop yields are the name of the game. And my understanding is exactly the opposite of this article: crop yields under organic farming techniques is lower than conventional modern farming (by ~20% according to http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X1100182X http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X11...). Further, I recall that this gap is below the level to sustain the world's current population. In other words, by advocating for 100% organic farming, you're intentionally advocating for a practice that will lead to starvation of part of the world's population. I can't see how that's conscionable.

Hermel 10y ago

Am I the only one who finds the word "organic" stupid? Taken literally, it means that there are no anorganic ingredients, e.g. no salt and no water. Most countries use the term "biological" instead (implying an absence of chemicals), which I find a much better fit.

Svip 10y ago
In the context of Denmark, Danish/Denmark uses the term »økologi« which is closest to 'ecology' in English.

tibarun 10y ago

Look at Cuba's organic farming.