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The benefit of organic is the presumed lower amounts of pesticide and herbicide residues in the product, hence some tiny lessening of the probability of getting

The benefit of organic is the presumed lower amounts of pesticide and herbicide residues in the product, hence some tiny lessening of the probability of getting cancer. Some would also assert that the products have better nutritional values, but this seems very marginal and unlikely. On the other hand, the amount of energy used to grow, process and distribute the product is likely to be higher than for non-organic due to less efficient fertilization, more cultivation, lower yields due to pests, and smaller-scale production units.

ctdonath 7y ago
"Presumed" is the problem. Organic: you keep using that word; the government does not think it means what you think it means.
- Merrill 7y ago
  >Organic 101: What the USDA Organic Label Means https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2012/03/22/organic-101-what-usda-organic-label-means https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2012/03/22/organic-101-what-... What about the presumption is wrong? Also https://www.ams.usda.gov/grades-standards/organic-labeling-standards https://www.ams.usda.gov/grades-standards/organic-labeling-s... “Organic” “Organic” can be used to label any product that contains a minimum of 95 percent organic ingredients (excluding salt and water). Up to 5 percent of the ingredients may be nonorganic agricultural products that are not commercially available as organic and/or nonagricultural products that are on the National List.1 Principal display panel: May include USDA organic seal and/or organic claim. Information Panel: Must identify organic ingredients (e.g., organic dill) or via asterisk or other mark.
  - PeterisP 7y ago
    > What about the presumption is wrong? Everything? You quote a bunch of resources, and none of them support the presumption you made "lower amounts of pesticide and herbicide residues in the product, hence some tiny lessening of the probability of getting cancer. Some would also assert that the products have better nutritional values". The presumption is understandable, intuitive, but has no basis in reality. The presumption seems to be that organic farming is closer to traditional farming and avoids practices that pollute the products and the environment. However, the government doesn't see it that way, and describes (in the resources you quote) "organic" in a way that does not require to avoid polluting practices as such, but only certain types of polluting practices... while farmers/manufacturers (obviously) compensate for them. In particular, if we're talking about produce, then the large growers who want to satisfy the USDA Organic Label criteria of "Produce can be called organic if it’s certified to have grown on soil that had no prohibited substances applied for three years prior to harvest. Prohibited substances include most synthetic fertilizers and pesticides." achieve that by using nonsynthetic fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides in large quantities (as they're less efficient as the "default" materials). The substances replacing standard synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are not safer for humans, they're not safer for the environment, they're simply "more natural" because of arbitrary criteria. While an organic farmer could make produce with less pesticides, that's not cost efficient, so on average mass-produced organic produce that meets all the USDA Organic Label requirements generally has more harmful herbicide and nitrate residues than the "default" non-organic produce. A friend works in food safety testing labs, and most of products that exceed the allowed limits of various unhealthy substances or are near the limits come from certified organic farms.
    - fact_factory 7y ago
      >achieve that by using nonsynthetic fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides in large quantities Citation needed. In fact, the organic program requires farmers to manage the weeds and insects using methods besides pesticides, and only allows non-routine pesticide use in the exceptional case. >friend works in food safety testing labs, and most of products that exceed the allowed limits of various unhealthy substances or are near the limits come from certified organic farms. This is likely due to contamination and fraud, since the letter and the spirit of the law in the United States do not permit routine use of pesticides of any type.
  - ctdonath 7y ago
    A recursive definition, ignoring the fact that "organic" includes toxic substances.
AngryData 7y ago
Ignoring the labor costs, the organic methods only use more energy if you completely ignore the chemical energy harvested from natural gas to produce artificial fertilizer. It is just taking a shortcut of using chemical energy directly as a reagent, rather than burning the fuel and using that energy to create the same reagents from electricity. But at the end of the day, you still pulled natural gas out of the ground and released it on the surface of the planet the same as burning it. Using an organic fertilizer however would just be recycling energy that was already on the earth's surface rather than letting it rot away uselessly. All that said, our current practices and facilities cannot recycle or produce enough non-fossil fuel fertilizer to support or agricultural practices. In order to produce fertilizer renewably in an artificial way, ie draw it from the air and water in a chemical facility, we need to increase our energy usage in making fertilizer 10x or more over. Which essentially means we need near the current entire world's worth of energy production produced again, renewably, for the sole production of fertilizer.

ctdonath 7y ago

"Presumed" is the problem. Organic: you keep using that word; the government does not think it means what you think it means.

Merrill 7y ago
>Organic 101: What the USDA Organic Label Means https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2012/03/22/organic-101-what-usda-organic-label-means https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2012/03/22/organic-101-what-... What about the presumption is wrong? Also https://www.ams.usda.gov/grades-standards/organic-labeling-standards https://www.ams.usda.gov/grades-standards/organic-labeling-s... “Organic” “Organic” can be used to label any product that contains a minimum of 95 percent organic ingredients (excluding salt and water). Up to 5 percent of the ingredients may be nonorganic agricultural products that are not commercially available as organic and/or nonagricultural products that are on the National List.1 Principal display panel: May include USDA organic seal and/or organic claim. Information Panel: Must identify organic ingredients (e.g., organic dill) or via asterisk or other mark.
- PeterisP 7y ago
  > What about the presumption is wrong? Everything? You quote a bunch of resources, and none of them support the presumption you made "lower amounts of pesticide and herbicide residues in the product, hence some tiny lessening of the probability of getting cancer. Some would also assert that the products have better nutritional values". The presumption is understandable, intuitive, but has no basis in reality. The presumption seems to be that organic farming is closer to traditional farming and avoids practices that pollute the products and the environment. However, the government doesn't see it that way, and describes (in the resources you quote) "organic" in a way that does not require to avoid polluting practices as such, but only certain types of polluting practices... while farmers/manufacturers (obviously) compensate for them. In particular, if we're talking about produce, then the large growers who want to satisfy the USDA Organic Label criteria of "Produce can be called organic if it’s certified to have grown on soil that had no prohibited substances applied for three years prior to harvest. Prohibited substances include most synthetic fertilizers and pesticides." achieve that by using nonsynthetic fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides in large quantities (as they're less efficient as the "default" materials). The substances replacing standard synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are not safer for humans, they're not safer for the environment, they're simply "more natural" because of arbitrary criteria. While an organic farmer could make produce with less pesticides, that's not cost efficient, so on average mass-produced organic produce that meets all the USDA Organic Label requirements generally has more harmful herbicide and nitrate residues than the "default" non-organic produce. A friend works in food safety testing labs, and most of products that exceed the allowed limits of various unhealthy substances or are near the limits come from certified organic farms.
  - fact_factory 7y ago
    >achieve that by using nonsynthetic fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides in large quantities Citation needed. In fact, the organic program requires farmers to manage the weeds and insects using methods besides pesticides, and only allows non-routine pesticide use in the exceptional case. >friend works in food safety testing labs, and most of products that exceed the allowed limits of various unhealthy substances or are near the limits come from certified organic farms. This is likely due to contamination and fraud, since the letter and the spirit of the law in the United States do not permit routine use of pesticides of any type.
- ctdonath 7y ago
  A recursive definition, ignoring the fact that "organic" includes toxic substances.

AngryData 7y ago

Ignoring the labor costs, the organic methods only use more energy if you completely ignore the chemical energy harvested from natural gas to produce artificial fertilizer. It is just taking a shortcut of using chemical energy directly as a reagent, rather than burning the fuel and using that energy to create the same reagents from electricity. But at the end of the day, you still pulled natural gas out of the ground and released it on the surface of the planet the same as burning it. Using an organic fertilizer however would just be recycling energy that was already on the earth's surface rather than letting it rot away uselessly. All that said, our current practices and facilities cannot recycle or produce enough non-fossil fuel fertilizer to support or agricultural practices. In order to produce fertilizer renewably in an artificial way, ie draw it from the air and water in a chemical facility, we need to increase our energy usage in making fertilizer 10x or more over. Which essentially means we need near the current entire world's worth of energy production produced again, renewably, for the sole production of fertilizer.