5 ms·

I haven't seen a defense of organic farming based on data rather than on "natural" being good and "unnatural" being bad.

by yosito 5y ago

jjoonathan 5y ago
Yeah, and I've seen a lot of bad substitutions. It gets visceral when I volunteer for sorting at the food bank. The organic crates roll in, the traditional crates roll in -- and it turns out that, say, all the zucchini in the organic crates has turned to mush because they don't believe in spraying with wax. Crate after crate of rotting, wasted produce. Awful. Natural, yes, but nature is so often awful, and it's such a shame when we know how to be less wasteful and intentionally forego this knowledge in order to indulge shoppers' nature fetish. Is this even what they really want? Would they continue to insist on the organic label if they saw these crates of rotting zucchini mush?
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  Organic farming doesn't forbid waxing produce.
  - jjoonathan 5y ago
    Maybe zucchinis need wax and preservatives? It looked like there was wax on the traditional produce and not on the organic produce, but I don't really know the process, I just see the crates of rotting produce at the food bank every fall. Those crates are overwhelmingly likely to have "organic" on the label whereas their picture-perfect counterparts are much less likely to have "organic" on the label.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      > I don't know the process, I just see the crates of rotting produce every fall. Well, you don't typically spray preservatives on zucchini. Consider the possibility that there are factors outside your view here. Perhaps the organic farm you're getting the zucchini from is further away, or more successful commercially at selling their best product. Who knows? Without more information, you might just be the anecdotal victim of confirmation bias.
      - jjoonathan 5y ago
        It's not just zucchini. This story plays out regularly. Yeah, it's possible that there's another explanation, but it's also possible that foregoing preservative techniques causes food to go bad earlier.
  - fock 5y ago
    and the 100% organic Zucchini I had recently were good for 4weeks in my fridge. so?
    - mavhc 5y ago
      Does the fridge energy usage plus the terrible global warming potential of the fridge's gases outweigh the non organic version's increased chemical use?
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        Newer fridges don't use those gases, and unless you have a dedicated produce fridge, it was gonna be running anyways.
        mavhc 5y ago
        https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201204-climate-change-how-chemicals-in-your-fridge-warm-the-planet https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201204-climate-change-h... still says "phasing out" Would the fridge die sooner if it was used more?
- abacadaba 5y ago
  Can we at least label which products are coated in ground up insects?
- fortran77 5y ago
  > Would they continue to insist on the organic label if they saw these crates of rotting zucchini mush? Probably. They feed their kids “organic” because they believe it will give them a competitive edge. Not because if concern for people who can’t shop at Whole Foods.
618033988749894 5y ago
Here's one: Organic food needs soil, sunlight, and water. Conventional food needs soil, sunlight, water, oil refineries, chemical plants, etc., plus all the heavy industry necessary to support those things. Here's another: If I recall correctly, after WWII the US didn't know what to do with all its munitions factories. They realized that the basic ingredients of bombs were good at fixing nitrogen in the soil, so they made minor conversions to the factories and started producing chemical fertilizers. Fifty years later, Timothy McVeigh was able to buy a truckload of the stuff and bomb a federal building. I hope Sri Lanka continues this experiment. Could it be that after so many years of conventional agriculture, the soil was too depleted of nutrients to be suitable for food crops? I imagine that things will improve as the land heals.
- username_my1 5y ago
  you didn't provide data, chemical based farming has been going on industrial scale for 100 years now... no barren land is accumulating. if 100 years aren't enough to evaluate long term consequences what is?
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    > if 100 years aren't enough to evaluate long term consequences what is? 100 years isn't long when you're changing the global ecosystem. The Industrial Revolution began in the late 1700s. We're only now beginning to agree on its long-term consequences, and quite a ways off from agreeing on mitigation steps.
  - 618033988749894 5y ago
    What is data? In the comment I replied to, the words "rather than" indicate that the OP considered the defense "natural vs. unnatural" to be a defense based on data. I replied on that standard. I will repeat that I hope Sri Lanka continues this experiment. Experiments like this are the only way we'll get the data we need.
- carlob 5y ago
  I think you are (possibly deliberately) forgetting that there are pesticides which are allowed in organic farming, they are just not as effective as more modern alternatives and they end up polluting the water table in a very significant way.
gmac 5y ago
I have mixed feelings about this request. On the one hand, fair enough. On the other hand, I'm reminded of the paper 'Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial'[1]. We don't always need data. Take chlorpyrifos[2]. It's pretty nasty. It requires no additional data to determine that, all else being equal, we'll be better off not consuming its residues on our food. This is not simply an "unnatural = bad" argument: this is a specific chemical with known harmful effects, which you can avoid by buying organic. Of course, the key question is: is all else equal? Organic farming does permit some other chemicals, and has a wide range of other impacts, including yields etc. So it's possible that organic farming is net negative for human welfare. But it's unfair to characterise a preference for organic farming as being quite as unscientific as you seem to claim. I also think the article is telling us less about the innate merits of organic farming and more about the stupidity of making huge system changes overnight without training the people on the ground. [1] https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094 https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorpyrifos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorpyrifos
- dr_dshiv 5y ago
  Wow. Ok, that's pretty convincing. I guess it's frustrating having organic vs regular as the option here. Seems like we need more terms to have a more reasonable discussion. Like, what is it called when we don't use dangerous pesticides but we do use man-made fertilizer? What is it called when we use crops optimized for flavor and nutrition vs shelf-life and bulk? I live in the Netherlands and the produce here is pretty awful compared with France, Italy or Germany. I'd be happy with some kind of arbitrary point system to indicate holistic quality. Even though we might disagree on details, balancing price, health, nutrition, taste, environmental sustainability and labor ethics is really hard for a consumer. When you buy organic you kind of hope all those things are included, but it just seems so non-rationalized at the moment.
  - gmac 5y ago
    It’s true that some of this could be fixed by more transparency. For example, the pesticides used on crops ought to be listed/available on packaging/at the point of sale.
giantg2 5y ago
Should be plenty of stuff in here. https://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/sar https://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/sar
necovek 5y ago
Modern organic farming is in infancy still, plagued by a number of problems plaguing non-organic farming too (eg. transportation, picking unripe fruit and vegetables to let them ripen in the storage or on the store shelves and to avoid pests...). The focus is currently on how use of "non-organic" methods (pesticide effects on humans and insect—particularly bee—population, soil depletion...) are harmful, and naturally, humans immediately explore the other extreme, without looking for a sweet spot in the middle (of course, humans are exploring it, it's just not publicized enough). And the sweet spot is always in the middle. Organic produce is popular because it gives you some reassurance (compared to almost none otherwise) and the living standards have increased in large (edit: small, but mostly participating on HN :) parts of the world to be able to afford it (with their living standard, I am sure Sri Lanka wanted to be the first exporter of exclusively organic produce, not for their internal use): we are still far away from finding the best way, but it's important to work from both ends to help us get there.

I haven't seen a defense of organic farming based on data rather than on "natural" being good and "unnatural" being bad.

by yosito 5y ago

I haven't seen a defense of organic farming based on data rather than on "natural" being good and "unnatural" being bad.

jjoonathan 5y ago

Yeah, and I've seen a lot of bad substitutions. It gets visceral when I volunteer for sorting at the food bank. The organic crates roll in, the traditional crates roll in -- and it turns out that, say, all the zucchini in the organic crates has turned to mush because they don't believe in spraying with wax. Crate after crate of rotting, wasted produce. Awful. Natural, yes, but nature is so often awful, and it's such a shame when we know how to be less wasteful and intentionally forego this knowledge in order to indulge shoppers' nature fetish. Is this even what they really want? Would they continue to insist on the organic label if they saw these crates of rotting zucchini mush?

ceejayoz 5y ago
Organic farming doesn't forbid waxing produce.
- jjoonathan 5y ago
  Maybe zucchinis need wax and preservatives? It looked like there was wax on the traditional produce and not on the organic produce, but I don't really know the process, I just see the crates of rotting produce at the food bank every fall. Those crates are overwhelmingly likely to have "organic" on the label whereas their picture-perfect counterparts are much less likely to have "organic" on the label.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    > I don't know the process, I just see the crates of rotting produce every fall. Well, you don't typically spray preservatives on zucchini. Consider the possibility that there are factors outside your view here. Perhaps the organic farm you're getting the zucchini from is further away, or more successful commercially at selling their best product. Who knows? Without more information, you might just be the anecdotal victim of confirmation bias.
    - jjoonathan 5y ago
      It's not just zucchini. This story plays out regularly. Yeah, it's possible that there's another explanation, but it's also possible that foregoing preservative techniques causes food to go bad earlier.
- fock 5y ago
  and the 100% organic Zucchini I had recently were good for 4weeks in my fridge. so?
  - mavhc 5y ago
    Does the fridge energy usage plus the terrible global warming potential of the fridge's gases outweigh the non organic version's increased chemical use?
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      Newer fridges don't use those gases, and unless you have a dedicated produce fridge, it was gonna be running anyways.
      - mavhc 5y ago
        https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201204-climate-change-how-chemicals-in-your-fridge-warm-the-planet https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201204-climate-change-h... still says "phasing out" Would the fridge die sooner if it was used more?
abacadaba 5y ago
Can we at least label which products are coated in ground up insects?
fortran77 5y ago
> Would they continue to insist on the organic label if they saw these crates of rotting zucchini mush? Probably. They feed their kids “organic” because they believe it will give them a competitive edge. Not because if concern for people who can’t shop at Whole Foods.

618033988749894 5y ago

Here's one: Organic food needs soil, sunlight, and water. Conventional food needs soil, sunlight, water, oil refineries, chemical plants, etc., plus all the heavy industry necessary to support those things. Here's another: If I recall correctly, after WWII the US didn't know what to do with all its munitions factories. They realized that the basic ingredients of bombs were good at fixing nitrogen in the soil, so they made minor conversions to the factories and started producing chemical fertilizers. Fifty years later, Timothy McVeigh was able to buy a truckload of the stuff and bomb a federal building. I hope Sri Lanka continues this experiment. Could it be that after so many years of conventional agriculture, the soil was too depleted of nutrients to be suitable for food crops? I imagine that things will improve as the land heals.

username_my1 5y ago
you didn't provide data, chemical based farming has been going on industrial scale for 100 years now... no barren land is accumulating. if 100 years aren't enough to evaluate long term consequences what is?
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > if 100 years aren't enough to evaluate long term consequences what is? 100 years isn't long when you're changing the global ecosystem. The Industrial Revolution began in the late 1700s. We're only now beginning to agree on its long-term consequences, and quite a ways off from agreeing on mitigation steps.
- 618033988749894 5y ago
  What is data? In the comment I replied to, the words "rather than" indicate that the OP considered the defense "natural vs. unnatural" to be a defense based on data. I replied on that standard. I will repeat that I hope Sri Lanka continues this experiment. Experiments like this are the only way we'll get the data we need.
carlob 5y ago
I think you are (possibly deliberately) forgetting that there are pesticides which are allowed in organic farming, they are just not as effective as more modern alternatives and they end up polluting the water table in a very significant way.

gmac 5y ago

I have mixed feelings about this request. On the one hand, fair enough. On the other hand, I'm reminded of the paper 'Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial'[1]. We don't always need data. Take chlorpyrifos[2]. It's pretty nasty. It requires no additional data to determine that, all else being equal, we'll be better off not consuming its residues on our food. This is not simply an "unnatural = bad" argument: this is a specific chemical with known harmful effects, which you can avoid by buying organic. Of course, the key question is: is all else equal? Organic farming does permit some other chemicals, and has a wide range of other impacts, including yields etc. So it's possible that organic farming is net negative for human welfare. But it's unfair to characterise a preference for organic farming as being quite as unscientific as you seem to claim. I also think the article is telling us less about the innate merits of organic farming and more about the stupidity of making huge system changes overnight without training the people on the ground. [1] https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094 https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorpyrifos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorpyrifos

dr_dshiv 5y ago
Wow. Ok, that's pretty convincing. I guess it's frustrating having organic vs regular as the option here. Seems like we need more terms to have a more reasonable discussion. Like, what is it called when we don't use dangerous pesticides but we do use man-made fertilizer? What is it called when we use crops optimized for flavor and nutrition vs shelf-life and bulk? I live in the Netherlands and the produce here is pretty awful compared with France, Italy or Germany. I'd be happy with some kind of arbitrary point system to indicate holistic quality. Even though we might disagree on details, balancing price, health, nutrition, taste, environmental sustainability and labor ethics is really hard for a consumer. When you buy organic you kind of hope all those things are included, but it just seems so non-rationalized at the moment.
- gmac 5y ago
  It’s true that some of this could be fixed by more transparency. For example, the pesticides used on crops ought to be listed/available on packaging/at the point of sale.

giantg2 5y ago

Should be plenty of stuff in here. https://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/sar https://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/sar

necovek 5y ago

Modern organic farming is in infancy still, plagued by a number of problems plaguing non-organic farming too (eg. transportation, picking unripe fruit and vegetables to let them ripen in the storage or on the store shelves and to avoid pests...). The focus is currently on how use of "non-organic" methods (pesticide effects on humans and insect—particularly bee—population, soil depletion...) are harmful, and naturally, humans immediately explore the other extreme, without looking for a sweet spot in the middle (of course, humans are exploring it, it's just not publicized enough). And the sweet spot is always in the middle. Organic produce is popular because it gives you some reassurance (compared to almost none otherwise) and the living standards have increased in large (edit: small, but mostly participating on HN :) parts of the world to be able to afford it (with their living standard, I am sure Sri Lanka wanted to be the first exporter of exclusively organic produce, not for their internal use): we are still far away from finding the best way, but it's important to work from both ends to help us get there.