11 ms·

A great organic-food fraud

132 points by Amorymeltzer 5y ago

tengbretson 5y ago
Who exactly is supposed to have the time to read all of this?
- m_fayer 5y ago
  Long form journalism has been a buzzy format in the last years and has gotten a bad rap, for good reason. The New Yorker has been doing this since before it had that name. They're as good as they've always been. What they do used to be called "literary journalism" and the name says it all. It's not that it's long. It's that it's more akin to reading a nonfiction book, with all the pleasure AND utility that that can provide.
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    The problem with this type of journalism isn't just the length. When you make informing facts a literary adventure, you inevitable inject a bunch of personal bias (NewYorker has a huge liberal bias) and motifs that have a tone of a particular axe to grind. It is a chore to read these. I am not a fan. To their credit, it is well written in terms of creativity.
    - m_fayer 5y ago
      > When you make informing facts a literary adventure Literary journalism, like non-fiction, do much more than mere fact-dumping. And what we now call "bias" used to be called "perspective".
      - systemvoltage 5y ago
        > And what we now call "bias" used to be called "perspective". More like what we used to get was perspective instead now we get bias. Perspective provides a wholistic view, not a myopic, dogmatic slant that skews facts to fit their perspective. Journalism has gotten much... much worse over the years. You can read 1960's NewYorker and find a stark difference in their ability to put away political bias and provide a deep comprehensive review of the topic.
        m_fayer 5y ago
        I agree with you. But I did not think that this applied to the New Yorker. Thanks for this comment, you got me curious. I'll take a look at the New Yorker of the past, maybe reevaluate.
        systemvoltage 5y ago
        I think people on this forum think that anything that's not liberal is trumpism + unsubstantiated anti-science BS. That's not what I am referring to and going against the slightest here would get you downvotes.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't rush from a provocation in an article to complain about it in the threads here. It produces reliably uninteresting discussion. Here's what to do instead: leave the provocations where you encounter them, and look for something interesting to discuss—that is, something which activates your curiosity, rather than indignation. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- henvic 5y ago
  Who exactly has the time to read your comment. Have you even tried reading something from The New Yorker, The Atlantic, etc.? While their articles are usually huge, they usually provide insightful content. Try it.
  - tengbretson 5y ago
    I disagree. Spending a paragraph to tell me he was the sort of man who would ask another man "Do you need anything? Are you good?" or that he "acted like a deacon, heck maybe he was who knows" is not insightful.
    - SavantIdiot 5y ago
      Obviously, this author isn't really your jam. That's perfectly fine. But how do you expect to understand the nuances of a complex issue if you don't invest time? Not every author is going to cater to your tastes, but seekers of knowledge don't expect that. What you have learned is what writing style to anticipate from this author when you read their work again in the future. That's important: perhaps you can skim parts of this author if you don't fancy well-rounded characters in the narrative. But I urge you: don't give up because of one writer's verbosity.
- TehCorwiz 5y ago
  People who prefer to read more in detail rather than just reading a cursory examination of the topic? This article has roughly 10,000 words. According to https://numberofwords.com/faq/how-long-read-10000-words/ https://numberofwords.com/faq/how-long-read-10000-words/ it should take about and hour to an hour and a half to read the whole thing. Is that unreasonable? I don't know, but I do know that I've spent longer than that reading about how a programmer fixed a bug, so I guess it's down to interest.
  - Amorymeltzer 5y ago
    That link says the average person would take half an hour to read 10k words, not 1-1.5.
    - TehCorwiz 5y ago
      With information dense content I assume a worst case. If it were 10,000 words of Harry Potter I could see it going more quickly.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  I get you. It’s written in that modern creative writing style that suppresses information density in favour of human interest. Usually what you do is read the blurb and see if you’re up for the adventure. Often I am not. I agree with you that the lack of information density makes it painful to read if the topic doesn’t interest you. If you subscribe, I recommend minmaxing: read the one that you really like for the information (which is a lot, though not dense) and then read the fiction section for nice writing. Often, when you make a remark like yours you’ll get a bunch of responses from people acting superior about “long form” stuff. Fairly predictable. Ignore them. They’re just offended because of the style of your remark so their responses will be defensive.
  - pokot0 5y ago
    I just read HN comments, but came too early this time it seems. I will need to start reading some of these articles and give back at somepoint....
- HPsquared 5y ago
  It's padded with filler, like the food.
- SavantIdiot 5y ago
  Hacker news: journalists are corrupt and biased and their work is garbage Also Hacker News: You expect me to read a well-researched article to understand a complex issue? The loss of reading comprehension skills, and intellectual fortitute required to understand something longer than a Tweet or TikTok saddens me.
henvic 5y ago
I recall when this idea of "organic" started (at least for me / in my life) seeing my chemistry teachers at high-school go crazy about how organic means 'that it's made out of carbon'. Of course, turns out organic means it comes from the farming techniques they use. And of course, it's mostly a marketing strategy.
- h2odragon 5y ago
  Every time I see a "Carbon Free" label on a bag of sugar I have to say "I hope not"
ridaj 5y ago
As a farmer once explained to me: "What does Certified Organic mean? — It means they haven't caught you sprayin'"
- ARandomerDude 5y ago
  Another favorite: surround organic fields with non-organic fields that form a pesticide semi-barrier and still provide some fertilizer runoff.
- Mikeb85 5y ago
  Or you spray with the right chemicals. During my time in high end restaurants we came across a lot of small-scale vegetable farmers that used zero chemicals of any sort and grew objectively amazing, delicious and natural produce, but couldn't afford to pay the government to inspect and certify.
  - gs17 5y ago
    There's a local hydroponic place near me with a similar issue. Their lettuce is amazing but officially won't be classified as organic despite not using pesticides/herbicides at all, and likely very limited fertilizer if any.
  - BurningFrog 5y ago
    All you know is they SAID they used zero chemicals, right?
  - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
    Its amazing how everything is so productive that we put value on removing the stuff that made those things productive in the first place.
- infocollector 5y ago
  Perhaps someone here knows about this better. I would love to learn more. Another problem is that we certify international crops from India and China where the soil/water itself has been at times so polluted, that no matter what one does, there are consequences of eating that food. Perhaps there is a way to put random testing from consumers (or restaurants) in place to fix this issue? (So a consumer can send items/produce to a location for testing)
yaseer 5y ago
The word organic has some limited legitimacy as description for farming methods. The word I find most troubling is 'natural', often used in the same marketing. All agricultural produce is the product of domestication of a wild plant or animal by humans. There's nothing natural about a crop or animal subject to human breeding for millenia. Domestication produces crops and animals totally different to natural selection. There's this implicit assumption 'natural' things are better than man-made things. In the context of agriculture, it's a false dichotomy.
- drunner 5y ago
  afaik in the US, 'natural' is an unregulated word in the world of food labeling/marketing
tmsbrg 5y ago
Another one of those articles that's too long for its own good. Thought at the title: Fraud, organic food, yes. This must be interesting. Reading through the start: Okay, here's the life story of someone who's going to do something halfway through this article. Let me check how long this article is. Jeez. It's gonna be a long read and I still don't get what it's about. I'll pass. Thought I'd mention this as it's become a common thing in media lately.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  Well this is a New Yorker piece and not a newspaper. Though I agree that there are an abundance of overstoried posts that bury the lede under a bunch of considerably less interesting context.
- serjester 5y ago
  I have no qualms with reading a long, well written piece but I don’t understand how leading with a 4 paragraph life summary is supposed to hook the reader. Especially when the title is so brash?
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    I think it's a relic of old-school journalistic writing. People today just do not have the attention span or desire to read a meandering backstory. The author started writing for the New Yorker in 1992, so it seems reasonable that he is more old-fashioned in his composition.
- dagw 5y ago
  it's become a common thing in media lately. This is how The New Yorker as done this since forever. If you don't enjoy the 'journey' of their writing at least as much as the 'destination', then they are not the publications for you. Although I agree that the style is being copied by more and more people and outlets, many which don't have the skill to pull it off.
- compiler-guy 5y ago
  The New Yorker magazine has been around for almost 100 years and has been famous for the length of its articles almost as long. Tina Brown, the editor in the 1990s famously made the articles shorter than they had been, and it hasn’t crept back up since she left. All this to say, sure, the article is long. But the New Yorker always has done it this way and this is not anything about the media lately. If anything, long articles are a holdover from a long previous time. Also, all media styles and don’t have to appeal to everyone. The magazine has its audience and you may not be a part of it. Neither aspect is a bad thing.
bmj 5y ago
If you are genuinely concerned about the production quality of the food you eat, stick to local producers who are willing to have you at the farm. Many non-organic producers end up following many traditional "organic" practices but don't pursue the certifications that allow their food to be marketed as "organic." Obviously, buying processed food[0] is a different story, and in many cases, the organic label is very much just that -- a label. [0] Yes, yes, all food is processed at some level. I'm talking about a box of cereal, or a loaf of bread, or pasta, or, or, or...you get the idea.
- asoneth 5y ago
  Agreed. One of the things we like about our town is the number of small-scale family farms. Most are happy to let regulars/CSA-shareholders walk around the fields on the weekends, with the caveat that if they catch you they may talk you into lending a hand pulling weeds or feeding the chickens ;)
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  Each consumer individually inspecting each farm they eat food from does NOT scale, for consumers OR farmers.
  - bmj 5y ago
    You're correct. But, clearly the model of government oversight isn't working out so well, either.
  - kragen 5y ago
    Does it have to scale? How much food do you need to eat? 100 years ago, 90% of people were spending 2500 hours a year in the actual fields that produced the food they ate. It hardly seems ridiculous that 90% of people could spend, say, 5 or 10 hours a year visiting farms they want to eat food from. That's probably less time than you spend putting gas in your car.
    - gruez 5y ago
      > Does it have to scale? [...] > It hardly seems ridiculous that 90% of people could spend, say, 5 or 10 hours a year visiting farms they want to eat food from. 1. you're assuming people are in a good position to judge the "production quality" of a food from a farm visit. suppose you're at an apple orchard and they sprayed [nasty pesticide] last week. how can you discern that from a visit? 2. if this gets popular, what's preventing bad actors from gaming this? ie. focus on making things look good, rather than actually increasing production quality > That's probably less time than you spend putting gas in your car. Using very conservative estimates of 5 minutes per fill-up, and a fill-up every week, we get just over 4 hours per year. That's still below your proposed "5 or 10 hours a year".
deleted 5y ago
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quijoteuniv 5y ago
This article refers to Organic in the US. Is unfortunate it gets so much visibility. Riverford organics farms in the Uk is a good example of what can actually mean. I am happy to eat food withouth pestucides
- guilamu 5y ago
  "organic" does not mean without pesticides though.
  - slothtrop 5y ago
    Right, it means no synthetic pesticides.
    - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
      Organic pesticides mean absolutely nothing in the realm of toxicity/environmental harm vs synthetic pesticides. Its just a chemistry distinction.
      - slothtrop 5y ago
        I don't disagree.
LurkingPenguin 5y ago
I've come to believe that the whole business of "organic certification" is built on a shaky foundation, and outright fraud is just one of the reasons why. I once drove by a vineyard on a highly-trafficked highway in a very prominent wine-growing region and observed a sign that said something to the effect of "Organic vineyard. No dumping!" At the time I thought to myself, "I wonder how many people who buy this winery's organic wine know that the grapes grow right next to such a highly-trafficked highway where they're constantly exposed to auto pollution?" Ultimately, organic certification is a poor replacement for buying from local producers you know personally and can physically visit.
chubot 5y ago
I just bought some amazing apples from "Gorzynski Ornery Farm", which was formerly "Gorzynski Organic Farm". They have been farming without synthetics since the late 70's, and dropped the "organic" because the government definition made it meaningless. https://medium.com/@NYCGreenmarkets/from-organic-to-ornery-72b8c7497e3e https://medium.com/@NYCGreenmarkets/from-organic-to-ornery-7... He had lobbied for years for this very law, and was devastated to see exceptions for chemicals that, in his words, “are so destructive to the environment they shouldn’t even be allowed in conventional agriculture, let alone organic.” (Allowing those 142 chemicals, by the way, is just one of sixty-three issues to which farmers like John so ardently object.) As he saw it, the certification he’d dedicated much of his life to building was now so lax that it was effectively meaningless. It took almost a year to come to grips with, but after twenty years of being certified organic by the state, the Gorzynski family decided to give up the term rather than participate in a certification they could no longer stand by. Try them out if you're in Union Square in NYC! (Saturdays only, through Christmas) ---- edit: Try out Russet apple varieties, e.g. Golden Russet. They are not sold in stores, presumably because of the way they look. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russet_apple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russet_apple I've been eating them from the markets in SF and NY for a few years without knowing the name. As a mnemonic think "Russet" == rough or rusty, but it tastes good. They are very sweet and tart depending on the season, but really the density / crispness / freshness is what stands out. All things being equal, unknown produce that looks ugly is more likely to taste good. Because produce that both looks ugly and tastes bad will naturally disappear from the market. Produce that looks good and tastes bad can persist for many years (e.g. the monoculture of red delicious apples in the USA a few decades ago).
- asoneth 5y ago
  I agree. The deliberate weakening of the "organic" label in the US has been more damaging to its value than the occasional fraud. More broadly, the more I learn about the practices and laws governing the US food system, the more I'm willing to spend on local food grown by people I trust. It's certainly not perfect and I'd rather have trustworthy enforcement or certifications, but it's better than nothing.
- colechristensen 5y ago
hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
I remember when this news first came out, and I heard a lot of folks scoff "Ha, see, I knew organic was always a scam", but I think that position misunderstands some very important details about this story. Randy Constant wasn't selling organic produce, or really much of anything that you think of buying "organic" at the grocery store. Because, for the most part, there tend to be a lot of visual differences between organic and conventional: conventional apples, for example, tend to be huge and spotless, while organic are almost always smaller and less "pristine". Similarly, stuff like organic, grass-fed milk tastes much different than conventional milk. I've always been of the opinion that, as a consumer choice, organic makes sense for certain types of products where you eat the skin and all, e.g. apples, vegetables, etc. In this case, though, Mr. Constant was selling "organic" grain primarily as livestock feed. The idea that you can really tell, or there is any difference at all, in the meat of livestock fed organic vs. conventional is extremely far fetched. Sure, there way be some tiny difference, but it's not like conventional methods include spraying with heavy metals. Most of the pesticides, etc. sprayed on conventional crops certainly don't show up in the meat of animals that eat these crops. So this whole episode did expose the scam of organic livestock feed, but I don't think it's fair to stretch that to organic products generally.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  Organic does not taste or look different. If the produce looks shabbier it’s because they were less selective about throwing pieces into lower grades or it has been on the shelf longer. If milk tastes different its the “grass fed” part not the organic part. People have magical thoughts about what organic does. Roundup and synthetic fertilizer do not affect flavor.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    > Roundup and synthetic fertilizer do not affect flavor I'm not arguing they do. But I've seen conventionally grown apples that were nearly the size of my head, and I've never seen organic produce that comes anywhere close. Granted, that just means it would be difficult to pass off organic as conventional, while the reverse you could just pick conventional earlier, but I think arguing "organic does not look different" is asking me to disbelieve my eyes every time I go to the grocery store.
BitwiseFool 5y ago
One of the most promising advances in genetic engineering is Gene Drive, a way to quickly spread a gene throughout an entire population. With mosquitoes, there is a gene that prevents the newly hatched females from flying and they subsequently die off. Might the same technique be used for known agricultural pests? Why spray a cornfield with pesticides when we can naturalize the population of the Corn Borer Moth? Target the species that are specialized towards consuming the crops we produce. Just imagine how much pesticide won't need to be sprayed because the main pests no longer exist in the area? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- gruez 5y ago
  That really works for species that you can afford to kill off wholesale. AFAIK that's the case for mosquitoes (at least for the species that bites humans), but I'm not sure about other pests (eg. bugs/birds).
pengaru 5y ago
Conventional produce tastes like shit after eating organic exclusively for over a decade. I'm sure there's a lot of fraud and fuckery going on, but just going on the experience of consuming this stuff minimally prepared (rinsed/peeled) on a daily basis, conventional is disgusting. IMHO it's so bad it explains why many people hate fruits and veggies. It's flavorless and often has a chemical aftertaste. This is in California which I've come to appreciate is a privileged place in the organic produce department, so YMMV.
- slothtrop 5y ago
  IME the best tasting produce is local. Apples from your state/province will taste better than organic/non-organic ones that are still in cold storage for the better part of the year and gassed for longevity.
- zwieback 5y ago
  Probably has nothing to do with organic and much to do with where your stuff comes from, time of harvest, care taken in transport, length of storage, etc. Since there's a strong correlation I guess it's good to buy organic. The best stuff I eat comes from my garden but I'm not organic - I use Miracle Gro and toss conventionally grown scraps in my compost. I don't use pesticides so for the most part I think I'm doing the right thing.
spectator_ro 5y ago
Not sure about vegetables and fruits but in Netherlands, you can feel the difference in quality between organic meat and non-organic. Better taste, better texture a more beautiful color. How do i know that? I used to grow at my grandparents in eastern europe where all food was organic. We were to poor to afford any chemicals :)
localhost 5y ago
When I was a graduate student, a paper that I read while randomly reading stuff in the library really changed how I looked at things in this area - I found a copy here [1] and the DOI [2]. The author is Bruce Ames, creator of the "Ames Test" for carcinogenicity [3] The core arguments in the paper are that plants don't exist to serve as food for us, they exist to reproduce. Plants grown in a stressful environment spend significant metabolic energy in generating chemical defenses against predators e.g., molds. Some of those chemical defenses are carcinogenic. Plants grown in less stressful (pesticide-controlled) environments generate less of those chemical defenses. So, roughly synthetic == bad, natural == good. Yes, this is a 1990 paper and perhaps it is no longer true and I'm certainly no expert in this area (I'm sad to see that a paper that influenced me so much at the time lacks significant citations). [1] https://files.toxplanet.com/cpdb/pdfs/Angew.pdf [2] DOI: 10.1002/anie.199011971 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Ames
- colechristensen 5y ago
  I entirely believe this but would add a couple of cautions. One is that it likely goes both directions: there are likely stressors increased by both conventional and organic production (presumably different ones) Plant health is tied pretty closely with local ecology health and there is a lot of symbiosis going on. Second is that you are not a weed or an insect or a fungus. Some plant defenses are quite enjoyed by humans (lots of drugs, caffeine, capsaicin, the flavors of most herbs). It is the kind of thing where you can’t make a blanket generalization. You need specifics and weighed risks. An interesting opening theory but definitely not enough to base life choices on.
Gravityloss 5y ago
At least in EU and its member states, there is a lot of research and testing of actual foods ongoing. So no matter what the farmers say, the actual testing of the foodstuff is an independent method of verification. For example one can find this for countries https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.2903/sp.efsa.2021.EN-6487 https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.2903/sp.efsa... I failed to find simple numbers quickly though, but for example for my country, it seems domestic is clean, EU produce okayish and non-EU food suspect.
asoneth 5y ago
At least in the US there are ~75 USDA accredited certifying agents [1] and my understanding is that some of them are perceived as being more stringent about cracking down on fraud. For example, I've got friends who will only pay extra for organic if it's explicitly Oregon Tilth because they no longer trust a generic USDA Organic label. I'm also curious if label fraud is any more common with organic certification compared to other food labels. For example I recall articles about a study that found 20% of fish was deliberately mislabeled: "Cheaper, less desirable fish were often sold in the name of more popular fish. Particularly concerning was the report's finding that some substitutes were fish that contain higher mercury levels or come from less sustainable fisheries."[2] More generically, "economically motivated adulteration" is estimated[3] to impact 1% of the global food industry with examples given such as sweeteners, oils, seafood, juice, and spices. [1] https://organic.ams.usda.gov/integrity/Certifiers/CertifiersLocationsSearchPage.aspx https://organic.ams.usda.gov/integrity/Certifiers/Certifiers... [2] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/study-finds-seafood-mislabeled-illegal https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/study... [3] https://www.fda.gov/food/compliance-enforcement-food/economically-motivated-adulteration-food-fraud https://www.fda.gov/food/compliance-enforcement-food/economi...
WaitWaitWha 5y ago
Take a look at honey. The labels are organic, natural, raw, unfiltered, pure, and such. Yet, we still get highly tainted, chemical laden yellow snot called "honey". We would be way better off if we just sampled and tested products just before they hit the shelves. The general public is desperate to trust something; anything. They will latch onto these meaningless words, thinking there is something behind the curtain. Alas, what is behind the curtain lacks any substance.
- asoneth 5y ago
  > The general public is desperate to trust something; anything. I will agree with that. My lack of trust in the US food industry is why I largely stopped eating meat in this country.
  - WaitWaitWha 5y ago
    I can understand your apprehension, although my personal experience around the world still puts the USA in the top ranks for food safety (I have way to many cipro/keflex horror stories). Why not consider a local producer? Somewhere where you can see the farm, see their production? And, if you can, why not raise your own? Much of the rest of the world does this. Self grown and raised food.
    - asoneth 5y ago
      I was slightly concerned about the meat itself such as accurate labeling (especially fish) and additives/hormones/antibiotics/plastics/metals. But my bigger concern was the negative externalities. For example, the overuse of antibiotics contributing to antibiotic-resistant diseases. The greater environmental impact in terms of water/land/carbon. The manner in which animals are raised and slaughtered, especially in large-scale farms. The sustainability of fish stocks. Several years back I started only eating meat from a couple local farms which addressed most of those concerns, but the cost meant that meat became more of a "special occasion" thing. I didn't go vegetarian (for example I tried the pork at our local farm's pig roast last month) but over the last few years it's just sort of happened that I eat meat less frequently, now a few times a year. So far I haven't particularly missed it from a taste or health standpoint.
onemoresoop 5y ago
So the organic label has the only legitimacy left to charge more for the same item?? My wife insists we buy organic and we do pay the extra tax for it but for a while I've had my doubts.
GuB-42 5y ago
About "organic" fraud, I remember seeing a brand of cosmetics saying that their products are organic because they used carbon-based chemicals. Technically true, that's the chemical definition, but they actually used the same stuff as anyone else, including parabens. I will not comment on the safety of parabens, but generally, that's the kind of stuff people who buy organic don't want to see. Even worse, the French translation of their websites translated "organic" to "biologique", which is correct if you are using the "no synthetic chemicals" definition, but wrong if you are using the chemical definition (that would be "organique"). Turning an ambiguity into a flat out lie.
- jhbadger 5y ago
  The French term is as bad as the English one -- "biologique" literally means "biological" and for example, biological weapons are "armes biologiques". But maybe the anthrax was made without pesticides? It's unfortunate that both languages decided to adopt scientific terms with defined meanings to mean "grown without the use of pesticides".
markstos 5y ago
Yesterday I heard a story of the opposite: An organic grower was not able to sell all of their produce as organic, so was told to pack it boxes labeled as being conventionally grown so it could still get sold at market, although at a lower price.
obiwan14 5y ago
So much in this article to comment on, I don't know where to start. But this... > Testing for residues is not common in American organic regulation. That's a loop hole built into the regulation. If you don't test, how would you know? It's like not testing for covid-19 because it will make us look bad.
dmckeon 5y ago
The term “organic” with reference to foods, has become a victim of its own success - at one time it was a meaningful description of how a food or food component was grown, but it is now merely marketing puffery due to redefinition and allowance of levels of contamination that render it meaningless. Yes, local producers at farmer’s markets still offer foods produced without pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers. Yes, farmers of any size or scale can rationally balance the market prices of organic products against the expenses of pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers, the costs of application, and the potentially lower crop yields from doing without them. But if there is no testing of products, no certification of crops versus farmland, no auditable paper trail from soil to seed to plant to crop to mill, the “organic” has as much meaning as “improved” or “healthy” in the marketplace, and is wide-open to the type of fraud described in this article.
dandare 5y ago
IMHO Organic food is a fraud by definition. You are still expected to use pesticides, but only the "natural" ones, which are less effective, so you end up applying more poison to a crop than non-organic farmer. Oh, and farmers are expected to use homeopathy and other quackery on sick animals, at least in the EU. https://fullfact.org/europe/eu-homeopathy-and-norwegian-vets/ https://fullfact.org/europe/eu-homeopathy-and-norwegian-vets...
mrfusion 5y ago
So what pesticides and herbicides are allowed on organic foods? Do they really save you from the worst chemicals?
m0zg 5y ago
Having grown up with a garden, I just don't see how industrial scale "organic" anything is even possible. _All sorts_ of bugs will simply devour your produce and fruit and nothing will be left to sell if you don't use pesticides. And this will happen _every year_ like clockwork, often several times a year, with different bugs. And soil will turn to shit within a few years if you don't use fertilizers (manure at a minimum, which, by the way, is high in nitrates, same as "inorganic" fertilizer), even though you rotate crops. So yeah, I do think it's a scam for city people who have no idea how farming works.

132 points by Amorymeltzer 5y ago

tengbretson 5y ago

Who exactly is supposed to have the time to read all of this?

m_fayer 5y ago
Long form journalism has been a buzzy format in the last years and has gotten a bad rap, for good reason. The New Yorker has been doing this since before it had that name. They're as good as they've always been. What they do used to be called "literary journalism" and the name says it all. It's not that it's long. It's that it's more akin to reading a nonfiction book, with all the pleasure AND utility that that can provide.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  The problem with this type of journalism isn't just the length. When you make informing facts a literary adventure, you inevitable inject a bunch of personal bias (NewYorker has a huge liberal bias) and motifs that have a tone of a particular axe to grind. It is a chore to read these. I am not a fan. To their credit, it is well written in terms of creativity.
  - m_fayer 5y ago
    > When you make informing facts a literary adventure Literary journalism, like non-fiction, do much more than mere fact-dumping. And what we now call "bias" used to be called "perspective".
    - systemvoltage 5y ago
      > And what we now call "bias" used to be called "perspective". More like what we used to get was perspective instead now we get bias. Perspective provides a wholistic view, not a myopic, dogmatic slant that skews facts to fit their perspective. Journalism has gotten much... much worse over the years. You can read 1960's NewYorker and find a stark difference in their ability to put away political bias and provide a deep comprehensive review of the topic.
      - m_fayer 5y ago
        I agree with you. But I did not think that this applied to the New Yorker. Thanks for this comment, you got me curious. I'll take a look at the New Yorker of the past, maybe reevaluate.
        systemvoltage 5y ago
        I think people on this forum think that anything that's not liberal is trumpism + unsubstantiated anti-science BS. That's not what I am referring to and going against the slightest here would get you downvotes.
dang 5y ago
Please don't rush from a provocation in an article to complain about it in the threads here. It produces reliably uninteresting discussion. Here's what to do instead: leave the provocations where you encounter them, and look for something interesting to discuss—that is, something which activates your curiosity, rather than indignation. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
henvic 5y ago
Who exactly has the time to read your comment. Have you even tried reading something from The New Yorker, The Atlantic, etc.? While their articles are usually huge, they usually provide insightful content. Try it.
- tengbretson 5y ago
  I disagree. Spending a paragraph to tell me he was the sort of man who would ask another man "Do you need anything? Are you good?" or that he "acted like a deacon, heck maybe he was who knows" is not insightful.
  - SavantIdiot 5y ago
    Obviously, this author isn't really your jam. That's perfectly fine. But how do you expect to understand the nuances of a complex issue if you don't invest time? Not every author is going to cater to your tastes, but seekers of knowledge don't expect that. What you have learned is what writing style to anticipate from this author when you read their work again in the future. That's important: perhaps you can skim parts of this author if you don't fancy well-rounded characters in the narrative. But I urge you: don't give up because of one writer's verbosity.
TehCorwiz 5y ago
People who prefer to read more in detail rather than just reading a cursory examination of the topic? This article has roughly 10,000 words. According to https://numberofwords.com/faq/how-long-read-10000-words/ https://numberofwords.com/faq/how-long-read-10000-words/ it should take about and hour to an hour and a half to read the whole thing. Is that unreasonable? I don't know, but I do know that I've spent longer than that reading about how a programmer fixed a bug, so I guess it's down to interest.
- Amorymeltzer 5y ago
  That link says the average person would take half an hour to read 10k words, not 1-1.5.
  - TehCorwiz 5y ago
    With information dense content I assume a worst case. If it were 10,000 words of Harry Potter I could see it going more quickly.
renewiltord 5y ago
I get you. It’s written in that modern creative writing style that suppresses information density in favour of human interest. Usually what you do is read the blurb and see if you’re up for the adventure. Often I am not. I agree with you that the lack of information density makes it painful to read if the topic doesn’t interest you. If you subscribe, I recommend minmaxing: read the one that you really like for the information (which is a lot, though not dense) and then read the fiction section for nice writing. Often, when you make a remark like yours you’ll get a bunch of responses from people acting superior about “long form” stuff. Fairly predictable. Ignore them. They’re just offended because of the style of your remark so their responses will be defensive.
- pokot0 5y ago
  I just read HN comments, but came too early this time it seems. I will need to start reading some of these articles and give back at somepoint....
HPsquared 5y ago
It's padded with filler, like the food.
SavantIdiot 5y ago
Hacker news: journalists are corrupt and biased and their work is garbage Also Hacker News: You expect me to read a well-researched article to understand a complex issue? The loss of reading comprehension skills, and intellectual fortitute required to understand something longer than a Tweet or TikTok saddens me.

henvic 5y ago

I recall when this idea of "organic" started (at least for me / in my life) seeing my chemistry teachers at high-school go crazy about how organic means 'that it's made out of carbon'. Of course, turns out organic means it comes from the farming techniques they use. And of course, it's mostly a marketing strategy.

h2odragon 5y ago
Every time I see a "Carbon Free" label on a bag of sugar I have to say "I hope not"

ridaj 5y ago

As a farmer once explained to me: "What does Certified Organic mean? — It means they haven't caught you sprayin'"

ARandomerDude 5y ago
Another favorite: surround organic fields with non-organic fields that form a pesticide semi-barrier and still provide some fertilizer runoff.
Mikeb85 5y ago
Or you spray with the right chemicals. During my time in high end restaurants we came across a lot of small-scale vegetable farmers that used zero chemicals of any sort and grew objectively amazing, delicious and natural produce, but couldn't afford to pay the government to inspect and certify.
- gs17 5y ago
  There's a local hydroponic place near me with a similar issue. Their lettuce is amazing but officially won't be classified as organic despite not using pesticides/herbicides at all, and likely very limited fertilizer if any.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  All you know is they SAID they used zero chemicals, right?
- NikolaeVarius 5y ago
  Its amazing how everything is so productive that we put value on removing the stuff that made those things productive in the first place.
infocollector 5y ago
Perhaps someone here knows about this better. I would love to learn more. Another problem is that we certify international crops from India and China where the soil/water itself has been at times so polluted, that no matter what one does, there are consequences of eating that food. Perhaps there is a way to put random testing from consumers (or restaurants) in place to fix this issue? (So a consumer can send items/produce to a location for testing)

yaseer 5y ago

The word organic has some limited legitimacy as description for farming methods. The word I find most troubling is 'natural', often used in the same marketing. All agricultural produce is the product of domestication of a wild plant or animal by humans. There's nothing natural about a crop or animal subject to human breeding for millenia. Domestication produces crops and animals totally different to natural selection. There's this implicit assumption 'natural' things are better than man-made things. In the context of agriculture, it's a false dichotomy.

drunner 5y ago
afaik in the US, 'natural' is an unregulated word in the world of food labeling/marketing

tmsbrg 5y ago

Another one of those articles that's too long for its own good. Thought at the title: Fraud, organic food, yes. This must be interesting. Reading through the start: Okay, here's the life story of someone who's going to do something halfway through this article. Let me check how long this article is. Jeez. It's gonna be a long read and I still don't get what it's about. I'll pass. Thought I'd mention this as it's become a common thing in media lately.

colechristensen 5y ago
Well this is a New Yorker piece and not a newspaper. Though I agree that there are an abundance of overstoried posts that bury the lede under a bunch of considerably less interesting context.
serjester 5y ago
I have no qualms with reading a long, well written piece but I don’t understand how leading with a 4 paragraph life summary is supposed to hook the reader. Especially when the title is so brash?
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  I think it's a relic of old-school journalistic writing. People today just do not have the attention span or desire to read a meandering backstory. The author started writing for the New Yorker in 1992, so it seems reasonable that he is more old-fashioned in his composition.
dagw 5y ago
it's become a common thing in media lately. This is how The New Yorker as done this since forever. If you don't enjoy the 'journey' of their writing at least as much as the 'destination', then they are not the publications for you. Although I agree that the style is being copied by more and more people and outlets, many which don't have the skill to pull it off.
compiler-guy 5y ago
The New Yorker magazine has been around for almost 100 years and has been famous for the length of its articles almost as long. Tina Brown, the editor in the 1990s famously made the articles shorter than they had been, and it hasn’t crept back up since she left. All this to say, sure, the article is long. But the New Yorker always has done it this way and this is not anything about the media lately. If anything, long articles are a holdover from a long previous time. Also, all media styles and don’t have to appeal to everyone. The magazine has its audience and you may not be a part of it. Neither aspect is a bad thing.

bmj 5y ago

If you are genuinely concerned about the production quality of the food you eat, stick to local producers who are willing to have you at the farm. Many non-organic producers end up following many traditional "organic" practices but don't pursue the certifications that allow their food to be marketed as "organic." Obviously, buying processed food[0] is a different story, and in many cases, the organic label is very much just that -- a label. [0] Yes, yes, all food is processed at some level. I'm talking about a box of cereal, or a loaf of bread, or pasta, or, or, or...you get the idea.

asoneth 5y ago
Agreed. One of the things we like about our town is the number of small-scale family farms. Most are happy to let regulars/CSA-shareholders walk around the fields on the weekends, with the caveat that if they catch you they may talk you into lending a hand pulling weeds or feeding the chickens ;)
BurningFrog 5y ago
Each consumer individually inspecting each farm they eat food from does NOT scale, for consumers OR farmers.
- bmj 5y ago
  You're correct. But, clearly the model of government oversight isn't working out so well, either.
- kragen 5y ago
  Does it have to scale? How much food do you need to eat? 100 years ago, 90% of people were spending 2500 hours a year in the actual fields that produced the food they ate. It hardly seems ridiculous that 90% of people could spend, say, 5 or 10 hours a year visiting farms they want to eat food from. That's probably less time than you spend putting gas in your car.
  - gruez 5y ago
    > Does it have to scale? [...] > It hardly seems ridiculous that 90% of people could spend, say, 5 or 10 hours a year visiting farms they want to eat food from. 1. you're assuming people are in a good position to judge the "production quality" of a food from a farm visit. suppose you're at an apple orchard and they sprayed [nasty pesticide] last week. how can you discern that from a visit? 2. if this gets popular, what's preventing bad actors from gaming this? ie. focus on making things look good, rather than actually increasing production quality > That's probably less time than you spend putting gas in your car. Using very conservative estimates of 5 minutes per fill-up, and a fill-up every week, we get just over 4 hours per year. That's still below your proposed "5 or 10 hours a year".

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quijoteuniv 5y ago

This article refers to Organic in the US. Is unfortunate it gets so much visibility. Riverford organics farms in the Uk is a good example of what can actually mean. I am happy to eat food withouth pestucides

guilamu 5y ago
"organic" does not mean without pesticides though.
- slothtrop 5y ago
  Right, it means no synthetic pesticides.
  - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
    Organic pesticides mean absolutely nothing in the realm of toxicity/environmental harm vs synthetic pesticides. Its just a chemistry distinction.
    - slothtrop 5y ago
      I don't disagree.

LurkingPenguin 5y ago

I've come to believe that the whole business of "organic certification" is built on a shaky foundation, and outright fraud is just one of the reasons why. I once drove by a vineyard on a highly-trafficked highway in a very prominent wine-growing region and observed a sign that said something to the effect of "Organic vineyard. No dumping!" At the time I thought to myself, "I wonder how many people who buy this winery's organic wine know that the grapes grow right next to such a highly-trafficked highway where they're constantly exposed to auto pollution?" Ultimately, organic certification is a poor replacement for buying from local producers you know personally and can physically visit.

chubot 5y ago

I just bought some amazing apples from "Gorzynski Ornery Farm", which was formerly "Gorzynski Organic Farm". They have been farming without synthetics since the late 70's, and dropped the "organic" because the government definition made it meaningless. https://medium.com/@NYCGreenmarkets/from-organic-to-ornery-72b8c7497e3e https://medium.com/@NYCGreenmarkets/from-organic-to-ornery-7... He had lobbied for years for this very law, and was devastated to see exceptions for chemicals that, in his words, “are so destructive to the environment they shouldn’t even be allowed in conventional agriculture, let alone organic.” (Allowing those 142 chemicals, by the way, is just one of sixty-three issues to which farmers like John so ardently object.) As he saw it, the certification he’d dedicated much of his life to building was now so lax that it was effectively meaningless. It took almost a year to come to grips with, but after twenty years of being certified organic by the state, the Gorzynski family decided to give up the term rather than participate in a certification they could no longer stand by. Try them out if you're in Union Square in NYC! (Saturdays only, through Christmas) ---- edit: Try out Russet apple varieties, e.g. Golden Russet. They are not sold in stores, presumably because of the way they look. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russet_apple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russet_apple I've been eating them from the markets in SF and NY for a few years without knowing the name. As a mnemonic think "Russet" == rough or rusty, but it tastes good. They are very sweet and tart depending on the season, but really the density / crispness / freshness is what stands out. All things being equal, unknown produce that looks ugly is more likely to taste good. Because produce that both looks ugly and tastes bad will naturally disappear from the market. Produce that looks good and tastes bad can persist for many years (e.g. the monoculture of red delicious apples in the USA a few decades ago).

asoneth 5y ago
I agree. The deliberate weakening of the "organic" label in the US has been more damaging to its value than the occasional fraud. More broadly, the more I learn about the practices and laws governing the US food system, the more I'm willing to spend on local food grown by people I trust. It's certainly not perfect and I'd rather have trustworthy enforcement or certifications, but it's better than nothing.
colechristensen 5y ago

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

I remember when this news first came out, and I heard a lot of folks scoff "Ha, see, I knew organic was always a scam", but I think that position misunderstands some very important details about this story. Randy Constant wasn't selling organic produce, or really much of anything that you think of buying "organic" at the grocery store. Because, for the most part, there tend to be a lot of visual differences between organic and conventional: conventional apples, for example, tend to be huge and spotless, while organic are almost always smaller and less "pristine". Similarly, stuff like organic, grass-fed milk tastes much different than conventional milk. I've always been of the opinion that, as a consumer choice, organic makes sense for certain types of products where you eat the skin and all, e.g. apples, vegetables, etc. In this case, though, Mr. Constant was selling "organic" grain primarily as livestock feed. The idea that you can really tell, or there is any difference at all, in the meat of livestock fed organic vs. conventional is extremely far fetched. Sure, there way be some tiny difference, but it's not like conventional methods include spraying with heavy metals. Most of the pesticides, etc. sprayed on conventional crops certainly don't show up in the meat of animals that eat these crops. So this whole episode did expose the scam of organic livestock feed, but I don't think it's fair to stretch that to organic products generally.

colechristensen 5y ago
Organic does not taste or look different. If the produce looks shabbier it’s because they were less selective about throwing pieces into lower grades or it has been on the shelf longer. If milk tastes different its the “grass fed” part not the organic part. People have magical thoughts about what organic does. Roundup and synthetic fertilizer do not affect flavor.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  > Roundup and synthetic fertilizer do not affect flavor I'm not arguing they do. But I've seen conventionally grown apples that were nearly the size of my head, and I've never seen organic produce that comes anywhere close. Granted, that just means it would be difficult to pass off organic as conventional, while the reverse you could just pick conventional earlier, but I think arguing "organic does not look different" is asking me to disbelieve my eyes every time I go to the grocery store.

BitwiseFool 5y ago

One of the most promising advances in genetic engineering is Gene Drive, a way to quickly spread a gene throughout an entire population. With mosquitoes, there is a gene that prevents the newly hatched females from flying and they subsequently die off. Might the same technique be used for known agricultural pests? Why spray a cornfield with pesticides when we can naturalize the population of the Corn Borer Moth? Target the species that are specialized towards consuming the crops we produce. Just imagine how much pesticide won't need to be sprayed because the main pests no longer exist in the area? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive

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gruez 5y ago
That really works for species that you can afford to kill off wholesale. AFAIK that's the case for mosquitoes (at least for the species that bites humans), but I'm not sure about other pests (eg. bugs/birds).

pengaru 5y ago

Conventional produce tastes like shit after eating organic exclusively for over a decade. I'm sure there's a lot of fraud and fuckery going on, but just going on the experience of consuming this stuff minimally prepared (rinsed/peeled) on a daily basis, conventional is disgusting. IMHO it's so bad it explains why many people hate fruits and veggies. It's flavorless and often has a chemical aftertaste. This is in California which I've come to appreciate is a privileged place in the organic produce department, so YMMV.

slothtrop 5y ago
IME the best tasting produce is local. Apples from your state/province will taste better than organic/non-organic ones that are still in cold storage for the better part of the year and gassed for longevity.
zwieback 5y ago
Probably has nothing to do with organic and much to do with where your stuff comes from, time of harvest, care taken in transport, length of storage, etc. Since there's a strong correlation I guess it's good to buy organic. The best stuff I eat comes from my garden but I'm not organic - I use Miracle Gro and toss conventionally grown scraps in my compost. I don't use pesticides so for the most part I think I'm doing the right thing.

spectator_ro 5y ago

Not sure about vegetables and fruits but in Netherlands, you can feel the difference in quality between organic meat and non-organic. Better taste, better texture a more beautiful color. How do i know that? I used to grow at my grandparents in eastern europe where all food was organic. We were to poor to afford any chemicals :)

localhost 5y ago

When I was a graduate student, a paper that I read while randomly reading stuff in the library really changed how I looked at things in this area - I found a copy here [1] and the DOI [2]. The author is Bruce Ames, creator of the "Ames Test" for carcinogenicity [3] The core arguments in the paper are that plants don't exist to serve as food for us, they exist to reproduce. Plants grown in a stressful environment spend significant metabolic energy in generating chemical defenses against predators e.g., molds. Some of those chemical defenses are carcinogenic. Plants grown in less stressful (pesticide-controlled) environments generate less of those chemical defenses. So, roughly synthetic == bad, natural == good. Yes, this is a 1990 paper and perhaps it is no longer true and I'm certainly no expert in this area (I'm sad to see that a paper that influenced me so much at the time lacks significant citations). [1] https://files.toxplanet.com/cpdb/pdfs/Angew.pdf [2] DOI: 10.1002/anie.199011971 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Ames

colechristensen 5y ago
I entirely believe this but would add a couple of cautions. One is that it likely goes both directions: there are likely stressors increased by both conventional and organic production (presumably different ones) Plant health is tied pretty closely with local ecology health and there is a lot of symbiosis going on. Second is that you are not a weed or an insect or a fungus. Some plant defenses are quite enjoyed by humans (lots of drugs, caffeine, capsaicin, the flavors of most herbs). It is the kind of thing where you can’t make a blanket generalization. You need specifics and weighed risks. An interesting opening theory but definitely not enough to base life choices on.

Gravityloss 5y ago

At least in EU and its member states, there is a lot of research and testing of actual foods ongoing. So no matter what the farmers say, the actual testing of the foodstuff is an independent method of verification. For example one can find this for countries https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.2903/sp.efsa.2021.EN-6487 https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.2903/sp.efsa... I failed to find simple numbers quickly though, but for example for my country, it seems domestic is clean, EU produce okayish and non-EU food suspect.

asoneth 5y ago

At least in the US there are ~75 USDA accredited certifying agents [1] and my understanding is that some of them are perceived as being more stringent about cracking down on fraud. For example, I've got friends who will only pay extra for organic if it's explicitly Oregon Tilth because they no longer trust a generic USDA Organic label. I'm also curious if label fraud is any more common with organic certification compared to other food labels. For example I recall articles about a study that found 20% of fish was deliberately mislabeled: "Cheaper, less desirable fish were often sold in the name of more popular fish. Particularly concerning was the report's finding that some substitutes were fish that contain higher mercury levels or come from less sustainable fisheries."[2] More generically, "economically motivated adulteration" is estimated[3] to impact 1% of the global food industry with examples given such as sweeteners, oils, seafood, juice, and spices. [1] https://organic.ams.usda.gov/integrity/Certifiers/CertifiersLocationsSearchPage.aspx https://organic.ams.usda.gov/integrity/Certifiers/Certifiers... [2] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/study-finds-seafood-mislabeled-illegal https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/study... [3] https://www.fda.gov/food/compliance-enforcement-food/economically-motivated-adulteration-food-fraud https://www.fda.gov/food/compliance-enforcement-food/economi...

WaitWaitWha 5y ago

Take a look at honey. The labels are organic, natural, raw, unfiltered, pure, and such. Yet, we still get highly tainted, chemical laden yellow snot called "honey". We would be way better off if we just sampled and tested products just before they hit the shelves. The general public is desperate to trust something; anything. They will latch onto these meaningless words, thinking there is something behind the curtain. Alas, what is behind the curtain lacks any substance.

asoneth 5y ago
> The general public is desperate to trust something; anything. I will agree with that. My lack of trust in the US food industry is why I largely stopped eating meat in this country.
- WaitWaitWha 5y ago
  I can understand your apprehension, although my personal experience around the world still puts the USA in the top ranks for food safety (I have way to many cipro/keflex horror stories). Why not consider a local producer? Somewhere where you can see the farm, see their production? And, if you can, why not raise your own? Much of the rest of the world does this. Self grown and raised food.
  - asoneth 5y ago
    I was slightly concerned about the meat itself such as accurate labeling (especially fish) and additives/hormones/antibiotics/plastics/metals. But my bigger concern was the negative externalities. For example, the overuse of antibiotics contributing to antibiotic-resistant diseases. The greater environmental impact in terms of water/land/carbon. The manner in which animals are raised and slaughtered, especially in large-scale farms. The sustainability of fish stocks. Several years back I started only eating meat from a couple local farms which addressed most of those concerns, but the cost meant that meat became more of a "special occasion" thing. I didn't go vegetarian (for example I tried the pork at our local farm's pig roast last month) but over the last few years it's just sort of happened that I eat meat less frequently, now a few times a year. So far I haven't particularly missed it from a taste or health standpoint.

onemoresoop 5y ago

So the organic label has the only legitimacy left to charge more for the same item?? My wife insists we buy organic and we do pay the extra tax for it but for a while I've had my doubts.

GuB-42 5y ago

About "organic" fraud, I remember seeing a brand of cosmetics saying that their products are organic because they used carbon-based chemicals. Technically true, that's the chemical definition, but they actually used the same stuff as anyone else, including parabens. I will not comment on the safety of parabens, but generally, that's the kind of stuff people who buy organic don't want to see. Even worse, the French translation of their websites translated "organic" to "biologique", which is correct if you are using the "no synthetic chemicals" definition, but wrong if you are using the chemical definition (that would be "organique"). Turning an ambiguity into a flat out lie.

jhbadger 5y ago
The French term is as bad as the English one -- "biologique" literally means "biological" and for example, biological weapons are "armes biologiques". But maybe the anthrax was made without pesticides? It's unfortunate that both languages decided to adopt scientific terms with defined meanings to mean "grown without the use of pesticides".

markstos 5y ago

Yesterday I heard a story of the opposite: An organic grower was not able to sell all of their produce as organic, so was told to pack it boxes labeled as being conventionally grown so it could still get sold at market, although at a lower price.

obiwan14 5y ago

So much in this article to comment on, I don't know where to start. But this... > Testing for residues is not common in American organic regulation. That's a loop hole built into the regulation. If you don't test, how would you know? It's like not testing for covid-19 because it will make us look bad.

dmckeon 5y ago

The term “organic” with reference to foods, has become a victim of its own success - at one time it was a meaningful description of how a food or food component was grown, but it is now merely marketing puffery due to redefinition and allowance of levels of contamination that render it meaningless. Yes, local producers at farmer’s markets still offer foods produced without pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers. Yes, farmers of any size or scale can rationally balance the market prices of organic products against the expenses of pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers, the costs of application, and the potentially lower crop yields from doing without them. But if there is no testing of products, no certification of crops versus farmland, no auditable paper trail from soil to seed to plant to crop to mill, the “organic” has as much meaning as “improved” or “healthy” in the marketplace, and is wide-open to the type of fraud described in this article.

dandare 5y ago

IMHO Organic food is a fraud by definition. You are still expected to use pesticides, but only the "natural" ones, which are less effective, so you end up applying more poison to a crop than non-organic farmer. Oh, and farmers are expected to use homeopathy and other quackery on sick animals, at least in the EU. https://fullfact.org/europe/eu-homeopathy-and-norwegian-vets/ https://fullfact.org/europe/eu-homeopathy-and-norwegian-vets...

mrfusion 5y ago

So what pesticides and herbicides are allowed on organic foods? Do they really save you from the worst chemicals?

m0zg 5y ago

Having grown up with a garden, I just don't see how industrial scale "organic" anything is even possible. _All sorts_ of bugs will simply devour your produce and fruit and nothing will be left to sell if you don't use pesticides. And this will happen _every year_ like clockwork, often several times a year, with different bugs. And soil will turn to shit within a few years if you don't use fertilizers (manure at a minimum, which, by the way, is high in nitrates, same as "inorganic" fertilizer), even though you rotate crops. So yeah, I do think it's a scam for city people who have no idea how farming works.