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

by ridaj 5y ago

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)
- ridaj 5y ago
  Organic certification does not have much to do the quality of the food produced in the first place. It is only a qualification of the means by which it is produced, what kinds of fertilizers and pesticides are used, etc. There is a sort of implicit assumption that more natural-ish means of productions are somehow better than others but it's not really something you can test from the product itself.
clows 5y ago
He probably wasn't an organic farmer.
- ridaj 5y ago
  He was farming using traditional and non-intensive techniques, but too small/exotic of an operation for the certification to be worth it in his opinion. Anything he would've sprayed, his family would've breathed since they lived right next to the field and it wasn't very big.

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

by ridaj 5y ago

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

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)

ridaj 5y ago
Organic certification does not have much to do the quality of the food produced in the first place. It is only a qualification of the means by which it is produced, what kinds of fertilizers and pesticides are used, etc. There is a sort of implicit assumption that more natural-ish means of productions are somehow better than others but it's not really something you can test from the product itself.

clows 5y ago

He probably wasn't an organic farmer.

ridaj 5y ago
He was farming using traditional and non-intensive techniques, but too small/exotic of an operation for the certification to be worth it in his opinion. Anything he would've sprayed, his family would've breathed since they lived right next to the field and it wasn't very big.