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What drives me nuts about the organic movement is the implicit acceptance of the defeatist notion that if you don't like a few things about wherever science and

What drives me nuts about the organic movement is the implicit acceptance of the defeatist notion that if you don't like a few things about wherever science and progress have gotten us, you should just throw it all out the window and go retro and primitive rather than progress farther and try to fix it. High scalability and high yield are necessary to feed billions. We have a surplus of food in this country precisely because of major agrobusiness, because maximizing profits means maximizing efficiency and yield. The solution to "this food doesn't taste as good" is to make it taste better; the solution to "this food wasn't raised ethically" is to find a way to raise it more ethically. Throwing in the towel and lovingly nurturing your tomatoes one-by-one is emotionally satisfying but meaningless and unhelpful without proof, an abject waste of time and resources in the face of proof to the contrary.

ScottBurson 14y ago
I think you're mistaken to think there's not a lot of science in organic farming. Maintaining biodiversity, keeping soils healthy, figuring out what grows best in the various soil types, finding bugs that eat the plants and other bugs you don't want while not harming the ones you do want, ... I think there's probably quite a lot of science in it. (I'm not an expert on it, but this accords with things I've read.) It's just that most of that science doesn't involve the petrochemical industry. If that makes it "retro and primitive", well, I don't know what to tell you except that I think you have a screwy idea of what progress is.
- derleth 14y ago
  > I think you're mistaken to think there's not a lot of science in organic farming. The problem with organic farming is that it's associated with so much crap science, like radiation-phobia and chemophobia and various other quackery that masquerades as science while really being unsupported by either evidence or logic. I'd love to be able to buy a greater variety of food without having to support people who think GMO are The Devil based on irrational fears. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemophobia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemophobia
MartinCron 14y ago
We have a surplus of food in this country precisely because of major agrobusiness, because maximizing profits means maximizing efficiency and yield. The food surplus in this country has as much to do with dysfunctional legislation as it does maximizing profits.

ScottBurson 14y ago

I think you're mistaken to think there's not a lot of science in organic farming. Maintaining biodiversity, keeping soils healthy, figuring out what grows best in the various soil types, finding bugs that eat the plants and other bugs you don't want while not harming the ones you do want, ... I think there's probably quite a lot of science in it. (I'm not an expert on it, but this accords with things I've read.) It's just that most of that science doesn't involve the petrochemical industry. If that makes it "retro and primitive", well, I don't know what to tell you except that I think you have a screwy idea of what progress is.

derleth 14y ago
> I think you're mistaken to think there's not a lot of science in organic farming. The problem with organic farming is that it's associated with so much crap science, like radiation-phobia and chemophobia and various other quackery that masquerades as science while really being unsupported by either evidence or logic. I'd love to be able to buy a greater variety of food without having to support people who think GMO are The Devil based on irrational fears. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemophobia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemophobia

MartinCron 14y ago

We have a surplus of food in this country precisely because of major agrobusiness, because maximizing profits means maximizing efficiency and yield. The food surplus in this country has as much to do with dysfunctional legislation as it does maximizing profits.