4 ms·

If you want bruised, overpriced fruit and vegetables, head on down to the local organic market! Spend 10 minutes to sort through a basket of tomatoes at the hi

by jff 17y ago

If you want bruised, overpriced fruit and vegetables, head on down to the local organic market! Spend 10 minutes to sort through a basket of tomatoes at the hippie organic market on Maui (the only store in the village) to find the four or five that aren't bruised to hell and back, then pay double price for the privilege. And then there's the sustainability and economic problems. Can the farms near NYC produce enough organic produce to supply the whole city? How much will a head of lettuce cost if everyone is buying organic? Given the lower efficiency of organic farming, how much more land do we need to convert to farmland? Apparently it's already too expensive for low-income people to get fresh food--at least, we hear so every couple weeks on slow news days. Increase the popularity of organic food; it's going to get even harder for these people to get fruit and veg. Posting this on a Silicon Valley site... thank god for the -8 point limit, because I sense many a "downvote for disagreement" coming.

omouse 17y ago
You're absolutely right. It's amazing how many people have jumped on the organic bandwagon when they have reaped the benefits of GMO crops and efficient farming. It's like climbing up a ladder and then kicking it away once you're at the top.
- lutorm 17y ago
  I don't understand your point. What are the supposed benefits of GMO grops that makes it easier for me to eat organic? Are you talking about global food supply? If so, there are many other issues we can bring up, one being that most food grown in the US goes either to animal feed or to plants that make HFCS and a slew of other things that don't really count as "food" to me.
  - philwelch 17y ago
    If we all ate organic, a third of the world population would have to starve to death from sheer shortage of food. Don't talk about animal feed, either--we'd have to raise more cattle just for the manure if we didn't use chemical fertilizers.
    - calambrac 17y ago
      That's a mighty strong statement of fact to throw out without any kind of citation. Care to share a couple?
      - philwelch 17y ago
        I've attributed these claims to statements by Norman Borlaug elsewhere in the thread. Here specifically: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=730793 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=730793
  - netsp 17y ago
    I interesting benefit of GMO is (or rather will be), setting a benchmark. Better example then GMO is artificially fertilisers & pesticides. An organic farming technique is always compared to one using those artificial methods. Once the benchmark is there and there is a market for organic, it's a good recipe for improving organic farming technology.
- oz 17y ago
  Yes, but efficient farming is having a negative impact on the biosphere. Like with most issues, the question is "Where do we draw the line?" More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_farming#Productivity_and_profitability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_farming#Productivity_an... http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~agroeco3/modern_agriculture.html http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~agroeco3/modern_agriculture.htm...
  - omouse 17y ago
    Those list just a few studies and it looks like they are conflicting? I can't discuss this issue properly because I don't know enough about it. I would prefer whichever method is both efficient and environmentally-safe. I'm just annoyed by the currently fashionable knee-jerk reaction of people that assume organic farming is better.
    - calambrac 17y ago
      If you don't know enough about the issue to discuss the it properly, then on what are you basing the assumption that people's claims to the superiority of organic farming is knee-jerk?
- shard 17y ago
  I don't think that's a valid argument. It's perfectly okay to notice that what you're benefiting from is not something you want to support. I can replace words in your argument thus: "It's amazing how many people have jumped on the safe work conditions bandwagon when they have reaped the benefits of horrible work conditions in third world countries."
  - omouse 17y ago
    You're comparing apples and oranges there.
    - shard 17y ago
      Are you referring to GMO crops and safe working conditions as the apples and oranges? Rest assured that I am not comparing them, I am simply reshaping your statement to support my statement that "It's perfectly okay to notice that what you're benefiting from is not something you want to support."
- calambrac 17y ago
  GMO crops have only been around since, at the very earliest, 1986, so it's pretty hard to say that people at the top of the ladder are there because of them. Lumping "efficient farming" in with GMOs to make that argument is wholly disingenuous - efficient farming could have nothing to do at all with GMO crops (see: Polyface Farm).
butterfi 17y ago
"Given the lower efficiency of organic farming, how much more land do we need to convert to farmland?" Maybe a better question is why have we let so much farmland get repurposed for other, arguably trivial uses? I remember a time when large parts of Los Angeles were fruit trees, and are now strip malls and parking lots.
- jff 17y ago
  Because to LA residents, milk and apples come from the store, not from cows and trees. I jest... partly.
- jrockway 17y ago
  Maybe a better question is why have we let so much farmland get repurposed for other, arguably trivial uses? Easy, money and risk. Building a high-rise building with 200 units takes about as much land as two or three single-family homes. But it is much riskier to build the high-rise; it costs more, and all 200 units might not sell. So it's easier to just build the single-family homes; now you only have two things to sell instead of 200. Very inefficient use of space, but efficient use of space is not rewarded in any way. The fact that there is no longer any place to grow crops is Someone Else's Problem. You have money to make!
jrockway 17y ago
The problem is that our current farming practices are not sustainable. They are dangerous for the farmers. Farms produce an incredible amount of toxic waste (poisoning anything in the rivers their fields drain to), and consume an amazing amount of petroleum. (Fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides don't grow on trees. They require a large amount of energy to produce.) So, if you are willing to poison our planet to make high-fructose corn syrup slightly more profitable, conventional farming is great. If you want your kids' kids to have strawberries, though... maybe not so good. (Remember, commercial farms in the US don't grow fruits and vegetables; they grow corn. The government pays them extra for that.) But anyway, if people not having enough healthy food is a problem, the government should subsidize healthy food instead of corn. I would rather my tax money help a poor family eat well (balanced, nutrient-rich, sustainable whole foods) than to pay someone to dump toxins in our rivers so that we can have soda that's one cent cheaper per liter. Unfortunately, I am not a congressperson, and there's a lot of money to be made selling sugar (erm, corn) water to kids. The deeper problem is that businesses and industries tend to only analyze their direct costs. They would be fined if they, as a single entity, killed off all the fish in a river. So they don't do that. They let just enough toxic waste run off their fields to not be doing anything illegal. The problem is that when all their neighbors do that, they end up killing off all the fish. But it's not anyone's fault, so they keep doing the same thing. Externalities are either going to be the death of capitalism, or the death of human life on earth. I am betting on the second one.
philwelch 17y ago
Norman Borlaug is an agronomist whose work has been credited for saving a billion lives from starvation. His work transformed formerly-starving nations like India into net exporters of food. His take on organic farming: That's ridiculous. This shouldn't even be a debate. Even if you could use all the organic material that you have--the animal manures, the human waste, the plant residues--and get them back on the soil, you couldn't feed more than 4 billion people. In addition, if all agriculture were organic, you would have to increase cropland area dramatically, spreading out into marginal areas and cutting down millions of acres of forests. At the present time, approximately 80 million tons of nitrogen nutrients are utilized each year. If you tried to produce this nitrogen organically, you would require an additional 5 or 6 billion head of cattle to supply the manure. How much wild land would you have to sacrifice just to produce the forage for these cows? There's a lot of nonsense going on here. If people want to believe that the organic food has better nutritive value, it's up to them to make that foolish decision. But there's absolutely no research that shows that organic foods provide better nutrition. As far as plants are concerned, they can't tell whether that nitrate ion comes from artificial chemicals or from decomposed organic matter. If some consumers believe that it's better from the point of view of their health to have organic food, God bless them. Let them buy it. Let them pay a bit more. It's a free society. But don't tell the world that we can feed the present population without chemical fertilizer. That's when this misinformation becomes destructive. http://www.reason.com/news/show/27665.html http://www.reason.com/news/show/27665.html I now say that the world has the technology – either available or well advanced in the research pipeline – to feed on a sustainable basis a population of 10 billion people. The more pertinent question today is whether farmers and ranchers will be permitted to use this new technology? While the affluent nations can certainly afford to adopt ultra low-risk positions, and pay more for food produced by the so-called “organic” methods, the one billion chronically undernourished people of the low income, food-deficit nations cannot. --30th Anniversary Lecture, The Norwegian Nobel Institute, Oslo, September 8, 2000
zargon 17y ago
My conventional grocer ships the kale to Wisconsin from Georgia, and by the time it gets here it is yellow and wilted. Compared to the farmers market, where the kale I find is dark green and crisp. Same story for most other produce. The winters drive me crazy, because kale grows great in January in Wisconsin, yet the grocers insist on shipping it from Georgia, so I go without. Efficiency compared to what? Stripping of minerals? Loss of topsoil? Petroleum dependence? Water contamination? Yeah, it's true, conventional farming is more efficient at all those. You're concerned about needing more farm land with "organic" practices, but in truth, "conventional" farming is destroying arable land at an alarming rate. Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock%27s_Long_Shadow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock%27s_Long_Shadow http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2008/09/soil/mann-text http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2008/09/soil/mann-te...

by jff 17y ago

omouse 17y ago

You're absolutely right. It's amazing how many people have jumped on the organic bandwagon when they have reaped the benefits of GMO crops and efficient farming. It's like climbing up a ladder and then kicking it away once you're at the top.

lutorm 17y ago
I don't understand your point. What are the supposed benefits of GMO grops that makes it easier for me to eat organic? Are you talking about global food supply? If so, there are many other issues we can bring up, one being that most food grown in the US goes either to animal feed or to plants that make HFCS and a slew of other things that don't really count as "food" to me.
- philwelch 17y ago
  If we all ate organic, a third of the world population would have to starve to death from sheer shortage of food. Don't talk about animal feed, either--we'd have to raise more cattle just for the manure if we didn't use chemical fertilizers.
  - calambrac 17y ago
    That's a mighty strong statement of fact to throw out without any kind of citation. Care to share a couple?
    - philwelch 17y ago
      I've attributed these claims to statements by Norman Borlaug elsewhere in the thread. Here specifically: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=730793 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=730793
- netsp 17y ago
  I interesting benefit of GMO is (or rather will be), setting a benchmark. Better example then GMO is artificially fertilisers & pesticides. An organic farming technique is always compared to one using those artificial methods. Once the benchmark is there and there is a market for organic, it's a good recipe for improving organic farming technology.
oz 17y ago
Yes, but efficient farming is having a negative impact on the biosphere. Like with most issues, the question is "Where do we draw the line?" More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_farming#Productivity_and_profitability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_farming#Productivity_an... http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~agroeco3/modern_agriculture.html http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~agroeco3/modern_agriculture.htm...
- omouse 17y ago
  Those list just a few studies and it looks like they are conflicting? I can't discuss this issue properly because I don't know enough about it. I would prefer whichever method is both efficient and environmentally-safe. I'm just annoyed by the currently fashionable knee-jerk reaction of people that assume organic farming is better.
  - calambrac 17y ago
    If you don't know enough about the issue to discuss the it properly, then on what are you basing the assumption that people's claims to the superiority of organic farming is knee-jerk?
shard 17y ago
I don't think that's a valid argument. It's perfectly okay to notice that what you're benefiting from is not something you want to support. I can replace words in your argument thus: "It's amazing how many people have jumped on the safe work conditions bandwagon when they have reaped the benefits of horrible work conditions in third world countries."
- omouse 17y ago
  You're comparing apples and oranges there.
  - shard 17y ago
    Are you referring to GMO crops and safe working conditions as the apples and oranges? Rest assured that I am not comparing them, I am simply reshaping your statement to support my statement that "It's perfectly okay to notice that what you're benefiting from is not something you want to support."
calambrac 17y ago
GMO crops have only been around since, at the very earliest, 1986, so it's pretty hard to say that people at the top of the ladder are there because of them. Lumping "efficient farming" in with GMOs to make that argument is wholly disingenuous - efficient farming could have nothing to do at all with GMO crops (see: Polyface Farm).

butterfi 17y ago

"Given the lower efficiency of organic farming, how much more land do we need to convert to farmland?" Maybe a better question is why have we let so much farmland get repurposed for other, arguably trivial uses? I remember a time when large parts of Los Angeles were fruit trees, and are now strip malls and parking lots.

jff 17y ago
Because to LA residents, milk and apples come from the store, not from cows and trees. I jest... partly.
jrockway 17y ago
Maybe a better question is why have we let so much farmland get repurposed for other, arguably trivial uses? Easy, money and risk. Building a high-rise building with 200 units takes about as much land as two or three single-family homes. But it is much riskier to build the high-rise; it costs more, and all 200 units might not sell. So it's easier to just build the single-family homes; now you only have two things to sell instead of 200. Very inefficient use of space, but efficient use of space is not rewarded in any way. The fact that there is no longer any place to grow crops is Someone Else's Problem. You have money to make!

jrockway 17y ago

The problem is that our current farming practices are not sustainable. They are dangerous for the farmers. Farms produce an incredible amount of toxic waste (poisoning anything in the rivers their fields drain to), and consume an amazing amount of petroleum. (Fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides don't grow on trees. They require a large amount of energy to produce.) So, if you are willing to poison our planet to make high-fructose corn syrup slightly more profitable, conventional farming is great. If you want your kids' kids to have strawberries, though... maybe not so good. (Remember, commercial farms in the US don't grow fruits and vegetables; they grow corn. The government pays them extra for that.) But anyway, if people not having enough healthy food is a problem, the government should subsidize healthy food instead of corn. I would rather my tax money help a poor family eat well (balanced, nutrient-rich, sustainable whole foods) than to pay someone to dump toxins in our rivers so that we can have soda that's one cent cheaper per liter. Unfortunately, I am not a congressperson, and there's a lot of money to be made selling sugar (erm, corn) water to kids. The deeper problem is that businesses and industries tend to only analyze their direct costs. They would be fined if they, as a single entity, killed off all the fish in a river. So they don't do that. They let just enough toxic waste run off their fields to not be doing anything illegal. The problem is that when all their neighbors do that, they end up killing off all the fish. But it's not anyone's fault, so they keep doing the same thing. Externalities are either going to be the death of capitalism, or the death of human life on earth. I am betting on the second one.

philwelch 17y ago

Norman Borlaug is an agronomist whose work has been credited for saving a billion lives from starvation. His work transformed formerly-starving nations like India into net exporters of food. His take on organic farming: That's ridiculous. This shouldn't even be a debate. Even if you could use all the organic material that you have--the animal manures, the human waste, the plant residues--and get them back on the soil, you couldn't feed more than 4 billion people. In addition, if all agriculture were organic, you would have to increase cropland area dramatically, spreading out into marginal areas and cutting down millions of acres of forests. At the present time, approximately 80 million tons of nitrogen nutrients are utilized each year. If you tried to produce this nitrogen organically, you would require an additional 5 or 6 billion head of cattle to supply the manure. How much wild land would you have to sacrifice just to produce the forage for these cows? There's a lot of nonsense going on here. If people want to believe that the organic food has better nutritive value, it's up to them to make that foolish decision. But there's absolutely no research that shows that organic foods provide better nutrition. As far as plants are concerned, they can't tell whether that nitrate ion comes from artificial chemicals or from decomposed organic matter. If some consumers believe that it's better from the point of view of their health to have organic food, God bless them. Let them buy it. Let them pay a bit more. It's a free society. But don't tell the world that we can feed the present population without chemical fertilizer. That's when this misinformation becomes destructive. http://www.reason.com/news/show/27665.html http://www.reason.com/news/show/27665.html I now say that the world has the technology – either available or well advanced in the research pipeline – to feed on a sustainable basis a population of 10 billion people. The more pertinent question today is whether farmers and ranchers will be permitted to use this new technology? While the affluent nations can certainly afford to adopt ultra low-risk positions, and pay more for food produced by the so-called “organic” methods, the one billion chronically undernourished people of the low income, food-deficit nations cannot. --30th Anniversary Lecture, The Norwegian Nobel Institute, Oslo, September 8, 2000

zargon 17y ago

My conventional grocer ships the kale to Wisconsin from Georgia, and by the time it gets here it is yellow and wilted. Compared to the farmers market, where the kale I find is dark green and crisp. Same story for most other produce. The winters drive me crazy, because kale grows great in January in Wisconsin, yet the grocers insist on shipping it from Georgia, so I go without. Efficiency compared to what? Stripping of minerals? Loss of topsoil? Petroleum dependence? Water contamination? Yeah, it's true, conventional farming is more efficient at all those. You're concerned about needing more farm land with "organic" practices, but in truth, "conventional" farming is destroying arable land at an alarming rate. Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock%27s_Long_Shadow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock%27s_Long_Shadow http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2008/09/soil/mann-text http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2008/09/soil/mann-te...