30 Years of the Organic Foods Production Act and its Importance for Climate Change Efforts
Conversations and remarks highlighting the success, challenges and values of organic food production in the US in the face of …
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Website dedicated to first-time mothers
Conversations and remarks highlighting the success, challenges and values of organic food production in the US in the face of …
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—————————- AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH ——————————–
Don’t buy organic food if you want to increase farm yields or seriously address climate change
"As we approach the 2020s, many consumers have accepted the marketing/activist narrative that organic farming would be the best option for food safety and to mitigate the most damaging effects of climate change. The inconvenient truth is that organic farming is a terrible option from a climate change perspective. Its dependence on manures and compost involves huge, but rarely recognized, greenhouse gas emissions in the form of very potent methane and nitrous oxide.
But perhaps its biggest climate change issue is that organic farms are mostly less productive per unit area than “conventionally” farmed land. With rising food demand driven mostly by rising standards of living in the developing world, there is a need to boost farm production, and that means the very undesirable conversion of forests or grasslands to agriculture in places like Brazil. That leads to major carbon dioxide release from what had been sequestered carbon in the soils, and also the loss of biodiversity and other environmental services provided by those natural lands.
In 1990, the USDA (US Department of Agriculture) was charged by Congress with establishing a national organic standard to supersede the fragmented certification systems that had evolved to that time. It was a major struggle because the very science-oriented USDA was at odds with the early organic marketers who had focused entirely on the narrative that what is “natural” is always best. The marketers finally prevailed. When the national organic standards were issued in 2002, they were not based on science but rather on the naturalistic fallacy. So here is the big picture. The only crop category for which organic yields were higher than the 2016 US average was for forage crops for feeding animals. To have produced all of the US agricultural output from 2016 as organic would have required more than 100 million more acres to have been farmed—an area greater than that of the entire state of California, the third largest US state. That amount of new land suitable for farming clearly does not exist in the US, and so that shortfall would induce more conversion of forest and grassland into farming in places like Brazil, leading to major releases of previously sequestered carbon in those soils"
This informative article goes on to use eleven charts and graphs from government data to prove in great detail just how inferior organic farming is. https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2019/10/07/viewpoint-dont-buy-organic-food-if-you-want-to-seriously-address-climate-change/
"The fatal flaw of organic agriculture is its low yields, which cause it to be wasteful of water and arable farmland. Plant pathologist Dr. Steve Savage analyzed the data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2014 Organic Survey, which reports various measures of productivity from most of the certified organic farms in the nation, and compared them to those at conventional farms, crop by crop and state by state. His findings are extraordinary: Of the 68 crops surveyed, there was a “yield gap” — poorer performance of organic farms — in 59. And many of those gaps, or shortfalls, were impressive: strawberries, 61 percent less than conventional; fresh tomatoes, 61 percent less; tangerines, 58 percent less; carrots, 49 percent less; cotton, 45 percent less; rice, 39 percent less; peanuts, 37 percent less, and so on.
In developing countries, where the baseline of crop yields is lower, we can expect to see even greater increases with the introduction of GE crops. Moreover, the availability of more-resilient crops – drought-, heat-, flood-, and insect-resistant – will dramatically increase food security there. What the poor desperately want and need is access to GE crops with desirable traits, as illustrated by the recent civil disobedience in India, with thousands of farmers illegally planting insect-resistant cotton and brinjal (eggplant)
Another benefit derives from herbicide-resistant GE crops, which makes possible more no-till farming, with consequently less runoff of chemicals and soil erosion and release of CO. GE crops have enabled farmers to apply far fewer agricultural chemicals, and where they are necessary, to shift to less toxic ones." https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2019/10/21/viewpoint-documentary-modified-peddles-falsehoods-about-gmos-pesticides-and-corporate-control-of-food/
Anti-GMO Advocacy Funding Tracker: Vast network of donors and NGOs seed doubt about crop biotechnology "Who is David and who is Goliath when it comes to the GMO debate? Anti-biotech activists have long maintained that the agro-chemical industry, led by Monsanto, is a financial and political juggernaut, flooding the media with propaganda and pulling political levers to maintain support for GMOs despite public skepticism. They claim they are fighting a biblical-level battle against “industry” propagandists tied secretly to the US government. But a year-long Genetic Literacy Project investigation culminating in the rollout of the Anti-GMO Funding Tracker [hyperlinked: anti-gmo-advocacy-funding-tracker.geneticliteracyproject.org ] suggests that this framing is more self-serving and ideological than factual. An exhaustive review of close to a decade of foundation and environmental NGO tax records indicates that anti-biotech advocates spend far more on GMO activism than companies or trade associations linked to the biotechnology industry—so-called ‘Big Ag.’ The research also uncovers a vast interconnected network of foundations funding anti-GMO activities—and many of the foundations support advocacy groups whose activities are in direct conflict with their stated mission to advance empirical science. For nearly 25 years, anti-GMO activists have positioned themselves as advocates for the consumer in the face of what they claim is Big Ag’s propaganda machine. They allege that foods grown from genetically modified or gene-edited seeds and the chemicals used to help grow them cause dozens of diseases including autism, autoimmune disorders, food allergies, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and even cancer. They also claim conventional farming, which in the US and numerous other countries relies on genetic engineering to produce commodity crops, poses ecological hazards.
The activists include well-known environmental organizations for which anti-GMO advocacy is just a part of their portfolio, such as the Environmental Working Group, Center for Food Safety and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Then there are the dedicated anti-GMO gadflies such as US Right to Know (USRTK), Just Label It!, the Organic Consumers Association and the Non-GMO Project, whose primary purpose is to demonize crop biotechnology. What they all share in common is a narrative in which they are “Davids” waging an uphill battle against deep-pocketed agri-business “Goliaths.” FULL STORY AT : https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2020/05/05/anti-gmo-advocacy-funding-tracker-vast-network-of-donors-and-ngos-seed-doubt-about-crop-biotechnology/
Who the hell do you think you are fooling??? All readers and viewers – be aware of the largest longest propaganda campaign in human history! Many of you were born into a world where their propaganda was already everywhere before you learned to read. Organic industry tyranny for 33 years and counting: "Although GMOs are regarded as safe as their conventional counterparts by every major food safety authority in the world, the organic industry spends nearly $3 billion a year through over 330 different organizations leading with fear and “information spin” as an industry to sell their products. By creating an unfounded fear that requires tighter regulations on GMO crops, they are hoping to force them out of the food supply, thereby creating a bigger market share to sell more products in their more than $65 billion wheelhouse.
The unfortunate consequence of these [non-GMO] labels is that the food companies and lobbyists tend to create an unnecessary “us vs. them” divide. When food companies use fear against competitors to sell a product, farmers take it personally."
https://www.agdaily.com/insights/farm-babe-label-trends-end/
Now why do you suppose organic food is so expensive?? Imagine what 3 billion dollars could do for humanitarian goals – end a different disease forever every year…. End all hunger in at least one country…… Funding nasty propaganda? Really??