I was referring to the lower yields of organic agriculture in comparision to “normal” agriculture and the more work you have to invest in it, thus leading to higher prices for the consumer.
This makes no sense. The people that are involved and interested with organic farming are pretty low on the economic ladder. By nature, they can’t be mega farms because that goes against the principles of the idea.
I can’t speak for your country but here in germany so many people are obsessed with the “bio, green and nature” thing that farmers who are in the organic agriculture business are not poor. And neither is it the poor that buy those products, simply because they cost more money than the regular food.
The fertilize they use is natural and nondamaging…that’s kinda the point of organic farming. The standards prohibit using artificial fertilizers, sewage, human waste, which has all been used.
Sewage and dung have the same purpose as the evil chemical fertilizer they increase the ammount of certain compounds available to the plants (e.g. nitrates). And if you bring out to much sewage on the field these nitrates will surely land in the water, as with artificial fertilizer if you overdose. The nitrate is the same regardless of the source where it came from. Actually the probability to overdose is greater if you use sewage since you can’t be sure of it’s quality (I know sound funny when talking about sh*t), where the quality of the artifical fertilizer is always the same.
Furthermore I know for a fact that here in germany organic agriculture farmer are allowed to use old fertilizers that have been developed before any standards have been raised. These old fertilizers do contain for example copper and are themself much more damaging to the enviorment than artificial fertilizers that have been developed in the recent past
Organic sales account for so little of the total product sold that it debunks your theory.
I didn’t propose any theory I was only refering to my previous poster who thought it would be a good idea to do only organic agriculture. I don’t mind the people who want to eat only “bio” food, but to do only organic agriculture would surely result in an increase of prices for food.
In my own experience, organic produce, meat, and processed foods are always better hands down, and I’m not some Walmart shopping moron that thinks I can get quality for cheap every time. You get what you pay for…
In my experience they are not - but hey who cares :wink:
You know, I live in Belgium, and the good thing about Belgium is we’ve got a lot of scandals. Which means, a lot of scandals that make it to the newspapers. I’m pretty sure we’re not having an above average of scandals, we’re having an above average of scandals that reaches the news. Now what does this have to do with organic food? Well, a couple of years ago, some people noticed the dioxine-levels in a lot of mega-produced chickens were too high (causing a significant increase in the cancer risk for anyone consuming those chickens). How did this happen? Producers of livestock foods for conventional agriculture mixed highly toxic motor oil (!!!) (which should have been processed in specialized recycling factories) in their foods, and thus the chickens who ate this food became “toxic” too. And those chickens should not have been sold to consumers. Which, ofcourse didn’t happen. Nowadays Belgium is one of the countries with the highest food standards and most rigurous food control procedures. Nonetheless, I believe if people don’t want to spend enough money to their food, their food will always be crap (or motor oil) (especially outside Belgium).
I’m convinced that the chances of organic food containing motor oil is waaaaay smaller than the chances conventional food containing motor oil. Now if you still think your cheap food is as good as the companies want you to believe, go ahead, though I wouldn’t really like to eat motor oil…
I’m sure noone wants his chickens fed with motor oil and this clearly was a crime. But this is also a single event and can not be generalized for a whole branch of farming. I’m pretty sure that common agriculture has its own standard which forbades using motor oil.
Neither am I advocating prices for food that are so low, that farmers are forced to such criminal methods. But even with fair prices I think you will agree with me that conventional farming is less expensive than organic agriculture.
That’s true, one single event can not be generalized for a whole branch of farming…
How many do you need?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2551-hormone-food-scandal-rocks-europe.html
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2007-06-04-petfood-scandal_N.htm
http://www.expat.ru/forum/health-news/45776-donut-chain-latest-string-japan-food-scandals.html
http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/news/ng.asp?id=53590-water-injected-meat
http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2006/04/mineral-depleted-food-scandal.html
http://www.japaneconomynews.com/2007/10/31/yet-another-domestic-food-scandal-bush-to-lobby-for-us-beef/
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0140673602110166
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/china/2007/10/09/125959/China-may.htm
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/04/05/haiti-gedimex-and-the-expired-food-scandal/
http://givingupcontrol.wordpress.com/2007/07/06/more-fallout-from-the-chinese-food-scandals-heavy-metals-in-our-food/
from about 11700 hits for ’ “food scandal” -oil -pet -sex ’ on google. Not accounting those that didn’t reach the papers. Nor the routine (!) legal (!) use of antibiotics as growth stimulator in animals, resulting in harder to cure diseases.
And strange as it might be, I do not think I’ll agree that conventional farming always is less expensive than organic agriculture. (because of the ecological debt we’ll sooner or later have to pay) But if one can afford it, why not buy food which you know is better both for you and for the rest of the world?
I was referring to the lower yields of organic agriculture in comparision to “normal” agriculture and the more work you have to invest in it, thus leading to higher prices for the consumer.
Conventional agriculture looks at maximizing profit, but there is a price besides cost and it is not sustainable. Organic farming is, and the difference in yield is debatable. However, Big Business has seen the potential for major profit but wants to subvert the standards.
I can’t speak for your country but here in germany so many people are obsessed with the “bio, green and nature” thing that farmers who are in the organic agriculture business are not poor. And neither is it the poor that buy those products, simply because they cost more money than the regular food.
In my experience here in the US, the farmers that have been growing organic are small family farms and/or in a farming cooperative. They are not rich by any means, and really since they are selling directly to us, the get a fair price for what they grow (Fair Trade). I don’t know how Germany differs, but the movement is legit and not some scheme, that’s just what the megafarm corporations want to do though.
Sewage and dung have the same purpose as the evil chemical fertilizer they increase the ammount of certain compounds available to the plants (e.g. nitrates). And if you bring out to much sewage on the field these nitrates will surely land in the water, as with artificial fertilizer if you overdose. The nitrate is the same regardless of the source where it came from. Actually the probability to overdose is greater if you use sewage since you can’t be sure of it’s quality (I know sound funny when talking about sh*t), where the quality of the artifical fertilizer is always the same.
Sewage is not used in organic farming but compost is ok. In fact, this salmonella outbreak concerning tomatoes in the US is believed to be due to raw sewage. If it’s organic it won’t have that problem. But natural fertilizer, while still a problem concerning runoff, doesn’t have the same result as artificial fertilizer.
Furthermore I know for a fact that here in germany organic agriculture farmer are allowed to use old fertilizers that have been developed before any standards have been raised. These old fertilizers do contain for example copper and are themself much more damaging to the enviorment than artificial fertilizers that have been developed in the recent past
There aren’t ogranic standards yet in Germany? Copper is a trace element and occurs in the soil naturally…in fact, if trace minerals aren’t found in the growing soil, it leads to less nutritious produce. That’s a problem with conventional farming…it leeches the soil.
I didn’t propose any theory I was only refering to my previous poster who thought it would be a good idea to do only organic agriculture. I don’t mind the people who want to eat only “bio” food, but to do only organic agriculture would surely result in an increase of prices for food.
Actually, if it was more prevalent, it would bring the cost down.
In my experience they are not - but hey who cares :wink:
I do. :)
Elect me as president and I will have a team determine how to drill through the earth and suck all the oil out from under Saudia Arabia….
because it’s not THEIR oil, they’re just closer to it!
Just conquering lands with oil would be cheaper… Ow wait, they tried that already…
I prefer to drive this go kart powered by my own sense of self satisfaction.
:-D
Just conquering lands with oil would be cheaper… Ow wait, they tried that already…
:roll: Wow did you think that one up all by yourself?
You know, all of this talk about Oil… I heard it before in my life… about 30 years ago.
Massive inflation on EVERYTHING in double digits (not just food and fuel), massive price run-ups in the cost of gasoline, we even had rationing back then (you could only buy fuel on certain days based on your license plate number).
We have had more than 30 years from our first warnings about this problem. In the interim we have done nothing except ignore the problem.
Perhaps we NEED these massive price run ups… hell we probably need the cost of gasoline to at least double AGAIN ($8.00 gas?) in order to actually have some REAL action taken to solve this problem PERMANENTLY.
