The Antisocial Socialist

I like organic food, but it's an elite luxury, and not a feasible way to feed billion of hungry humans.

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sabotabby

I have a suspicion, and I may be wrong, that organic is primarily a marketing category.

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Given that the term "organic" as applied to food products is entirely defined by the people trying to sell you organic food, I would say your chance of being wrong is no chance at all.

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sabotabby

It's one of those things that I always suspect but then I wonder if I'm just paranoid in a slightly different trajectory than other people are paranoid.

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http://users.livejournal.com/_ex_cowboy/

The federal regulations regarding organic ag are... written by organic farmers? because organic certification is such a lucrative business? Source?

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The USDA label and certification process falls under the Agricultural Marketing Service. Here is the USDA link about the National Organic Program. Note at the top it says "Agricultural Marketing Service."

The certification process comes from within the industry, and the USDA has never claimed otherwise. Note it is the USDA and not the FDA. It's not about food safety; it's about industry regulations, proposed and agreed to as best practices within the industry. Which is for-profit, and has plenty of big operators, like Organic Valley. It's a $25 billion industry.

Since the certifiers come from within the industry, there have been plenty of scandals about lax oversight, some of them detailed here. Note that the FDA concern is for "shaken consumer confidence," not contamination.

Meanwhile, a lot of products that fall under the umbrella "organic" do not have the USDA label and instead use alterna-labels like "certified naturally grown" "all natural" "sustainably harvested" etc, which are pretty much self-selected greenwashing.

You can do the rest of the resarch yourself, thanks. I'm hardly making an extraordinary claim, and I'm not the one trying to sell you something.

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http://users.livejournal.com/_ex_cowboy/

You provided evidence that regulation is lacking, which is always the case. You didn't provide evidence that organic farms are corporate fronts that control the regulation of organic ag. Of course corporations are going to try to use "organic" certification as a marketing tool, just like they've used health correlations (low calorie / low carb) to market their products. That has zero relevance to the legitimacy of organic farming and everything to do with the illegitimacy of capitalist markets.

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Yes. I can back up all my arguments, but you will be right that it is possible to imagine a completely noble agricultural utopia captured by your personal definition of organic which excludes for-profit companies, corporations, regulators, and most entitites which use the word organic. Best of luck.

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Wow, of all those groups you could pick on you choose Organic Valley an ag co-op of mostly small farmers? I mean, pick Horizon or something I would would have an easier time agreeing with you.

As for the Certification and its history, it has constantly been a battle between long time organic farmers who do have a vision for a more sustainable view of farming and big corporations who see organic as a value added market niche. In fact, the Certification board, full of political appointees -- some good, most not -- has constantly been prevented from weakening organic standards by its own industry, something that happens pretty much never. I agree that "organic" is a marketing term -- and that much marketing is myth-making -- but there is not no difference and organic is -- not yet -- just big ag corporations.

Plus your paragraph here:"Meanwhile, a lot of products that fall under the umbrella "organic" do not have the USDA label and instead use alterna-labels like "certified naturally grown" "all natural" "sustainably harvested" etc, which are pretty much self-selected greenwashing." makes no sense whatsoever unless you substitute "Natural foods" for "organic" in the first sentence. Which would be fine except that's the whole idea behind certified organic and why the industry asked for national certification in the first place: it codifies the term by law to differentiate itself from those meaningless terms.

Honestly the biggest thing for me with organic is the health of farmworkers and their communities, just fwiw.

Edited Date: 2014-04-23 01:13 pm (UTC)

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There are farms that are better and worse than other farms, in ways that make me more or less likely to buy from them. This is not well captured by the term "organic." I can't use "organic" as a shortcut, especially because the meaning is, shall we say, fungible.

As discussed in the Times article I linked to, there is little enforcement of standards. Things get labeled as organic which do not meet labeling reqirements, and get away with it as long as not enough people check and complain, in much the same way there are unlicensed drivers on the roads who do not get pulled over. Meanwhile, the most common reason for losing organic certification is not filing your paperwork on time, which has nothing much to do with how you farm.

As for my "makes no sense" paragraph, there is a great deal of weaseling around. Stores advertise that they carry organic groceries although they carry a hodge podge of organic, "natural," "conventionally grown," etc. There is also a lot of weaseling around by consumers who say they value buying organic. I note that as soon as I push on the "organic" thing not having an output-centered meaning, and a very limited process-centered meaning, everyone, including in this discussion thread, retrenches and says "oh but I mean a different definition of organic. I mean sustainable. I mean kind to workers. I mean nutritious. I mean noble. I mean anti-inflammatory. I mean anti-corporate. etc. etc. etc."

I'm sure there are a lot of good people involved in organic farming. I've met some of them. However, your suggestion that reistance to weakening standards happens "pretty much never" is not persuasive. You know who else doesn't want to weaken standards around what can be called a certain label? Coca Cola. Kleenex. Band Aid. Disney. If I have a brand I can sell at a premium, I sure as hell don't want somebody else to be able to sell under that brand. Meanwhile, if I can control who can enter a market so that I have fewer competitors, I'm going to do that.

You can be an organic farmer and make lots of money or no money. You can ship across the country or grow next door. You can treat your laborers abysmaly or very well. You can raise food that is uncommonly high in nutrients or flavor, or produce that is relatively wan and easily spoiled. You can leave your soil better than you found it or worse than you found it. Your spinach can be contaminated with salmonella from chicken shit, or not. You can dump pesticides all over your crops or avoid them.

I like science. I like the hell out of science. I don't like it when instead of engaging with what's actually happening, someone defaults to a stereotype like "this is a GMO and it's bad!" It's lazy. Particularly since we've been genetically modifying everything around us for a very, very long time. That's what agriculture is. Look at the word, agriculture. We culture it. We are getting more efficient at culturing it. Sometimes we change our minds about what traits are desired. This is true no matter what kind of farming we use. We intervene in the process of natural selection in ways we believe will benefit us, often accurately.

Edited Date: 2014-04-23 08:32 pm (UTC)

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I actually don't disagree with much of what you are saying, just the point that not enough inspection negates the meaning of the certification. I would be in favor of more inspections for sure but organic does mean certain things, even if some imbue it with meanings beyond the actual definition.

As for my "makes no sense" paragraph, there is a great deal of weaseling around. Stores advertise that they carry organic groceries although they carry a hodge podge of organic, "natural," "conventionally grown," etc. There is also a lot of weaseling around by consumers who say they value buying organic. I note that as soon as I push on the "organic" thing not having an output-centered meaning, and a very limited process-centered meaning, everyone, including in this discussion thread, retrenches and says "oh but I mean a different definition of organic. I mean sustainable. I mean kind to workers. I mean nutritious. I mean noble. I mean anti-inflammatory. I mean anti-corporate. etc. etc. etc."

I agree with all of that except that you are describing the "natural foods" industry, not the organic standards themselves. In fact you are kind of arguing with yourself in the post I first responded to by using "organic" when you are not discussing a limited process-centered meaning. In my experience there was a lot more misleading going on when different state organic standards boards allowed produce to be sold with terms like "conversion to organic". I don't doubt that there is some misleading and some mislabeling going on now, but there is now also the chance to expose certain kinds of weaseling where that chance didn't exist before. Honestly, I would prefer a term like "domestic fair trade" that had broader implications, but "organic" means something. I personally don't refuse to use it because it doesn't mean everything I would want.

What I am saying about resistance to weakening standards is that the standards are in a constant state of battle between, generally speaking, big and small organic farms. The requirement of "access to pasture" for dairy animals being changed to a specific number of days on pasture (with exceptions made for things like weather) was an example of a change pushed by smaller dairy farms and organic consumers that eliminated certain farms from being able to claim organic standards. That is not at all the same thing as Disney protecting their brand. It's, in fact, one of the few trade groups where small scale needs can win over large scale desires sometimes, though certainly not always.

However, I am not really sure what you are arguing in that paragraph since the idea of any certification is that it has standards. Of course some people will be excluded from it. It's kind of the whole point.

It's pretty simple. Buy organic if you think that the 'limited process-centric" rules are generally better for the environment, animal health, agricultural communities, and give farmers a better chance of earning a living wage.

Lastly I don't know who you are arguing with in the last two paragraphs, but it isn't me.

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You are correct that I'm not speaking exlusively to you in a private e-mail sent exclusively to you, but in a discussion thread in which several people are participating, in a forum started by someone who is neither of us, subsequent to an entry which expresses skepticism toward anti-GMO positions and suggests they may be a waste of time and energy by acting as a distraction from the (to quote sabs) "real issues." A position with which I happen to agree.

To respond to your "pretty simple" formulation - no, I don't think the rules for organic certification are generally better for the environment, animal health, agricultural communities, and give farmers a better chance of earning a living wage. I think there's a lot of magical thinking in the organic farming sector. Or, to quote Sabs again, a high level of woo.

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You can be sarcastic if you want, but generally a response to a comment is to what that person said, not everything said beforehand or things imagined. I keep telling you that I actually agree with most of what you say, just not all of it. In fact, I have only addressed the issues around the word organic, which is actually an instructive lesson for leftists around building one's own community, the cooptation that can occur, how people fight back against that, and the positives/limits of government regulation around areas of interest. All of which are actually "real issues" as is the content of our food supply, environmental justice, and so forth.

I say the formulation is pretty simple, not that you have to agree with it. However, whenever I try to keep to what organic actually means you want to talk about other people's woo. I have no woo - none, zero, zilch -- (and for that matter neither do most organic farmers I meet unless you count Christianity) but I think organic certification is a generally progressive step for many reasons.

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What you are mistaking for sarcasm is an attempt to make clear that although you have told me repeatedly you mostly agree with me, I don't mostly agree with you. We may have similar ideas around co-option of terms and about the limits of regulatory policy, but I fundamentally don't think the farming practice we're calling organic, whether the government-defined version or the unregulated vernacular version which other people call by other words, including natural and non-GMO, is valuable.

Please understand that from my point of view you are trying to talk to me about intelligent design and how similar it is to my belief in evolution, and telling me how closed off I am for not seeing it or wanting to debate the finer points of how one might set the preconditions under which a wolf becomes a dog. When I say you are not my audience, and I am only continuing the disucussion for the benefit of other people who may be reading, it is nothing but sincere.

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You are correct that I'm not speaking exlusively to you in a private e-mail sent exclusively to you, but in a discussion thread in which several people are participating, in a forum started by someone who is neither of us,..."

Yes, ok, my bad for thinking this was sarcasm. I see now it's more of a pathology. ;)

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Yes, "organic" is phony to an extent, but when you can forego pesticides and herbicides, it's probably best. Some of the GMOs are developed not just for high yield but to be naturally resistant to disease, and so don't need pesticides.

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There is no question: you should forego pesticides and herbicides wherever possible. Many cancers would be prevented if people were able to eat chemical-free.

"Organic" is a phony term to an extent mainly because a lot of people have no idea what it is and use the term to bless just anything they want to approve of. ("Oh, it's organic—so it's okay.")

But the standard it protects is serious as a heart attack, so to speak: organically-grown food is simply healthier, and the people opposing GMOs are first opposing the fact that the environment is being polluted by genetically-modified organisms. Nothing can go back to its "organic" state after it's been adulterated by GMOs.

Also, Bayer is admitting that GMO contamination is out of control. This means that it acknowledges genetically-modified organisms are actively causing contamination of conventional crops. Think about it.

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Lots of hyperbole here. I've been gardening vegetables for years, and appreciate what commercial farmers do for the world. Your way would lead to immediate world-wide mass famine.

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What, are you growing genetically-modified plants—or animals?

What is "my way?" Limiting pesticide use in an effort to bring back the disappearing bees? In this hemisphere, at least, they're in a downward spiral, and bees are the chief pollinator of all crops.

Lastly, it would be refreshing if the human population of the world would decrease for a change; species are dying off right and left as a direct result of our geometrically increasing population.

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When push comes to shove, I hope you go quietly. Remember: It's refreshing!

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misslynx.livejournal.com

You know, up to that last line, I was still feeling like we still agreed on at least some basic principles, and that you were basically well-intentioned but just not very scientifically literate.

Now? Sorry, but if you can sit in comparative luxury in the industrialized west, able to afford what is essentially luxury food, and blithely talk about how great third world starvation is for the environment because there are too many people, you're officially part of the problem, not part of the solution. It's really fucking easy to say that other people, in another part of the world, who you don't have to look in the eye or watch slowly starve to death, should die for your principles, because hey, it's not going to happen to you or anyone you care about, is it?

But people like you and me, whether we buy organic or not, cause far greater harm to the world than some kid starving in Mali, because the resources we consume - not just food but everything we take for granted, like the computers we're using to have this conversation - cause vastly more harm to the environment than the bare-subsistence standard of living of the people you're so quick to write off. So unless you're willing to off yourself for your convictions, maybe you shouldn't be so eager to condemn others to death.

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Re: "comparative luxury"—You're making some assumptions here; I'm disabled and live officially below the poverty level. Yes, I'm lucky; I've carved myself a niche here; I've lived in this city over 30 years, in this particular apartment 20 years, and I live in an urban area, so the dumpster-diving is prime. (I'm not kidding about this.)

The world is reaching its carrying capacity, and may peak at 12 billion. It isn't any one person that deserves to live or die, but there are simply too many people. [The world reached Peak Water, the point at which there isn't enough water in the world to sustain its inhabitants, years ago.]

This isn't an original thought of mine; there have been organizations like Zero Population Growth (now called Population Connection and VHEMT (Voluntary Human Extinction Movement) for years. Also, I'm not an advocate of eugenics, and I think the work Bill Gates does toward this end (in the guise of philanthropy) is pretty evil.

The reason I don't off myself—yes, I have tried in the past—is because I'm over 50. (My roommate is over 80.) I could die at any time. Though it might be a welcome gesture of my intentions and would free up space for another mouth to feed, there are certain things I do from day to day that mitigate the pure evil of my existence:

1) I don't drive. I take public transportation everywhere. I walk.

This means I may be responsible for the burning of fossil fuels, as in my building's furnace or on the crosstown bus, but I burn very little fuel myself.

2) I'm vegan and so are my pets.

I've been a vegan for over 12 years, since the World Trade Center blew up in 2001. I live only a mile and a half from Ground Zero, so I admit my first thought was that I wanted to limit the production of mucus in my nasal passages and lungs, but I don't see any reason to go back to eating dairy. I know that most people don't see any reason to stop —"I'm only one person!" they say—but there is actually no physical need for humans to eat animal protein, which causes health problems.

My dog and both my cats eat a supplemented vegan diet; since it's always assumed cats are "obligate" carnivores, I need to assure people—if they ask—that my cats get all the necessary nutrients, plus I give them a pH balancer so they don't get crystals in their urinary tracts, which could cause them to "block."

The main benefit of more people being vegan is simply that fewer land animals need to be raised, then slaughtered. This even extends to environmental benefits, since to have fewer animals on the earth, inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide, is better all-around for the earth. If plants are allowed to thrive, they can prevent soil erosion.

3) I never procreated.

This isn't exactly a virtue, just incidental; I've never had children and have now gone through menopause, so there's a very remote chance of my ever becoming pregnant.

I also just re-read my last paragraph above, and feel you're the one reading into my wording to assume I meant all the third-world people should just die quietly. In reality, certain countries' populations—such as Japan—are decreasing.

I'm not talking about transporting people to death camps or actively killing people off in any way. That isn't even part of my wording; depopulation can come from people simply not having as many children as they previously did. In the early 20th century, large families with 10 or 12 kids—particularly on farms—were the norm.

Lastly, I just want to point out that in the sentence "[I]t would be refreshing if the human population of the world would decrease for a change; species are dying off right and left as a direct result of our geometrically increasing population" there is no mention anywhere of killing humans. Read it again, if you have to.

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sabotabby

I'm not talking about transporting people to death camps or actively killing people off in any way. That isn't even part of my wording; depopulation can come from people simply not having as many children as they previously did.

I'm not going to touch the rest of it with a ten-foot pole but I'll mention that it is a wee bit insensitive to make this argument around someone who is facing the immediate loss of her livelihood due to an aging population.

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