Posted on 05/09/2022 10:19:59 AM PDT by Wuli
The energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine disabused many politicians of the notion that the world could make a swift transition to green energy powered by solar, wind and wishful thinking. As food prices skyrocket and the conflict threatens a global food crisis, we need to face another unpopular reality: Organic farming is ineffective, land hungry and very expensive, and it would leave billions hungry if it were embraced world-wide.
For years, politicians and the chattering classes have argued that organic farming is the responsible way to feed the world. The European Union pushed last year for members roughly to triple organic farming by 2030. Influential nonprofits have long promoted organic farming to developing nations, causing fragile countries like Sri Lanka to invest in such methods. In the West, many consumers have been won over: About half the population of Germany believes that organic farming can fight global hunger.
The rise in food prices—buoyed by increased fertilizer, energy and transport costs—amid the conflict in Ukraine has exposed inherent flaws in the argument for organic farming. Because organic agriculture shirks many of the scientific advancements that have allowed farmers to increase crop yields, it’s inherently less efficient than conventional farming. Research has conclusively shown that organic farming produces less food per acre than conventional agriculture. Moreover, organic farming rotates fields in and out of use more often than conventional farming, which can rely on synthetic fertilizer and pesticides to maintain fertility and keep away pests.
Taking this and the lower production in a given field into account, organic farming produces between 29% to 44% less food than conventional methods. It therefore requires as much as 78% more land than conventional agriculture and the food produced costs 50% more—all while generating no measurable increase in human health or animal welfare.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
I think organic farming is fine at a small scale for small scale needs. Those small scale organic farms serve individuals or specialized markets. But they cannot replace or compete with farming practices that are feeding so much of today's world population.
That is the general idea.
Green Power (solar, wind) are EXACTLY the same. They are being promoted as top-down policies, when actually they make the most sense "bottom-up." But progressive-fascists can never accept anything "bottom-up" where people are free to choose.
Solar Panels on my home may be a great idea for me - I can calculate the savings and off-grid advantages and disadvantages myself. But as a politically-forced, large grid-scale solution, they cause many problems
Hey, if others want to pay less and eat petrochemical and pesticide laden food, more power to them. If it is all you can afford, you have no choice.
I will gladly pay more to eat nutrition rich food that skips that stuff.
Organic products consumers basically do not trust the science!
Funny. Why they are mostly liberals?
“Solar Panels on my home may be a great idea for me - I can calculate the savings and off-grid advantages and disadvantages myself. But as a politically-forced, large grid-scale solution, they cause many problems.”
And it takes factories powered by conventional power sources to build all the wind and solar stuff, as well as all the fossil fuel derived plastics that go into all of it, as well as all the fossil fuel energy that has gone into obtaining most all the other raw materials wind and solar equipment needs for its manufacture. There is very little “green” about making most of the “green energy” stuff.
And all this time I thought organic farming just meant labeling imperfect fruit and vegetables “organic” and charging a higher price than even the “perfect” fruits and vegetables. Guess I should have known that no one would actually cheat at this game.
I am semi organic. I feed my fruit trees wood chips mulch and some chem fertilizer. Any who aspires to go organic for vegetables or fruits.. Go get wood chips from your local tree trimmers. They might be utilities or private.
You’re not gaining a thing by paying more for ‘organic’ foodstuffs.
Pesticides and Other Chemicals Used In Organic Farming
https://debunkingdenialism.com/2019/09/01/pesticides-and-other-chemicals-used-in-organic-farming/
If you’re serious, what you SHOULD be doing is either growing your own, OR find a local Farmers Market/Farm with vendors you know and trust. Grill them mercilessly before you hand over your money to them, too.
As far as nutrition goes, what matters MOST is the variety of fruits and veggies grown. Those grown commercially, even under ‘organic’ practices, are still varieties picked specifically for their ‘looks’ and shipping capabilities and shelf life.
For example, everyone loves a good tomato, but some tomatoes are more nutritious than others, and are not necessarily the tomatoes ‘organic’ growers are shipping to market or canning companies:
https://www.saferbrand.com/articles/which-tomatoes-are-the-healthiest-to-grow
You can do a search on just about any type of fruit or veggie to find which varieties give you the most nutrition for your dollar and/or time and energy spent to grow yourself.
Of course, the choice is completely up to you. I’m just giving you some ‘Insider Baseball’ information as I have 18 years in the seed production/gardening/veggie growing business and I’m retired now and grow a LOT of food for my household and family. I garden organically for the most part. I am not above spraying an evil thistle with Round-Up when needed, though. :)
Funny. Why they are mostly liberals?
Of course they don't trust the "science." They don't do much that's difficult, including think. They want a nice life. That's why, when liberals are rich, they send their kids to private schools instead of the public disasters ruled by evil liberal ideas.
But because liberals are so comfort-driven, it makes them good witnesses to reality--if, and only if, you watch what they do, instead of what they say.
Why do liberals buy organic food today? Because it tastes better. (Shhhhh! Don't tell anyone.) I remember organic food from the early 1960s. It wasn't very popular, even among Marxists. Old, hard-core ideologues were most of the customer base. The one thing you could say for it was, well, it had a lot of fiber. Yuck!
But rich liberals began to travel to Europe, where people know how to effing cook. Businessmen, liberal and not-so-liberal, saw the trend and set about learning the 1,000-year-old traditions of European farming and eating and also drinking. Which people over there do for fun. It happens to be farmed more naturally, on certain kinds of soil, etc., etc. So liberals go to places like Trader Joe's--as we and many of our right-wing friends do--because the food is better and cheaper, and proudly copied from European cooking. (And don't rat them out, but the employees are nice, knowledgeable, and not all liberals, either!)
Our current farming practices are outdated. We should be advanced beyond that.
I was not promoting organic farming.
My only comments were to suggest it is fine on a small scale for those who want to do it or demand products from it - that’s all I said and all I meant.
It is clearly not going to feed the world.
A lot of the vegetables you buy in supermarkets are not even worth buying.
see post #10 in the thread
you two argue if you want
I’m not arguing with you! I garden organically for myself, but I think it’s wasteful and a bunch of BS on a commercial scale, too.
Someone has made a LOT of money labeling things as, ‘Organic.’
Follow the money. That’s always your best bet with anything ‘new and improved’ that Mother Government comes up with.
You know, like ‘mandatory’ Covid-BS19 shots? ;)
The best whole unshucked corn I ever ate was in Wisconsin in 1992. I was there for three weeks. 12 ears for one dollar when I was right at the farmer.. The best! I must have eaten at least 30 over the weeks.
It is the sun and the soil. And that the sun starts slowly in Wisconsin, so hits the corn stalks for months. Slow and delicious.
Thanks for your post…
We are careful about the source and methods used.
We avoid roundup near our food beds because it is toxic at least to the micro biome, which is the greater portion of the human immune system.
And while nutrition varies by variety, if the soil is depleted or petrochemical fertilizers are used - and those two tend to go together - plants have less nutrition, holding constant for variety.
I do wish you well!
So… we do our best to avoid the toxic stuff, even in an imperfect world.
I don’t use Round-Up near my food plots, either. I am a HUGE fan of piling straw around everything for weed suppression, and then as that breaks down it adds back to the soil. I do mainly no-till where I can.
We have a mule and raise a beef steer every other year, so we have plenty of organic compost to use for fertilizer. ;)
On non-food things like hanging baskets of flowers and Porch Pots and the like, I’ll use Miracle Grow Bloom Booster.
As I said, I’m not a complete purist. :)
“Organic farming is ineffective, land hungry and very expensive, and it would leave billions hungry if it were embraced world-wide.”
I think an unspoken part of that vision is a human population 1/10 or 1/20 of its current size.
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