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Why isn't there a test that can be given to meat, milk, and other producrs to determine if it is organic or not ?
We already have labs that can detect the smallest amount of antibiotics in mlk ( and the milk gets condemned)
We already are able to detect the smallest traces of antibiotics in animals at slaughter, and the animal/carcas gets condemned.
When people make outlandish claims about the dangers of non-organic/conventional farming products--------why can't they back their claims up with a test of the products that would prove the difference and back up their claim ?
Why is it you are at the mercy of the farmer's word ( and certificate ) that he is certified organic and what he is selling is really organic ?
One would think the organic association would test farm products and severely punish any farmer sellin non-organic as organic.
They don't cuz there is no test that can detect a difference. Thus the organic association relies on their supporters and other organic farmers to use unjustified scare tactics to give them a competitive edge.
----" mind over matter"--
Hate to disagree with your premise that there are "no test that can detect a difference" ...
But we have seen several area dryland wheat farmers try to sell their production as "organic" and "certified to OCIA standard" ... when they mixed in lots of acres of their conventionally farmed HRWW with their correctly raised OCIA product. When there was a $8+ per bushel cost differential to the certified organic, the temptation was too much for these guys.
One of them delivered three semi-loads to our local organic certified granary ... and when the next load out to Denver was tested there, it was rejected as contaminated with an herbicide. Long story short, the one farmer's fields were then tested and found to be the source of the herbicide. He got to take back all of the grain he'd delivered to the elevator, as well as buy back all the contaminated grain and the cleaning/decontamination of the facility.
The loss was almost a million dollars ... and bankrupted that farmer after the organic facility sued him for the damages when he misrepresented his "organic" certification for all of his lands.
So, yes, there are tests to find the contaminants in the food chain.
The latest issue (Aug 2009) of Trader's Dispatch has an article about Montana's soils being contaminated with 2,4D, tordon, and some other herbicides in the long term, causing damage to tomato and other crops. They assert that significant amounts of these herbicides can reside and remain potent in the soil for decades, and actively cause lots of problems with current plant production. For those of you who don't believe that these strong neurotoxins remain in the soils and food chain for a long time, you may want to read about the current damage and the UMontana studies as to it's causation.
As mentioned before, there is no advantage to "organic" that is grown on remote farms. The best way to get it is on local farms or in your own garden. I have become a serious hydroponic rooftop gardener and am impressed by the results so far. The taste and quality of the veggies is nothing short of incredible. No farm located thousands of miles away with produce picked by migrant labor can ever compare to you going outside and selecting your fruits and veggies at the stage you like them best. I have a beautiful pineapple almost ripe for me, and it's in a wire cage to keep the pests out. In a day or two I will cut it off and enjoy a pineapple that you could never get from Hawaii. Fresh bananas come perfect from the tree without the bruises you get from the store, but again wire cages are necessary to keep the birds and rodents out. I am against herbicides but will use pesticides if necessary. Generally I make my own pesticide gasses and cover the garden with a tarp while I dispatch the bugs and there is no soil to collect a residue. Instead of the digging, disease and crop rotation I can use the same setup year after year and just clean it out. The time to garden is now LESS than the time to go to the grocery. Since I like my salads raw, not having them handled by low-paid labor and store employees and customers I have not had a stomach virus since I switched to home grown. Is this home garden organic? Well the pineapples and bananas are, but I am using chemicals for the rooftop garden. Yet growing all my veggies in a 2000 square foot space would be impossible in the rocky ground here with infrequent rainfall. There's plenty of water from the cistern for year round hydro grow. Oh and I am not grownig "grass" in my rooftop garden.
As mentioned before, there is no advantage to "organic" that is grown on remote farms. The best way to get it is on local farms or in your own garden. I have become a serious hydroponic rooftop gardener and am impressed by the results so far. The taste and quality of the veggies is nothing short of incredible. No farm located thousands of miles away with produce picked by migrant labor can ever compare to you going outside and selecting your fruits and veggies at the stage you like them best. I have a beautiful pineapple almost ripe for me, and it's in a wire cage to keep the pests out. In a day or two I will cut it off and enjoy a pineapple that you could never get from Hawaii. Fresh bananas come perfect from the tree without the bruises you get from the store, but again wire cages are necessary to keep the birds and rodents out. I am against herbicides but will use pesticides if necessary. Generally I make my own pesticide gasses and cover the garden with a tarp while I dispatch the bugs and there is no soil to collect a residue. Instead of the digging, disease and crop rotation I can use the same setup year after year and just clean it out. The time to garden is now LESS than the time to go to the grocery. Since I like my salads raw, not having them handled by low-paid labor and store employees and customers I have not had a stomach virus since I switched to home grown. Is this home garden organic? Well the pineapples and bananas are, but I am using chemicals for the rooftop garden. Yet growing all my veggies in a 2000 square foot space would be impossible in the rocky ground here with infrequent rainfall. There's plenty of water from the cistern for year round hydro grow. Oh and I am not grownig "grass" in my rooftop garden.
Right. SMART consumption is the key.
This was yesterday's haul out of our garden. We had picked beans just one day prior, so you can see that they're really coming on. This is a great time of the year!
This was yesterday's haul out of our garden. We had picked beans just one day prior, so you can see that they're really coming on. This is a great time of the year!
What kind of chillies are you growing? Nice-looking produce.
Hate to disagree with your premise that there are "no test that can detect a difference" ...
One of them delivered three semi-loads to our local organic certified granary ... and when the next load out to Denver was tested there, it was rejected as contaminated with an herbicide. Long story short, the one farmer's fields were then tested and found to be the source of the herbicide. He got to take back all of the grain he'd delivered to the elevator, as well as buy back all the contaminated grain and the cleaning/decontamination of the facility.
The latest issue (Aug 2009) of Trader's Dispatch has an article about Montana's soils being contaminated with 2,4D, tordon, and some other herbicides in the long term, causing damage to tomato and other crops. They assert that significant amounts of these herbicides can reside and remain potent in the soil for decades, and actively cause lots of problems with current plant production. For those of you who don't believe that these strong neurotoxins remain in the soils and food chain for a long time, you may want to read about the current damage and the UMontana studies as to it's causation.
Two questions: (1) How did they separate out the grain that he had already delivered to the elevator? Once grain goes down that chute it should be nearly impossible to determine which kernels came from which truck. (Or maybe they destroyed all of the grain in storage over the period in which we was delivering to the facility.)
(2) Did the UM report say from what activity the 2,4-D and tordon originated? Was it spraying by the railroads along their track lines, or farmers growing ... what?
It seems to me that chemicals with 2,4-D as a breakdown product were banned a long time ago, along with chemicals that had 2,4,5-T as a breakdown product.
Yeah, we have done some stupid things over the years, and many of those chemicals are quite persistent and tend to concentrate as they move up the food chain. So while you may test the lettuce and find it okay, the lettuce eater may be concentrating that chemical in its liver and other organs.
Last edited by Teak; 08-12-2009 at 03:15 AM..
Reason: added a sentence
Two questions: (1) How did they separate out the grain that he had already delivered to the elevator? Once grain goes down that chute it should be nearly impossible to determine which kernels came from which truck. (Or maybe they destroyed all of the grain in storage over the period in which we was delivering to the facility.)
(2) Did the UM report say from what activity the 2,4-D and tordon originated? Was it spraying by the railroads along their track lines, or farmers growing ... what?
It seems to me that chemicals with 2,4-D as a breakdown product were banned a long time ago, along with chemicals that had 2,4,5-T as a breakdown product.
Yeah, we have done some stupid things over the years, and many of those chemicals are quite persistent and tend to concentrate as they move up the food chain. So while you may test the lettuce and find it okay, the lettuce eater may be concentrating that chemical in its liver and other organs.
1) At the time the one farmer delivered his truckloads of contaminated grain to the elevator, the only other grain stored there was from the elevator owner's fields (or his family's fields, or fields that he'd inspected as an OCIA inspector). The owner knew that those fields had been grown strictly in accordance with OCIA and Swiss certification organic standards, so it was real easy to trace the source of contaminated grain in the elevator and to then go out and check that farmer's fields ... he combined a couple thousand acres that weren't OCIA certified and a couple sections that were. As I mentioned, with the price differential of regular and organic HRWW that year (and it was just a few years ago), the temptation to mix in grain from the non-certified fields with the OCIA fields was too much for him.
That's one of the reasons why OCIA is so stringent on their record keeping. If area farms are getting 40 bushel/acre wheat, and somebody shows up with 70 bushel/acre wheat, then it raises some questions as to why or how there was so much better production. While there's a chance that somebody did in fact have that production, there's also a chance that they supplemented their output with non-certified fields. With as many people as are involved in the process of combining thousands of acres, there's a lot of people who know which fields produced what and which trailer load went out.
Obviously, they couldn't seperate out the contaminated loads from the clean loads in the elevator. That's why the farmer had to buy all the grain that was in the elevator and pay for the decontamination of all the facility. Of course, the HRWW still had value and was sold, but not at the premium price for the organic certified product. The differential losses to the elevator owner was close to $1mil, and that's what the farmer had to pay up.
2) The UM report inferred that the herbicides were applied as a matter of farmer's standard practice in clearing fields for re-planting through the years. The main point was that they could document chemicals that were widely used over 40 years ago still being active in the soils to the point where tomato leaf problems are showing up in this year's crop. Tordon is still used today and apparently is one of the chemicals that stays active for many years.
What kind of chillies are you growing? Nice-looking produce.
Those particular ones are Serrano Peppers. We planted them to use in salsa. Unfortunately, the ones you see on the table are about 1/4th of the peppers from one plant. And they're ripe about 2 weeks before the tomatoes.
I guess we better work on timing our plantings next summer.
So.....organic oranges have no vitamin c, no minerals ??? If vitamin c isn't good for the body, and minerals have no value why bother eating non organic ? ( roll eyes at another inane report from so called experts). The words "no health benefits" is misleading. Bunch of dopes.
I will take organic over the chemical sprays any day.
Right, the point in eating organic is to avoid the chemicals/pesticides used during the farming process.
How would NOT growing with chemicals make anything "healthier" - it doesn't - it just gives you a cleaner product.
This was yesterday's haul out of our garden. We had picked beans just one day prior, so you can see that they're really coming on. This is a great time of the year!
Right, the point in eating organic is to avoid the chemicals/pesticides used during the farming process.
How would NOT growing with chemicals make anything "healthier" - it doesn't - it just gives you a cleaner product.
That would be correct... you must look at journal articles with a sense of skepticism... unfortunately BOTH sides are at fault with the intentional deception of the facts... On that note global warming from human CO2 production is completely bogus... the fact is that growing without chemicals results in a cleaner product is true but depends a lot on where you live... live in a heavily polluted area like China, well, let's just say be careful of what you eat even if it is organic...
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