Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Yes, organic farming will kill us all

shift.newco.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 260 posts

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#21

Post by dagw »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #15
Quarrelsome wrote: post #7

so this entire article is based on the assumption that current farming practice is wholly unsustainable. I'm not sure I buy into this. Surely it can be adapted as opposed to rejected and completely changed, can't it?

This particular assumption is pretty safe: current farming practice depends heavily on oil. For energy of course, but also for chemicals . Nothing that depends that heavily on fossil fuels is sustainable in the long run. Whatever change we devise, we need to weaken that dependency. > Surely it can be adapted as opposed to rejected and completely changed, can't it? Personally, I see organic agriculture as a modernizat…

it's healthier (no poisonous pesticide in my apple!)

That is simply not true. Organic farming uses pesticides just as conventional farming, and I'm not aware of any studies that find that organic pesticides are consistently better for your health than non-organic. Rotanone for example is popular with many organic farmers, and has been linked to causing Parkinson's disease.

PS: This is not an argument against organic farming, and I buy organic as much as possible, but there is no reason to believe that doing so has any effect on my health.

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#22

Post by kristopolous »

justin_vanw wrote: post #12

I think this is just an example of 'elitism' on the part of the author. It is ludicrous to think that there is a chance that the 'local/organic' movement will ever capture more than 1%-2% of food production. Most people don't care, and some fraction of people that do care are intelligent enough to decide that additional cost for no increase in quality is not worth it. So this is 'elitism' because people think that a…

Sure but if this was the 1950s and the article was about abstaining from smoking, you could have made similar arguments.

The people of tomorrow will not think like the people of today.

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#23

Post by loup-vaillant »

justin_vanw wrote: post #12

I think this is just an example of 'elitism' on the part of the author. It is ludicrous to think that there is a chance that the 'local/organic' movement will ever capture more than 1%-2% of food production. Most people don't care, and some fraction of people that do care are intelligent enough to decide that additional cost for no increase in quality is not worth it. So this is 'elitism' because people think that a…

You seem to assume organic food is much more expensive to produce than chemical food. You'll need to justify that assumption, especially in the face of hidden costs: scorched soils (that require chemicals to grow anything), light but pervasive food poisoning (pesticides), growing resistances to our pesticides and antibiotics, heavy dependence on fossil fuels, as well as quite a bit of oil for chemicals.

As a not so separate issue, there is the cost of distribution. Carrying food across the country, across the world, has costs: more need for energy, and degradation of the food (fresh is better). Such costs could be lowered right now, but cannot be eliminated as long as we keep large monocultures: with them, you don't get any diversity without moving lots of food around.

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#24

Post by throwaway1892 »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #9
grive wrote: post #2

The general gist is interesting in order to captive the intended audience of sceptics, and the clickbait title is effective in that way. Still, though, a clickbait title. Furthermore, the usual consensus I hear is that we will need to change our practices drastically, we cannot let the "conventional" farming on life support indefinitely and we cannot let it destroy our sustenance. Organic farming is however still far…

> Organic farming is however still far from being enough to make us live. What I have seen says otherwise. There's a thing about chemical agriculture: when you first implement it, you get incredible yields. Then the soil starts dying (no more acari, no more fungi, compressed soil…), and the yields slowly go back to roughly the previous levels, only this time you need all the chemicals to sustain it. If you suddenly s…

The problem (here in France) is that the number of farmers is going down hard (with suicides every day). They are currently crushed by regulations, labor costs, undercuts by products from other countries with different labor costs and regulations and the supermarkets that make big margin on their back. So your solution is good, but it is not currently applicable here in France.

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#25

Post by Swizec »

justin_vanw wrote: post #12

I think this is just an example of 'elitism' on the part of the author. It is ludicrous to think that there is a chance that the 'local/organic' movement will ever capture more than 1%-2% of food production. Most people don't care, and some fraction of people that do care are intelligent enough to decide that additional cost for no increase in quality is not worth it. So this is 'elitism' because people think that a…

And yet in the US there is at least one supermarket chain running entirely on the premise that people do care. Whole Foods. Afaik they're pretty successful too.

The worst part is that unlike in Europe, I can actually taste the difference in the US.

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#26

Post by ju-st »

justin_vanw wrote: post #12

I think this is just an example of 'elitism' on the part of the author. It is ludicrous to think that there is a chance that the 'local/organic' movement will ever capture more than 1%-2% of food production. Most people don't care, and some fraction of people that do care are intelligent enough to decide that additional cost for no increase in quality is not worth it. So this is 'elitism' because people think that a…

It already captured 5,3% of food revenue in Germany and growing (4,7% in 2015). Source http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/dm-gegen-alnatu...

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#27

Post by voidz »

avar wrote: post #20
kuschku wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there is a huge unspoken problem yet. In many areas of northern Germany, even with the extremely strict limits on fertilizer and pesticides that Germany has, the drinking water, rivers and oceans are getting so massively polluted that we’re seeing massive algae blooms and drinking water slowly becoming undrinkable. It’s a massive problem, and there’s no way to solve these without massively reducing fertilizer and…

Start by picking GMOs instead of the woo-woo that is organic farming. See e.g. a German-funded meta-analysis[1] that found that: "[...] the adoption of herbicide-tolerant (HT) soybean, maize, and cotton, and insect-resistant (IR) maize and cotton has resulted in a 22% increase in average yields, a 37% overall decrease in pesticide use, and a 68% increase in farmer profits.". 1. http://www.theskepticsguide.org/gm-impa…

How do these impact the insect world?

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#28

Post by loup-vaillant »

dagw wrote: post #21
loup-vaillant wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This particular assumption is pretty safe: current farming practice depends heavily on oil. For energy of course, but also for chemicals . Nothing that depends that heavily on fossil fuels is sustainable in the long run. Whatever change we devise, we need to weaken that dependency. > Surely it can be adapted as opposed to rejected and completely changed, can't it? Personally, I see organic agriculture as a modernizat…

it's healthier (no poisonous pesticide in my apple!) That is simply not true. Organic farming uses pesticides just as conventional farming, and I'm not aware of any studies that find that organic pesticides are consistently better for your health than non-organic. Rotanone for example is popular with many organic farmers, and has been linked to causing Parkinson's disease. PS: This is not an argument against organic…

Depends on how we define "organic". If it can include pesticides, that's a bit depressing.

There's a way to avoid pesticides altogether: grow local apples that thrive in the local environment. Some will get eaten by worms, some will rot… Select them out. You don't always need those pesticides.

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#30

Post by andybak »

justin_vanw wrote: post #12

I think this is just an example of 'elitism' on the part of the author. It is ludicrous to think that there is a chance that the 'local/organic' movement will ever capture more than 1%-2% of food production. Most people don't care, and some fraction of people that do care are intelligent enough to decide that additional cost for no increase in quality is not worth it. So this is 'elitism' because people think that a…

It feels a little like you are replying to what you imagined the article was about rather than reading the actual article.

Please correct me if that's unfair but it does cover some of the things you're railing against.

Post reply on HN