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One of biggest frauds in U.S. farm history

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Re: One of biggest frauds in U.S. farm history

#61

Post by Thorrez »

ourmandave wrote: post #44
Thorrez wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The customers who paid a higher price for something because it was falsely advertised. Just because there's no proof that organic is healthier doesn't mean it isn't healthier. And people buy organic for reasons other than health, such as the idea that it's better for the environment (e.g. no pesticides seeping into the ground).

Just because there's no proof that organic is healthier doesn't mean it isn't healthier. USDA certified cringey statement.

It's a variation of the common phrase "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."[1] It's a common debate, at what point, if ever, can we say something doesn't exist when there's no evidence for it. There might actually be some evidence that organic food is healthier, this study[2] found an association between organic food and reduction in non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absence

[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/bjc2014148

Re: One of biggest frauds in U.S. farm history

#62

Post by AmericanChopper »

MiroF wrote: post #56
Jedd wrote: post #47

> ... is fed to cattle and chickens, whose meat is also sold at a premium [...] because a growing number of consumers are willing to pay more for protein that comes from animals raised on a natural, organic diet. Consumers have been misled - cattle's natural diet is grass, not grains. Chickens will opportunistically eat grains and seeds, but if given the opportunity will eagerly eat a blend of greens and insects & wo…

i'm curious what natural means in the context of animal species that are relative newcomers and have always been domesticated

Organic, chemical free, natural, non-gm... are all marketing jargon that has no connection at all to what those words mean in the English language. Pretty much anything with carbon in it is organic, nothing is chemical free, natural is entirely a matter of opinion (is any agriculture “natural”?), and selective breeding is selective genetic modification (and very unnatural to boot). People claim that the new definitions for these words align with a supposedly simply guiding philosophy, but that’s not true either, the ones that are regulated simply align with lengthy, arbitrarily defined, and often inconsistent from one jurisdiction to another, regulations.

Re: One of biggest frauds in U.S. farm history

#63

Post by tehlike »

downrightmike wrote: post #28

He scammed out a couple dozen million dollars each year and is fined 128 million, which ruined him and he'd never be able to pay it back. This is the kind of punishment That needs to happen to a lot of industries, really any of the crimes people commit should cost them more than they gained. But he must have been too small potatoes, so he got an appropriate sentence.

I am curious - there are ways to shelter money, including sending it abroad. Can they claw it all back?

Re: One of biggest frauds in U.S. farm history

#64

Post by paganel »

Jedd wrote: post #47

> ... is fed to cattle and chickens, whose meat is also sold at a premium [...] because a growing number of consumers are willing to pay more for protein that comes from animals raised on a natural, organic diet. Consumers have been misled - cattle's natural diet is grass, not grains. Chickens will opportunistically eat grains and seeds, but if given the opportunity will eagerly eat a blend of greens and insects & wo…

Not sure about beef but I can guarantee you that there's a ton of difference between the eggs produced by my parents' chicken (they raise them "organically", so to speak, i.e. they do subsistence agriculture) and the eggs that I can purchase from the supermarket closest to me. And the difference is in favour of my parents' chicken. The same discussion is valid for the chicken meat.

Re: One of biggest frauds in U.S. farm history

#66

Post by beerandt »

cortesoft wrote: post #41
erikig wrote: post #9

"There’s no proof that the meat [from animals fed from fraudulently marked "organic" produce] is any better for you, but some people believe it is and others have philosophical or environmental reasons for preferring it." Makes me wonder - who is the victim of this fraud?

Part of the appeal of organic is to be better for the environment. That is not something that is inherent to the product produced, but is an externality.

It depends on what you want to maximize, because you don't use manufactured fertilizer, but you might need to deforest 3x the land to generate the same long-term average yield.

Re: One of biggest frauds in U.S. farm history

#67

Post by sjcsjc »

cinquemb wrote: post #59
downrightmike wrote: post #28

He scammed out a couple dozen million dollars each year and is fined 128 million, which ruined him and he'd never be able to pay it back. This is the kind of punishment That needs to happen to a lot of industries, really any of the crimes people commit should cost them more than they gained. But he must have been too small potatoes, so he got an appropriate sentence.

>But he must have been too small potatoes, so he got an appropriate sentence. The "appropriate sentence" is coming for the bigger guys too, but it may not be paid by them, but definitely their ancestors… and definitely not by some court diktat…

I don't think ancestors is the word you're looking for here ;-)

Re: One of biggest frauds in U.S. farm history

#68

Post by k_amnell »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #52
MR4D wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trust. They lost trust. Not the same as money, but it will cause them lower profits in the future.

Exactly. A sinking tide lowers all boats. Why would I buy organic if this kind of thing can happen?

Why buy organic at all? There’s no proof that the meat is any better for you from the article. And unless there is more regulation of what is considered organic, I would argue that there is little environmental or philosophical reason to buy organic either. At least in the US, the standards for being organic are absurdity low.

Re: One of biggest frauds in U.S. farm history

#69

Post by TwoBit »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #38

It is obvious to everyone that due to the economic advantages of cheating, there needs to be some kind of inspection and certification program. Not that everyone is a cheater, but there will be cheaters, and it will put pressure on the non-cheaters to cheat too. The same people who bitch about big government will strangle inspection programs via budget cuts, and then when something like this story comes out, use it a…

According to libertarian philosophy, the public soon finds out about such cheats and takes their business elsewhere. Thus little oversight is needed.

Re: One of biggest frauds in U.S. farm history

#70

Post by dbtx »

> When he was growing up, Chillicothe was the kind of close-knit, rural community where the local newspaper would print kids’ letters to Santa Claus every Christmas season. Randy’s first appeared in print when he was 7 and then another made the paper two years later, in December 1967.

TFA seems to be building up the idea that this guy had a good, clean background, but here is a part of the problem. Some large part of Western society has this wonderfully wholesome tradition of deceiving its children about the origin of their so-called Christmas gifts and about various fantastical things this "Santa Claus" guy is "known" to do. Learning that he's not real is like a (shitty) rite of passage here.

The fact that Christmas used to be about the birth of that guy who said things like "I am the truth" and "I came to destroy the works of the devil" (a.k.a. the father of lies) is a multiplier on how monumentally stupid the game is.

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