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

One of biggest frauds in U.S. farm history

kansascity.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 133 posts

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

#91

Post by markdown »

ceejayoz wrote: post #90
markdown wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example copper sulfate, used as organic fungicide. Why would one need to test for copper? The trace amounts of it that one would find are good for you. I mean, it's used for water piping in homes even.

That's silly, like saying breathing chlorine is safe because it's a component in table salt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper(II)_sulfate#Toxicologic...

No, it's like saying eating trace amounts of copper is safe as proven by the fact humans have been doing that since forever, and by the fact that health authorities endorse it (hospitals have copper piping).

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

#92

Post by mod »

Retric wrote: post #76
zaroth wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two of my neighbors raise chickens. They both regularly drop off eggs as their supply exceeds demand. They are visually distinctive (they tend to be smaller than a supermarket “large egg” and dirtier for sure) but after cooking are entirely indistinguishable from the eggs at the store. Of course I’m very grateful for the eggs, but even they will admit it’s not for quality and quantity, but mostly a fun hobby and some…

It’s common for people to feed chickens the same basic diet as industrial chicken farmers do. Otherwise you need quite a bit more land per chicken. A good rule of thumb is unless their walking on grass they need feed.

I raised chickens and they had the run of my 40 acres. I could not tell the difference in the eggs except for the shell color and yolk color. Free-range chickens tend to have a darker, orange yolk.

The taste is identical, to me at least.

The meat is totally different, though.

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

#93

Post by ironic_ali »

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…

Our chickens are nice occasionally too.

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

#94

Post by ironic_ali »

ironic_ali wrote: post #93
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…

Our chickens are nice occasionally too.

*mice

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

#95

Post by dbcurtis »

cmmeur01 wrote: post #57
bumby wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to add a little clarity, beef cattle all start eating grass and generally continue for a large portion of their life. It’s just whether or not they are “finished” on grass or grain. I’m not aware of farms using an “exclusively grain-based diet”

I thought all feed lots were exclusively grain only? When driving past one in Colorado I didn't see any grass anywhere the animals could access, just a ton of muddy ground.

No, there has to be roughage mixed in. (Hay, etc) Cattle will founder in pure grain.

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

#96

Post by fouc »

paganel wrote: post #64
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.

It's fairly easy to visually tell if the egg came from a free range chicken, the yolk is a dark orange color.

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

#97

Post by dang »

dbtx wrote: post #70

> 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…

"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#98

Post by mrosett »

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 the article, there’s no way to distinguish organic grain from standard grain. So if by all accounts “organic” is a marketing ploy, why should the government spend money on an inspection program to facilitate that? Let the farmers pay a private certifying authority.

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

#99

Post by 75dvtwin »

eikenberry wrote: post #54
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…

Inspection and certification programs don't need to be government run to be effective. Kosher certification programs are the first example that comes to mind. I'm just trying to say you can argue for more, better inspections without having to argue for "big government".

I agree with you as well.

I think country-wide, there need to be, usually, 3-bodied system of inspection/certification (whether it is financial organizations, law firms, doctors, educational or food suppliers.. ).

one organization should be multi-state collaboration of supervision & certification.

The other should be industry collaboration of supervision & certification.

And 3rd -- is academia-powered.

Any business claiming to have certificate in something needs to strive to get it from all 3. 2 out 3 may be acceptable, and 1 out of 3 is not.

This model would prevent corruption that more likely occurred in single-bodied systems.

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

#100

Post by teclordphrack2 »

MR4D wrote: post #50
fnord77 wrote: post #39

> Constant scammed grain buyers, meat producers and millions of American consumers for a decade or more. The organic beef and poultry countless Americans were eating during those years wasn’t organic after all. Uh, no - the only people scammed by him were consumers. All the middlemen and downstream producers unwittingly resold the product as organic. They didn't really lose anything.

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

I only read half the article and skimmed past that to the end. Where does the article or in any court case is any individual buyer called out?

While the case may of hurt the image of the organic re-sellers as a whole, how many people in the organic marketing space are advertising this?

Post reply on HN