Comments on: Wholesale Move to Organic Food Could Have Disastrous Consequences

By: Chris Robbins

Chris Robbins — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 15:40:42 +0000

Who has blind zeolotry? I’d say it’s you. You cannot seem to live with even a tiny percentage of organic farming. Monsanto suing organic farmers for having GMO seed that they did not even plant – the pollen just drifted onto their crops through the air – that is the most egregious thing I ever heard of.

By: Peter Byrne

Peter Byrne — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:19:18 +0000

It’s hard to imagine a more recklessly irresponsible (and unverifiable) statement than your assertion: “They don’t like pesticides (even though they have been proven safe)” What a crock. Pesticides have not been proven “safe”. They are not safe. They are deadly. They are poison. They are toxic. They are transmitters of disease, serious illness, death, pollution, the whole gamut of disaster affecting our planet right at this very moment. A rash and sweeping untruth such as that discredits you totally.

By: Bob Parkhurst

Bob Parkhurst — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 04:44:54 +0000

At the same time the public needs to realize there is no “traditional Ag” any more.

Respectfully, there is, it’s just not common. For example, the Amish would disagree with you, although they are unlikely to have read your blog. And the quality of the crops they raise are unequaled, as anyone would know who has bought food at one of the roadside farmer’s markets around Lancaster, PA. There are also more than a few successful organic farmers in western Wisconsin who would disagree there is no place for “traditional ag.”

By: Claude Chisholm

Claude Chisholm — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 03:19:30 +0000

Mark,

You are correct. While organic food is generally better* — and better for you — there is no way we could feed a world of 6.9 billion people if all farmers were organic. Like it or not, it takes industrial-style farming to do that job, and we just have to learn to live with the side effects of industrial agriculture.

The organic carrying capacity of the Earth is probably in the area of two billion people. If the organic zealots really want everyone to eat organically, there would need to be a drastic reduction in the Earth’s population.

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* I have to admit I prefer grass-fed beef and real free-range chickens — and their eggs — that are allowed to roam the barnyard eating grain that has fallen to the ground and insects as those on my Grandfather’s farm did.