The War Between Organic and Conventional Farming Misses the Point

Let’s see. There’s the war on women, the war on liberals, the war on conservatives, the war on RINOs, the war on Christmas, the war on Christians, the war on atheists, the war on guns, the war on unions, the war on the one percenters, the war on the middle class, the war on the media, the war on . . .

And now the war between organic and conventional farming?

Maybe what’s really needed just now is a war on wars.

Who’ll offer up the first round?

It's complex -- on the one hand, organic agriculture is less resource intensive and in the long run probably more sustainable. But in the medium term, high-yield "conventional" farming is going to be the only way we can satisfy the global need for food.

Today's foundational article is fascinating. Today should be an interesting day.

Hello msg.
  Whaddya mean 'conventional farming'? , suggesting that other methods may be bit unconventional/eccentric/whacky?

Aloha msg- Hi All. The phrase throwing out the baby with the bathwater comes to mind. I often stand in our mega market and look at all the choices and think we are doing a whole lot right. Let's tweak and get better and healthier and tastier and feed all of God's chilrun. Helping small farmers around the world and protecting water supplies seems to be a step in the right direction along with these new nutrient vitamin pills that are so cheap and so helpful. The thought of anyone being hungry or thirsty makes me wanna cry.

I'm going to our local farmer's market soon......................& lunch.....................ooooohhhh lala........................& the bakery..................mmmmmmmmmmmmm................bwaaaaaaaaaahahahahahaha!
 
It's a splendid Saturday here, I hope you all have the same!
 
(Huuuuuuuulllllllloooooooooo...............welcome...............)

 Anyone who has ever experienced the loss of their tomato or herb crop due to weather or critters or what-have-you..can certainly understand and appreciate the newer enhanced methods of farming.  Organic farming is far more labor intensive with far less crop yield to adequately sustain a larger community--at least to a majority of us opinionators...and evidently more or less proven, but with detractors.  I like farmers' markets and people who lovingly (and time consumingly) tend their organic patch.  And sometimes it just isn't an option to go organic---feeding grain to millions worldwide whose own natural/organic methods have failed to produce an adequate crop.      It would be too easy for this kind of 'war' to actually become a class war with only those who can afford to go organic bullying those who simply cannot in subtle (I'm better than you) and not so subtle ways (higher taxes for large scale farmers, red tape, etc.)

Waaaaaaaay back in the 1960's 70's? I got a book titled Diet For a Small Planet that raised many issues that make page 3, 4 or 5 of the newspaper nowadays. I got that t-shirt years ago. The answer, as my Grandpa, and I'm sure many like him said, lies in the soil, crop rotation, the additition of organic matter, a healthy population of earthworms - and a vindictive slug eradication programme - mine die happy in Beer Traps - just  cut off the bottom of a plastic bottle, sink it in the ground, add slale beer to within half inch of the top and fashion a little roof to stop the rain getting in with enough space for the slugs to slide in underneath it. Yay! The grim satisfaction of finding dozens of the b*****s drowned - and I can tip them out on the garden for the birds to forage knowing that they are not poisonous. Carol~ If you get a crop of smething looking miserable and virus ridden, the answer does lie in the soil. Best to burn all the plants, sow a patch of clover where they were to fix some nitrogen, dig it in big open lumps to let the winter frosts get in and better luck next year! BTW, my beer slops come in a gallon container, free from the local pub.

There is little difference between soil and soul. Everyday we all need to consider our life source, the good earth the substance of all that grows, past, present & future and the manifestation of life in the human spirit. The concept of an evolving green thumb is an evolving refreshing of spirit as Tommy Jefferson remarked that though I am an old man I am a young gardener.

I could die a happy slug, if only I lived in Haze's garden.

P~ careful what you wish for...He listens

have a rainy day/evening, and you need some background?   check out this site with all the music and lyrics from a zillion of your old favorites     .      http://www.songstube.net/video.php?artist=Elvis+Presley&artistid=16241

and there is something to be learned from this short clip,as well     .     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T8ovblvQM0&sns=em

I do miss the point between conventional and organic farming as my computer just won't let me read Mr. P's link. Nonetheless I have had "The Farmer and the Cowman Should be Friends" from Oklahoma! in m y head all morning. Some excellent posts here today.

Good weekend, eat hearty.

RY ~ I didn't wish it out loud.  Can He read?

And consider too the farmers who farm for a living - capitalist and pragmatist that I am, I can't ignore the obvious. The farmer out here who farms acres and acres and acres of land doesn't care about the latest food trends, he cares about getting the best quality yield out of the land that's his to work...Tasteless as it sounds, you can't get away from that bottom line - even farmers whose work takes them to the horizon and closer to the Heavens every day than most of us get in any one of our lifetimes - the farmer's a practical person if he is anything.  Conventional or non or in between, farming's got to pay the farmer first.   It's not romantic, but it's the truth.  

I would not say that some items presented as organic, are not had I not known someone who, for about ten years, sold non-organic garden produce at several farm markets and to some stores at prices about four times the price it was worth.
He wrote all about it as part of a confessional when he learned that he was dying of cancer. Then, he did not die. In fact, his tumor was benign.
He sold the small farm and tiny house for a lot of money, before the news broke and has been obliged to keep a low profile (he is in hiding) owing to threats from the kind hearted health-conscious community who, knowing that he was in every other way untrustworthy, did not do sufficient caveat emptoring.
Someone sought credit for having poisoned the gardener's dog and then, learned that he hadn't owned one. Somebody had.

This is diverting...

http://youtu.be/N4vf8N6GpdM

P4 ~
Spot on as always.

P4- took a break from yard work to answers emails, texts, call if nature and your post is right on and my Almanac tells me do. The labor and profit of others is what feeds me and that is an Adam Smith Invisible Capitalist Hand. Good Tilling!

Typocrapola! You know what I mean. I long for a bright sun easy reading screen

Brings to mind John Nichol's Milagro Beanfield War not that the book was about organic v. conventional farming, it was mostly about water rights, small farms and land development...and the transmigration of the soul.

just what DID Adam Smith do to feed others?  He ate. And his purchase allowed the farmer to buy tires. And the butterfly flapping in Tanzania makes the worms refresh the soil for the alfalfa farmer in Kansas. Gia.

Parksider....i'm with you on this one.

The farmers around us work their butts off trying to make a decent living. They are out in the fields at the butt-crack of dawn and are often in their tractors in the dead of night.

As Park knows, we both share a passion for photographing old barns....but far too often, they tell a tale of disrepair and neglect because their maintenance cannot be afforded because they are still paying and maintaining the expensive legacy equipment that constitute the tools of their trade.

The farmers themselves always seem to look older than their years, the pains of old age has caught them in their prime.

Farming is not a luxury for them. It is their survival, and the crops they grow sustain so many near and far.

When organics can feed the world and be affordable, i will be their biggest fan. 'till then i'm sticking with the folks who got us here.

Quid Pro Quo. flap pro worm.

I agree with both Park 4 and Peter. I have several friends that are farmers or retired farmers. One close friend recently retired was ao orchardist and had 200 acres in apples and worked his butt off and is enjoyinf a well deserved retirement. In our area we have many wineries and people are always talking about what a great wine maker so and so is but never mentions the guy that grows the grapes. Yet the vinteners are quick to give credit to the grape growers, as one wine maker told me "you cant get good wine from bad grapes."

Finally Tennessee is raising the limit on Estate Taxes so family farms which are real estate rich and cash poor. They deserve a break. Going to fire up that spicy chicken sausage with my Pinot Grigio now that the world is starting to come back into focus without my AVENGERS 3D glasses. I love that Captain America.

Floyd just called by to check out my leftovers. I've sent him back to the Sepia Train bearing rhubarb crumble and custard. The little pinky sticks of rhubarb at this time of year are yummy - but that stuff puts socks on your teeth, clean them well before you go to bed. Which is where I'm off to now, Nos Da, dear people. x

I'll Have Another needs one more!

An auctioneer at a Midwestern, country furniture sale sought to jack up the drama by declaring that some of the items were from a prominent Lake Geneva estate.
Sounds innocent enough except for two reasons: they weren't and more importantly, he pronounced Geneva with a hard G… "Gun-eva."
The more he did it, the harder the crowd laughed.
When a large painting covered with a sheet was brought out, he peeked at it and wondered if: "a semmy-nekkid woman and a horse" were appropriate.
Some clever boy asked: "Is it Lady Jadiva?"

We did homemade pizza on the bbq grill tonight (with a ceramic pizza stone)......it turned out pretty good.  I just need to master getting the dough thinner--whenever I make pizza it turns out too bready.  I think I just need to use about 2/3 of my dough, perhaps.  But seriously, on the grill is easy and tasty!  Especially with summer looming it sure beats heating the oven and the house up.     

Is she kin to Lady JaJa?
 
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhRj_DaqCxQ

Paolos - Wasn't that an amazing finish?! That horse has heart for sure!

Spent a day walking around Oakland Cemetery, listening to many and various musical groups, guitarists, jazz sax, children singing, and even consulted a fortune teller in a crypt. What a beautiful garden of flowers and ancient trees, Oakland is! The Tunes in the Tombs fundraiser goes on tomorrow too....just a perfect day with sunny skies, a gentle breeze, and happy music in the air! Granddaughter sang and played her violin (fiddle) to kind applause, then shifted gears to the dojo to test for over an hour and earn her next karate belt. I love that kid!

Organic vs commercial is indeed a quandary...best seems Hazel's way : grow your own! I'm afraid I'd starve that way, however, as the deer eat anything in the yard, and my deck tomatoes don't yield enough to live on. Back to Publix and keeping my fingers crossed. Looking into some organic farms nearby.