Btw. naravno "moju" knjigu je neko već napisao
Harry Solomon: I want to give mankind the gift... of electricity.
Tommy Solomon: Harry, they already have electricity.
Harry Solomon: Well! Then my work here is done.
Otprilike je to to... Knjigu još tražim po potocima i budžacima, a zasad imam ovaj opširni prikaz iz Nature-a. I sam taj prikaz pogađa većinu stvari koje sam imao da kažem (mada ja u stvari imam više dobre volje za organičare), my work here is doubly done.
Toppling the organic house of cards
Alan McHughen1
1. Alan McHughen is in the Department of Botany & Plant Sciences at the University of California, Riverside,
California 925210124, USA. email: alanmc@ucr.edu
BOOK REVIEWED
The Truth About Organic Foods
By Alex Avery
Henderson Communications: 2006 230 pp. $19.95
ISBN 9780978895204
Alex Avery's controversial The Truth About Organic Foods begins by reminding us that the roots of organic agriculture are deeply embedded in occult and Romantic mysticism. Rudolf Steiner (“When I eat roots, their minerals go up into my head. When I eat salad greens, their forces go to my chest, lungs and heart—not their fats, but the forces from their fats.”) and J.I. Rodale (“Old farmers
who remember how their grandfathers grew crops...will tell you of the fine crops and very little plant and animal disease and insect depredation.”) are the best known organic pioneers of the 20th century, but modern consumers have driven the double digit growth of the industry in recent years with more pragmatic concerns about chemical pesticides on the conventional farm and preservatives in processed food. Today's organic industry attracts its chemophobic clientele with bucolic images of fresh, nutritious foods devoid of chemicals, grown on small farms in an environmentally sustainable manner by local organic farmers. We are whisked back to a gentler time when life was good and foods were entirely natural, with no chemicals, no pesticides, no GMOs, no massive corporate farms and no multinational retailers.
After this quick history of the organic philosophy, Avery proceeds to attack the popular beliefs behind its commercial success. Consumers buy organic foods because they believe them to be healthier, tastier, lacking in pesticides, and better for the environment and for local family farms. All of these may be valid and honorable reasons for choosing a particular food and lifestyle, but according to Avery, they do not apply to the current organic industry. Avery challenges the common claims in chapter after chapter. Is organic food more nutritious? Is organic healthier? Is organic safer? Does organic means pesticide free? Are approved organic pesticides benign? Does organic food taste better? Does buying organic support local family farmers? Is organic farming better for the environment? Avery documents (and cites comprehensively) the independent scientific studies addressing these questions and concludes there is no scientifically credible evidence to support organic foods or farms being categorically superior to
conventional in any respect. Organic does not mean 'no pesticides', because organic farming does allow certain 'natural' pesticides. And 'natural' does not mean 'healthy' or even 'benign', as those natural organic pesticides can be very hazardous, even more so than the proscribed synthetic chemicals. Even if one discounts Avery due to his personal bias, it is hard not to accept the apparent consensus of the scientific studies showing, for example, no categorical or meaningful nutritional differences between organic and regular foods.
According to Avery, those few reports claiming an advantage for organic have almost invariably been paid for or conducted by those with a vested financial interest in selling organic products. Consequently, few such studies are published in peer reviewed journals. He then critiques these organic friendly reports, exposing the logical or technical problems explaining why the flawed studies remain unpublished. Avery is not alone in disparaging the organic industry. When Sir John Krebs, then head of the UK Food Safety Authority, announced that no scientific evidence supported the claims of organic superiority, he was met with dismissive rhetoric from the organic industry followed by ad hominem attacks on his ethical integrity. And earlier this year, when UK Environment Secretary David Miliband, UK government chief science advisor Sir David King and UK National Farmers Union president Peter Kendall all endorsed a study1 concluding there was no scientific evidence to justify organic assertions, they faced the same tactic—lots of angry rhetoric, but lacking credible scientific counterevidence.
Organic's 'green' image had already begun to tarnish in 2003, when UK government inspectors found excessive levels of toxic mycotoxins in organic corn, prompting a recall2. Organic food safety is under increasing scrutiny in the US, with reports of organically grown produce being implicated in Escherichia coli 0157:H7 outbreaks in 2006. In the wake of these revelations, the top US fresh salad processor now refuses to buy lettuce and spinach from farmers who use composted manure as fertilizer3, a decision specifically targeting organic farmers, because the few conventional farmers using manure can switch to synthetic fertilizer. And further undermining the green image, WalMart and other large retailers announced last year that they would offer organic foods, a move antithetical to the anticorporate, anticapitalist tenets of organic philosophy. After years of growth largely unchallenged in the public markets, consumers are increasingly asking for the scientific evidence to justify why they are shelling out more money for an organic label.
Popular press coverage is moving away from the free ride the organic industry has enjoyed for years, and asking the same tough questions4, 5, 6. The book's final chapter is devoted to biotech. Avery focuses on a curious paradox: some biotech crops are demonstrably beneficial for the environment, including those offering improved disease or pest resistance with reduced chemical inputs, or better weed control without resorting to tillage, a major cause of soil erosion and practiced most intensively by organic farmers. Biotech farmers have documented benefits to sustainable production, and many organic farmers want to obtain them also. Clearly, appropriate applications of biotech help fulfill the organic dream of environmentally sustainable agricultural systems, and biotech would welcome organic farmers. But instead of embracing and encouraging biotech, organic leaders have expressed their unrequited enmity for biotech by forbidding organic farmers from growing biotech crops and calling for a ban on the new technology altogether. They have even imposed zero tolerance for 'contamination', allowing not a single biotech pollen grain in organic crops. This
intolerance is especially illogical considering other forbidden 'contaminants', including synthetic pesticides, are permitted under a reasonable 5% threshold. Perhaps organic leaders thought proscribing biotech would dissuade farmers from adopting the new technology, but with worldwide biotech crops now well established, mainly because of the environmental, health and financial benefits to farmers and consumers, organic farmers were painted into a nonsustainable corner by the intemperate decisions of their own leaders.
So why did the leaders choose this impracticable zero standard for biotech when even known toxins like arsenic are permitted at low levels? The usual reply is the organic philosophical opposition to human intervention in nature's realm, an intervention upon which biotech is founded. But this explanation is unsatisfactory; the organic philosophy has no such aversion to other unnatural human interventions in breeding, such as the use of irradiation or chemical mutagenesis to create crops grown by organic and other farmers. Avery offers a more sanguine explanation: the adamant opposition to biotech is because of competition. “Biotechnology,” he says, “offers a more costeffective way to achieve lower pesticide use and more ecofriendly farming systems...biotechnology represents a direct threat to organic agriculture's current monopoly on ecoconscious consumers.”
Whether the real motive is philosophical or mercantile, if the organic industry wishes to legitimately claim environmental sustainability, they must rethink their categorical opposition to biotech. To start, the spurious 'contamination' problem would disappear if organic leaders set the tolerance at the standard 5%, thus allowing reasonable coexistence. But as various biotech crops have proven benefits to environmental and health safety, and any similar benefits from current organic practices remain marginal or undocumented, the clear path to a sustainable future lies in biotech. Avery finishes with an invitation to coexistence, but the lesson I take away is clear. If organic leaders continue to prohibit biotech, farmers practicing agricultural and environmental sustainability—using appropriate biotech crops—will bury them.
Not all readers will appreciate Avery's pull no punches style. The unwavering attack can be grating—even to those not particularly sympathetic to the organic cause—and certainly not easy or enjoyable reading for those inclined to believe organic is indeed a better way. But no one can deny the legitimacy of the scientific evidence presented to challenge the organic assumptions and assertions. One comes away with the uncomfortable feeling that maybe the whole organic movement is the biggest consumer scam ever perpetrated on the population. Nevertheless, the book is required reading for anyone who wants to know what scientific studies say about organic farming and food production, even if the scientific truth hurts. Organic foods are not grown in any worldly Garden of Eden. Instead, according to Avery, the organic industry constructed a flimsy house of cards with a façade attractive to many consumers, but with little or no foundation in real world truth.
Competing interests statement
The author declares no competing financial interests.
Home
by Indy Fri Apr 22, 2016 2:01 am
Nisam uopste taj deo jednacine uzimao u obzir u ovoj diskusiji. Razlike u ukusu definitivno postoje, cak i u blajnd tejsting okolnostima (ne da sam imao puno takvih prilika, ali dovoljno da vidim da nije u pitanju samo subjektivni dozivljaj).
е па није, јер је реч о озбиљним улагањима, интелектуалним и материјалним. под условом да се ради озбиљно и поштено, наравно. Свако може да ради конвенционално, а осмислити органски концепт који функционише није ни лако, ни јефтино. (опет подвлачим, ако се ради поштено)
