Topic: Organic worse than non-organic?

[Vinlander]

I read about this trial in the gutter press and it was all about how "organic is a waste of time".

But I got my copy of Gardening Which? recently with more detail on their trial of organic vs. non-...

It turns out to be a bit odd !

They took land that had been organic for many years and then put half of it over to chemical fertilisers, herbicides, etc.

They were than surprised how well stuff grew on the non-organic regime.

But the trial only lasted 2 years - so most of the humus would have still been in the soil the whole time.

This is like taking a load of vegetarian fitness fanatics and being surprised that the odd burger doesn't knock them dead in the first week! (I would say most veggies would benefit from a bit of meat in their diet - but that's another story - not to mention that most of the rest of us would benefit even more from eating half as much meat).

I'm dead against the happy-clappy element that would like to turn organic gardening into some kind of religious dogma with words like 'purity' and 'healthful' instead of 'soul' and 'faith', but I don't think anyone would deny that organic growing is all about improving the land to the point where the odd bit of fast food won't do any harm.

They did nothing on pesticide residues or any of the other concerns...

In other words the trial was completely pointless. A waste of my subscription money because it still needs to be done properly by starting with an ordinary but marginal soil and bringing it to productivity.

Cheers.

[saddad]

Not all science is bad science... just most of what ends up in the news...  :-X

[Ellen K]

I am not sure what the trial was trying to prove, you might expect non-organic to do better as its philosophy is to use the best of whatever is available whereas Organic says "only natural ways to be used".  So by definition Organic growers have fewer resources to call on than their non-organic counterparts.

Perhaps it is a backlash to all the people who say Organic does just as well without chemicals?  Well, you can weed, fleece and pick up pests by hand on a 10 pole plot if you have 20 hours a week to spend doing it but it's not really feasible on a commercial scale, is it?

[antipodes]

Well, the people who sell me organic veg do it over 6ha, they have a lot of ingenious tools at their disposal such as steam weeders, mulching, covering etc, and of course some products are allowed in organic farming such as bordeaux mixture. But it's all about careful selection of varieties and constantly improving the soil. Seems to work for them.

I don't see the point myself in growing veg on my allotment that are full of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilisers? But that's my choice of course. Of course non organic would do better - it's full of boosters! but what about the eco balance of the plot afterwards? the helpful insects? the soil organisms? I add only manure, compost and dug-in mulch and do not walk on the soil, and even in mid winter it can be easily dug, and is visibly full of worms and organic matter. Why would I fill that with fertiliser? waste of money...

[grannyjanny]

Is this the report that was on the news last week, if so I don't think the taste test can be anything to go by. Last year we worked on our daughters allotment for her. She's a busy working mum with 3 children so we got it ready for her.
Iron man calabrese was planted & when ready we harvested a head for her & dropped it off. I said she must try it then. She was amazed at the taste & couldn't understand why the taste was so superior to her veg box which is organic, of course the veg box contents have been hanging around. Even her OH was impressed & that takes some doing.

[Robert_Brenchley]

It would have been good to see the two approaches tried on a soil which had been used for non-organic production for a generation, as a comparison.

[Vinlander]

Not all science is bad science... just most of what ends up in the news...  :-X

You are so right Saddad - except this is no kind of science - it's the absence of science that causes the problem.

I'm going to have a rant now because I have a bone to pick with the phrase 'bad science' (and Ben Goldacre - despite the fact that his book is excellent in so many ways - his label is misleading and encourages exactly the kind of  loose definition that the quacks revel in - in this he's no better than the stuff he decries most).

Would anyone accept the phrase 'bad lifesaving'? Most people wouldn't think it meant 'not enough lifesaving' or people pretending to be lifeguards going in and making a mess of it? No, they'd call that criminal negligence or manslaughter.

They'd assume 'bad lifesaving' refers to stopping young Hitler from drowning!

Malthusians might say penicillin was bad science because it caused overpopulation - they'd be wrong of course, but at least they would have understood the meaning.

Ho hum.

[tonybloke]

I am not sure what the trial was trying to prove, you might expect non-organic to do better as its philosophy is to use the best of whatever is available whereas Organic says "only natural ways to be used".  So by definition Organic growers have fewer resources to call on than their non-organic counterparts.

Perhaps it is a backlash to all the people who say Organic does just as well without chemicals?  Well, you can weed, fleece and pick up pests by hand on a 10 pole plot if you have 20 hours a week to spend doing it but it's not really feasible on a commercial scale, is it?

read this first, before decrying organic horticulture / agriculture!
http://www.amazon.com/Farmers-Forty-Centuries-Organic-Farming/dp/0486436098

it is available as a free download, but I bought the book, very enlightening!

[Ellen K]

^^ Thank you, I will have a look but tbh I am not interested in choosing one gardening philosophy, rather I read up on specific things and decide on their individual merits. So if chemicals are really needed, I will use them but with respect: eg I will not use bordeaux mixture as I'm trying to build up an earthworm population and it's toxic to them but, if it is necessary to save my tomatoes, I will be giving them a dose of mancozeb though I won't be eating them soon after.

Gardening is not like choosing a religion where you choose one then must walk a path and not deviate.  You really can pick the best bits out of all the philosophies and use them.  That's a good thing isn't it?

[Vinlander]

^^ Thank you, I will have a look but tbh I am not interested in choosing one gardening philosophy, rather I read up on specific things and decide on their individual merits. So if chemicals are really needed, I will use them but with respect: eg I will not use bordeaux mixture as I'm trying to build up an earthworm population and it's toxic to them but, if it is necessary to save my tomatoes, I will be giving them a dose of mancozeb though I won't be eating them soon after.

Gardening is not like choosing a religion where you choose one then must walk a path and not deviate.  You really can pick the best bits out of all the philosophies and use them.  That's a good thing isn't it?

I entirely agree with your philosophy but you really need to consider who and what organisations you want to believe...

Mancozeb is a complex and unpredictable molecule - a product with a high profit from a huge and largely amoral industry (you really should read 'Bad Science' despite the misleading name).

Whereas copper is a simple substance essential to life which (as copper sulphate) is easily turned into Bordeaux Mixture - not that anyone is making much profit on the ready mix as there is no patent.

Did you know that copper is incredibly bitter? I find it totally unbelievable that anyone could make earthworms eat it unless they had been starved near death anyway.

Where is the proof that earthworms will eat copper coated leaves given the choice or even object to soils anywhere - except maybe in a vineyard that has been soaked with it for 250 years?

Even then humus is incredibly efficient at mopping up heavy metals - another reason for avoiding an entirely non-organic approach (btw peat doesn't do this).
 
It's no criticism of anyone that they are prepared to believe quantity over quality of information - but it  really is a snowstorm of  b*ll*c£s...

Cheers.

 

[Ellen K]

^^ We have had this discussion before.  You need to provide some data to support you claims that mancozeb is any of those things when used according to the label.  So far, you have not.

You may have read Ben Goldacre's work, but you have not understood it.  This is the core of what he is going on about.  That a Claim (in this case: about the properties of a substance) must be supported by data.  Otherwise it is completely meaningless.  "All my mates agree with me" doesn't count.  

"Probably the best lager in the world", "the world's favorite airline" - these are examples of meaningless claims.  "Mancozeb is safe and effective when used according to the label" - well, Bayer have produced a raft of data to support this and this has been reviewed by government regulators who have granted it a product licence.  Where's your data then ?

[Robert_Brenchley]

Copper sulphate certainly can be poisonous; when i was a kid, the garden was over-run by field bindweed. When I heard about heavy metal poisoning, I nicked some copper sulphate from the chemistry lab at school, and painted it on the leaves every day till it all died. I don't think you're using the same quantity spraying bordeaux mix, though. Mancozeb doesn't sound like a good bet to me:

Mancozeb is a cholinesterase inhibitor and can therefore have affects to the
nervous system. Symptoms of exposure include fatigue, headache, blurred
vision, and nausea. At high doses exposed persons can have convulsions,
slurred speech, confusion, and slowed heartbeat. In lower doses, mancozeb can
also cause a skin rash if the chemical has contact with the skin. In one study, a
vineyard worker developed a rash on the forearm as well as inflammation of the
eyelids after handling seedlings which had been treated with mancozeb.
A major toxicological concern with respect to mancozeb and other
dithiocarbamates is its primary metabolite, ethylenethiourea (ETU), shown to
cause thyroid and carcinogenic effects in test animals. Mancozeb is listed as a
chemical known by the State of California to cause cancer in humans. Many
studies dating back to 1980 show that mancozeb can cross the placental barrier
and induce or increase tumor incidence. A recent study shows that mancozeb
and its metabolites are capable of crossing the placental barrier and can produce
DNA damage and initiate tumors in fetal cells.

http://www.environmentalcommons.org/cetos/criticalhabitat/mancozeb.pdf

[Ellen K]

lol bad science alert!

That is not a data sheet and I'm pretty sure that mancozeb is not a cholinesterase inhibitor.

But you can check the data by searching for mancozeb MSDS or similar.

Environmental commons dot org is just a website set up by a few people to promote their own agenda, but I take my hat off to their manipulation of google rankings.

[Ellen K]

http://www.cdms.net/ldat/mp5UC003.pdf

^^ Here you go, a summary of the data.  The key environmental issue is its toxicity to aquatic organisms so I'd be very careful anywhere need a pond or river.  Just like everything else, you read the data and proceed accordingly.

[Ellen K]

Sorry Ceres, I missed your post.  Rather than further rant, here is the link to Bayers website:

http://www.bayergarden.co.uk/news/displaynews.aspx?news_id=150

In summary, Bayer withdrew the product because renewal of the licence for amateur use was too expensive compared to the profit they made from selling those little boxes of Dithane in Wilkos.  Not safety reasons, and it is still legal to use the product according to the label until at least 2013 IIRC.

[Vinlander]

Sorry Ceres, I missed your post.  Rather than further rant, here is the link to Bayers website:

http://www.bayergarden.co.uk/news/displaynews.aspx?news_id=150

In summary, Bayer withdrew the product because renewal of the licence for amateur use was too expensive compared to the profit they made from selling those little boxes of Dithane in Wilkos.  Not safety reasons, and it is still legal to use the product according to the label until at least 2013 IIRC.

Like I said, it all depends on who you want to believe.

And Ben Goldacre devotes much of his book to how easy it is to get a convicing trial result - eg. how difficult it is for even medical experts to tell the difference between a good drug trial and a bad one.

The one thing demonstrated quite efficiently by the book as a whole - is that the only expert who can crack a well-made bad trial is an expert in bad trials. Anyone who understands the actual subject of the trial is too busy doing something useful to gain that kind of expertise.

Basically it comes down to who can afford the kind of filibustering obfuscation needed to pull the wool over people's eyes, and who can't.

I suspect that PR companies rub their hands with glee as more and more ordinary people become disillusioned with science and turn to pseudo-religious dogma. The organic movement is being discredited by entirely subjective ideas of purity - in the same way that the RSPCA has been discredited by a shift towards fluffy anthropomorphism.

Fortunately in biochemistry there is still a short cut that works across the board - simple substances are predictable - especially if they have been moving through entire biological systems for 500-odd million years.

Complex molecules are unpredictable - especially if they have only been moving through biological systems for 5 or 10 years.

Enjoy your tomatoes that smell of rotten cabbages, and I'll enjoy mine that taste bitter - until I polish the copper off with 10 or so brisk strokes on my grubby gardening trews.

Bon appetit!

PS. Even if you believe their trials, please don't insult your own intelligence by believing press releases about their motives!

[Ellen K]

I find your lack of data disturbing.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I think you're going to run down anyone and everyone who questions this stuff. I wonder why, unless you're trolling.

[Ellen K]

To be honest I do find it quite distubing, that people believe all this crap.

And that all big companies are entirely corrupt and science is a fraud.

And then just resort to personal comments and insults when someone dares ask for some evidence.

Weird isn't it?

[Ellen K]

To address a couple of points, the Government regulatory agencies expect to see data from trials which have familiar, conventional designs before they will give a licence to sell.  And they really do scrutinise the data, it's a big consultation and it takes them at least a year,  So for drugs and pesticides which have gone through this process, their data is pretty tight. 

There isn't a regulator in the world that would accept Vinlander's statements that there are short cuts with regard to human safety.  That statement about a simple substance being predictable - we wish!

A couple of years ago I followed Quackwatch and it used to surprise me, the venom he met when he tried toquestion the alternative practices.  Not any more  :(