Is large-scale organic food production any better than conventional production?

I think the idea behind organic food is more to farm without harmful chemicals or things people might be allergic to. So if they do that on a large scale, I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be better.

My issue is that the small farmers are losing out.
I also wonder if the big corporations cut corners, they have the money to do so, so I’m more wary of them.
This is an interesting article: http://www.organicconsumers.org/Organic/badder111802.cfm

Organic food is trendy and as it becomes more popular, the hippest of the hip kids will find ways of taking issue with it.

Large scale organic farming eliminates some evils and some goods. Not all conventional, inorganic farming methods are killing us, and most of them allow us to feed people who never would have eaten before.

At the same time, it also makes for better tasting, more nutritious, more expensive food, so like everything dirty and bohemian, it’s an affluent indulgence.

Large scale farming is large scale farming any way you cut it, which is fine. What makes organic food organic is farming methods, not transportation costs and all that.

Small farmerss are not all hippies with organic farms. Most of them use many of the same convential farming techniques as big AgraBusiness Corporations.

Organic and factory farming are separate, though related, issues.

So long as the large scale production remains true to the principles of organic growing, then I can’t see any detriment to the widespread availability of organic foods.

My investigation into agriculture has shown that farmers tend to use pesticides and other inorganic methods of growing veggies when they want to achieve higher yields without having to invest in more man-hours of effort.

The only way organic farms can do this is by hiring more people, thus as a small organic farm gains more money (as more people eat organic food) they can invest it into more farms, hire more people, and produce more high quality* food.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the physical size of any farm. I can’t see how a large scale organic farm would be in any way different from a small scale organic farm, beyond the fact that more workers means more chances of one of them messing up (but unless they brought in some pesticide from home, there’s not too large of a range of potential damages).

One can easily argue that large scale organic farms are worse than conventional farming with pesticides etc, because when following organic methods, the farmer has to invest more time and effort into producing less crop. If we were somehow responsible for feeding Africa, there’s no way we could do it with organic farming.

At the same time, it’s easy to see how Obama could support the growth of organic farming, as it would mean more people being employed which is one of his main goals.

So I guess it depends on your vantage point in this discussion. It’s both better and worse depending on what qualities you value more. If you believe that any work is better than no work, then large scale organic farming is beneficial. If you believe that people should focus on intellectual work, then traditional farming is more beneficial.

*I have yet to see any scientific proof that organic foods are in any way tastier or healthier than non-organic foods.

Penn & Teller are covering this question on “Bullshit!” this week, if you get Showtime. Apparently, some studies indicate organic has no greater nutritional value than industrial/conventional foods. Wonder what Michael Pollan says about that?

Often the issue is the spraying, the crap that drains into the soil, the water table and such rather than nutrients. A sprayed strawberry is not a good thing to eat although it is more gorgeous than an organic, unsprayed one.

Just what I was thinking.

@PupnTaco: That is often true. Have you noticed?

@PupnTaco We had a question on Fluther today about that. And people who eat organic seem to agree, we are not stupid. We know it is not more nutritious. It is for the sheer fact of less pesticides and chemicals, and usually supporting local farmers…which people should always try to do when it comes to fruits and veggies.

I’m not really talking about small, local organic produce, though—I’m talking about Big Organics.

I have a small organic garden. It’s easy to get spoiled by a real tomato. I won’t even buy them at the market anymore!

Once the USDA decided to nationalize what organic refers to (certain guidelines must be followed to label a product organic), the standard of organic decreased. USDA organic does not always correspond with what most people would consider organic. Some products use other organic certifications.

Anytime you begin to have a discussion about an topic as complex as this one, i think it’s important to break down the various elements at issue.

First, as pertaining to the quality of organic vs. conventional, it’s important to put in perspective what exactly we’re classifying as conventional. Up until the Green Revolution of the early 1900s, “Organic” was the only method. In the years following, the numerous elements of the Green Revolution (from pesticides, to fertilizers, to factory farming) became so ubiquitous in the United States (and elsewhere) that this “new” method of farming became what we today refer to as conventional, despite the fact that it has only been conventional for just over half a century.

The birth of the modern Organics movement began not out of some trendy, or hippy notion of living in the dirt OR out of any desire for more nutritional food, but out of a direct reaction to the onslaught of Green Revolution techniques, and the growing understanding of the numerous negative impacts that these techniques had on our lives in a plethora of ways:

Pesticides are definitively, and observably detrimental to the human body: hence the need to wash produce; hence DDT being outlawed. They also have risky effects on the evolutionary development of insects and pests, which overtime become immune to them, and require ever-stronger pesticides. Also, non-organic fertilizers are almost always a petroleum by-product, which (as w/ all fossil fuels) is environmentally unsustainable. There are also potentially very negative long term ramifications of inundating our soil with processed oil, as well as long term ramifications of ingesting so much processed oil, in the form of fertilizer.

Thus the Organics movement became a reaction to the growing concern about both the observable negative aspects of the Green Revolution, as well as the unforeseeable long term negative possibilities. As this movement grew, the ideological notion of returning to a more sustainable method of food production resonated with more and more people.

Second, as pertaining to small-scale vs. large-scale farming: another product of the Green Revolution, as I mentioned, was the birth and growth of factory (large-scale) farming. In the same way that mass production and large corporations revolutionized industry, so the same held true with agriculture. Think economies of scale. With size came advantage, in a great many ways. But the shift to large-scale production also had a great many downsides:

family farms were out-competed, and went under; long-range transportation made for lower-quality food (see @PupnTaco‘s tomato example above), and last but not least: waste. The issue of excess corn production, because of government subsidy programs, has been well documented. Keep in mind that the vast majority of subsidies are given to factory farms, and not family farms, in part due the sheer volume that factory farms produce. This in turn has led to ways to get rid of that corn, such as feeding it to cattle (which btw cant’ digest corn) and turning into High Fructose Corn Syrup (negative in it’s own right, but probably good for a different discussion).

The birth of the Grow Local movement was thus another direct reaction to the Green Revolution, as communities sought to support local farmers, and to get more quality (read more fresh) food. This movement grew in tandem with, though in some ways separately from, the Organics movement. While both were a reaction to what people saw as the negative aspects of the Green Revolution, they were also independent movements that over time became increasingly interconnected.

..so, as organics became more popular, (read: increased demand) producing organics became more profitable, and factory farms began producing more organics. Thus the question: Is large-scale organic food production any better than conventional production? I would suggest that you now have two metrics by which to judge:

By the standards of the Grow Local movement, NO, it’s no better. Clearly this still leaves one with all the negatives of factory farming in the first place. Large-scale farming, is still large scale farming: bad for family farms, bad for food quality do to long range transportation, and bad for environment due to long range transportation.

The real question then, is whether it’s beneficial by the standards of the Organics movement. I don’t believe the answer to be an obvious ‘yes’. On the contrary, it’s really a mixed bag.

As @tinyfaery referenced, there’s a problem when it comes to defining what exactly it means for a food to be Organic. The original founders of the movement took a so-called “zero tolerance” approach. NO artificial fertilizers, NO pesticides, NO, NO, and more NO. For example, if cows ate inorganic food, then the cow manure was off-limits. If the soil had at any time in recent (or not so recent) history had fertilizers used in it, then it’s not organic.

Not only does USDA have a somewhat depressed standard for organics, larger factory farms, by simple virtue of have more resources, have far more access to the regulatory agencies that certify farms as organic in the first place. Whether through access to lobbyists, or access to officials, or greater ability to simply hide practices, the potential for getting around the system is exponentially increased for larger, factory farms. The result is less certainty about whether or not that product is in fact an organic product, or whether it is primarily being used as a marketing tactic to sell the same food at a higher price.

In the end, i would suggest that it might be better than “conventional” factory farmed food by the simple fact that it could be organic, but I certainly wouldn’t tout it as a positive direction in this country’s very dire problems with food production overall. Growing local is in many ways a far more sustainable method, and genuine organic style practices can likely help ween us off an agricultural addiction to oil.

Perhaps, however, it’s a positive sign of an increasing awareness among Americans about the quality of their food. With any luck that will translate eventually into action on solving some of the other problems facing American food production as well, such as genetic engineering, or massive subsidies that both help and hinder, and in many ways keep the rest of the world in poverty.