• Trowel
  • MyBoys
  • ScottWork
  • Plating
  • Cobbler
  • Soup2
  • Porkloin
  • ChefMartinez
  • Tyrell
  • Carmen1

« Paging CASFS, Paging CASFS: Come In, Do You Read Me? | Main | Edible Communities: Spreading the Good Word »

28 August 2007

Comments

Thanks for giving a voice on the web to sustainable agriculture -- on a visceral level people should understand that there is something wrong with spraying a chemical in full-body suits on crops that people eat! It looks like the battle is slowly being won by giving people great tasting food and gently shoving back like you have done with Mr. Freid.

It seems to me that there is enough room and nuance in this topic for both sides to be correct. My guess is that there is usually not much difference between the nutrient densities found in organic and conventionally grown foods.

For most urban and suburbanites the nutrient densities of the most commonly available organic and non-organic produce are going to be largely a function of the genetic makeup of the organism, and time-from-field-to-table rather than the type of fertilizer that was used or whether or not the crop was sprayed with pesticides.

However (!), when you drill down to the kind of organic foods that I suspect the author of this blog sees or what I grow myself or get from my CSA, the nutrient densities should be higher.

For reasons that are not at all clear to me, most of the organic produce in the supermarkets (and probably the same stuff that this alleged professor was referring to) is just as bloated with water and just as tasteless as the conventionally grown stuff. But none of this means that there is not much difference in environmental impact between the two. I don't think that anyone can argue that responsibly applied systems of organic agriculture are better for the environment and, by inclusion, people. That question was settled for me long ago during my studies for my BA in Environmental Science (1976-80) and it flips me out when I read that some folks are still arguing about it.

I love this blog by the way.

Bob delGrosso: Yeah, misinformation is a powerful weapon. It bums me out too.

Have any of year read Jared Diamond's new book, Collapse? He talks alot about groundwater contamination...I don't really know how you decontaminate water.

Well I'm glad people are beginning to take action on these issues.

Tata,
Evan

The comments to this entry are closed.

• • • • • visitors • • • • •


Start reading from the beginning:

Google this blog.





  • WWW
    Small Farms Blog