Farming has evolved much in the past twenty years to No-till farming practices which uses less diesel fuel, sequesters carbon, and drastically reduces soil erosion while raising yields. At the same time, no-till relies heavily on Glyphosates (the chemical that big bad Monsanto is responsible) and other herbicides for in crop weed control.

With Organic farming, tillage would be heavy which leads to heavy soil erosion, heavier carbon releases from the soil, and up to three times the fuel along with heavy wear on machinery and equipment. Not to mention the problem with weed control. And don’t even try to tell me that weeds can be controlled organically. I have a number of Organic neighbors. If there is way to do it, no one is telling them. They have had to deal with lawsuits from other neighbors because of the spreading of weed seeds into other fields. Its embarrassing.

Trust me, it would not bother me one bit if the whole world went organic. Oil men would be peasants compared to farmers and agriculture in general if that were the case. I wouldn’t be bothering with your one sided blog, I’d be on my Yacht on vacation in Rome.

It is true that a great amount of natural gas is spent to produce the heavy amount of fertilizer used in conventional farming. If you really want to save the world, focus on finding a cleaner way to produce the fertilizer and chemicals the WORLD NEEDS to eat.

Here’s the list of people and whether they have an industry connection or not.

Tim Smith, Chief Executive: Yes
Steve Wearne: No
Dr Andrew Wadge: No
Gill Fine: Maybe (range of roles in both the public and private sectors)
Vivienne Collett: No
Terrence Collis: No
Charles Milne: No
Gerry McCurdy: No
Steve McGrath: No
So, is 1.5 “more than a few”? I am guessing not.

Also, it is interesting how you trash meta-analysis. Unless you are seeing a problem in their methodology, I hope you know there is nothing scientifically wrong with meta-analysis. Or did you not know about meta-analysis?

Finally, just because scientifically unsound paper (according to you) was published from the same school, you seem to decide that this study is also scientifically unsound even though this was done by a completely different group of individuals. I hope you realize that labs and the papers they publish are independent of the School.

David, I never pretended to be a farmer. But as a consumer, I am still part of the food system. and as such, I have a right to encourage others to seek out information and decide for themselves. Today’s article in Time Magazine by Brian Walsh lays out the problems with conventional agriculture very well, for those who care to read it. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1917458,00.html. Brian is not a farmer either, but a journalist and he’s done an excellent job in my opinion.

And Eddie. First of all I’m a huge fan. Partially because of the always positive tone you strike on your blog. I agree that all stakeholders need to be engaged in the system. An thanks for the clarification on the organic garden. A good example of the fact that an untruth is repeated often enough people start to believe it.

Which leads me to the reason I framed this piece in this particular way. There has been a spate of articles and reporting on studies that seem to be intent on undermining organic, sustainable agriculture. Ecosalon has a wide range of readers, many of whom may not immerse themselves in the world of the food system, like you and I do. Since we’re all overloaded with information all the time and many people just skim headlines and pick up information incidentally on the internet while reading other stories, I wanted to dig a little deeper into some of the recent stories to prevent Ecosalon readers from getting the idea that spending extra money on organic/sustainable foods isn’t worth it, as so many recent articles suggest. I want people to keep supporting more human-scale, less harmful agriculture rather than getting discouraged and giving up. Perhaps I was being sensationalistic in framing the whole issue as a war (something I criticized headline writers for above) but some of the recent examples of undermining sure make it feel like a war sometimes.

Of Note: the White House Kitchen Garden is not officially organic, which the White House has repeatedly announced. And the best thing about that is–it in no way undermines the fact that the garden has inspired a national conversation on everything from nutrition awareness to local food production to better school lunches. Major industrialized Ag groups have spoken glowingly of the garden, as have those who believe in a strict organic model. The garden is something of a symbol for theoretically competing interests “working together” on a common goal.

Her article shows the lack of perspective and real world experience of one who practices her farming with a keyboard.

Organic has proven to be unsustainable. Modern conventional farming has replaced the antiquated methods of organic farming. Today, over 95% of our farming is no longer organic. This is due to the tremendous waste of natural resources and low yields of organic farming. The pesticides used by organic farmers such as copper and sulfur are often more harmful to the environment compared to safer modern methods of conventional farming.

It’s gonna be a tough uphill battle from here, even more so than it has been up until now. If you need further evidence, look at how the drug industry has ravaged the tobacco industry. It wasn’t the complaints of non-smokers that brought about a change in attitude all over the world. It was Big Drugs peddling their Quit Smoking solutions. They managed to succeed in spite of the number of smoking addicts, which is considerably higher than the number of healthy food devotees.