You sure? https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/organicOriginally Posted by Henry Krinkle
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You sure? https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/organic
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Yes, there’s regulation and testing in the UK -
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/organic-...nd-inspections
I believe it’s quite rigorously applied.
Same deal with small organic farms.
The testing isn't the issue it's how strict they are on what is tested for. Eg, what pesticides and fertilizers qualify as organic.
Am I sure that organic farmers, specifically large factory farms use pesticides? You bet I'm sure. Certain even, if you like redundancy. Alan's link even mentions the use of pesticides repeatedly. There are a host of organic pesticides that can be used by organic farmers, some of them no less dangerous than chemicals invented in a lab. The amount of copper sulfate allowed per acre on an organic farm by the Eurpean Union is both staggering and worrying.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com...l-agriculture/
The EU seems to admit in this document that factory farming is far more prevalent in the organic industry than in regular farming.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegDat...9557009_EN.pdf
There are far too many studies showing little difference in the nutritional value of organic or regular farmed food from both the organic and the regular farm industry to even bother providing a link.
All types of farming have rigid standards and I remain skeptical that governments apply them more strictly to organic farming than they do to regular farming. This would be dangerous and possibly criminal.
Things like crop rotation, the use of manure and inter-cropping are in no way exclusive to organic farming and in fact all of these practices started in regular farming. Also, none of these practices are significantly more prevalent among organic factory farms than they are among regular factory farms. They are sort of the antithesis of the notion factory farming.
Finding a responsible small farmer or farmers close to you, who may or may not be organic, is far better for the environment and not really any worse for you personally than buying anything from a factory farm, organic or not. In fact, since fruit and vegetables start to lose nutrients as soon as they are harvested, this option is likely the healthiest possible choice.
Last edited by Henry Krinkle; Feb 10, 2019 at 11:18 PM.
Solve all your doubts through question mode.
I don’t think I’ve ever been seduced by an ‘organic’ label, but i’m pretty sure that farms that claim something end up being more closely monitored than those that don’t.
‘Factory farming’ to me means livestock held in cramped and poor conditions - and Googling the term to check, that’s what I found. Your examples are mostly related to arable and I’m not sure how I would recognise an arable factory farm. I live surrounded by farms, some of them family-run, some run by larger ‘combines’. They’re all just ‘farms’ to me. I have no idea what sprays and soil treatments they use, and for all I know the larger ones follow better practice than the smaller ones that sell at the gate.
I was once a farm worker, and at that time was surprised to learn that the farms that supplied supermarkets had generally higher standards than those that didn’t. The supermarkets sent out inspectors and analysts, the ‘regular’ farms didn’t seem to have any inspection at all. Having seen the hygiene standards on some farms I might have been happier buying fruit and veg from a supermarket than some farm shops...
Put that on anything and my wife will buy it. It's like catnip for her. I think half the things labeled this can't possibly be organic. Maybe I need to tell her certain watches are organic?
Cheers,
Michael
Tell everyone you saw it on IWL!
I was also raised a farm boy and now grow a good portion of all the vegetables I need, bake my own bread and process a lot of my own meat. The farm I was raised on was clean, so personal experience clearly colours both of our opinions. In Canada every farm is regulated more or less the same.
Would you prefer the term "intensive farming"? Factory farming here means large scale mass farming meant to maximize profits, which is intensive farming. The notion that factory farming only pertains to meat is not relevant in the modern world. The way Brazillian rainforest is cut down to make room for soy farms, which require absurd amounts of chemical interference to be viable at scale, is no better or different than cutting down Brazillian rainforest to raise inferior beef for McDonalds. They are both vile, despicable and should probably be made illegal for the good of the earth.
Back to cleanliness, see my numerous earlier posts regarding know your farmer. Supermarket veg is better than no veg. It sorta stops right there and goes no further. I read a study that concluded that 90% of UK shoppers who ate organic believed, incorrectly, that they were eating chemical free food. I think a study regardng the notion that making a claim equates to living up to the consumer's belief in what that claim means would yield a similar result. No offense intended. I can actually buy a decent tomato from a farmer here in the middle of winter. All supermarket tomatoes in Canada are inedible from the end of September to July. Every other vegetable is more or less the same.
Last edited by Henry Krinkle; Feb 11, 2019 at 12:45 AM.
Solve all your doubts through question mode.
Yes, I would recognise most of British farming as intensive. Most of Western Europe’s farming, for that matter - and increasingly the farming of former Soviet bloc countries such as Poland.
This is intensive farming regardless of the size of the farm. Small farms want to maximise yields as much as big farms. As far as arable is concerned, there are probably few exceptions.
Livestock farming for grazing animals is ‘traditional’ as far as I can tell - animals in the fields, rotated from one pasture to the next. Some is subsidised, such as hill farmers raising sheep. It’s considered important to preserve it for socio-cultural reasons. I have sheep pasture at the end of my garden and the farmer’s practices look entirely traditional. I’ve never seen chemical fertiliser applied to the grass. I’d probably recognise if it was because I once helped apply tons of the stuff to barley fields...
Intensive farming has certainly had an effect on wildlife over the years. Fewer insects, fewer birds. There’s also no doubt that some of the Nitram I applied to barley fields ran off into streams. Slurry from the dairy farm I worked on will also have leached into streams.
The good news is that things are less bad than they were. From WWII up to the 90s ‘intensive’ was virtually synonymous with ‘efficient’, and efficient was good in a densely populated island. I don’t follow these things closely, but know that most farmers are open to less intensive methods - and that there’s some evidence of that in wildlife diversity. The bad news round here is that you’re more likely to have May Bugs fizzing at your head like erratic bullets.They’re definitely on the increase and it’s directly related to the reduced use of pesticides.
I have no problem with intensive farming, as long as there are suitable controls in place. We probably need it to feed ourselves, especially as the world’s fertile acreage is likely to decline.
Also baked this loaf yesterday. I don't use the cloche enough.
Solve all your doubts through question mode.
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