Talk:Organic food

Origin of the word

Where does the word "organic food" come from? Because as a matter of fact food is organic, there is also inorganic food (like salt, minerals,..). Is it only a marketing gag?

uncited facts

If you find a source please add it and move the paragraph back to the article.--spitzl (talk) 19:37, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

:Austria

• The government has created incentives so that within the next few years, 10% of its food will comprise locally grown organic foods.

:Italy:

• Existing legislation calls for all school lunches to be organic by 2005.

Germany:

• Baby food is almost exclusively organic, and over 30% of bread baked in Munich is organic.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 14:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Removal of POV and Globalize tags

I removed these tags because I found no recent discussion on these topics on the talk page. If you feel these were wrongly removed, please point out specific example sentences or sections that you feel need to be changed. (Or perhaps, with wiki policy, Be Bold, and fix it yourself.) JabberWok (talk) 00:28, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Huh?

Organic food production is illegal and can not be allowed in the united states legally regulated.

What the hell does that mean?

--131.156.17.116 (talk) 23:53, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

deforestation

i think this section should be in the article on organic farming or most of it. i also think that it's form now is original research mixed with the argumentation of on critic (norman borlaug). the section quotes borlaug but goes on to say As the population grows (and consequently, the global demand for food increases) farms have to either increase the yield of existing lands or increase the area under cultivation. Deforestation is often the result.

i don't agree with presentation like this as fact or as the only way to see this, we cannot present the equation demand for food is on the rise therefore organic farming is immoral, as the truth, it is the opinion of critics and should be presented as such. there are counterarguments such as we cannot feed the whole world on a diet as rich in meat as the modern western diet. rather then say we need to produce as much as possible from each hectar no matter the ecological costs, one could also say we need to eat less meat, i will try to find sourcesfor that... for now can we move this section to the more basic organic farming article and keep just a short version of the argument here?trueblood (talk) 17:31, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Removed essay-like text

I removed the following text from the article. Unlike stated in the first sentence, yields are discussed with several references already. These two paragraphs have more of an essay tone (trying to prove a thesis) rather than that of an encyclopedia trying to present facts and references.

A little discussed negative side-effect of organic agriculture is a by-product of lower yields. As the population grows (and consequently, the global demand for food increases) farms have to either increase the yield of existing lands or increase the area under cultivation. Deforestation is often the result. Specific crops, such as Brazilian Soybeans which with beef production are amongst the leading causes of the rapid deforestation of the Amazon, affect forests more than others. According to Borlaug, "if all agriculture were organic, you would have to increase cropland area dramatically, spreading out into marginal areas and cutting down millions of acres of forests." This issue is tied to genetically engineered crops and no-till farming which have significant potential to increase crop yield (especially in places like Africa and Australia) and are in many ways the opposite of organic farming methods. Organic farming shifts the techniques used to get good yields and can precipitate a regression in the sense that it rejects 'modern' farming techniques. This is not an issue for operations that employ advanced techniques and have access to technology but can be problematic for farmers with limited means. As market demand for organic produce grows, farmers in developing countries who are at risk of employing slash and burn techniques would need to take over even greater amounts of forest to compensate for yield difference.

One of the most common and essential roles of fertilizer is to introduce nitrogen into the soil as plants can't extract it from the atmosphere independently (with some exceptions). According to Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug as interviewed in Reason Magazine, "at the present time, approximately 80 million tons of nitrogen nutrients are utilized each year. If you tried to produce this nitrogen organically, you would require an additional 5 or 6 billion head of cattle to supply the manure. How much wild land would you have to sacrifice just to produce the forage for these cows?" Cattle are famously amongst the most energy intensive food products because of the amount of food each cow consumes.

JabberWok (talk) 22:48, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Why would you remove this obviously relevant and fact based text rather than trimming what you consider to be its essay like characteristics? Edits like this present a very one-sided article.LedRush (talk) 19:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

late commentary, i agree with the removal, this section would have to be completely rewritten to remove it's essay character.Truetom (talk) 20:13, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

one sided

this entire article sounds almost like a propaganda campaign for organic with what seems to be a very small amount of discussion of any of the disadvantages of organic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.1.77.28 (talk) 07:24, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. There are so many Wikipedia articles which hold no punches in criticizing the subject matter. This organic movement, nor any other topic, deserves special protection.24.56.219.31 (talk) 17:20, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I COMPLETELY AGREE!! This article is an embarrassment to Wikipedia's credibility and with such high-profile subject matter, a thorough section of criticism of the organic food movement is in dire need for this article to be anywhere NEAR credible... I would do it myself, but I am much too busy in my own life to do it... So any of the legions of unbiased Wikipedia editors which I know are out there should come in and clean this article up! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.151.69.146 (talk) 06:30, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Links

I removed the external links in the article and replaced them with dmoz as per WP:EL. Links added to this article need to add something unique to the article that would not be included in a featured version of this article. I'd suggest that the material in these external sites would be better incorporated into this article and appropriately referenced -- though I'm more than happy to discuss the validity of these links here. MidgleyDJ (talk) 21:30, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

MidgleyDJ: I agree with your motivation, but in many cases, and especially this case, dmoz != quality. If you look at the dmoz page http://www.dmoz.org//Society/Issues/Environment/Food_and_Drink/Organic_Food// other than possibly http://www.organicfoodee.com/, http://organic.org/, and http://www.mofga.org/tabid/166/Default.aspx, the other 8 links are pure junk. I will attempt to produce a better edited set of links for this page when I get some time (and will be happy to review the dmoz links as well) and come up with a set that can better add value to this page. 24.6.208.166 (talk) 07:31, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Removing sentence because of dead links

"One study of two organic farming systems and one conventional found that, in one year's severe crop season drought, organic soybean yields were 52% and 96% higher than the conventional system and organic maize yields were 37% higher in one system, but 62% lower in the other." has 2 links both of which are dead so I'm removing the sentence. Disagreeableneutrino (talk) 10:32, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

removed passages from related movements

i removed these passages from the related movements section because there don't really discuss related movements (already a dubious section in my humble opinion), maybe they can be used elsewhere:

The "buy local" movement is also related to the organic movement. Michael Pollan, author of “The Omnivore's Dilemma”, notes that in the whole chain of food production and distribution, only one-fifth of the energy is used on the farm, the rest in distribution. Yet a report published by DEFRA, Britain's environment and farming ministry, concluded that shifts toward a local food production and distribution system, as advocated by many organic food proponents, would actually increase the amount of energy being invested in food due to the a higher level of small-scale transport systems, which suffer from inefficiencies compared to standard large-scale supermarket systems.

As highlighted by a recent New York Times article, food supply is a global issue that will become increasingly prominent in the near future. "Everywhere, the cost of food is rising sharply. Whether the world is in for a long period of continued increases has become one of the most urgent issues in economics. ... Farmers the world over are producing flat-out. American agricultural exports are expected to increase 23 percent this year to $101 billion, a record. The world’s grain stockpiles have fallen to the lowest levels in decades. 'Everyone wants to eat like an American on this globe,' said Daniel W. Basse of the AgResource Company, a Chicago consultancy. 'But if they do, we’re going to need another two or three globes to grow it all.'" Given the debate around Organic's ability to match the yields of conventional methods and the rising global demand for food, this debate is likely to see increased scrutiny in the future.

Truetom (talk) 20:17, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

by the way i think the defra thing is bogus , cannot read the economist article without subscription but if it is this study that they refer to it does not come to the mentioned conclusion [1]

Truetom (talk) 20:43, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I reduced the related movements section to the movement followed by a brief description. I removed the section on Authentic food because it’s not different from local food and just advertizes for one particular standard. Disagreeableneutrino (talk) 10:54, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Added previously deleted reference

I put this reference about organic food using manure would be unable to feed the world back to the yield section. The summary listed the removal as a "dubious ref" but it's credited to a knowlegable author and supports the statement made in the wiki article. Disagreeableneutrino (talk) 11:10, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Criticism?

What about the Criticism? People who eat organic foods are more likely to get sick more often, nonorganic foods with slight traces of pesticides that are taken in unleathal dosages gradualy increase resistance to some poisons, & it being a FDA/ASDA money making scheme. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.19.236.142 (talk) 05:32, 20 October 2008 (UTC)