Thanks, Tom. I had no idea about the dirty secret of organic farming with regard to the use of manure from feedlots. Is that a widespread practice? It's crazy!

Your column is moving and so incredibly frustrating at the same time. The industrial food complex just seems so far gone. Short of full scale farming and beyond home gardening, what sort of action would you suggest for those of us outside the food industry who want to do more than buy organic, local etc. to improve our food systems?

Thanks Tom for another great history lesson mixed with the hard economic facts of agribiz.  I really thought organic farms had to use manure from organically raised herds.  Makes me so glad my squash have kicked into high gear the last couple weeks!  Just wanted to point out that you have 1.7 million acres in organic production where it should be 17 if you're right (and I hope, at least) about the 4%.  Frankly I don't see how the WSJ can compare feed/fuel monopolies such as Monsanto with discretionary spending food stores in a shrinking economy with low cost competitors.  The last time I looked Sprawlmart and Kroger had organic in their isles too.

Any dingbat knows that Southern rural African Americans have been growing their own food for decades.

This article is more about the superficiality and ignorance of rich Libocrats.

Thanks for the lovely article. I agree that if we're going to move beyond 0.4 percent organic cropland and really challenge industrial agriculture, we need to be informed.

This includes having an honest discussion about crop genetic engineering.

The world faces an enormous challenge: Its growing population demands more food and other crops, but standard commercial agriculture uses industrial quantities of pesticides and harms the environment in other ways. The organic farming movement has shown that it is possible to dramatically reduce the use of insecticides, and that doing so benefits both farm workers and the environment. But organic farming also has serious limits - there are many pests and diseases that cannot be controlled using organic approaches, and organic crops are generally more expensive to produce and buy.

To meet the appetites of the world's population without drastically hurting the environment requires a visionary new approach: combining genetic engineering and organic farming.

This idea is anathema to many people, especially the advocates who have helped build organic farming into a major industry in richer countries. As reflected by statements on their websites, it is clear that most organic farming trade organizations are deeply, viscerally opposed to genetically engineered crops and seeds. Virtually all endorse the National Organic Standards Board's recommendation that genetic engineering be prohibited in organic production.

But ultimately, this resistance hurts farmers, consumers, and the planet. Without the use of genetically engineered seed, the beneficial effects of organic farming - a thoughtful, ecologically minded approach to growing food - will likely remain small.

After more than a decade of genetically engineered crops, and more than 30 years of organic farming, we know that neither method alone is sufficient to solve the problems faced - and caused - by agriculture.

It is time to abandon the caricatures of genetic engineering that are popular among some consumers and activists, and instead see it for what it is: A tool that can help the ecological farming revolution grow into a lasting movement with global impact.

Manure is manure............. Jesus H. Christ. It's always something with you people. Everything is bad, everything is a crisis. Why don't you just commit collective suicide, since you're breathing is emitting CO2.

Easy Cheetah!

I can understand your ire at the "Debbie Downer" aspect of today's environmental activist, but bear in mind that if these people weren't generally optimistic about our future, they wouldn't be activists.

Leopold said that to be an ecologist was to live "in a world of wounds" and I think that's what you're seeing here.

What several people here are advocating without saying as much is a more ecocentric point of view. They want to see a general shift in the morality and philosophy of people. Some folks have a hard time understanding it and mistake it for liberalism, elitism, or feminism.

The reason for pointing out potentially harmful connections like the one above is because while there is a general movement towards an ecocentric philosophy, there are no definitions (yet?) and folks are more or less feeling their way forward, trying to look at one thing at a time.

It is the challenge of our age to devise a Way that is humane and earth friendly. We need to discover a new way of being and you can't reasonably expect us to simply wake up one day and shout, "Relax everybody! I know what's important and what's not!"

Personally, I don't think non-organic waste used as fertilizer is a big enough deal to negate the benefits of organic food and will continue to not worry about it. However, if this topic is explored and someone out there is researching it, who knows what they might discover?

It's hard to have a rational discussion about genetic engineering in agriculture because the issue is so confused. It pushes many of our (that is, progressive activists) hot buttons: corporations, muddy science, monoculture, threats to wildlife. And Monsanto and the few other corporations that are doing transgenics for crops have been behaving in such untrustworthy and, PR-wise, stupid ways (suing Ben & Jerry's for advertising that their cows don't get treated with rBST or buying up small seed companies and destroying their stocks, for example).

The other big problem is that GE crops just haven't shown their stuff. Year after year, the pesticide requirements rise, yields fall and farmers sink more into the hole. While I'd like to believe that genetic engineering could be a benefit to the environment or humans, neither the current science nor the governmental review is working. I know scientists who do GE (not agricultural) in the lab and they are horrified at the thought of the release of transgenic organisms into the environment - we just don't know enough about what happens to the DNA during the process.

Interesting about the white people comment.  As an observer of an incredibly diverse population every day in my work, one thing I constantly wonder about is the non-white perception of organic food and eating local.  My personal belief is that this issue does not attract legislative attention exactly because it may not be on the radar of less-educated, non-yuppie-white-people.  What can be done to make it less elitist? Pricing for the masses and an embrace by people of all colors.

The reason I am not an environmentalist and not an ecologist. Cause I'm not a whiner who likes to sit around and complain about everything and everyone constantly:

"Leopold said that to be an ecologist was to live "in a world of wounds" and I think that's what you're seeing here."

I live in a world of possibilities.

I've got two issues with this article: The first is stating what most people would recognize to be be obvious: most white people don't care about organic agriculture. The second is that I don't believe that organics are priced out of reach for everybody, minorities included. They may be for some, but I think that in many cases the price premium often cited as a reason to buy non-organic food is used as a cop-out by people who could afford to buy organic but choose to allocate their resources elsewhere. A few examples should underline these issues:

Example 1: I have a friend (who is white) who makes three times as much money as I do and has recently bought a house, car, Xbox 360, and a 47 inch TV. One day though, I made the "mistake" of bringing homemade, organic guacamole when I went over to watch a football game. I mentioned the word organic and he began to grill me: "Why does organic cost so much more?" "What is the benefit?" "Why should I care?" The manner in which these questions were presented indicated that he was not truly interested in the answers to these questions, but that he was incensed at my audacity to promote organic food. He could certainly afford it but he, like almost every other white person I've ever met, would rather buy cheap food if it means that they can afford an Xbox 360 or drugs/alcohol.

Example 2: There is a natural foods store that I go to that is right across the street from the most inexpensive apartments in the city. In these apartments, it is safe to say that about 20-25% of the occupants are white. No more than that. And the parking lot is filled with huge SUV's and moderately expensive cars. On the same side of the street as the natural foods store is a McDonald's, and a Wendy's is right across the street from that. One would think that the close proximity of the store to low-income housing would negate the argument that those stores are not accessible to minorities. The prices aren't too bad either. Between these two factors you might expect a higher-than average minority customer base, right?

Think again. In the nearly two years I've shopped there, only on two occasions have I ever seen any black people shopping there. I've seen Asians there a few more times than that, but it is still a vastly lower number than the number of White people who shop there. Hispanics or Native Americans? Not one. With the price premium minimized and the geographic isolation limited, the local minorities still don't appear to care about organic food. In the meantime, McDonald's and Wendy's appear to be doing just fine, and in this area those places are majority non-white. Plenty of big SUV's and Cadillacs in the parking lot and drive-thru driven by people who can't afford organic food.

And while most of the patrons of this particular store are white, they do actually seem to be an elitist few. I get funny looks when I drive my inexpensive small car (when I don't take a bus) into a parking lot filled with Priuses, BMW's and even full-sized SUV's. The people there truly are label junkies, save for a few notable examples who do appear to have a genuine concern for the environment. Still, the combination of ecocentrics and label junkies who shop there is still a tiny minority of the total white population of the city. They all just seem to congregate in this one tiny enclave while the fast food restaurants, buffets, and supermarkets all enjoy loyal patronage from an obese white populace.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that organic food isn't for "white people"; it is for a few eccentric white people. The remainder of the white populace, it seems, has the same cavalier disposition towards organic food that most minorities do. In that sense, it is most people, white included. After all, organic food holds the same minimal value for almost everyone, white or not, compared to iPods, Xboxes, Escalades and alcohol/illicit drugs.

If you remove expensive vices like those listed about out of the equation, as most people refuse to do, you would find that organic food isn't just for a few elitist white people. Many more people probably could afford it. But in the meantime, a few eccentric white people seem to be the only ones whose priorities include healthy food that is good for the environment. Them and myself, a poor white guy who has precious few expensive vices compared to all of the other people who "can't afford" organic food.

"One of our dirty secrets is that a lot of organic farmers rely on manure from confined-animal feedlot operations to fertilize their land. By doing so, we're depositing all manner of pharmaceuticals and toxins into our best farmland -- the very stuff people try to avoid when they buy organic. An alternative farming system that relies on CAFO waste for fertility is a kind of parasite on a sick animal."

Really?! And I thought dependence on natural pesticides grown on plantations in South America, Africa, and Asia was organic farming's dirty little secret! Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

So, commercial organic farming is "sustainable" because (1) nitrogen and other nutrients are obtained from non-organic CAFO operations and (2) pesticides come from poor countries where the people cut down forests to grow plants that provide pyrethrin and rotenone for North America and Europe instead of food for their neighbors.

I think it is time for you folks to learn a bit more about GMOs. Try visiting Anastasia's website. Try reading "Mendel in the Kitchen" or "Tomorrow's Table". I'm still waiting to see a review of either of these books on this website.

The persistence of the myth that every GMO has to result in a monoculture, that every GMO is nutritionally inferior, that every GMO increases the use of chemicals, that every GMO is owned by Monsanto, that every genetically modified plant has fish genes in it, and so on and so on is ridiculous. Where are you getting your information from? Do you read any current scientific literature?

It all suggests that organic food IS becoming a religion. People appear to accept the dogma based on faith without actually learning about how organic food is grown and without actually leanring about current non-organic technology. I respect the desire to avoid chemicals. We purchase certain organic products, like celery, to avoid pesticides. I respect the desire to avoid hormones. We purchase organic milk -- almost $8.00 per gallon here -- to avoid hormones for the sake of the animals and our own health. We purchase local organic eggs because they are nutritionally superior.

But organic food is far too expensive for us to  "go all the way". It has advantages and disadvantages. I'm not critical of organic farming because I'm a corporate shill or have invested money in big ag or the petrochemical industry. I'm not a fan of Monsanto -- though, if you read "Mendel in the Kitchen", you'll learn they ocassionally try to help farmers in poor countries. I'm critical of organic farming because it could be so much better. Get rid of dependence on manure. Get rid of dependence on your natural pesticides as well as harmful synthetic chemicals. Reduce the demand for water. Increase tolerance of salt. GMOs are not all about increasing yield or dependence on RoundUp.

A merger between organic practices and GMOs could eliminate pesticides, natural and synthetic, from agriculture. GMOs do not have to be controled by corporations. There are GMOs that will reduce costs and hazards from farmers.

Please... someone read and write a review of "Tomorrow's Table". I'd like to see a rational discussion of this book.

... for writing your book and posting your remarks on the Grist website.

Hi MAD MAC.

Actually, manure is not manure. Sure, a lot of the stuff peope are concerned about probably breaks down quickly. But some of the hormones persist in the environment and affect the development of animals, including human beings that rely on ground water.

Would you really want to drink water downstream of a farming operation that used urban sewage, enriched in pharmaceuticals and heavy metals? Would you want your kids drinking it? Is CAFO sewage really safer?

I sincerely thought organic farmers used manure from organic animal operations or used legumes to enrich their soil. I'm very disappointed to learn that organic farmers are relying on waste from CAFOs. It turns them into hypocrites. I'm not very fond of hypocrites. Thus, my first comment in this thread.

Fortunately, for the organic farmers, I purchase certain organic products to protect my health and my family's health. Apparently, if I were only concerned about the environment, I'd have to wonder whether organic products were worth the  cost.

They might want to try composting their advertising and applying that to their fields....

Hi MAD MAC.

You wrote...

"It's always something with you people. Everything is bad, everything is a crisis."

I partially agree with you.

First, it is not that everything is bad. It is that a lot of stuff done excessively is bad and that can create a crisis. A bit of manure containing hormones here and a bit there would probably get "purified" by natural processes. But when you release a large amount of hormones they overwhelm natural cycles. Or... dumping excess fertilizer into the Mississipi might not create a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico if we weren't also removing all of the fish that eat algal blooms in the Gulf of Mexico.

However, there does SEEM to be an excess amount of enthusiasm regarding just how awful each crisis is and how there is no means of solving it unless we ban certain technologies, return to traditional ways, and/or reduce our standard of living. I don't know whether this is true. It just seems that way.

Environmentalists... I know there are numerous exceptions to what I've described. It is not intended as a sweeping generalization. But your image in our culture is reinforced by the squeakiest of wheels, not necessarily the most rational among you, and amplified by the "far right".

[I'll regeret hitting "post"... oh well.]

Hi MAD MAC.

I see your point regarding the term "environmentalist". It carries far too much negative baggage.  I care very much about our environment, but refuse to call myself as an "environmentalist". It connotes an array of habits and beliefs I don't have and won't go into here.

But you might want to reconsider your objection to ecologist. There is a long history of liberal and conservative leaders being interested in ecology. Don't we all want to understand how the biological world works? For some of us, it is just curiosity. For others, it is an interest in ensuring God's Creation is not destroyed. Others appreciate the beauty of the natural cycles, the web of life, et cetera, and want to preserve it for their children. Other see enormous value in ensuring an adequate supply of game, lumber, clean water. We need ecologists to help us achieve all of these goals. It also makes economic sense. Why pay extra taxes to ensure the water is clean, when an ecologist could figure out how to use natural processes to do it for free?!

My interest in ecology is rooted on all these areas, I really don't think it has to be a liberal, moderate, conservative, Democrat, Republican, Green, socialist, capitalist, et cetera, thing. It is simply science... using reason to understand natural biological systems and make sure we don't lose parts of the biosphere that we either appreciate or really need to survive as a species.

I don't know your politcal leanings. I'll assume you are a "conservative". I really don't understand why the environment, ecology, and conservation are not conservative issues! It is preserving what has always sustained us. It is not changing things simply for the sake of change. It is investing in our future. It is not throwing away potentially valuable assests. It is respect for tradition and maintaining the foundation of natural resources that our country relies on for its survival.

First things first, please. Organic agriculture holds the future by force: when potash reserves have been depleted (within 150 to 200 years) and nitrogenous fertilizers become excessively expensive, we can only go organic.

But going organic will be difficult as long as global population levels stay high.

In Europe, the U.S. and Japan, the demographic transition to low fertility rates has happened because of a modernisation process based on the abundance of cheap food and energy.

So we now need to continue to make as much cheap food available, to make this transition in other regions, most notably in Africa and South Asia. Cheap food implies the good old industrial farming  style we're accustomed to.

If we succeed, we can stabilize global population levels at 9 billion by 2050. From 2075 onwards we can hope to see a gradual decline.

It is from this moment onwards that we can begin to take organic farming seriously. Not earlier.

Obviously, this will all happen in phases, with wealthy bourgeois niches of people without children and lots of money to spend, buying organic food first. This niche will then spread as  other classes become wealthier and less fertile.

But the great challenges can be found in developing countries. It is here that we must help make the demographic transition succeed. We must in fact aim to speed it up by growing cheap food the old 'Green Revolution'-style way.

Which used to be represented by some elements of the Republican party but is no longer.

I believe in small government, a small military, a fairly isolationist political policy. Isolationist in that we should be very careful and very selective about overseas military adventures and intervention of any sort.

I am concerned about the environment, but I reject both as stupid and unrealistic the idea that we are going to return to some sort of agricultural or hunter - gatherer based society. You don't go backwards unless there is a catastrophe - which I would prefer to see avoided, which Wolverine and his like would embrace.

"You should conceive of yourselves as the anti-Tysons and anti-Smithfields by investing in appropriate-scale processing plants all across the land."  

So interesting to read this just after opening a door to this discussion.  I know what is at stake.  I have am one step ahead.  You promote organic agriculture but obviously want more natural.  I promote natural or "organic."  Sounds the same, but not quite. Organic assist nature.  Natural is really the same, but skips the chemically altered manure (chicken, pork, bull shit of CAFOs). Natural lets nature provide while deeply respecting nature. Basically, it steps ever so lightly on nature ... is more a gatherer and hunter agriculture.   Natural agriculture is a dose of refreshing water to most "so called" organic agriculture.

It is fun to talk about organic produce, but most people are afraid to take on the big meat companies and gene altering consortiums.  I'm not and am fortunate to be posed in the right position to open the door between both.   The benefits that make Farmer Produce Markets good for produce are just as valid for meat.   We should have the right to have locally owned and inspected meat markets, not local 70 miles away and back.

This is a great article. I think it's also important to note that there's this weird tendency people have when they make moral decisions like buying organic or going vegetarian, for example, to shut out any information that would require them to take their commitments any further. You see it all the time.

I was at the Union Square farmer's market in New York just yesterday and overheard a woman ask one of the farmers if he was organic. He replied, "I'm beyond organic. I was certified for 20 years when it still meant something. Now they allow all kinds of synthetics in the soil, so I don't bother paying for the certification, since it's meaningless. But I'm stricter with my land than those organizations would have me be." She reacted with such a condescending dismissal that it was obvious she had just refused to hear anything he said. She preferred to depend on the "Certified Organic" label than to do the real work required to ensure that her food met her own moral standards.

That kind of stuff is really frustrating, but I think we all do it. Life is hard and there aren't many of us who can devote that kind of energy to something as basic as food. But, people have to be honest with themselves when they're actively deciding not to do that work, rather than just turning off their brains to the facts.

Hi wiscidea, have you checked your yahoo email lately? I sent you something you might be interested in. If you lost access to that email just send me a note in my profile.

Thanks for the good suggestion wiscidea.

Are there any staffers at Grist, who would be willing to write a review of "Tomorrow's Table: Organic farming, genetics and the Future of Food"?

If so, please let me know, I will send you a copy.

All the best
Pam

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