User:Lipsticked Pig/sandbox6

While this isn't he only chapter I had problems with, it does show a lot of the problems I have with Pollan's honesty, and since whether to buy organic at Capers or conventional at Safeway is the most common choice for all of us, it seemed the most useful to look at.

Big Organic
As Michael Pollan segues from Polyface Farms to Big Organic, he does, accurately, portray the disconnect between the original ideals of organic farming and the multi-million dollar agribusiness it has become. Nonetheless, he can't help himself, and by the end of the chapter offers this ringing endorsement of organic growers such as Earthbound Farm:

"Is it better for the enviroment? Better for the farmers who grew it? Better for the public health? For the taxpayer? The answer to all three [sic] questions is an (almost) unqualified yes."(p.182)

Since Earthbound Farm is "the largest organic grower in the world"(p.159) and as Pollan describes it the "company that represents industrial organic farming at its best", I think its fair to use them as an example of the veracity of Pollan's conclusions above.

Better for the enviroment?
Energy savings between organic and conventional agriculture is contentious, however in support of his (almost) unqualified "yes" above Pollan writes:

"All told, growing food organically uses about a third less fossil fuel than growing it conventionally, according to David Pimentel, though that savings disappears if the compost is not produced on site or nearby.(p.183)"

For Earthbound, their compost (the farm's biggest expense) is trucked in,(p.165) so this 30% savings is completely hypothetical, not real. When Pollan writes about how Earthbound's organic produce uses 4% less fossil fuel to get to market that statistic was calculated by Pimentel based on data "generously provided by Earthbound Farm."(p.428) That's the organic fox guarding the organic chicken coop. Pollan's evidence for his conclusions are studies that he knows do not apply to Big Organic in the real world, or whose data doesn't begin to qualify as "unbaised".

If you go to Earthbound's website you can see that they only claim not to use synthetic pesticides. They do not list which organic pesticides they use. However earlier in the chapter (in reference to Greenways Organic) Pollan states:

"Instead of toxic pesticides, insects are controlled by spraying-approved organic agents such as rotenone, pyrethrum, and nicotine sulfate, and by introducing benefecial insects like lacewings.(p.159)"

Pollan is explicitly implying with that statement that these organic pesticides are not toxic. Is that true?

Rotenone is considered moderately toxic by the World Health Organization, and a study found chronic exposure reproduced features of Parkinsonism in rats. While the study did not prove that rotenone causes Parkinsonism in humans, "it is likely to raise new questions about rotenone's safety." In response, the UK Soil Association (an organic farming advocacy group) placed a temporary ban on its use (previously rotenone was only allowed "as a last resort"). Rotenone kills fish - extremely well. When, in an effort to exterminate the invasive northern pike in Lake Davis, the California Department of Fish and Game determined they needed to "kill virtually every living thing in the high Sierra lake and its tributaries", they dumped 16,000 gallons of rotenone in the lake.

Pyrethrins ("pyrethrum" is the type of plant) are considered to be much safer to humans; the most common effect to direct contact being dermatitis. Unfortunately, like rotenone, they are highly toxic to fish and tadpoles, and in addition are toxic to beneficial insects such as honeybees and aquatic invertebrates. It too is classified as moderately toxic by the WHO.

Nicotine sulfate is exactly what you would guess that it is. Processed tobacco waste that is "super toxic" (all nicotine pesticides are considered "highly hazardous" by the WHO). It's "the most hazardous botanical insecticide available to home gardeners".

Organic pesticides are definitely better for the enviroment (and you) than synthetic ones. However that doesn't excuse his attempt to insinuate that they aren't toxic, bad for the enviroment, or bad for you.

Better for the farmers who grew it?
If by "farmers" Pollan means the owners, then certainly an unqualified "yes" is appropriate. However when Pollan's writes:

"Earthbound's own employees (who receive generous benefits by Valley standards, including health insurance and retirement) operate the baby greens harvester, but on the far side of the field I saw a contract crew of Mexicans, mostly women, pulling weeds.p.166" you should remember that the overwhelming majority of the work done on that farm (as with all agribusiness in California) is done by those contract workers, who enjoy none of these benefits. Big Organic does not necessarily treat these people any better than conventional agribusiness.

In fact, they may have it worse. When "crews of migrant workers, their heads wrapped in brightly colored cloths against the hot sun, do a last pass through each block before harvest, pulling weeds by hand."p.165 you should know that this practice, hand-weeding, was outlawed by the State of Califonia two years before this book was published. Pollan saw these crews weeding by hand at Earthbound because Big Organic is exempt from restrictions on hand-weeding. Ironically hand-weeding came into widespread use because the (less) debilitating short-hoe was banned in California in the seventies:

"At Cesar Chavez's funeral, his grandchildren placed on the altar a 12-inch tool known as el cortito, a relic of Chavez's crusade to ease the pain of farmworkers who stooped for hours as they yanked out weeds with the short-handled hoe. California banned the tool in 1975, citing evidence that it caused debilitating back injuries. But by the time Chavez was buried in 1993, farmworkers in some fields were bending at even more unhealthy angles: The ban applied only to tools, so growers told workers to weed by hand instead."

We all have to take conflicting, and sometimes selfish, considerations into account when making choices about what and how we eat. Apparently Pollan just didn't care to examine much of what he saw in the field that day any depth (all that was required of him was to type into Google "farmworker hand weeding", or maybe just simply talk to one of them).

Better for the public health?
While Pollan admits "I happen to believe the organic dinner I served my family is healthier than a meal of the same foods conventionally produced, but I'd be hard pressed to prove it scientifically,"p.177 he then tries to do just that - prove it scientifically.

He states that "Plants grown in synthetically fertilized soils are less nourishing than ones grown in composted soils"p.151, and that he finally has proof that organic blackberries "are in some quantifiable way more nutritious than conventional blackberries,"p.181 citing the study published in the UC Davis Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry. According to Pollan, this study grew identical varieties of produce side-by-side using convention and organic methods, and the organic method was superior. Is this true?

Not exactly. In fact this study examined three methods of growing; conventional, organic and "sustainable" (often referred to as "integrated"). "Sustainable" techniques for this study were defined as:

"...based upon the principle that agricultural practices must meet the needs of consumers without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainable farming systems are designed to promote both environmental health and the social and economic equity of a region. Sustainable agriculture practices are hard to define because conditions can vary greatly depending on the crop, environment, and issues important to a region."

Of the three methods the "most nutritious" - judging by total phenolic ("TP") and ascorbic acid content - were the sustainably-farmed crops (see Table 1). Important to keep in mind is that for this study, the sustainable crops were given conventional (synthetic) fertilizers (see Table 2).

So when Pollan states that:

"The radically simplified soils in which chemically fertilized plants grow don't supply all the raw ingredients needed to synthesize these compounds, leaving the plants more vulnerable to attack; as we know conventionally grown plants to be. NPK might be sufficient forplant growth yet still might not give a plant everything it needs to manufacture absorbic acid or lycopene or resveratrol in quantity.p.180"

this is exactly opposite to the conclusions of the study. In reality, the study concluded that:

"These results demonstrate a statistically relevant trend of higher levels of TPs in organically and sustainably produced crops. More interestingly, our results indicate that TPs were highest in the crops grown by sustainable agricultural methods as compared to organic methods. This may reflect balance between adequate nutrition, as all sustainable crops were treated with synthetic fertilizers, and the requisite pathogenic pressures that lead to the synthesis of TPs. We feel that these results warrant further studies investigating links between specific agricultural practices and levels of TPs in important food crops."

Pollan intentionally neglected to inform the reader of the true scope of the study (which included an alternative to both organic and convention methods), and lied about its conclusions.

The same year this book was published a series of outbreaks of E. coli in North America was traced to contaminated spinach that sickened close to 200 people; genetic testing revealed that the E. coli bacteria probably came from cattle manure in pastures surrounding the spinach fields. 3 people died.

One of these spinach producers? Earthbound Farm. Caveat Emptor.