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by hutzlibu 900 days ago
"A lot of people who don't understand farming think that just buying organic produce is somehow healthy for the ecosystem"

Yes it is. Not using industrial pesticides and herbicides is already a huge deal. And not using them actually requires a different approach to mono-crop farming. E.g. planting shrubs to attract birds, who will then help control pests. And in general, smaller fields and more diverse.
3 comments
epistasis 900 days ago
Do you have any studies, review papers, or other evidence of this?

There is no increase of organic farming on these fields in Minnesota, yet wildlife is coming back. Other interventions around habitat preservation and restoration, and decreased runoff, seem far more crucial. Even organic farms use fertilizer, the runoff of which is far bigger contributor to ecosystem destruction than pesticides, at least according to everything I have seen. Algeal blooms and water ecosystem destruction are caused by excess nutrients, not from death by pesticides, for example.

I would love to see soemthing new that I have not yet been able to find with regards to this evidence!

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pvaldes 898 days ago
I think that there is plenty of evidence that all pesticides kill animals, and that some in particular can do serious damage on humans. I can't see why this should be controversial at all. The less we'll need to use to obtain our goals, the better.

Of course there are other million ways to harm birds. Don't make me start talking about Malta or Lebanon hunters. Maltese poachers kill or capture up to 200,000 migratory wild birds every year

And is much worse. The ciphers of illegal hunting are sobbing. Between 11 and 36 millions! of migratory birds could be killed on the entire Mediterranean each year: raptors, storks, falcons, herons, anything with feathers, protected or not

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c...

... but the problem here are the farms, sure.

> Even organic farms use fertilizer, the runoff of which is far bigger contributor to ecosystem destruction than pesticides

So it is a tie? Organic farms use fertilizers, bad. Other farms use fertilizers, equally bad.

The difference is that hedges and nature tolerated around organic farms acts as a buffer in part eating part of this effluent. This may not apply necessarily in other farms.

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hutzlibu 900 days ago
"There is no increase of organic farming on these fields in Minnesota"

I was not speaking about Minnesota, but the isolated claim denying that "buying organic produce is somehow healthy for the ecosystem".

Buying organic rises demand for organic farming - and organic farming is better for diversity (do you need papers about this?) - but obviously only where the farms are located and not in the supermarket. And if the land you mean has no organic farming yet still increases wildlife, well, there are of course also many things conventional farming can do different (just using a different or less of herbicide/pesticide can have drastic effects).

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MeImCounting 900 days ago
Some forms of farming may be marginally less apocalyptic in their effects on the ecosystem, but that is not even close to having a positive effect. Aside from the dubious requirements needed to obtain the "organic" label, "organic" has long been recognized as a buzzword used by well-meaning, misinformed people who, understandably, would like to feel good about the produce they eat.

There have been numerous cases of fraud and corruption in relation to the "organic" label in the US. Perhaps it is different in the EU.

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hutzlibu 900 days ago
"There have been numerous cases of fraud and corruption in relation to the "organic" label in the US. Perhaps it is different in the EU."

Well, I actually only know about the situation in the EU and there surely is and was also fraud - but overall it is working. Organic farmland is way more diverse and alive compared to the conventional counterparts.

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mistrial9 900 days ago
LOL - this is amazingly biased and fact-free assertion here!

The Organic standard in the USA is a crown-jewel of US food production. Yes of course there is cheating, like there is cheating on pesticide reporting and dozens of other things. I find it really off-kilter to loudly decry the entire Organic Standard effort in short terms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_Foods_Production_Act_o...

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soperj 900 days ago
Organic farms still use pesticides and herbicides, they're just organic ones, like Nicotine.
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