| Sounds like your buddy is just using the organic title for marketing purposes. That is unfortunate, but not uncommon. Here’s a source that doesn’t fit your buddy’s description… Along the central coast of California, conventional strawberry growers apply chemicals like methyl bromide, an internationally banned substance that is no longer being manufactured, but is stockpiled for exemptions to the ban, which these growers exploit. Alternatively they have been experimenting with methyl iodide and other hardcore synthetic chemicals. They hire undocumented laborers to apply them. Organic strawberry growers, on the other hand, use crop rotation of a brassica crop as a bio-fumigant, and they grow rows of alfalfa as a trap crop where pest infestations can be literally vacuumed up with a tractor implement. In this case, there is a huge difference. It is true that the National Organic Program is a joke, since they let the board get taken over by corporate big ag long ago. That doesn’t mean “it just makes people feel good and there is virtually zero difference”. In some cases it does, but to paint the whole thing as such is denying the larger reality. |
The national program is the one that matters, right? Most people consuming organic produce in the US are affected by this. Isn't that the larger reality? The people who know and buy from their local organic strawberry farmer has to be the .0001 edge case.