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Organic farming
Genetic marker to reduce fraud?
  (-1)
(-1) 		  [vote for,
against]


The foot and mouth disaster will surely boost organic farming world wide.

However, policing organic labels reportedly keeps costs high.

Could the organic movement accept a range of food-crops for animals and humans harmlessly gm’d to glow under fluorescent lights or whatever to say “I’m genuinely organic!”?

it’s a raw-state idea I know, but something like this has to happen to lower the cost of organic food production and marketing.

Factory farming has apparently had its day.

rayfo, Mar 06 2001


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       Humane (not necessarily organic) farming seems like a better solution to the rapid spread of disease among cattle.   

       I'm skeptical that policing is what keeps the cost of organic produce high. I think the lower yields have more to do with it.
francois, Mar 06 2001
   

       How would the fluorescent label help anything? Non-organic farmers could fraudulently grow labelled crops just as easily as they could fraudulently apply a "Certified Organic!" sticker.   

       Besides, as PeterSealy points out, GM is the last thing the organic freaks are going to embrace.
egnor, Mar 06 2001
   

       Same problem. Anyway, an organic fertiliser doesn't leave traces. That's the point of organic farming. Inorganic fertilisers leave traces.   

       The situation is simply that a lot of bored people who have never really been hungry enough to eat whatever they could get think it's trendy to pooh-pooh current farming methods because they can.   

       Let them eat the wizened corn and the sorry, little, malformed apples and pay twice the price of the others in the shop. The same people rail against the use of cars and then drive themselves to protests about the number of cars on our roads.
UnaBubba, Mar 06 2001
   

       I see political rhetoric here is equally half-baked.
Rusty, Mar 22 2001
   

       degroof, the problem with your idea is that "organic farming" isn't defined by the use of certain fertilizers or pesticides; it's defined by the *absence* of certain fertilizers or pesticides. Non-organic farmers may still use mulch and manure; they might also use, say, heptachlor or endrin, which is what makes them non-organic.
wiml, Mar 25 2001
   

       Kind of a shallow look at organic practices Una. Farms that rely on chemical fertilizers and pesticides are unsustainable for a number of reasons.   

       The first problem with current practices is the reliances on petrol chemicals to boost yields. I am not worried so much with running out of fertilizer (I believe they use coal to make it) but that at both chemical plant and farm the practice leads to groundwater contamination.   

       Secondly - Salt ... the synthetic Ammonia that comprises petrochemical fertilizer is salt based. Not the greatest legacy to leave behind in soil that you wish to grow crops in long term.   

       So... we get polluted ground water and fucked up topsoil in exchange for pretty veggies that taste like cardboard.
redsimple, Feb 07 2006
   


 
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