Something at the ASI. Organic farming is bad for the planet.
Timmy Elsewhere
10 responses
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This is insane.
You say (or rather quote): “Organic tomatoes grown in heated greenhouses in Britain generate one hundred times the amount of CO2 per kilogram produced by tomatoes in unheated greenhouses in southern Spain.”
Yes well anyone with half an eco-brain says we should be talking about local sustainability, not trying to replicate a global diet.
Again you say: “Just remember that when you buy those hothouse vine ripened tomatoes, low in food miles, you too are contributing to the drowning of Bangladesh. That organic milk, requiring 80% more land, diminishes the amount available for wildlife and those free range chickens poop nearly twice as many nutrients, possibly leading to greater pollution of the waterways.”
Difficult to argue against current industrial food production practices in light of the Turkeys ( see http://1820.org.uk/2007/02/h5n1.shtml ) but dont you realise that a central idea of organic production is that it increases biodiversity as animals can actually live on the land with our food?
Tim adds: “Yes well anyone with half an eco-brain says we should be talking about local sustainability, not trying to replicate a global diet. ”
Fine, just be open about it. Going green means that you can have tomatoes for 3 months of the year only. Then see how much support you get. -
Bad Tim, no cookie!
(see my comment at the ASI, if it gets approved)
Tim adds: Not up to me whether it gets approved or not but I’ve read it. Sure, let’s draw up the list of what is good and bad. All for it. My deriding only the bad ones is of course no worse than the Soil Association still supporting said bad ones though, is it? -
I agree – there is no political leadership and yes a sustainable ecology means changing our lives, quite radically actually, and yes this means regulation and planning and – deep intake of breath – collective action!
Lack of tomatoes not popular no, but then neither will the polar ice caps melting. -
What a crock organic food is! I want my genetically modified potatos.
Those arse brained atavistic eco-nuts won’t let me have them though. -
but dont you realise that a central idea of organic production is that it increases biodiversity as animals can actually live on the land with our food?
I believe that was before “organic” pesticides were introduced, including deadly poisons such as nicotine and copper sulphate.
Now it’s just slash and burn but prohibiting any modern agricultural chemicals, those that have been developed and tested using the wonders of modern science, from use.
Besides, what’s better? An acre of intensive farmland being made productive with the wonders of modern technology plus an acre of wild, untamed natural woodland, or two acres of organic farmland where wildlife struggles to survive amongst the copper sulphate like the resident of Sudanese refugee camp.
No. Leave half the land alone and farm the shit out the other half. -
Tim, no, indeed, and I’ll not be buying organic milk from now on. Even the Indy misrepresents the thing about tomatoes, comparing in its boxout (I have the paper version btw) organic ‘on the vine’ tomatoes with inorganic ‘loose’ tomatoes. I suspect that they are not actually comparing like with like there.
Anyway, I think that you not only misrepresented the report and the Indy article, but wilfully did so. I really wish you wouldn’t stoop so low, because a lot of your writing is very sensible and I agree with most of it. -
Gus Abraham said:
‘Yes well anyone with half an eco-brain says we should be talking about local sustainability, not trying to replicate a global diet.’
So protectionism for local producers rather than letting, say, environmentally friendly bananas from the Caribean and letting them trade their way to a better future?
And the CO2 involved in transporting them by boat and lorry to the UK retailer is far less than that burnt by farmers from Suffolk bringing their apples by car to West London farmers markets. -
Mark the problem may not be just with your maths of boats versus cars to London Farmers Markets (a boutique equation if ever I heard it) and I actually meant local rather than national by the way – but with your sentence ‘letting them trade their way to a better future?’.
Hmm, how would that happen exactly?
One day capitalist food production will make sense, but we’ll all be dead then.
Does the expression ‘Bootiful, really bootiful’ mean anything to you? -
Gus,
I am a freetrader and libertarian and am loth to censure any opinions, however Tim’s esteemable blog is a home for freetraders and people of the enlightenment to come and have a bit of a laugh and exchange thoughts. We are very very (2 verys there) tolerant. I am a token europhile to the generally europhobic tendencies here, and we have a bit of laugh teasing each other about the Great European Project.
I have never polled it, but I suppose that most of the bloggers here have numerate science degrees and we revere science and the enlightenment most highly.
You practice antiscience.
FUCK OFF. -
Gus said
‘Mark the problem may not be just with your maths of boats versus cars to London Farmers Markets (a boutique equation if ever I heard it)’
Gus, I bring fruit purees from around the world into the UK and Rotterdam by container’s on cargo ships. The CO2 emitted for Kg of product moved is tiny. I know what the maths is. Clearly you don’t.
Gus then said ‘letting them trade their way to a better future?’. Hmm, how would that happen exactly?’
In exactly the same way as the UK, W Europe and other developed nations have. Where do you think our accumulated wealth has come from. The tooth fairy?
As a primer you might benefit from “The Wealth and Poverty of Nations’ by Landes. Only requirement is an open mind and the acknowledgement that science and post-enlightenment thinking leads to better understanding than warm and woolly guesses, however emotionally satisfying they may be.
(Gus) Does the expression ‘Bootiful, really bootiful’ mean anything to you?
Yes, its given consumers the choice to eat meat regularly and affordably.
I too find such intensive farming distatsteful, and for me high levels of meat consuption is unnecessary. The difference between you and me is you’re an authoritarian who thinks they know better than the great unwashed and would impose your prejudices on them. I’m not and don’t.
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