Organic Foods

[ERD50]

ERD50,

I did a search of PubMed (online medical and public health journal article database) for pesticide exposure impacts on farmworker's children and found, among others, this article, which showed a link between prenatal exposure to organophosphates and lowered IQ scores in children in an agricultural community in California:

....

As far as your environmental example in post #30, it's pretty clear that all farming has some impact on the environment (though some farmers are working hard to see if they can remove deleterious effects of farming). I'd be interested in comparing the overall environmental impacts of conventional crop farming with organic crop farming. Did the study you mention do this? Do you have a reference on it that I could read more about? I'm curious.

Thanks!

Thanks for the links (Chuckanut also), I'll take a look at those later.

In the spirit of my reply to MichaelB, my example in post #30 wasn't an attempt to 'prove' anything overall. It was just an example to act as a counterpoint to those who seem to think 'organic' is always better in all ways. It is more complex than that. I recall seeing a study that compared the output of modern techniques to 'organic', and indicated we would need to farm a lot more land for the same output. And that has effects. I'll see if I can find a link.

-ERD50

 

[lynxville]

If you think organic foods have no pesticides on them your wrong. They can use organic pesticides on there crops.

 

[HFWR]

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v485/n7397/full/nature11069.html

Our analysis of available data shows that, overall, organic yields are typically lower than conventional yields. But these yield differences are highly contextual, depending on system and site characteristics, and range from 5% lower organic yields (rain-fed legumes and perennials on weak-acidic to weak-alkaline soils), 13% lower yields (when best organic practices are used), to 34% lower yields (when the conventional and organic systems are most comparable). Under certain conditions—that is, with good management practices, particular crop types and growing conditions—organic systems can thus nearly match conventional yields, whereas under others it at present cannot.