E.U Interference!!!*****!!!

[richard p]

hi jb i think we all respect your wish not to go back to the "good old days" however some of us are looking to the future, we can all see the masses of overweight people in society, asthma is endemic amongst children as is hyperactivity, attention deficite, autism , cancer, food allergies etc whilst much money is spent on trying to find miracle cures for the drug companies to make fortunes on the causes are ignored, many of us beleive that the root cause of many of these afflictions that affect society are polution of the air we breath, the water we drink and the food we eat. we cannot stop "progress" but we can individually reduce our own use and assimililation of unnatural substances thereby hopefully giving ourselves and our families a longer healthier active life.

[Piglet]

I totally agree JB about your comments on organic food. A couple a few door away have an organic box delivered and on average 60% of its contents would end up in my compost heap. I dont bother with organic seed as I dont aim to be organic. I also use peat, but like you aim to reduce its use and use reclaimed peat when I do.

With regard to the mis shaped food ,Waitrose have just started to sell "ugly fruit and veg" which are the ones that get discarded so hopefully the times are changing.

I have no argument about your views on the organic movement or other food faschists however the whole ideal for me of growing my own fruit and veg is that I can pick and eat it without having to wash chemicals off it, that however doesnt make me a bigotted organic tyrant.

[Jenny Green]

Dear Jenny, just to lighten things a little, i love it when your angry.

Kind regards Old Herbaceous.

Theres no fool like an old fool.

I'm happy if I've given you a little thrill Herby but I'm not at all angry actually, though I am aware that's how I come across sometimes. If you'd met me you'd know I'm a mild mannered, sweet natured pussy cat in real life.
Don't let me spoil the illusion, though!

[Jenny Green]

Dear Jenny

Well, I can not argue with much of your sentiments and I believe most people would prefer to grow food in the safest way possible. However, perhaps it should be accepted by the ‘organic/green’ lobby that when there are famines {due to the weather etc.) the sacks of food that are flown in to help prevent starvation are grown using methods that would not have Soil Association approval. Also there is tremendous pressures in the poorer parts of the world to clear large areas of forest in able for them to produce food.
This, with reason, seems to be strongly argued against by the ‘organic/green’ lobby that at the same time campaign for the world to convert more land to their methods that result in lower production. Surely there is a possible contradiction here or am I being unfair?

Anyway, I wish you all the best of luck with your new business venture.

Barney

I'm glad to hear we agree on many things Barney, but let us also not forget that at least some of the poverty in the third world is caused by the West's subsidysing its farmers to such an extent that the third world cannot compete with their prices.
It's my impression that clearing of forests in poor countries is done as much, if not more, by illegal logging. This is certainly the case in the area of Kenya I'm familiar with (I sponsor a little girl there).
I'm truly unaware of campaigns by the 'organic lobby' demanding more land be put under the plough.
Thanks for your well wishes.

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Jenny, i know what pussy cats can do, when i as a young lad a local farmer was going to kill a nest of wild kittens, so i grabbed one to run off with it to save it's life, it promptly bit through my nail on my finger and as i was shaking my hand it was just swinging on the end of my finger, it finally dropped off and i made my escape good
So i'm a bit wary of pussy cats now.

[Cider Boys]

Hello Jenny

You are correct that the organic/green lobby do not advocate putting more land under the plough, which is my point. They with good reasons, argue against taking forests under the plough, but as they wish non-organically farmed land to be converted to organic production, a drop in productivity would result. Would not this inevitably put more pressure on the forests?

Barney

[Vivien]

What a fantastic debate! Whatever the outcome, it's still so refreshing to see the extremes of opinion & everyshade in between expressed by normal people, without spin doctors and politicians sticking their oars in as they seem to with virtually everything these days.
For what it's worth, I couldn't be classed as an organic gardener as I don't have the time or dedication to devote to that style. However, I have no issue with those who wish to grow their stuff organically. That said, I'm with JB in trying to keep use of stuff to a minimum knowing that my produce, whilst inferior in size to supermarket produce, will taste better and be far fresher. I try really hard not to use derris as it kills the good guys too and I always seem to have loads of ladybirds and bees on the allotment, but if it meant using derris or losing the best part of a crop to bugs then I would choose to use the insecticide; if I didn't there would be no point in having an allotment in the first place since I could give up growing and produce a crop of nothing!
Long may the debates continue

[Allan]

If I had my way I would ban the use of the word Organic, it is a misuse of the original meaning. The only merit I see in the ideas that the Organic lobby put forward are those cribbed from Good Gardening Practice of many years before any of the proponents were born.Why can't we get back to the days when individual decisions were made on the merits of the case and not by the dictates of a quango who drew up all these daft rules. Whatever they say, plants cannot survive without the chemicals in the air, earth and water, as far as I am concerned an Organic chemical remains one that has carbon atoms at the heart of its structure and those in soil are totally incapable of nourishing plants until that structure is broken down.

[Tony Hague]

For me the findamental stumbling block of the whole Organic argument is that the plants can only absorb their nutrients as soluble ions. I just cannot believe that they can possibly differentiate betweeen an Organic ion and a non-organic, chemical, manmade ion of the same type.
Allan

Quite true, but this argument only applies to fertilisers; the main concern about non-organic fertilisers is environmental impact because of their solubility, not the presence of residues in crop.

On the other hand when people chose organic through concern about chemical residues, it is not fertilisers but fungicides and insecticides that are the main issue.

[Allan]

Insecticides are mainly unnecessary, a little damage is tolerable for the home gardener. You hardly ever need fungicide on mature crops, on seedlings it won't be a problem when fully grown.
Why cannot people learn to put fertilisers just where and when wanted, far cheaper and less polluting than muckspreading.Foliar feeding ought to be used more but I dread the use of what amounts to sewage over any of my crops, totally unhygienic. If people can put salt and pepper over their food and make it using sodium bicarbonate then why jib at a tiny residue of other 'chemicals'.
I don't mind people paying more for Organic food if they want but wish they wouldn't throw muck at everybody else. Those that differ are not poisoners.

[Jenny Green]

If people can put salt and pepper over their food and make it using sodium bicarbonate then why jib at a tiny residue of other 'chemicals'.

You do make me laugh sometimes Allan. So you won't object if I have you to dinner at my house and tell you there's a tiny residue of arsenic and cyanide on your dinner, but don't worry about it because their only chemicals, right?

[Allan]

What a stupid statement.It's not whether they are chemicals or not that is the criterion, (your organics are full of chemicals or they would not nourish the plants) dosage does come into it. With modern technology one can dect minute quantities of those residues anyway whether the crop is organically grown or not. None of us can escape a degree of lead in our food from the atmosphere, nor phosphate, nitrate and chlorine in the tap water, indeed there would be a lot more sick people around if chlorine were not present. The amounts are usually so small as to be well below the permitted limit which in its turn is some orders higher than what would harm anybody unless they have that much as their only food for ages. I don't know if you know that warfarin (rat poison) and deadly nightshade (belladonna) are used medically.
Would you have me believe that organically grown rhubarb leaves are good for you , or organically grown death cap. Organic growing may be about muck, but certainly myth and not magic.
Allan

[peter]

As for trace residues, do you know the story of how west country folk got the reputation of being thick yokel types?

Before anyone takes a pop at me about regional prejudices, my nephews are zummerzett boys.

Twas because of the zider me dears.

To seal the gaps on the circular stone trough that the apple crushing wheel rode round in, they used?

Lead.

Lead plus acidic rough apple juice equals lead acetate, a very sweet and poisonous substance.

Farm workers pay consisted in part of cider.

Lead is a cummulative poison that dulls the mind.

Oh and some bright spark realised the sweetening effect, so some took to putting a lump of lead in the barrel if the cider was sour and sharp.

Aresnic like lead is a cummulative, so Jenny yes I would eat your meal, just the one meal, provided the dose was small enough, but I would not dine chez Jenny on a regular basis if you had arsenic in the menu. Arsenic and lead can be detected forensically in hair, so your forensic scientist can say when you were given the stuff and how often. I might not overdo the almonds with the coffee either as they contain [correction arsenic] cyanide compounds, but they are not cummulative beyond your current gut capacity.

Allan, what this circituitous post is getting round to telling you is that a tiny trace, oft repeated, can do you in. This is one of the main fears driving people to organic, or in my case pragmatic, gardening.

Detectable quantities of DDT and poly-phenol compounds have been found in remote eco-systems. Persistent, stable, poisonous compounds can lurk in the environment for years and organisms can end up storing them in body fat, each level up the food chain increases the dose per meal.
Witness the alaskan bears eating salmon, they eat the skin and head for the high energy fat and discard the flesh as too bloating.

There are two further problems to consider, interaction and lack of knowledge.

The mad scientist beloved of fiction throws all his chemicals into the testube and waits to see what happens. This is what modern science is doing on a massive scale. Yes they have done lab tests and 2000 rats fed 1mg per day for three months did not die off quicker than the 2000 rate fed 0mg. But what if the experiment ran for 40 years and they also took asprin? There are too many variables to test for, if we cannot program an Airbus to allow a french pilot to display it without wiping out a forest can we consider all environmental chemical variables?

Lack of knowledge is essentially the unforseen side effects. I cheerfully took an anti-inflamatory for over a year for my back problem, but went to my GP cos I was feeling giddy every now and then, he changed me to a different drug, some months later he original drug was withdrawn, a side effect was affecting blood pressure, causing strokes & heart attacks. This had not shown up in testing, but out in the wild....

What organism is generally taken to be top of the food chain, or at any rate will eat just about anything and thus recieve maximum dose of whatever is going?

Us.

e.g. Food chain.
Seaweed & plankton - shrimps & diddy fish - small fish - larger fish - fishing-boat - processing plant - fish pellets - salmon farm - smoked salmon - human.

e.g. Ignorance.
The acclaimed "World at War" series has one episode showing POW's being de-loused by having DDT powder blown all over them, down the trousers etc.

e.g. Unforseen side effects.
The American defoliation campaign in Vietnam with Agent-orange leading to birth defects.

[Jenny Green]

[quote="Allan"]What a stupid statement.It's not whether they are chemicals or not that is the criterion, [quote]

Mmmmm. That was kind of my point Allan. You seem to think growing organically is avoiding 'chemicals'. We aren't as thick as you seem, you see. Growing organically is about far more than a misunderstanding of the meaning of the word 'organic' (yes, I did O' level Chemistry at school too, you know), or a belief that chemicals are something that only man manufactures and that they are all bad for you.
Could I suggest you actually do some research on the central ideas behind organic growing before posting your ill informed statements?
And thanks to Peter for such a great post!

[Johnboy]

Hi Allan,
As an old squaddie you must be familiar with the saying "If you lead with your chin you must expect it to get it smacked." Well you led with your chin and now that Jenny has delivered two uppercuts has the information seeped in. What Peter has said is fact not fiction.
Every now and then I have cause to have a go at Organics but not for the same reasons as you apparently.
To say the least your statement was very ill advised.
JB.