{"id":9722,"date":"2015-11-17T09:36:18","date_gmt":"2015-11-17T16:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/plantingseedsblog.cdfa.ca.gov\/wordpress\/?p=9722"},"modified":"2019-07-17T14:30:11","modified_gmt":"2019-07-17T21:30:11","slug":"what-does-organic-actually-mean-from-grist-org","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plantingseedsblog.cdfa.ca.gov\/wordpress\/index.php\/2015\/11\/17\/what-does-organic-actually-mean-from-grist-org\/","title":{"rendered":"What does organic actually mean? from Grist.org"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Nathanael Johnson<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/trm76hyUm0U\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" title=\"YouTube video: What does organic actually mean?\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>What does organic actually mean? It\u2019s tricky, because the word \u201corganic\u201d has at least two distinct meanings. It arose as the name for a movement with a particular belief system. Later, it also became a formal regulatory label governed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Meanwhile, most of us just want to know if organic means \u201cbetter\u201d: if it\u2019s healthier, more sustainable, and, in short, worth the money.<\/p>\n<p>My unsatisfying answer: It depends. There are spectacular organic farmers, and spectacular farmers who don\u2019t comply with the organic rules (and their opposites). I equivocate here&nbsp;because the organic rules are more about process than outcomes. Instead of governing results \u2014 i.e. defining organic by the nutritional content of food, or environmental quality measurements on farms \u2014 the rules mostly govern&nbsp;the tools used in food production.<\/p>\n<p>OK, let\u2019s start with those <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ecfr.gov\/cgi-bin\/retrieveECFR?gp=&amp;SID=6bb83fd6569db2c372bb5dd3d55247a1&amp;mc=true&amp;n=pt7.3.205&amp;r=PART&amp;ty=HTML\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">official rules<\/a>.&nbsp;What are they? And how good a job does each rule accomplish of actually making food \u201cbetter\u201d? I don\u2019t aim to determine whether organic, overall, is \u201cbetter\u201d \u2014 I think that depends on the way farmers use their tools, not on which tools they use. Instead, I\u2019ll try to tease apart the assumptions that link the rules&nbsp;to our judgements about&nbsp;goodness.<\/p>\n<p><strong>No synthetics<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Basically, if humans made a substance, you can\u2019t use it in organic farming. There are exceptions: There\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ecfr.gov\/cgi-bin\/text-idx?c=ecfr&amp;SID=9874504b6f1025eb0e6b67cadf9d3b40&amp;rgn=div6&amp;view=text&amp;node=7:3.1.1.9.32.7&amp;idno=7#sg7.3.205.g.sg0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a list of approved synthetics<\/a> that organic farmers can use under certain circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>But the whole idea that \u201cnatural\u201d is safer than synthetic is just wrong. It is true that we\u2019ve had more time to get used to the natural hazards \u2014 and not as much trial and error to discover hazards in newer substances.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s often impossible, anyway, to say definitively whether something is natural or synthetic. The dividing line is subjective; \u201cnatural\u201d means different things to different people. This hazy line between natural and non-natural has caused all sorts of controversy among farmers over the years. Julie Guthman, in her book&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.powells.com\/book\/agrarian-dreams-9780520277465\/?&amp;PID=25450\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Agrarian Dreams:&nbsp;The Paradox of Organic Farming in California<\/em><\/a>, lists&nbsp;some of the arguments&nbsp;on this issue:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Several grape growers mentioned their frustration that cryolite [used as an insecticide] was being phased out as an unallowable substance because it was no longer being mined \u2026 its synthetic forms were completely prohibited. Black plastic is allowed for solarization [heating] or for mulching as long as it is removed from the field after use, yet solarization completely kills all biological activity in the soil \u2026 Other comments: \u201cWe can use Bt [a bacterial insecticide] but not urea, compost but not [heated] oil. How can you be more natural than crude oil?\u201d \u201cWhy is it perfectly acceptable to drive tractors around that not only use diesel fuel but also worsen soil compaction?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The organic community continues to struggle with these contradictions. Currently there\u2019s a movement to prohibit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.northcountrypublicradio.org\/news\/story\/29915\/20151026\/some-vermont-farmers-to-protest-possible-organic-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hydroponically grown plants from gaining organic certification<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>No GMOs<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This one seems simple, but it\u2019s surprisingly confusing, because the definition of GMO is squishier than you might think. For the organic standards \u201cno GMOs\u201d means no plant or animal can be used in organic food if it has a gene from another species that\u2019s been put there by humans. It also means no meat or dairy from animals fed on GM fodder. (Organic farmers can use manure from animals fed GMOs for fertilizer.)<\/p>\n<p>But organic farmers can, and do, use plants that have been genetically modified with ionizing radiation or chemicals. There are several great organic crops made through this kind of mutagenesis, including <a href=\"http:\/\/archive.gramene.org\/newsletters\/varieties\/Calrose76.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">my favorite organic brown rice<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And as scientists get more skilled at genetic engineering, the focus is shifting toward making small revisions in the genome rather than moving DNA from one species to another. The products of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/crispr-could-help-gene-edited-crops-bypass-biosafety-regulation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">this kind of gene editing are&nbsp;not always defined as&nbsp;GMOs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>No sewage<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Only non-organic farmers can use treated, sterilized municipal sewage for fertilizer. The technical term here is biosolids: dried, composted human poop that has come out of city sewage treatment. Organic people don\u2019t like it because who knows what else besides crap ends up in there \u2014 <a href=\"http:\/\/grist.org\/article\/2009-05-05-sludge-fertilizer-sewage\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">motor oil, medications, Drano<\/a>? But it sure would be more sustainable to close the cycle and reuse nutrients rather than flushing them into the ocean.<\/p>\n<p><strong>No radiation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sometimes people expose&nbsp;foods to&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fda.gov\/Food\/ResourcesForYou\/Consumers\/ucm261680.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ionizing radiation as a food safety measure<\/a>. There aren\u2019t many foods that are irradiated \u2014 but some are, to kill disease-causing germs. You can tell because those foods have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fda.gov\/Food\/ResourcesForYou\/Consumers\/ucm261680.htm\">this<\/a> label. Anyway, organic can\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fertilizer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Conventional farms often get fertilizer that is synthesized from the air and natural gas. Organic farms mostly get it from composted manure. In addition, organic farmers may use nitrogen from South American mines, which has the same characteristics of synthetic nitrogen, but also contains salt (a potential problem for soil health). You can read my deep dive on nitrogen&nbsp;fertilizer <a href=\"http:\/\/grist.org\/food\/do-industrial-agricultural-methods-actually-yield-more-food-per-acre-than-organic-ones\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>. In brief: Both approaches to fertilizer are appropriate in their place, for complex reasons having to do with land use change and the nitrogen cycle.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rotation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To qualify as organic, farmers must rotate what they plant on any given plot of land. This breaks up insect pest life cycles and encourages biodiversity. Most conventional farmers do crop rotation, too \u2014 the classic Midwestern system alternates between corn and soy every year. Organic farmers often do longer rotations: corn, soy, alfalfa, for example.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Weed and pest control<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is a big one. When conventional farmers have a weed or insect problem, they often control it with a chemical pesticide. Organic farmers rely on plowing, weeding, pheromone traps, and by providing habitats for predatory insects.<\/p>\n<p>Organic farms also have a set of approved pesticides that they can use \u2014 for instance, copper and sulfur are both widely used, as are oils, which are sprayed to smother insects. Organic pesticides tend to be less toxic than synthetic pesticides, but <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/stevensavage\/2015\/09\/23\/the-role-of-organic-pesticides-in-california\/\">are used in larger quantities per acre<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You are a lot less likely to be exposed to pesticide residue if you eat organic \u2014 but keep in mind that the exposure to pesticide you get from residues is way below the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www2.epa.gov\/pesticide-tolerances\/setting-tolerances-pesticide-residues-foods\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tolerances<\/a>&nbsp;set by the EPA.<\/p>\n<p>Workers on organic farms don\u2019t come into contact with the more toxic pesticides. But Guthman points out that they do come into contact with sulfur, which is \u201csaid to cause more worker injuries in California than any other agricultural input.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Controlling weeds without herbicides creates complications for workers as well. Farmworkers have successfully banned the use of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.revealnews.org\/episodes\/hell-of-a-job\/#segment-the-long-tale-of-the-short-handled-ho\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">short-handled hoe<\/a>, which forced them to bend close to the ground as they weeded crops. But in California, organic farmers are allowed an exception to the rule \u2014 instead of a short-handled hoe, farmers can&nbsp;have their laborers weed by hand. The classic labor rights issues are <a href=\"http:\/\/grist.org\/article\/mark\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">just as fraugh<\/a>t, or even worse,&nbsp;for workers on organic farms, <a href=\"http:\/\/america.aljazeera.com\/articles\/2014\/7\/29\/small-farms-labor.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">both<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2015\/02\/10\/what_nobody_told_me_about_small_farming_i_cant_make_a_living\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">small<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dissentmagazine.org\/article\/limits-of-the-locavore\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">and<\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/story\/140001\/the_ugly_truth_behind_organic_food\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">large<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Animals<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>OK \u2014 when it comes to organic meat and dairy, here\u2019s the deal:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Organic feed<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For animals to be organic, you gotta feed them organic corn or other organic kibble.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pasture<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If it\u2019s a ruminant animal \u2014 a grass eater \u2014 it\u2019s got to be out on pasture at least 120 days a year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Access outdoors<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And if it\u2019s a chicken, pig, or other non-ruminant, its must have access to the outdoors. Sometimes, however, that may just be a door to the <em>terrifying beyond<\/em>that no animal ever uses.<\/p>\n<p><strong>No antibiotics, no growth hormones<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If your animals are going to be organic, no growth hormones are allowed and no antibiotics are allowed, period. If the animal gets sick, however, the farmer is still required to treat it with antibiotics if they are needed \u2014 but then the animal is no longer organic.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Those are the main rules. Oh, you\u2019ve probably seen a ton of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ccof.org\/press\/ccof-once-again-tops-list-nop-organic-certifiers\">labels<\/a> \u2014 Oregon Tilth, California Certified Organic, Midwest Organic Service \u2014 but you can basically ignore those:&nbsp;These organizations just serve as the certifying agencies that check the USDA organic standards.<\/p>\n<p>If farmers and environmental scientists were to design the perfect system, it might not be strictly organic. For instance, in some situations it would make more environmental sense to use a little bit of a synthetic pesticide than to spray the oils, copper, and sulfur that the organic program allows. Using compost and manure is really good for soils. But <a href=\"https:\/\/mitpress.mit.edu\/books\/enriching-earth\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">we also have to use some synthetic fertilizer<\/a> if we want to shrink our agricultural footprint and stop cutting down forests. Even growth hormones make sense from a greenhouse gas perspective: A faster growing steer spends fewer days burping up methane and needs fewer acres devoted to feeding it. None of this is simple.<\/p>\n<p>No one has ownership over the term organic. Yes, as a certification it is defined and regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other government agencies around the world. But before any of that, it was a set of principles. My reading of organic literature, and<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nap.edu\/catalog\/12832\/toward-sustainable-agricultural-systems-in-the-21st-century\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> this review<\/a> by the National Research Commission, suggests that organic belief systems are built on two main pillars:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Managing biological systems: <\/strong>Organic practitioners strive to understand and influence their farms on an ecosystem level, controlling pests and nutrient cycles by creating habitat (in the soil, hedgerows, and fields).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Avoiding synthetic chemicals: <\/strong>Organic practitioners often feel that synthetic chemicals are not as safe as natural chemicals because they haven\u2019t been around as long, which means we\u2019ve had less time to see potential dangers. They also often feel that synthetics allow farmers to fix problems too directly, which may prevent ecosystem-level management (see No.&nbsp;1). For instance, if a farmer uses a highly effective synthetic pesticide to save her peppers from great horned tomato worms, she may not have the incentive to learn about the predator-prey relationship that (perhaps) might be manipulated to control the insects.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>This stands in opposition what might be called the industrial&nbsp;belief system. The main pillars of that philosophy:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Supporting humanity:<\/strong> The primary philosophical driver for many industrial practitioners is humanitarian: They want to feed people, and see themselves as a foundation for civilization. By providing food they allow others to specialize in other areas, building electric cars, discovering cures for cancer, writing \u201cHotline Bling,\u201d etc.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A quest for efficiency: <\/strong>If the goal is to free humanity from labor on the land, any improvement in efficiency is seen as honorable. Therefore we see tremendous emphasis placed on increasing yields and decreasing labor, both of which make food cheaper.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Any adequate analysis of agricultural sustainability should try on both these pairs of ideological sunglasses. It seems to me that the industrial partisans \u2014 looking through the rose-colored glasses of ever-improving efficiency and technological progress \u2014 have at times been blind to inefficiencies at the ecosystem level (dead zones in lakes and oceans, greenhouse gas emissions). Likewise, organic partisans \u2014 looking through the dark glasses of environmental decline and technological failure&nbsp;\u2014 have at times been blind to imperatives for land-use efficiency (there really is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mitpressjournals.org\/doi\/abs\/10.1162\/DAED_a_00354#.Vjkweq6rSHp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a lot of evidence that we can preserve more biodiversity by farming more intensively<\/a>), and to the true <a href=\"http:\/\/www.powells.com\/book\/the-great-surge-9781476764801\/?&amp;PID=25450\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">humanitarian improvements<\/a> that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gapminder.org\/videos\/hans-rosling-and-the-magic-washing-machine\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">have come with industrialization<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve got to do it all: Work in concert with ecosystems, grow the raw materials to support a thriving civilization, do it on a land area small enough to preserve wilderness, and accomplish that with tools that won\u2019t hurt us. The organic ethos gets us part way there. To go the rest of the distance, we\u2019ve got to embrace the good from both belief systems.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/grist.org\/food\/what-does-organic-actually-mean\/\">Link to story<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Nathanael Johnson &nbsp; What does organic actually mean? It\u2019s tricky, because the word \u201corganic\u201d has at least two distinct meanings. It arose as the name for a movement with a particular belief system. Later, it also became a formal &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/plantingseedsblog.cdfa.ca.gov\/wordpress\/index.php\/2015\/11\/17\/what-does-organic-actually-mean-from-grist-org\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\r\n<title>What does organic actually mean? from Grist.org - CDFA&#039;s Planting Seeds Blog<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/plantingseedsblog.cdfa.ca.gov\/wordpress\/index.php\/2015\/11\/17\/what-does-organic-actually-mean-from-grist-org\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What does organic actually mean? from Grist.org - CDFA&#039;s Planting Seeds Blog\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Nathanael Johnson &nbsp; What does organic actually mean? 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from Grist.org - CDFA&#039;s Planting Seeds Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/plantingseedsblog.cdfa.ca.gov\/wordpress\/index.php\/2015\/11\/17\/what-does-organic-actually-mean-from-grist-org\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What does organic actually mean? from Grist.org - CDFA&#039;s Planting Seeds Blog","og_description":"By Nathanael Johnson &nbsp; What does organic actually mean? It\u2019s tricky, because the word \u201corganic\u201d has at least two distinct meanings. It arose as the name for a movement with a particular belief system. Later, it also became a formal &hellip; Continue reading &rarr;","og_url":"https:\/\/plantingseedsblog.cdfa.ca.gov\/wordpress\/index.php\/2015\/11\/17\/what-does-organic-actually-mean-from-grist-org\/","og_site_name":"CDFA&#039;s Planting Seeds Blog","article_published_time":"2015-11-17T16:36:18+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-07-17T21:30:11+00:00","author":"Office of Public Affairs","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Office of Public Affairs","Est. reading time":"10 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/plantingseedsblog.cdfa.ca.gov\/wordpress\/index.php\/2015\/11\/17\/what-does-organic-actually-mean-from-grist-org\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/plantingseedsblog.cdfa.ca.gov\/wordpress\/index.php\/2015\/11\/17\/what-does-organic-actually-mean-from-grist-org\/"},"author":{"name":"Office of Public Affairs","@id":"https:\/\/plantingseedsblog.cdfa.ca.gov\/wordpress\/#\/schema\/person\/abce383c670223ef4f55f3f21f102e76"},"headline":"What does organic actually mean? 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