[Cricket Tragic]

Originally Posted by screener

1. I think organic agriculture is struggling to make a comeback in time to help save the world. If their public relations are any good they'll be offering their product as an alternative that will allow people to be healthier than that provided in over processed sugar and salt and plastic.

I am not as convinced as you are that organic agriculture will help save the world. I also don’t think it is struggling too much, except just now.
Sticker Shock in the Organic Aisles - New York Times

Farmers are just not choosing the organic option all that quickly. While the area is growing impressively, organic agriculture still remains a miniscule percentage of all agriculture. This seems to be despite the large amount of advertising for organic agriculture that seems to be appearing in urban newspapers – except they call them articles and they are written by people like Michael Pollan.

Originally Posted by Screener

2. excessive tillage is not part of an organic farming practise. How could it be, by definition organic strives to improve the earths potential for production.

The normal ground prep practices for organic onions involve plowing to a depth of 16 to 18 inches, disking the field and then deep-ripping up to 30 inches. The soil is then land-planed. "Then, we're ready to spread some compost," Rizzo says, and the chicken manure compost is disked in, finish-chiseled and bedded up for planting on 40-inch onion beds. Precision seed planting is done from February to late March for the harvest of bulbs from July through late August.

Growing: Onion Pests

Tester uses a moldboard plow for weed control, also a chisel plow or disc. There are 4 to 5 tillage operations between plowing down a green manure and seeding the next crop. He seeds everything with a John Deere 9350 drill with 6-inch spacing.

AgHorizons - Organic Grain Farming

Organic mechanical weed control consists of 4 distinct phases, each one very important to the overall success of your weed control program. These phases are: 1. Tillage; 2. Planting; 3. Blind cultivation; 4. Row cultivation”

The basics of effective tillage techniques

Originally Posted by screener

This is from the Canadian organic standards, I guess it is the rule that producers, consumers, and government have agreed should cover the contamination of organic produce by gm pollution.
"a. all materials and products produced from genetic engineering as these are not compatible with the principles of organic production (growing, preparing and selling) and therefore are not accepted under this standard"

Full quote: “1.8.1. When producing or handling organic products sold or labelled as being products whose content is partially or wholly organic, it is forbidden to use any of the following substances or techniques:
a. all materials and products produced from genetic engineering as these are not compatible with the principles of organic production (growing, preparing and selling) and therefore are not accepted under this standard “

http://www.pwgsc.gc.ca/cgsb/on_the_n...310_2006-e.pdf

Merely says it is forbidden to use the technique, not that organic food has a nil (or any other tolerance) to AP.

Originally Posted by screener

As to engaging in meaningful discussion perhaps it is just that the agrifood multinationals are so involved in grubing for shickels that it isn't possible to have a meaningful dialogue with them or their public relations people.

I suggest the boot is firmly on the other foot, it the following are anything to go by. The organic industry hardly looks like it want dialogue when it gets up to these sorts of tactics.

http://www.non-gm-farmers.com/docume...l%20letter.doc

http://www.bfa.com.au/_files/2007081...%20Review1.pdf

Campaign Against Genetically Modified Wheat- Genetically engineered wheat GM wheat GE wheat monsanto GMO Monsanto biotech

GMO