Talk:Organic food/Archive 1

message: I more or less reverted the last edit and    reordering, with a significant rewrite of the lead. I believe the aim of that last revision was to make things more readable and relevant, by moving the "Is organic food better" and "Facts and Statistics" sections up. However, that move, and the trimming down of the introduction to a simple definition, with a focus on US certified organic, I think oversimplifies the subject, to the degree that fundamental aspects of organic food are put in the wrong emphasis.
IMO, the following points, in no particular order, are all key components of a thorough, well-balanced organic food article (among possibly others):
:*distinction between informal and formal (certification-based) definitions of organic food
:*distinction between fresh and processed organic food
:*the benefits sought from and ascribed by some to organic food (from food quality, food safety, environmental impact)
:*the formal scientific view of organics (largely unstudied and inconclusive)
:*an overview of the practical situation from the consumer side (is it better?; buying: how, where, how much?) NOTE: this is an important aspect, because ultimately, organic food is a consumer phenomenon, after all, certification is a consumer protection/marketing initiative on the part of industry and government, not primarily an agricultural one
Most of these elements are already represented, but the article is still somewhat cumbersome and perhaps not so easy to read. So editing is ongoing. --Tsavage 14:24, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed editorial outline: June 2005 

message: Can anyone verify the statement that Canada, in 1999 became the first country to establish a national organic standard? -- Sy / (talk) 02:01, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I will shortly, according to american media they are. but foreign press sources :sing a different tune-I have to track down. but Germany and France both have had :Biodynamic certification long before that. Organic is nothing compared to that. :Japan also makes a distinction if the food was grown with compost or not, and :whether the harvest waste was added back to the field as mulch. and I've to :collect my USDA sources on soil testing done in 1949 vs. their latest report--in :essence it proves the B.S. hype of fertilizer farming. I also have happened to :notice that the english Justus von Liebig article fails to mention the last :part of his life where he renounced the long-term validity of his NPK discovery. :He died fighting the very chemical industry he created. Carbon is required to :keep the NPK from washing away, and provides the cellular walls of the plants to :actually absorb the soil minerals. The USDA reports show that in the last fifty :years are agricultural crops are virtually water compared to the past. Give me a :bit 140.160.178.207 20:28, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canada first with national organic standard? 

message: This is a discussion started by JabberWok and Brian0918 
Explanations of books:
*Pesticide residues in food and drinking water includes such articles as
**Environmental fate of pesticides and the consequences for residues in food and drinking water by Jack Holland and Phil Sinclair
**Diets and dietary modelling for dietary exposure assessment by J. Robert Tomerlin and Barbara J. Petersen
**Effects of food preparation and processing on pesticide residues in commodities of plant origin by Gabriele Timme and Birgitt Walz-Tylla
*Pesticide, veterinary and other residues in food, info can be seen here
*Pesticides in Fruits and Vegetables is, I'll comply and leave off the list
Information on pesticides, their toxicity, their history, their current use, etc, are relevant to the organic movement.  This is because books on pesticides can be used by an individual to determine for themselves whether conventional farming (with pesticide/herbicide use) is better or worse for the environment and for people than organic farming.JabberWok 17:15, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Books and Links 

message: I'm removing that line, since it seems that:
1. It is probably not true
2. Organic producers do the same thing.
http://www.omri.org/Ethylene_crops.pdf
:A couple things.  Why do you claim that it's false, and why do you claim that organic producers do the same thing?  What am I missing here? It seems to be a controversial issue, and as it is currently in the news, it should remain in the article.  . --Viriditas 11:21, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Banana ripening 

message: I removed the recently added "certain" in the lead sentence as follows:
:Organic food is, in general, food that is produced without the use of certain artificial pesticides, herbicides, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
The "certain" I think reduces clarity. IMO, there is a useful and important distinction to be made between "organic food" as a general term, and "certified organic food". The intro is not exactly an elegant piece of prose as it is, but I do think it conveys that message clearly. Of course, if there is editorial disagreement over that distinction, that's a separate thing. But if the general description seems valid, then the "certain" is unnecessary in that position, and it adds confusion, in that "organic is chemical-free" is probably (still) a generally held popular definition. --Tsavage 05:48, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the "certain" reduces clarity to some extent. I also agree that the popular definition is "organic=> chemical free". But I believe that this popular believe is a misconception and I wanted to challenge it by the word "certain". But I dont insist on it :-) Xmort 06:59, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: (Wow... from working on WP:FAC lately, any sort of agreement on anything now comes as a bit of a surprise ;) this popular believe is a misconception I agree with you. I think conveying this information—the difference between perception and rapidly-spinning-out-of-sync reality—is central to a fair and balanced organic food article. The trick is getting there in proper encyclopedia style. I'll keep plugging away. Hopefully, you will, too! --Tsavage 05:00, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit to lead: "produced without (certain) synthetic pesticides" 

message: I removed this section, which was added a couple of weeks ago:
:However, the reason for these high prices has to do with subsidization rather than production. In other words, organic foods do not cost more because they are more expensive to produce or because organic farmers are trying to target a middle-class market, but rather because governments have refused to subsidize organic produce or meats as they do with non-organic products, thus making them more costly for the consumer.
It is a broad generalization that is probably not very accurate on any level, and is unsupported, and doesn't fit in that section of the article. --Tsavage 05:59, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit: removed explanation of why organics more expensive 31 Dec 2005 

message: I removed the following. It contains unsupported and vaguely supported conclusions, and is poorly written. It seems to be an attempt to insert an "organic ag is unsustainable" argument into the "Characteristics" section, which is a farming issue. Proposing that organic food is "economically unsafe" because organic food production MAY be unscalable is speculative and kind of quite off-topic. The characterization of the Green Revolution is inaccurate, and the implication that the "Green Revolution" represents modern conventional agriculture is a huge oversimplification. Saying that conventional agriculture saved 1-2 billion lives, even with an "according to some", is unsupported and...kind of absurd in the way it is presented here. --Tsavage 19:37, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed "Economic safety" section: POV, inaccurate 

message: I changed "Characteristics of organic foods" to "Claimed benefits of...", which is what it was earlier. The exact wording isn't important, but the compromise attempt, made a week or so ago, to make this more "neutral" doesn't work, only makes things confusing. The section is about the (real or perceived/claimed) difference/benefits of organic food over "conventional" food, not about established "characteristics". And the article isn't claiming these benefits (or advantages, or whatever), simply saying that that is what is "claimed". If this heading seems "POV" (and I can't see what's more upfront than saying "claimed"), any other wording would do that simply says: "these are the supposed advantage of organics". --Tsavage 01:03, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Claimed benefits of..." section 

message: I removed the NPOV tag, which was placed by SpeedDial on 7-Feb-2006, for the following reasons:
*The reason for the tag wasn't made clear.  No comment was made in the tag edit itself. The general discussion before and after (see above) was centered around the section titled "Claimed benefits of organic food", which SpeedDial interpreted as listing advantages without disadvantages, therefore, POV. The gist of the debate (see above) was that organic food exists specifically to provide benefits over conventionally farmed food, so stating that is an essential part of the article. SpeedDial made changes to "balance" each of the "claimed benefits", by providing counterarguments to the claims (this in addition to counterarguments which had already been there, and an overall explicit, extended statement that there was no scientific proof or consensus, these were simply CLAIMS), and those were not touched. No specific instances of POV were cited.
*The editor who placed the discussion subsequently made several edits to address the POV concerns ("I have made significant edits to this page, including the ones proposed above.) and these were acknowledged here in Talk, and currently stand, with the exception of one paragraph, which was quite clearly in error (see above). Other edits were also made clarify the claims section.
*After making post-tag edits and participating in discussion, the editor who placed the tag ceased responding to the on-going discussion (see above) a week ago.
Basically, I don't think a clear reason for the tag was established, only a personal opinion (that using the words "benefits" or "advantages" makes the article POV), and changes and discussions well beyond that were made. Right now, it doesn't represent anything specific. --Tsavage 15:22, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed NPOV tag: 18-Feb-2006 

message: I tried to find some information on wiki on the differences between the use of the word all-natural vs organic.  it seems to me, a worker in the food industry, that all-natural is always used to refer to meats (beef, poultry, pork, seafood, etc) and that organic always refers to other products and produce.  if someone could either add some info on this or let me know.  thanks
nello--Dantedanti 04:23, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  maybe to add 

message: I note the link I added the other day has been deleted and replaced with something I think is inferior. The one I added was:
*Finding out about organic food and farming A page of student research links.
I thought this was a good addition because it provides quite a lot of background that works well to support the article. I appreciate that pages of links are not generally great to add as links, but I found this page really useful because it saved me time digging out the information myself.
The new link in its place is:
http://www.organicfoodcorner.com
Although this is quite an interesting site, it isn't equivalent to the site that's been deleted. It's also not remotely objective. Consider the second sentence on the home page: "Food, in general, is diseased, poisoned, full of toxins and chemicals, and unfit for human consumption." Yeah, right :)
I would suggest adding my original link back in if no-one objects? Marcusswann 18:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Was this an acceptable link? 

message: I've been watching and working on this page for almost a year now and I'm happy that it was recognized as a good article. That's a deserving title.
But I bet that this article, or an organic related article, can reach the ranks of featured article. Before that can happen some definite improvements need to be made. So I've decided to create a list here of small, definable steps that will give me and others and idea of what needs to be worked on to improve the quality of this article.
Feel free to add your own tasks, and if you work on one of them to the point where you feel you've completed it, use the strikethrough thing to mark it off the list like this. So here we go! JabberWok 16:19, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good? Let's make it great! 

message: Should this article include an image of the Bio-Siegel? --Hhielscher 14:01, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bio-Seal 

message: This article comprehensively covers organic produce, but I'm looking for help building another article on other organic products. The broader article should cover such organic goods and services as cotton, seed, muesli and resturants. So far it's just a stub and is awaiting improvement. Little help? —Pengo 08:26, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Organic products 

message: Farms that grow organically, do so in a sustainable, environmentally sound, manner, and more often than not, are small family-run farms.[1] These qualities of organic farming, among others, are in stark contrast to the more common industrial farm.
from the article, this is in my opinion a misleading generalisation. this stark contrast organic family farm and industrial farm is simply not true. there might be tendencies. but not all family farms are organic and not all organic farms are family farms. --trueblood 13:51, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  family farms 

message: the link i removed did not work anymore, but after i googled trewavas i found this link ngin.tripod.com/trewavas.htm which made me remove the words well respected...
--trueblood 20:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  trewavas 

message: this headline is a misnomer since it mostly contains criticism. and strangely mixed up too. on one hand the section gives the impression that organic agriculture comes up with the same yields as conventional farming, that might be even true for some crops but is in general very misleading. organic farmings produces significantly lower yields than conventional farming. and particulary small family farms that are so praised in this article. 
but than organic farms use pesticides that are more toxic than conventional ones. come on. i already removed the term biodegradable in context with conventional pesticides, because it is highly misleading. of cause even ddt is biodegradable, just takes a while, i mean decades. Rotenone and pyrethrum degrade within days. 
the stuff about the copper is also misleading. copper is used in fruit growing, conventional as organic. it surely can be problematic. but to claim that conventional fruitgrowing uses less copper and more modern pesticides  that are less problematic. come on, that would really need quoting studies that underline that.
i don't know what to do with this section though
--trueblood 21:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  benefits for the environment 

message: i propose to delete this section from identifying organic...:
Most food industry research of the last 50 years has focused on developing chemical agriculture and modern food processing -- less has been done to investigate side effects of conventional agriculture. In response, organics is concerned in large part with what NOT to do -- "as much as possible, let Nature do its thing" -- rather than in devising precise formulas for organic production. A strictly rules-based definition of organic farming and organic food, consisting of approved inputs and practices, created and maintained by regulatory agencies, is inevitably subject to "exceptions" and to special interest pressures to modify the rules. As organics become "whatever the rules say it is", the line between organic and conventional food can get blurred.
With widespread distribution of organic food, processed food has also become dominant over fresh food, confusing the issue of "What is organic?" further. Modern food processing is complicated. Commercial preparation methods, the use of additives, the effects of packaging and storage, for instance, are outside the first-hand experience of most people, including organic farmers. Traditional, minimally processed products, like baked goods, canned, frozen, and pickled fruits and vegetables, are easier for consumers to understand by comparison with home preparation methods, although home and mass-production techniques are quite different. For convenience foods, like frozen prepared foods and cooked breakfast cereals, ingredients and methods are quite a mystery to most consumers. A "certified organic" label is usually the only way for consumers to know that a processed product is "organic".
reasons: *article is too long, would generally benefit from shortening
*most of it is opinion rather than fact or not really needed in this article
*the question of how to identify organic food can be answered a lot more precise in less words
--trueblood 15:18, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  identifying organic food 

message: the headline benefits of organic food seems to be controversial, i am not happy with claimed benefits, but in lack of a better idea i leave it as it is. also two issue have counterparts in the criticism section (benefits for consumers and food safety and benefits for the environment and sustainability). i wonder if these discussion should not happen in the same place.
in the section benefits for consumers the bit about the effects of atrazin on frogs i found arbitrary. i will remove this and replace it by just saying that the effects of pesticide residues in food are difficult to assess and controversial. idealy there would be a link to a summary of studies on the subject.
--trueblood 16:04, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That section was just trying to give an example of the dangers of pesticides. Since atrazine is one of the most commonly used pesticides, it seems relevant. JabberWok 16:14, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  benefits 

message: I think the main reason behind the article failing all the criteria of the GA status is that it has a POV tag on top of it and so it fails criterion 4 of Wikipedia:What is a good article?. Lincher 14:53, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems the NPOV issue has been mostly dealt with through the addition of the criticism section. I don't see any other problems with the article, other than inconsistant citation style (which is minor), so I'm promoting the article to Good Article status. Someone should go through and make sure all of the citiations are consistant, however, especially in the statistics section. Kaldari 18:03, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA 

message: I've reviwed a new book listing Organic Places to Stay in the UK, from Green Books, and thought it was worth a link. If you agree, perhaps you could put it up there?
Thanks
Mike Gerrard
:This is a determined linkspammer. Grouse 16:06, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Organic Places to Stay in the UK 

message: Does it actually make sense to call it "organic"? Wouldn't "all natural" or "whole" be a better word for these foods? There's nothing organic about the process, it's still a living plant. Something on the ambiguity of "organic" should be included in the article. 70.111.218.254 17:40, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Terminology 

message: I'd like to see the article address a question that has been on my mind for a while: How did the word "organic" come to mean food that is grown a certain way? The word organic usually means either living matter or matter that contains carbon. By these definitions, almost all food except table salt is organic. How did we get into a situation in which most food which is organic (i.e. contains carbon) cannot claim to be organic? -- JHP 03:07, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: organic here is not meant in the chemical sort of way, ie based on carbon, but probably has it's roots in the vitalistic origins of organic agriculture. so in a way maybe naturam would be less misleading. get the problem if somebody speaks about 'organic' pesticides, meaning pesticides that are used in organic farming and not chemically organic pesticides.
trueblood 11:39, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question regarding use of the word "organic" 

message: I've heard that organic potato farmers use copper based pesticides to protect their crop from potato blight.  Use of these spays is allowed by the soil association as they have no other way of protecting the potatoes for the devistating effects of the disease.  Copper is toxic to both humans and wildlife.  Here is a link to an article about it:
http://persianoad.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/thousands-of-tons-of-organic-food-produced-using-toxic-chemicals/
I dont have the time or knowledge to do this my self (i dont even know if the reference is suitable for wikipedia), so if anyone can update the page with this info that would be great.  Cheers  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.32.126.16 (talk) 16:56, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copper spray used on organic potatoes 

message: Where does the word "organic food" come from?
Because as a matter of fact food is organic, there is also inorganic food (like salt, minerals,..). Is it only a marketing gag?
Really!  Good question!  I kind of object to the unscientific/psuedoscientific use of this a once exact technical term.  But oh well, there's nothing you can do about it.  Chrisrus (talk) 15:31, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of the word 

message: :Image:Hellenic.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is  other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page.  Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot (talk) 14:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fair use rationale for Image:Hellenic.jpg 

message: I removed these tags because I've found no recent discussion on these topics on the talk page.  If you feel these were wrongly removed, please point out specific example sentences or sections that you feel need to be changed. (Or perhaps, with wiki policy, Be Bold, and fix it yourself.) JabberWok (talk) 00:28, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of POV and Globalize tags 

message: Organic food production is illegal and can not be allowed in the united states legally regulated.
What the hell does that mean?
--131.156.17.116 (talk) 23:53, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Huh? 

message: i think this section should be in the article on organic farming or most of it. i also think that it's form now is original research mixed with the argumentation of on critic (norman borlaug). the section quotes borlaug but goes on to say 
As the population grows (and consequently, the global demand for food increases) farms have to either increase the yield of existing lands or increase the area under cultivation.  Deforestation is often the result.
i don't agree with presentation like this as fact or as the only way to see this, we cannot present the equation demand for food is on the rise therefore organic farming is immoral, as the truth, it is the opinion of critics and should be presented as such. there are counterarguments such as we cannot feed the whole world on a diet as rich in meat as the modern western diet. rather then say we need to produce as much as possible from each hectar no matter the ecological costs, one could also say we need to eat less meat, i will try to find  sources for that...
for now can we move this section to the more basic organic farming article and keep just a short version of the argument here?trueblood (talk) 17:31, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  deforestation 

message: I removed the following text from the article.  Unlike stated in the first sentence, yields are discussed with several references already.  These two paragraphs have more of an essay tone (trying to prove a thesis) rather than that of an encyclopedia trying to present facts and references.
:A little discussed negative side-effect of organic agriculture is a by-product of lower yields.  As the population grows (and consequently, the global demand for food increases) farms have to either increase the yield of existing lands or increase the area under cultivation.  Deforestation is often the result. Specific crops, such as Brazilian Soybeans which with beef production are amongst the leading causes of the rapid deforestation of the Amazon, affect forests more than others.  According to Borlaug, "if all agriculture were organic, you would have to increase cropland area dramatically, spreading out into marginal areas and cutting down millions of acres of forests."  This issue is tied to genetically engineered crops and no-till farming which have significant potential to increase crop yield (especially in places like Africa and Australia) and are in many ways the opposite of organic farming methods.  Organic farming shifts the techniques used to get good yields and can precipitate a regression in the sense that it rejects 'modern' farming techniques.  This is not an issue for operations that employ advanced techniques and have access to technology but can be problematic for farmers with limited means.  As market demand for organic produce grows, farmers in developing countries who are at risk of employing slash and burn techniques would need to take over even greater amounts of forest to compensate for yield difference.
:One of the most common and essential roles of fertilizer is to introduce nitrogen into the soil as plants can't extract it from the atmosphere independently (with some exceptions).  According to Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug as interviewed in Reason Magazine, "at the present time, approximately 80 million tons of nitrogen nutrients are utilized each year. If you tried to produce this nitrogen organically, you would require an additional 5 or 6 billion head of cattle to supply the manure. How much wild land would you have to sacrifice just to produce the forage for these cows?"  Cattle are famously amongst the most energy intensive food products because of the amount of food each cow consumes.
JabberWok (talk) 22:48, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed essay-like text 

message: this entire article sounds almost like a propaganda campaign for organic with what seems to be a very small amount of discussion of any of the disadvantages of organic.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.1.77.28 (talk) 07:24, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  one sided 

message: I removed the external links in the article and replaced them with dmoz as per WP:EL. Links added to this article need to add something unique to the article that would not be included in a featured version of this article. I'd suggest that the material in these external sites would be better incorporated into this article and appropriately referenced -- though I'm more than happy to discuss the validity of these links here. MidgleyDJ (talk) 21:30, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Links 

message: "One study of two organic farming systems and one conventional found that, in one year's severe crop season drought, organic soybean yields were 52% and 96% higher than the conventional system and organic maize yields were 37% higher in one system, but 62% lower in the other." has 2 links both of which are dead so I'm removing the sentence. Disagreeableneutrino (talk) 10:32, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing sentence because of dead links 

message: i removed these passages from the related movements section because there don't really discuss related movements (already a dubious section in my humble opinion), maybe they can be used elsewhere:
The "buy local" movement is also related to the organic movement. Michael Pollan, author of “The Omnivore's Dilemma”, notes that in the whole chain of food production and distribution, only one-fifth of the energy is used on the farm, the rest in distribution. Yet a report published by DEFRA, Britain's environment and farming ministry, concluded that shifts toward a local food production and distribution system, as advocated by many organic food proponents, would actually increase the amount of energy being invested in food due to the a higher level of small-scale transport systems, which suffer from inefficiencies compared to standard large-scale supermarket systems.
As highlighted by a recent New York Times article, food supply is a global issue that will become increasingly prominent in the near future.  "Everywhere, the cost of food is rising sharply. Whether the world is in for a long period of continued increases has become one of the most urgent issues in economics.  ...  Farmers the world over are producing flat-out. American agricultural exports are expected to increase 23 percent this year to $101 billion, a record. The world’s grain stockpiles have fallen to the lowest levels in decades.
'Everyone wants to eat like an American on this globe,' said Daniel W. Basse of the AgResource Company, a Chicago consultancy. 'But if they do, we’re going to need another two or three globes to grow it all.'"  Given the debate around Organic's ability to match the yields of conventional methods and the rising global demand for food, this debate is likely to see increased scrutiny in the future.
Truetom (talk) 20:17, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: by the way i think the defra thing is bogus , cannot read the economist article without subscription but if it is this study that they refer to it does not come to the mentioned conclusion 
Truetom (talk) 20:43, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  removed passages from related movements 

message: I put this reference about organic food using manure would be unable to feed the world back to the yield section.  The summary listed the removal as a "dubious ref" but it's credited to a knowlegable author and supports the statement made in the wiki article. Disagreeableneutrino (talk) 11:10, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: i contest that this is a reference worth using, the author might be a scientist, but this is a piece of opinion on what appears to be a blog, the following passage is from the reference:"Third, organic foods MAY be less safe for consumption than foods grown by conventional means. Because organic farmers use MANURE which can contain deadly strains of E. coli, salmonella, etc. there is a higher chance of picking up a bacterial infection from organically grown crops than from conventionally grown crops. The chance may be slight, but it IS higher than from food produced the conventional way. I wonder why organic food sellers don't LABEL their foods to warn consumers of that fact that there may be a chance of getting a bacterial infection and to wash their organic food well. IF THEY ARE CONCERNED ABOUT HUMAN HEALTH, THIS SHOULD BE A NO-BRAINER."
the whole article does not refer to any scientific work, it just repeats assertions like the organics/salmonella connection that was started by Dennis Avery.Truetom (talk) 20:00, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Added previously deleted reference 

message: What about the Criticism? People who eat organic foods are more likely to get sick more often, nonorganic foods with slight traces of pesticides that are taken in unleathal dosages gradualy increase resistance to some poisons, & it being a FDA/ASDA money making scheme.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.19.236.142 (talk) 05:32, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I also agree.  Chrisrus (talk) 02:14, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism? 

message: i propose to merge what is worth saving from the article Organic baby products into this article under a section called organic baby food, if people would find that notable. i will propose the baby product article for deletion.Truetom (talk) 20:02, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  organic baby products 

message: Please view the film here. I would like to add it as an external link if enough people think it is suitable. Thanks.
Willsmore (talk) 15:12, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry this video is retarded. Organic is about reducing toxic pesticide residue, not about the number of kcals. A British accent does not an intelligent person make. --Joelrosenblum (talk) 19:23, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

text: I would tend to agree, pesticide residue, not "calories", is the issue.  You could use this to cite a statement that in essence says "Orgainic food can be much more expensive", I suppose.  Chrisrus (talk) 02:23, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cheap food vs organic food video 

message: This article should probably say more about what pesticides and other pest control measures are used by organic farming rather than just talk at length about potential harm from other pesticides.  It hardly seems worth repeatedly mentioning that organic food has less "chemical" pesticide residue on it considering that should be obvious as those pesticides aren't used on them.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.154.132.108 (talk) 04:10, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  pesticides section 

message: I think the following table doesn't really belong here, because it, as far as I can see, deals with pesticides in food generally, and not specifically pesticide residues in organic food, which is the subject here. Perhaps it could fit in pesticide or general food safety? Mikael Häggström (talk) 16:02, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Residue

message: Such as the soil association?
It would be useful to know what the standards are and who implements them
195.59.163.125 (talk) 09:17, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  What organic accredited bodies are involved 

message: I know there is some controversy surrounding organic foods including links to E-coli outbreaks and other negative impacts and this article doesn't list anything negative. GWatson • TALK 11:12, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There may be some weasel words in the article too, affecting its neutrality.  For instance, the Energy Efficiency subsection of the Environmental Impact section contains the text "Some studies are also consistent in showing that organic farms are more energy efficient.", which is followed by only a single example.192.31.106.34 (talk) 20:51, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV check 

message: "Organic foods are made according to certain production standards. The use of conventional non-organic pesticides, insecticides and herbicides is greatly restricted and avoided as a last resort. However, contrary to popular belief, certain non-organic fertilizers are still used."
Doesn't the last sentence just depend on which "certain production standards" are applied?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Noloop (talk • contribs) 15:50, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The lead 

message: The article describes one definition of the word “organic” which is dependant on the decree of a state.  This is very daunting for the reader, because just to understand a simple word printed on a package one has to hold in mind the technical details of arcane government regulations subject to change at any moment and vary from place to place.  This is unavoidable, the simple "nature of the beast”, as it were.  And I think this is a very good article, but it could be better.  The reader likely has simple questions and cold be better served if these were given a more prominent place.  
I imagine readers who might have seen the word on some package and wants to know how to understand it: “healthier”, “better for the environment”, “less economically exploitative of people such as farmers or workers”, “superior flavor”, “animals treated less cruely”?  And by calling this banana "organic" and the other ones over there "not", does that mean the non-organic bananas have poison on them and the orgainic ones don't, so I should go ahead and buy these at triple the price?  And if the others over here are poison, what are they doing on sale in my supermarket?  I mean, I don't think most people would agree that it's ok for the supermarket to be selling bananas that aren't safe, that have some poisonous pesticide on them, would they?  So why are they even available for sale if they are that bad?  So they must not be that bad, but what does "not that bad" mean to me?  And I dare say, what's this stuff I hear about the whole thing being if not some enormous scam, then maybe some complicated emergent property of economically interested parties taking advantage of a system which needs fixing?  Or even "completely wrongheaded"?  Any truth to those rumors?  At least some of these questions should be more prodominantly stressed in the article? 
Well, I may have gone a bit too far with some of those questions.  It comes down to this, which bananas do I buy?  It would be best to organize this as a sort of  NPOV report of arguments for and against, and let the reader decide.  It should list knowably false common beliefs and state knowable benefits of organic food as simple facts.  We just want to know how to choose bananas.  Chrisrus (talk) 20:51, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bananas 

message: It appears to my eye, that the citation used in  this section is incorrectly stating that this research was published Nature. I scanned nature for the author and it did not seem that this was published in Nature.
I've tracked down where this citation originally came to be. The next revision to the page even noted the dubiousness of the cited research, in that it was straight to press and not peer reviewed. That was quickly removed citing original research, but the citation to the "Nature" article remains. Some time has passed since this research was published, and I assume some have critiqued the work. If someone has the time, please at least verify the citation, but then if someone could further investigate if this research is even valid anymore.Matt Yohe (talk) 06:39, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dubious 'Nature' citation 

message: Article says: 
 Organic food not grown in the US is not inspected by anyone." 
This is NOT TRUE, for a list of inspection bodies outside US check: 
http://www.organic-europe.net/europe_eu/inspection.asp
Article continues:
The labeling of organic food grown outside of the US is based on the farmer's word.[5]
Web site linked to DOES NOT CONTAIN SUCH INFORMATION (only mentions that China doesn't allow international bodies control their farms. Here's the link: http://www.alternet.org/environment/94146/is_your_organic_food_really_organic/)
--Swawrzyczek (talk) 08:30, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: go ahead and change itChrisrus (talk) 14:20, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  False Information, bad citation