Organic farming’s does less damage per acre than conventional farming but it damages more acres.
On a per unit produced, it does more environmental damage. So for every organic vegetable you purchase, it’s more environmentally damaging than conventional.
Interesting! I guess I’m not surprised that organic farming is overall worse for the environment.
I only had time to skim the abstract - does it make any conclusions about the health impact of the reduced pesticides?
Edit: also, the other commenter is admittedly correct in one aspect: this article doesn’t analyze American agriculture. Even non-“organic” food producers in Europe go way easier on the pesticides than American farmers, no?
When it comes to health impacts there is no evidence that eating pesticide treated food has any health effects when used according to the label. Most of the really bad chemistries were cleared out in the '80s and '90s. The bad ones that remain are more environmental issues or dangerous to applicators.
In nutritional content there is evidence that a few crops have higher nutritional value when grown conventionally (greater nutrient availability).Some crops have higher nutritional content when grown organically (lower yield = more nutrients per fruit). Most of the time there is zero difference.
No the European union and the U.S. are pretty close on the chemistries they use. They do have some stricter Maximum Residue Limits (MRL’s). However these are more for trade limitations than anything else. Producers inside the EU do not have the same standards or testing.
No just don’t trust downloading random pdf files that could cause harm to my system. Also if the overall scientific consensus says Organic is good in the US that is still good enough for me. Makes for happier animals and better quality products. Now if in Europe Organic has different standards that is not a US issue. This post started on USDA Organic standards not Europe.
No, it says “not necessarily per product unit”. Your characterization of the abstract is incomplete as it doesn’t definitely state what you’re claiming it states. It’s also a euro meta analysis, not a US analysis, so extrapolating your oversimplified conclusion is even more of a stretch since we’re talking about the USDA. I’m more concerned about carbon, water use, pollinator collapse, and a host of other metrics than NOx (which is a function of diesel emissions standards and crop yield, and can be fixed independently).
Okay, a scientific literature meta-analysis. This is basically summary paper of all the references listed.
https://r.jordan.im/download/organic/tuomisto2012.pdf
I paper basically says
Organic farming’s does less damage per acre than conventional farming but it damages more acres.
On a per unit produced, it does more environmental damage. So for every organic vegetable you purchase, it’s more environmentally damaging than conventional.
Please link to official website and not a random document to download. No one should be downloading untrusted files from the internet.
Somebody has no clue about scientific papers and avoiding publishers … FYI the authors generally host it to get more citations.
Here’s the official publisher if you would like to pay for it.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301479712004264
Interesting! I guess I’m not surprised that organic farming is overall worse for the environment.
I only had time to skim the abstract - does it make any conclusions about the health impact of the reduced pesticides?
Edit: also, the other commenter is admittedly correct in one aspect: this article doesn’t analyze American agriculture. Even non-“organic” food producers in Europe go way easier on the pesticides than American farmers, no?
When it comes to health impacts there is no evidence that eating pesticide treated food has any health effects when used according to the label. Most of the really bad chemistries were cleared out in the '80s and '90s. The bad ones that remain are more environmental issues or dangerous to applicators.
In nutritional content there is evidence that a few crops have higher nutritional value when grown conventionally (greater nutrient availability).Some crops have higher nutritional content when grown organically (lower yield = more nutrients per fruit). Most of the time there is zero difference.
No the European union and the U.S. are pretty close on the chemistries they use. They do have some stricter Maximum Residue Limits (MRL’s). However these are more for trade limitations than anything else. Producers inside the EU do not have the same standards or testing.
No just don’t trust downloading random pdf files that could cause harm to my system. Also if the overall scientific consensus says Organic is good in the US that is still good enough for me. Makes for happier animals and better quality products. Now if in Europe Organic has different standards that is not a US issue. This post started on USDA Organic standards not Europe.
No, it says “not necessarily per product unit”. Your characterization of the abstract is incomplete as it doesn’t definitely state what you’re claiming it states. It’s also a euro meta analysis, not a US analysis, so extrapolating your oversimplified conclusion is even more of a stretch since we’re talking about the USDA. I’m more concerned about carbon, water use, pollinator collapse, and a host of other metrics than NOx (which is a function of diesel emissions standards and crop yield, and can be fixed independently).