Why I Don't Buy Organic, And Why You Might Not Want To As Well

Some delicious, conventional Asian Pears

Originally Posted On Forbes 3/19

I don’t buy organic foods. In fact I specifically avoid doing so. It’s not my place to tell anyone else what to do, but I’d like to lay out three, seriously considered factors that have shaped my personal stance on organic:

1. Informed confidence that we are safe buying “conventional” foods
2. Recognizing that some of the best farming practices from an environmental perspective are not always allowed or practical under the organic rules
3. An ethical problem with the tactics that some organic advocates and marketers employ which seriously misrepresents their “conventional” competition

For the last 40 years my wife and I have shared the shopping and cooking for our mostly home-based meals. We have always gardened, but also buy much of our fruit- and vegetable-rich diet from stores. When I say I don’t buy organic, that involves frequent decisions.

By all rights I should be an enthusiastic advocate and consumer of organic. I was a child of the generation influenced by “Silent Spring.” I was a dues-paying member of the Wilderness Society in high school. I grew up helping my beloved grandfather in his organic garden in the 1960s.  Some of our best friends in the late 1970s were pioneers in the development of the commercial organic industry. I’ve spent a significant proportion of my career developing biological and natural product-based pesticides which are applicable to organic. I fully appreciate the contribution that the organic movement made in the early 20^th century when it highlighted the importance of fostering soil health. My problems with institutional organic are not at all about its founding ideals or about organic farmers, but rather about organic's self-imposed limitations and about the ethics of a sub-set of its promoters.

Confidence in the Conventional Food Supply

The USDA, which oversees the foods labeled as "Certified Organic", states quite clearly on its website about its role in organic,  that "Our regulations do not address food safety or nutrition."  Foods labelled "Certified Organic" must adhere to certain rules and regulations but aren't endowed with any particular nutritional or safety features. However, many consumers believe that the Organic label means the food has superior nutrition and is safer, especially in regard to pesticide residues.  This is not true. Studies have shown no appreciable difference in nutrition between crops grown either organically or conventionally.

As for the safety issue. When most people hear the word “pesticide,” they imagine something scary in terms of toxicity to humans and the environment. The reality is that modern agriculture employs an integrated suite of non-pesticidal control measures, and the actual pesticides used today are mostly relatively non-toxic to humans. Organic farmers also use pesticides, and the products they are allowed to use are constrained with few exceptions by whether they can be considered “natural.” That is not a safety standard since many of the most toxic chemicals known are “natural.” Like all pesticides, these natural options are subject to EPA scrutiny, and so the pesticides that organic farmers are allowed to use are “safe when used according to the label requirements” which is the same standard for synthetic pesticides allowed on conventional crops. When it comes to pesticide residues on our food, there is a USDA testing program that demonstrates year after year that the pesticide residues on both organic and conventional foods are at such low levels that we need not worry about them. I confidently buy non-organic foods based on this public data that demonstrates that our system is working and that we consumers are well-protected.

My granddaughter enjoying "conventional" raspberries (yes, she did then eat them)

What the USDA data demonstrates is that the environmental movement was not a failure - it effected real change over the past 5 decades! We don’t have a two-tiered food supply in terms of safety in which only those who can afford the premiums get safe food. I also believe the global scientific consensus that“GMO” foods are safe, and so I don’t need to buy organic to avoid those.

This No-Till Field is good for the environment and the food supply 

Environmental Idealism

I have always been concerned about the human impact on the environment, and particularly about the impact of farming since that industry has the largest “footprint” in terms of land area. I spend a lot of time reading the scientific literature concerning agriculture and the environment. Some of the farming practices that are commonly employed on organic farms are very positive from an environmental perspective, but those practices are also used by progressive “conventional” growers. There are also quite a few farming practices with excellent environmental profiles which are difficult to implement under the organic farming rules (e.g. no-till farming, spoon-feeding of nutrients via irrigation). Compost, which is a major input for organic farms, has a shockingly high “carbon footprint” because of methane emissions. The carbon footprint of “synthetic” fertilizer is much smaller.

From an environmental perspective, the biggest issue for organic is that it requires significantly more land to achieve the same level of production. Were organic to become more than a niche category, this yield gap would be highly problematic from an environmental point of view.  I would much rather buy food from "land-sparing" farmingsystems.

Organic yields are substantially lower for many major crops

Ethical Issues

My third reason for not buying organic has to do with ethics. Organic exists as a sort of “super brand” that transcends anyone marketing under that banner. Unfortunately, within the organic realm there are certain major marketers (and advocacy groups they fund) who employ fear-based and falsehood-based messages to demonize “conventional” foods.  They use these methods as a means to promote organic. One of the most egregious examples is the “Old McDonald/New McDonald” video funded by Only Organic – a consortium of very large organic marketers. This bizarre publicity piece exploits children to depict a completely distorted view of mainstream farming.  I consider it to be "hate speech for profit."

Another example is the organic-industry-funded Environmental Working Group which grossly distorts that transparent, USDA, public database documenting the safety of the food supply and turns it into a “dirty dozen list” designed to drive organic sales. These are extreme examples, but the organic marketing community as a whole quietly benefits from this sort of propaganda and does nothing to correct the “convenient fiction” that organic means no pesticides. I realize that only part of the organic industry funds and promotes the most vicious sort of disinformation, but I rarely see organic representatives standing up and objecting to the sort of fear-mongering that ultimately benefits the sales for the entire super-brand.

The fear-based messaging drives the intense social pressure, that parents in particular feel, about whether they need to buy organic. I don’t want any part in rewarding this sort of fear/shame-based marketing. In the absence of a significant objection from more of the organic community, I don't want to support the "super brand."

So, these are my reasons for not buying organic products. I feel perfectly comfortable buying the alternatives that align with my practical, idealistic and ethical standards.

Please feel free to comment here and/or to email me at savage.sd@gmail.com

Inconvenient Truth: There Are Pesticide Residues On Organic

(Originally posted on Forbes 2/8/16)

A recent review article in the scientific journal Nature Plants makes the claim that organic produces "foods that contain less (or no) pesticide residues, compared with conventional farming."  That's not what the latest USDA-PDP (Pesticide Data Program) information about pesticide residues says. What that transparent source of tax payer-supported research indicates is that 40 different synthetic pesticide residues were detected on organic food samples at levels similar to what was seen for the comparable conventional food samples. In both cases the amounts are too small to be a health/safety concern, but this certainly does not fit the standard organic narrative.

Commodity breakdown of the food samples used
for pesticide residue testing in 2014

For the 2014 survey, USDA scientists collected just over 10,000 samples of 15 crops taken from ordinary retail food channels.  The scientists then used extremely sensitive laboratory methods to check for traces of hundreds of different chemicals.  409 of the samples were labeled as organic, and residues were detected in 87 of them.  Thus 21% of the organic samples had detectable residues representing 142 detections in 78 crop/chemical combinations.  That detection percent is lower than for conventional, but the PDP testing does not have the capacity to detect several of the most commonly used, organic-approved pesticides like sulfur, copper compounds, mineral oils or Bt.  Those materials can't be measured with the same technology used for the other chemicals, so the USDA has chosen not to test for them. If they did, the detection percentage for organic would be much higher.  One organic-approved pesticide that is measured by the USDA is called Spinosad, and it was detected on 13 organic crops as expected.  However, the other 40 of the 41 different pesticides detected on the organic foods were synthetic chemicals that are not approved for use on organic.

Finding synthetic pesticide residues on organic is not unprecedented.  Earlier, larger surveys of organic conducted by the USDA and by Canadian Food Inspection Agency found un-approved residues in at least 40% of samples.  The normal explanation of this is that it represents inadvertent spray drift or cross-contamination in harvesting bins etc.  Many of the detections are at such low levels they fit those scenarios, but interestingly when I looked at the conventional detections for the same 78 chemical/crop combinations, the organic detections were only significantly lower in 26 cases, and the organic detections were equal to or higher than those in conventional for 30 cases (see chart below).

Note how for many chemical/crop combinations the level
detected in organic was similar to or greater than
that in conventional samples

For organic advocates and organic marketers this sort of information leaves one of two possibilities.  They can agree with the EPA and other responsible agencies that consumers need not be concerned about the low-level pesticide residues found in either conventional and organic food.  Alternatively they could choose not to believe those authorities and be forced to conclude that organic food is unsafe.  For consumers the logical take-home message is that between our rigorous regulatory regime and our responsible farming communities, we can enjoy a safe, healthy diet full of fruits and vegetables without having to believe that safety is only available at a price premium.

There are several ways that you can review this information for yourself.  The USDA published a "what consumers need to know" document, a fact sheet, and a 230 page summary.  They also make the raw data available for download (as long as you are up for processing a 2.2 million row, 98MB table).  I like to take advantage of all that detailed, transparent data, and I will be publishing a more complete, independent analysis soon.

Twenty-three percent of the detections in organic were of old organochlorine or organophosphate insecticides or their metabolites (e.g. DDT, monocrotophos...). These are persistent environmental contaminants (they have been banned for decades). These chemicals are found in both organic and conventional samples at levels in the low part per billion range. This is an unfortunate artifact of pre-EPA history, but fortunately not a current health threat.  Three point five percent of the organic detections were for currently-used carbamate and organophosphate insecticides (Oxamyl, Carbaryl and Chlorpyrifos and Dimethoate), but all at levels well below current safety tolerances.  Seven point seven percent of detections were of neonicitinoid insecticides, and 9% were synthetic pyrethroids.  Other insecticides made up 3.5% of the detections.  Fifteen different fungicides represent 25% of the detections. There were detections of two different herbicides, 2 of a miticide and 3 of an insecticide synergist. Again, these detections are, for both organic and conventional, at levels too low to be of concern.  Indeed, what the the data demonstrates is how far below.
The reason that the USDA has been conducting its Pesticide Detection Program since 1991 is to monitor how well the system is working to insure that farmers can control damaging pests and still supply food that is safe for consumers.  What the data has consistently shown is that these goals are being met and that consumers can confidently enjoy a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables.

However, an organization called the Environmental Working Group has severely mis-used these data year after year to construct what they call their "dirty dozen list."  They are funded by many of the big players in the organic market (Organic Valley, Stonyfield Farms, Earthbound Farms, Applegate, Klean Kanteen, Dr. Bronner Soaps, Beauty Counter, Juice Beauty, Brown Advisory, Nature’s Path, Annie’s), and their goal is to frighten consumers away from conventional food and towards organic. The problem is that their non-scientific approach of simply counting detections regardless of the level or identity of the chemical would classify organic as "dirty" as well.  Consumers should simply ignore the disinformation that comes from EWG and consider not supporting the companies that fund them.

You are welcome to comment here and/or to email me at savage.sd@gmail.com