damightyanteater wrote:BTW, what is roundup?

Indiscriminate herbicide sold over the counter. It works really well at killing unwanted vegetation provided you spray it on an actively growing plants foliage. As soon as I get a sunny day, I've got a date with a spray bottle and my yard!

damightyanteater wrote:Wow Peter. Great blog post. Thanks for the look into the agriculture business that so many of us would never see. Also it was pretty funny to see again with all thing bureaucratic (in this case organic certification) that common sense usually goes out the window.

BTW, what is roundup?

It's a systemic contact herbicide. English version: a product that kills growing plants, roots and all, but not germinating seeds. The active ingredient is called glyphosate, which is less toxic to animals than some of the "inert" ingredients (soap-like compounds that help get it past the protective surface of leaves. It is absorbed into plants quickly and is inactivated if it comes into contact with soil. We need a permit to buy and use it, and we have to file reports of when, where, how much, and what dilution. Homeowners can buy it and use it without restriction (but with common sense, I hope).

great article! for some reason, organic food didn't sit well with me. i just didn't know why. now i have a very good information about them to make decisions... mwhahhahaaha

SonomaBouliste wrote:I checked after I wrote it and I had it right the first time. If you have any Polish friends it's pretty intuitive - how else would you spell it?

I have a number of Polish friends, and just married one two-and-a- half weeks ago. There's a significant Polish population in Western NY. While you're probably right about Kaczynski, there are many names, particularly the longer ones, that have wider variations in spelling possibilities. This is especially true of those from the Eastern part of Poland, where the Russian influence on the language requires transliteration to our alphabet. The Anglicization that many Polish names have undergone, both in spelling and pronunciation, in an effort to make immigrants' names more user-friendly for Americans has muddied the waters even further. As the PA announcer for many sporting events in WNY over the past 40 years, I learned to inquire about which of several possible pronunciations a particular individual might prefer, because I often couldn't even rely on the scorebook to have the "correct" spelling.

yumitori wrote: I just know that if I read it, I will discover how many of you are complete and total bloody idiots because you do not think exactly like I do.

Classic. An eloquent reminder of how most of us think, most of the time, IMHO.

SonomaBouliste wrote: Necessity is the mother of invention (hey, that'd be a good name for a band, eh?).

I'm really loving this whole thread. I'm especially grateful for the perspective you offered in the opener. There was a lot there that I didn't know enough to think about that way.
And then there's the incredible charm of little bits like this one, which illustrate the importance of reading every word you write.
(Folks, he's also a wonderful dinner companion.)

ddeuddeg wrote:I have a number of Polish friends, and just married one two-and-a- half weeks ago. There's a significant Polish population in Western NY. While you're probably right about Kaczynski, there are many names, particularly the longer ones, that have wider variations in spelling possibilities. This is especially true of those from the Eastern part of Poland, where the Russian influence on the language requires transliteration to our alphabet. The Anglicization that many Polish names have undergone, both in spelling and pronunciation, in an effort to make immigrants' names more user-friendly for Americans has muddied the waters even further. As the PA announcer for many sporting events in WNY over the past 40 years, I learned to inquire about which of several possible pronunciations a particular individual might prefer, because I often couldn't even rely on the scorebook to have the "correct" spelling.

I was kzjokcijng

SonomaBouliste wrote:I was kzjokcijng

I must say that I appreciated this article as well, not just for the angle of "organic" as it relates to wine but organics in general. I'm a former nutrition major myself, and as a broke college student, the only time I ever really find myself eating anything organic is if I like the taste of the product better than its conventional counterpart and/or it has a better nutritional profile. I do adore a Cinnamon Toast Crunch knock-off with 3 grams of fiber in 110 calories and only 8 grams of sugar. But I digress.

As victims of health media, we hear about things like "the dirty dozen" (the 12 produce items with the most pesticides) and hormones and antibiotics in our dairy and meat supply, and it's often hard for us consumers to break down all of that information and decipher what's a bunch of nonsense versus what's valid. As someone else said, there are many issues of importance that most of us just do not have the time to investigate.

Fortunately (IMO), there are people like you out there who are able to intellectually whack us on our heads and make us think of things from a different perspective. So thank you for a refreshing point of view.

SonomaBouliste wrote:Well, excuuuuuuse me. I just went outside and pointed the camera towards myself and took a bunch of shots. This is the only one that didn't look real dorky or have a reflection off my glasses or show my arm holding the camera. Sorry if it scares anyone (Java).

Peter,
I like it. I was getting a little tired of looking at mine.

amigoni wrote:I run a commercial winery and vineyard in Kansas City. We couldn't be organic if we wanted. If we were organic, we would end up with mummified black rotted grapes.

Like growing grapes in Germany. To much humidity to be organic.

ScottHarveyWines wrote:Peter,
I like it. I was getting a little tired of looking at mine.

Scott, please come back soon
with another blog.

Peter,

I have many years of Environmental Economics and Policy/Environmental Studies under my belt from my degrees and practice. Cheers- for helping people understand a seemingly simple issue is complex- like everything else. Thanks for cutting through the organic brainwash marketing/social movement. If all farmers cared as much about our ecosystem as you, we would be in a better place.

This is a litte o/t, but I thought Peter might appreciate hearing the kind words Wine Exchange in Orange had to say about him:

{In reference to an offering of Saxon Brown 2005 Zin Casa Santinamaria Vineyard}

Our love affair with this very special vineyard site began back in the early 90's with, at first, a couple tremendous releases from at-the-time Zin master Peter Wellington. Peter's Zinfandel from this Sonoma Valley vineyard was indeed special, the unique field blend of 100+ year old vines capturing more than just the essence of Zinfandel; it captured the essence of the place.

Thanks to everyone for the kind comments. I really expected to get at least a little flak. I'll be back in a few weeks with another blog, maybe not so much of a rant.

Keep sending suggestions for topics and maybe you'll entice more blogs from Scott and myself.

Here's more from Norman Borlaug (who, along with the similarly-inclined though less successful Fred Soper, is one of the people I admire most) on his 95th birthday (from an interview from 9 years ago), a well-deserved (unlike some of them!) winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

Reason: What do you think of organic farming? A lot of people claim it's better for human health and the environment.

Borlaug: That's ridiculous. This shouldn't even be a debate. Even if you could use all the organic material that you have--the animal manures, the human waste, the plant residues--and get them back on the soil, you couldn't feed more than 4 billion people. In addition, 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.

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? There's a lot of nonsense going on here.

If people want to believe that the organic food has better nutritive value, it's up to them to make that foolish decision. But there's absolutely no research that shows that organic foods provide better nutrition. As far as plants are concerned, they can't tell whether that nitrate ion comes from artificial chemicals or from decomposed organic matter. If some consumers believe that it's better from the point of view of their health to have organic food, God bless them. Let them buy it. Let them pay a bit more. It's a free society. But don't tell the world that we can feed the present population without chemical fertilizer. That's when this misinformation becomes destructive...

Reason: Environmentalists say agricultural biotech will harm biodiversity.

Borlaug: I don't believe that. If we grow our food and fiber on the land best suited to farming with the technology that we have and what's coming, including proper use of genetic engineering and biotechnology, we will leave untouched vast tracts of land, with all of their plant and animal diversity. It is because we use farmland so effectively now that President Clinton was recently able to set aside another 50 or 60 million acres of land as wilderness areas. That would not have been possible had it not been for the efficiency of modern agriculture.

In 1960, the production of the 17 most important food, feed, and fiber crops--virtually all of the important crops grown in the U.S. at that time and still grown today--was 252 million tons. By 1990, it had more than doubled, to 596 million tons, and was produced on 25 million fewer acres than were cultivated in 1960. If we had tried to produce the harvest of 1990 with the technology of 1960, we would have had to have increased the cultivated area by another 177 million hectares, about 460 million more acres of land of the same quality--which we didn't have, and so it would have been much more. We would have moved into marginal grazing areas and plowed up things that wouldn't be productive in the long run. We would have had to move into rolling mountainous country and chop down our forests. President Clinton would not have had the nice job of setting aside millions of acres of land for restricted use, where you can't cut a tree even for paper and pulp or for lumber. So all of this ties together.

This applies to forestry, too. I'm pleased to see that some of the forestry companies are very modern and using good management, good breeding systems. Weyerhauser is Exhibit A. They are producing more wood products per unit of area than the old unmanaged forests. Producing trees this way means millions of acres can be left to natural forests.

DDT would save tens of millions of lives on the continent of Africa, eradicate malaria and usher in a new age of prosperity to the sub-saharan countries. That apparently is not as important as propaganda.

Don't believe the hype.