North Korea to adopt organic farming!

[Created4]

Here are some good articles for those who think Big Ag is the solution to feeding the world:

Organic farming just as productive as conventional, and better at building soil, Rodale finds: http://www.grist.org/article/2011-0...organic-just-as-productive-better-at-building

Groundbreaking New UN Report on How to Feed the World's Hungry: Ditch Corporate-Controlled Agriculture: http://www.alternet.org/health/1501..._corporate-controlled_agriculture?page=entire

Debunking the stubborn myth that only industrial ag can ‘feed the world’: http://www.grist.org/industrial-agr...at-only-industrial-agriculture-can-feed-world

Why Is the State Department Using Our Money to Pimp for Monsanto? The State Department is using taxpayer money to help force genetically modified crops on other countries: http://www.alternet.org/story/15292...ng_our_money_to_pimp_for_monsanto?page=entire

 

[Icymudpuppy]

Your articles refer to a study in which organic fields were using crop rotation, feed lot rotation, and nitrogen fixing rotation, and the conventional was doing no rotation whatsoever and claiming the organic got better yields.

On our farm, we rotated the conventional and the organic, and the conventional got better yields. 1 year, Peas (a nitrogen fixing legume), 1 year wheat (a feed grain), 1 year cattle pasture seeded with fescue and ryegrass hay, 1 year hay, 1 year Oats, 1 year peas, 1 year barley. Rinse and repeat. A classic 7 year rotation cycle. Our conventionals on rotations got better yields than organic on rotation.

Your study isn't a double blind study. It uses a full compliment of agricultural technique for the organic, but specifically says the conventional was a single crop every year with no rotations of use. That's not using organic fertilizers and pest control methods, versus conventional fertilizers and pest control methods in an equal comparison. Even in that study where the organic was allowed to use crop rotation techniques, the conventional was only slightly less productive than the organic. In our operations, the organic and conventional side by side using the same advanced agricultural techniques the conventional performed about 20% better than organic.

Your studies are not properly conducted.

Also regarding the 8 year dog. That's not so special. My shortest lived dog made 15 years. A dachshund/terrier mix. My longest lived was a poodle/border collie mix and lived to 19. They both ate the cheapest brand dog food available at the Darigold farm and feed store.

 

[Xenophage]

Organic imaginary food

 

[Sovereign Curtis]

So you mean they'll be growing less food, for more labor, and thus there will be MORE hungry people, not less. Terrific.

 

[jmdrake]

Ah great. So now idiots are going to associate organic farming with communism.

 

[Working Poor]

North Korea already can't feed its people. Organic farming won't help. Although the quality of food from organic farming is better, the quantity/acre is less mostly due to competition from weeds, and insect predation. Herbicides and Pesticides may give you cancer or other problems from long term exposure after 50 years, but they feed a lot of people RIGHT NOW! Since North Koreans can only expect to live to about 65 anyway, what's a little cancer if they starve at 5.

Maybe they will allow hemp to grow to help with the weeds and insects and have a whole new industry as well.

 

[Icymudpuppy]

Maybe they will allow hemp to grow to help with the weeds and insects and have a whole new industry as well.

That would be nice.

 

[Zippyjuan]

North Korea doesn't have much alternative to organic farming even if they want to- fertilizers and pesticides are scarce. As is food. They can't produce enough to feed themselves. That is why about once a year they get all excited and do something militarily- and promise to stop doing it if they can get food in exchange.

 

[mello]

Penn & Teller have a great episode of their show "Bullshit" about organic farming.