{"items": [{"author": "Jeffrey", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/monday-july-12-2010-why-i-dont-buy-organic/408587106212/?comment_id=408592506212", "anchor": "fb-408592506212", "service": "fb", "text": "So I'm not huge into organic myself, but I do believe in buying local when possible, and largely because of the environmental impact aspect. I'd be curious to hear more about why you think this is less of an issue.

We consume more of food than anything. The average piece of produce travels 1,500 miles to get to our plate. If you eat avocados, pineapples, coffee, etc, it's even more. Add up all the food we eat, and that's a lot of food trucked from all over the country and world. The global agriculatural market system is an unsustainable modern monstrosity

I do think there are some interesting class issues with the organic/local movement, and I always become a bit distressed when I see a fancy hippy grocery store moving into a neighborhood where the majority of the long-time residents can't afford it. (The blog \"Stuff White People Like\" once satirically stated, \"If we can usher in the peaceful revolution of the world's poor and oppressed, they, too, can shop at Whole Foods!)

I also think there's a broader issue with the myth of virtuous consumerism -- that by consuming the right products (eg organic) it's more OK if we overconsume.", "timestamp": "1278949445"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/monday-july-12-2010-why-i-dont-buy-organic/408587106212/?comment_id=408596646212", "anchor": "fb-408596646212", "service": "fb", "text": "The environmental impact of buying local is complex. Shipping is, per pound, unbelievably efficient. So it doesn't really matter much if an apple moves 1500 miles over sea because very little pollution was expended to move it that far. Furthermore, most of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with food is from production, not transportation. \"Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail
contributes only 4%.\" [1] So I'm not convinced that buying locally grown food has much of an environmental benefit.

If I were convinced that there was a substantial benefit to buying locally grown food, then there would be the question of whether the additional cost of local food over the cheapest option is worth it. That money could be going to limit the spread of TB. Is it best used by buying local or in internationl aid?

[1] http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1021/es702969f", "timestamp": "1278950336"}, {"author": "Sarah", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/monday-july-12-2010-why-i-dont-buy-organic/408587106212/?comment_id=408603441212", "anchor": "fb-408603441212", "service": "fb", "text": "I had a similar struggle in deciding to buy organic so I made up a little scenario to see if I would be willing to ingest the same poisons under different circumstances: Imagine if the only food that was available was organic, but you could get paid two dollars a day if you were willing to feed your family a daily pill containing a small amount of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. The FDA is pretty sure the pill won't poison you or your kids in those amounts, but they won't swear by it. However you would have an extra two bucks in your pocket to do whatever you wanted. Would I eat the chemicals? Would I feed poison pills to my kids for any amount of money? No way! Now in daily practice if I have a choice to buy organic, I do. Even better if I can support a neighbor small farmer.", "timestamp": "1278951967"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/monday-july-12-2010-why-i-dont-buy-organic/408587106212/?comment_id=408610641212", "anchor": "fb-408610641212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Sarah: If these pest/herb/fungicide pills are dangerous, they're only very slightly dangerous. But $2/day is $730/year. That could be roughly 1-5 deaths averted each year [1]. I'd say the very small risk to myself of non-organic food does not outweigh the good that money could be doing elsewhere.

[1] http://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/stop-TB", "timestamp": "1278953350"}, {"author": "Christopher", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/monday-july-12-2010-why-i-dont-buy-organic/408587106212/?comment_id=408619596212", "anchor": "fb-408619596212", "service": "fb", "text": "I have found that some things purchased from farmer's markets (almost certainly local, not necessarily organic) can be cheaper than the equivalents at the grocery store. Bell peppers and zucchini, for instance.", "timestamp": "1278954805"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/monday-july-12-2010-why-i-dont-buy-organic/408587106212/?comment_id=408621916212", "anchor": "fb-408621916212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Chris: buying produce at haymarket (cheap open air market in downtown boston, near julia's work) is substantially cheaper than either farmer's markets or grocery stores, though.

In cases where farmers' markets are the cheaper option, I agree, they make a lot of sense. It's really only in big cities that you get open air markets for standard produce.", "timestamp": "1278955283"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/monday-july-12-2010-why-i-dont-buy-organic/408587106212/?comment_id=408793281212", "anchor": "fb-408793281212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Herbert: I agree with you that organic and fair trade both make the world a better place. The question is whether they are the best way to do that. Imagine I set up a \"make food be organic\" charity. The way it works is that people donate money, and then the charity finds organizations like prisons that would not normally use organic food and pays the price premium so that organic food will be used instead. Assuming this was a well run low overhead charity, do you think it would be a good use of your money? Would you shift your giving from the \"sustainable agricultural ones in developing countries (and Medecins Sans Frontieres)\" that you currently support?", "timestamp": "1278986011"}, {"author": "Sassona", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/monday-july-12-2010-why-i-dont-buy-organic/408587106212/?comment_id=408818041212", "anchor": "fb-408818041212", "service": "fb", "text": "Or just join or form a food coop or other network where the organization buys organic food wholesale, and sells it cheaply to its worker-members. That way you can have your organic fairtrade banana and eat it too. It works brilliantly at the Park Slope Food Coop. I spend $20 on food per week, and eat almost all organically grown everything.", "timestamp": "1278991212"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/monday-july-12-2010-why-i-dont-buy-organic/408587106212/?comment_id=408915176212", "anchor": "fb-408915176212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Johanna: over the last six months, buying primarily at grocery stores and haymarket, we've averaged $18.97/person/week on food. [1] Is $20 a guess or the actual number? Is it for all your meals?

If the price premium of organic food is only $1.03, that's not very much. But I suspect forming a non-organic food coop would be even cheaper.

[1] http://sccs.swarthmore.edu/~cbr/news/2010-07-06.html", "timestamp": "1279024561"}, {"author": "Sassona", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/monday-july-12-2010-why-i-dont-buy-organic/408587106212/?comment_id=408944111212", "anchor": "fb-408944111212", "service": "fb", "text": "$20 is the cap number, with some change left over sometime.

I think your picture is a bit incomplete, Jeff.
In terms of the local food debate: buying food from far away, that has or hasn't an \"organic\" or \"fair trade\" label, is not just an issue of using too much fossil fuel, but is also an issue of not being able to find out how the food was produced--under what environmental conditions and human labor conditions. If you are buying from small local farms, their practices tend to be more easily accessible to you, the local consumer.

The problem with non-organic food is, in addition to the pesticides, which destroy soil, and require for revitalization excessive amounts of usually synthetic, often toxic (ironically) fertilizers, is the issue of quantity. Non-organic farms in America are usually (I'm sure not always, though I am also sure that whatever you get in your regular run of the mill grocery store IS) huge, monocrop farms that are, just because of the way they've been systemically developed, totally destroying any kind of biodiversity in food, making the crops susceptible to mass blight and other massive killer diseases that wipe out nation-wide crops of a certain kind.
Organic farms aren't always smaller, but tend to be. And again, it's easier to know the size of the farm if it's nearby and is a transparent kind of organization, which again, is more likely to be the organic farm, since it has no deadly chemicals to hide.

Finally, I think that spending a little extra money on ethical food is very effective. SOOO many of the hunger and economic problems abroad are because of American industrial food intervensions, which are sometimes called \"food aid\". America has taken to dumping its excess grains onto places like Haiti and Ethiopia, for example, where local farmers already grow the same products. Because America's subsidized grain is so cheap to grow, it is sold very cheaply in these countries, putting local farmers out of business. Where farming is the center of an economy, putting farmers out of business means destroying the local economy, and the country becomes devastated, and dependent on \"aid\" from other countries.

When buying non-organic, non-local, non-fair trade mainstream produce, chances are you're supporting corporations that are in some way connected to this very devastating system.
Same goes for supporting many food aid programs--you're just contributing money to a system of other countries' dependence on our very out of balance, unjust \"food\" production system.
So I think that spending extra money on food that you REALLY know is ethically produced not only makes you and the ground healthier, but also helps put the breaks on the vicious global cycle of food-based exploitation.", "timestamp": "1279031921"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/monday-july-12-2010-why-i-dont-buy-organic/408587106212/?comment_id=408949451212", "anchor": "fb-408949451212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Johanna: First, I think I've been confusing when talking about international aid. I don't support propping american farming up with price floors and then sending the surplus abroad as \"aid\". I agree that this is incredibly damaging to the food production economies in the regions it is trying to help. Oxfam has a good writeup on this: http://www.oxfam.org/en/policy/food-aid-or-hidden-dumping

When I say that for us the alternative to spending money to get organic food is to give to an international aid organization, I mean Oxfam America. Their work is primarily about development, finding effective local organizations and giving them financial and logistical support. An example: http://www.oxfam.org/.../honduras-people-learn-improve...

Second, I'd ask you the same question I asked herbert above: Imagine I set up a \"make food be organic\" charity. The way it works is that people donate money, and then the charity finds organizations like prisons that would not normally use organic food and pays the price premium so that organic food will be used instead. Assuming this was a well run low overhead charity, do you think it would be a good use of your money? Would you shift your giving from wherever you currently give to this charity?

I see money spent on organic food to be equivalent to giving to this \"make food organic\" charity, and I believe that oxfam does more to make the world better than this charity would.", "timestamp": "1279033282"}, {"author": "Sassona", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/monday-july-12-2010-why-i-dont-buy-organic/408587106212/?comment_id=409079116212", "anchor": "fb-409079116212", "service": "fb", "text": "Cool, I'll check out the write-up. Thanks for the link!", "timestamp": "1279060998"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kaufman/monday-july-12-2010-why-i-dont-buy-organic/408587106212/?comment_id=411952101212", "anchor": "fb-411952101212", "service": "fb", "text": "@Herbert: you write \"you could buy conventional bananas, and then pay Oxfam the difference in price so that they can go to Brazil and improve the quality of life of impoverished banana plantation-workers by giving them food or improving their sanitation or whatnot, or you could buy fair trade bananas and the larger profit margin go directly to the farmers and they can buy themselves more food or improve their sanitation or whatnot\"

Isn't that a little optimistic a view of fair trade? Certainly not the whole price premium goes to the plantation workers. Then the question is whether oxfam's collection and distribution of the funds is more efficient or whether the fairtrade organization's is.", "timestamp": "1279900692"}]}