Organic crooks

Yesterday, a reader's letter in a Florida newspaper began: “With unemployment, food scares and demands on food banks all up, the time is now for an organic revolution.” We’ve heard plenty of (bogus) claims that organic foods are healthier and better for the environment. But solving unemployment, perfecting our food safety system, and addressing food shortages? Sounds too good to be true… and it is.

It’s hard to blame so many shoppers for turning their backs on organic foods in tougher economic times. As last month’s California fertilizer scandal revealed, organic consumers can’t even can’t even be sure that what they’re paying for is actually organic. Today in Toronto's National Post, an interview with author and former food inspector Mischa Popoff brought this home again.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theappetizer/archive/2009/02/04/is-it-organic-author-mischa-popoff-questions-the-organic-food-industry.aspx

"Any organic food comes to the market based completely on a self-regulating, honour-based audit trail," said Popoff. "My question is, how do you know anyone is organic? Even if they are doing the damn paperwork and paying the fee, there's no way of knowing. "

Popoff also highlighted a particular authenticity problem that we’ve mentioned in the past: Much of the food on our grocery shelves labeled "organic" is imported from China, where few if any organic regulations are enforced with any rigorous guarantees:
"The biggest issue is, if you look at China, only Chinese inspectors inspect the farms. You will never see a North American inspector get over there. Then you really have to wonder what's going on."

In addition to more testing, Popoff also suggests that organic farms should introduce surprise inspections.
But until those changes are made, the former food inspector calls the organic food industry "a big scam" and doesn't believe it's necessary to buy organic food.

Popoff isn’t the first to point out that organic food is “a big scam,” but his frank advice to consumers is a very promising sign. As more organic food inspectors join other experts, thrifty shoppers, and even some environmentalists in rejecting organic hype, the only “revolution” happening in this movement is one of transparency.

http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm?headline=3821

Bracken fern is a common and very widespread understorey plant in temperate Australia. The same or an extremely similar fern is widespread and common outside Australia, from the subarctic to the montane tropics to far southern South America. (We call it Pteridium esculentum, they call it Pteridium aquilinum.)

In most countries Pteridium spp. are considered weeds. Bracken blocks the growth of other vegetation, including tree seedlings. It's typically the first plant to re-establish after a 'weed- clearing' fire. It causes cancer and other diseases in sheep and cattle, and blindness in goats. In Central and South America, bracken is suspected of causing stomach cancer in people who drink milk from cattle grazed on bracken-infested pasture. There are positives for bracken. Many of them have to do with invertebrates. Green, standing bracken offers shade and a relatively moist microclimate for a wide range of flying and crawling species, not to mention a place to hide from predators. The slow-rotting fronds and stems (stipes) of dead bracken lie slightly off the ground under green standing bracken for several years; this sub-sub-sub-canopy provides an even shadier, moister microenvironment for litter invertebrates. On burned ground, bracken cover ameliorates the erosive and other effects of weather, encouraging the redevelopment of a healthy soil fauna.

Finally, believe it or not, there are bugs that eat bracken. A famous entomological study (Lawton l982) compared bracken-feeding insects in Britain and in montane New Mexico and Arizona in the USA. In Britain, seven sawflies (primitive wasps), six moths and a springtail are regular bracken chewers. Eight flies mine the bracken tissues or make galls, and four true bugs are bracken suckers. Much the same specialisation was found in the USA, but with only seven insect species in total, including a bracken - sucking thrip. The Lawton study was interesting for two other results: only a single beetle was found to eat bracken (a rare UK species), and at individual sites only a portion of the available 'regional pool' of bracken feeders was bserved.

Bracken-eating insects have also been inventoried in Brazil, Papua New Guinea and Australia. Two species of Australian fruit flies enjoy bracken (Thomson et al. 1982), and bracken near Sydney is dinner for 15 insects (again, no beetles) and two mites (Shuter & Westoby 1982). With such a short list of potential biocontrol agents, and with so little damage done by each, the prospects for controlling weed bracken around the world with insects are pretty gloomy. In Tasmania, bracken
is a vigorous understorey plant which offers a home and (sometimes) something to eat for a substantial number of invertebrates. Don't burn it if you can slash it, and don't slash it unless you have to. The bugs will be grateful.
http://www.apstas.com/bracken.htm