By Lynn Clarkson, Chairman of Clarkson Grain Note to Readers – Lynn Clarkson sent the following message, or one very similar to it, to a number of individuals in the Trump Administration, or influential with key players in the Administration. He agreed to share his message with the broader community. So, please enjoy and share […]
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Among the fake news making the rounds is that organic food is no safer than conventional food because organic farmers use pesticides too. Ken Roseboro debunks many of the “alternate” facts circulating about pesticide use on organic farms in a well-researched story in The Organic and Non-GMO Report. Of course organic farmers have to manage […]
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China has become the world’s fourth largest consumer of organic food. Demand is driven by food safety concerns, in the wake of a series of food adulteration episodes and a lack of trust in the government’s ability to assure compliance with safety standards. Xinhua Insight reports that more and more young professionals are giving up careers […]
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By Brian Baker Rotenone is a non-synthetic botanical insecticide and piscicide (chemical poisonous to fish) derived from the roots of Derris spp., Lonchocarpus spp. and Tephrosia spp. It has been used historically in organic production, usually with restrictions that limit its impact on human health and the environment. Prior to the isolation and commercialization of organically acceptable formulations […]
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Charles Benbrook, Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, Washington State University Blog Post, September 2012 A comprehensive paper on the nutritional quality and safety of conventional versus organic food was published in the September 4, 2012 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine (Smith-Spangler et al., Vol. 157, Number 5: pages 349–369). The Stanford University Medical […]
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The environmental benefits of organic farming have been widely acknowledged. In a long-term study of organic, conventional, and integrated apple orchards in Washington State, a team of scientists documented several important environmental benefits. In the organic blocks of trees, nitrogen (N) losses to groundwater and the atmosphere were reduced relative to conventional agriculture. Annual nitrate […]
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Long-term research has documented the extent to which organic farming improves key indicators of soil quality, including soil organic carbon content (SOC) and particulate organic matter (POC). An important article entitled “Total and Labile Soil Organic Matter in Organic and Conventional Farming Systems” summarizes the findings of nine long-term comparative trials assessing the impacts of […]
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In an elegant study that is the first of its kind, scientists working at USDA’s Henry A Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center used the tools of biotechnology to trace how plants respond to a common organic farming practice – the planting of crops in a hairy vetch (HV) mulch-based system. The study compared the genetic […]
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A team based at the University of Washington in Seattle has published an important study showing that in school-age children, a diet composed of predominantly organic food “…provides a dramatic and immediate protective effect against exposures to organophosphorous (OP) pesticides.” Twenty-three children were enrolled in the study, which included three phases of testing for OP […]
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According to a team of Italian scientists, the pesticides applied to conventional foods “can be seriously dangerous for human health and the environment” whereas some studies suggest organic food is more frequently contaminated with natural toxins. The team developed a new method to rigorously test which set of potential hazards – the chemical toxins in […]
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