In message , Alan Gould
writes
In article , Bob Hobden
writes

That's not my understanding Alan, I understood some chemicals and "natural"
plant extract chemicals are allowed, and as some plant extract chemicals
will kill I don't see they are any more valid in an organic garden than man
made ones.

All substances living or inert have elements in them which can be
expressed in chemical terms. Whether they are benign or malign depends
on how they are used. For example, a cup of water can kill if it is
consumed wrongly, whereas Joan takes Warfarin daily as a medicine.

The dose makes the poison. And it takes quite a bit more than a cup of
pure water to kill someone by toxicity (a couple of gallons or so).

BTW Warfarin is one of those nasty synthetic chemicals that you so
despise in gardening - originally intended as a rodenticide. It happens
to have useful effects in lower doses.

As with the word organic, the word chemical has several definitions. In
the context of organic horticulture, chemical refers to manufactured
chemical poisons such as herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, etc.
These are often (wrongly IMHO) all expressed as pesticides.

Standard definition for the chemicals intended to eliminate pests.

Along with
chemical fertilisers and lethal home-made potions none of them are
acceptable in commercial organic horticulture.

Though many of the would be Organic growers indulge in extremely
dangerous kitchen sink chemistry based on dubious recipes using
"natural" toxic ingredients on the web. Among the more dangerous ones
are those based on tobacco. It isn't all that hard to extract enough
nicotine from one or two cigarettes to kill a human if you use the right
solvent. And nicotine carries mosaic virus which is quite promiscuous in
the plants it will infect.

Non-commercial
recreational gardeners can do as they please, but those who wish to eat
properly safe organic food need to keep to commercial standards.

Those who want to market their expensive produce to the worried well
with a simple message under the Organic(TM) supermarket banner double
wrapped in multiple layers of plastic packaging and air freighted round
the world can do so with great profitability.

It is far better to go for minimum inputs farming where the least
possible amount of pesticides are used, but synthetic chemicals are
still allowed. Unfortunately, the most sensible farming methods do not
have the cult following of Organic(TM).

I am all for local farmers markets. But it is utterly ludicrous to have
Organic(TM) produce flown from Thailand causing far more pollution and
use of resources than the worst possible forms of local industrial
farming.

There may be different arrangements for so called 'Organic (TM)'
produce, but I have never discovered any food on sale under that name.
Could you detail where you have seen it?

What I meant by that is, the organic stuff sold in supermarkets and similar
which is produced on factory type farms like the other non-organic produce,
i.e. highly commercial, millions of £'s involved.......

No food can legally be sold for public consumption as organic unless it
carries an authorised symbol of organic quality. That guarantees it to
be in compliance with the regulations. There are cheats and tricksters
in any aspect of business, but anyone who tries to defraud organic
consumers risks losing their livelihood. If you know it to be happening,
report them, the bigger they are, the heavier they fall.

There are plenty of frauds based on using modern high tech analysis to
show that the pesticide residues in non-Organic(TM) crops are below the
limits of routine detection. The paperwork is then faked to come from
genuine organic locations by dubious middle men. There are several such
prosecutions in the pipeline but it remains to be seen if any
convictions will be made. The scientific evidence is hard to present to
a jury.

Organic(TM) products lacking in preservatives are also capable of
harbouring some extremely nasty bacteria and fungi producing toxins like
botulinum and aflotoxins. These are of course deliberately ignored by
the Soil Association because they conflict with their intended
simplistic message.

Evil natural residues in food can be every bit as dangerous as the
synthetic chemicals! Look back to historical cases of ergot poisoning
for example.

Regards,
--
Martin Brown