"Steve" wrote in message
On Tue, 26 May 2009 16:14:23 -0700, Billy
wrote:

So the good doctor responds.
----

Subject: Organic
Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 16:58:24 -0400
Thread-Topic: Organic
Thread-Index: AcneJaUDVTLa2QAtRnuWe/ZSs5A58AAHkGQw
From: "Joe Schwarcz, Dr."
To: "Bill Rose"
X-McGill-WhereFrom: Internal
X-Sonic-SB-IP-RBLs: IP RBLs .

The email is indeed from me. I have attached a few pieces I have
written on organic agriculture which obviously express my views.

Stunning.
I expected push back, but the profound dismissal, the outright
disdain, of organic is remarkable even for one funded by the chemical
industry.

I'd disagree. He certainly wasn't as dismissive of organics as one would
expect from his knee jerk reaction to Sherwin would have suggested.

In fact from what I have read so far, (and so far that reading on my part
hsas not been anything more than a quick skim as I'm short of time) he even
has some good things to say about organics.

His point of view is from the perspective of farmed produce but from the
point of view of those of us who post here, we aren't farming for
production. In our case, what he has to say about organics does in fact
support the use of organics in a home enviroment - better taste, kinder to
the soil and because plants respond to threat, better produce for a number
of reasons.

The disinformation, (for example ignoring the advancement in
organic agriculture and instead suggesting that it's 100 years behind)
is truly amazing. Obviously he has never heard of a little company
named Earthbound.
In one article he states that organic foods are only "marginally" more
nutritious, in the next article he sites a 40% gain in antioxidants.
"Pesticides and nitrates from fertilizer enter ground water with
potential environmental and health consequences". Potential?!
Doesn't McGill have internet service? Hasn't he ever looked at the
Gulf of Mexico from above? Amazing.
I think he's "marginally" pro-agrochemical.

Yes, I did think that too and I do know of initiatives that he seems to have
either glossed over or not known of.