Xref: kermit uk.environment.conservation:42966 uk.rec.birdwatching:67393 uk.rec.gardening:144878 uk.rec.natural-history:14669 uk.business.agricultu113406

In uk.rec.gardening Oz wrote:
: Tim Tyler writes
:In uk.rec.gardening Oz wrote:

: Lesse.
: A gram of penicillin (my very first exposure to antibiotics, first
: tablet, some seven years ago).

: Lets take strawberries, clearly a well sprayed product, particularly the
: imported stuff. Rough estimate that 5% had residues of 0.1 mg/kg.

: 10kg at 0.1 mg/kg gives you 1mg but only 5% had residues so

: 200kg of strawberries gives you 1mg residues

: so 200,000 kg or 200 tons gives you 1 gm residues.

: Assume all veg has the same level of residues as strawberries (highly
: unlikely since they have been singled out as having more residues than
: most stuff).

: If you eat 1kg of veg/day, then 200T is 200,000 days or 550 years.

: So sorry, I was wrong, it's more like ten lifetimes (even more if you
: take the 5-day course!).

: Hardly scary.

....but completely incorrect.

I don't know where you got your figures from - but:

....looking at the (previously referenced) report:
http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/committ...umtabsrev1.pdf

83 samples - out of a total of 179 (46%) were contaminated at a level
of 0.1 or *greater*.

You are out by a factor of 9.2 already.

Taking the first page (of the 3.2) pages of results as a sample
(this is mainly UK strawberries) I calculated the average contamination of
the samples with more than .1mg/kg contamination to be 0.527mg/kg. That
puts you out by at least a factor of 57.2 - according to my sums.

Simply using the actual figures reduces your "550 years" to 9.61 years.

I take exception at some of the your other estimates as well.

If you want to pick representative contaminated produce for me,
then spinach might be your best bet. I eat a lot more green leafy
vegetables than strawberries.

Strawberries were ranked high on pesticide /toxicity/ - rather than
pesticide volume - and they don't have much surface area - whereas
spinach does.

....and I don't eat 1Kg of veg a day - I eat more like 3Kg.

For reference, my diet is broadly similar in content to the one described
on http://deanpomerleau.tripod.com/Dean..._diet/meal.htm

::It seems to be contrary to the evidence suggesting pesticide residues
::are lower on organic produce.
:
:: It's very rarely tested, and rarely for organic pesticides.
:
:Doesn't it need to pass through much the same regulatory testing as
:everything else intended for human consumption?

: Yes, but they have been using products approved many decades ago which
: very few conventional farmers use because they are typically highly
: toxic, not very effective and expensive. In the last few years several
: have been banned. Some examples a

: derris - rotenone - estimated human lethal dose 300-500 mg/kg.
: carcinogen.
: nicotine - LD50 rats 50-60 mg/kg toxic by ingestion, inhalation, skin.

: heavy metal compounds we already discussed.

: For comparison a nasty organophosphorous dimethoate has
: LD50 rats at 4000 mg/kg and you need less/ha.

: Certainly if I was asked to spray a field with derris or nicotine, I
: would refuse.

: I doubt anyone has developed tests to look at residue levels for these
: and I don't remember seeing them on the list of residue levels tested
: for.

It sounds to me like you're saying there are gaping holes in the
regulator's nets - and that you can get away with using as many
pesticides as you like - if you pick ones that are not commonly
tested for.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/

In uk.rec.gardening Oz wrote:
: Tim Tyler writes
:In uk.rec.gardening Oz wrote:

:Some of the things I've grown (or am growing) this year:
:
:Basil, Broccoli, Cabbage (black), Cabbage (red), Celery,
:Chervil, Chickory, Chickpea, Chop Suey, Collard, Coriander,
:Corn salad, Cress (curly), Cress (land), Cress (water),
:Fennel, Flax, Kale (red russian), Lettuce, Mibuna, Mizuna,
:Mustard (red), Mustard (yellow), Mustard (spinach), Pak
:Choi, Spinach (perpetual), Radish, Rape, Rape (salad),
:Rocket (salad), Rocket (wild), Sesame, Sunflower, Texel,
:Turnip, Alfalfa, Aduki, Clover (red), Fenugreek, Lentils
:(puy), Mung, Pea, Soya, Amaranth, Buckwheat, Corn, Kamut,
:Quinoa, Rye, Spelt, Wheat, Raspberries, Taeberries,
:Loganberries, Wolfberries, Black Currants, Gooseberries,
:Hazel nuts, Apricots, broad beans, peas, onions, garlic,
:purple sprouting broccoli, swiss chard.

: How big is your veg plot?
: How big is your greenhouse?

:: and what percentage of your total food intake (calories) do home
:: grown crops amount to?
:
:Most of my calorie intake comes from fruit, nuts, oils and seeds.
:I hardly grow any of them. The fruit I grow are almost all berries.

: Given the list above, it should be much more than that unless you are
: growing only a few plants of each. In which case I would suggest you are
: playing at growing your own food. Two frames each of runner and climbing
: french would (even for a veggie) oversupply food for several months.
: Heck four of us can't begin to keep up. Courgettes (four plants) we
: throw out or give away probably 70+% and swiss chard similarly. I only
: have a tiny untended veg plot, too.

:I estimate I currently grow about 10% of my calories for the year -
:if that.

: Then you either have a very small plot, aren't trying or aren't growing
: the right things.

Size is the main limiting factor. I estimate I have about ten square
metres to work with.

I'm not really trying to get my calories from my garden. Indeed, I
grow almost entirely very low calorie produce. My main aim at this stage
is to increase the diversity of fresh, good quality salad vegetables I
have available to me - not to feed myself entirely from my garden.

::It may not have been medicine's most explored area - but
::to say we know "virtually NIL" on the subject seems like
::an overstatement to me.
:
:: Give me some examples of LD50, noel and content of a few food plant
:: toxins then.
:
:Some other day, perhaps - since doing so would prove nothing.

: It proves we have NO DATA on most (if not all) food plant toxins.

Hardly - I think to prove something you have to make some sort of case
for it - rather assert and then challenge others to disprove it.

:::I suspect that eventually mechanical barriers to pests will eventually
:::make many of today's pesticides redundant.
::
::: Dream on, you have no idea what you are talking about.
::
::Rather obviously, I'm talking about growing a greater proportion of
::things "under glass" - or in controlled environments.
:
:: To feed the world?
:
:Yes.
:
:: speechless at the stunning level of ignorance
:
:Don't underestimate technological progress.

: I don't, I do understand economics.
: Just work out the energy cost of covering the UK arable area under
: glass. Go on, have a go.

I am not talking about glass. And I am /certainly/ not suggesting
donig this today. See where I wrote "eventually". I even did it
twice - to emphasize the point.

::You may have noticed that there's been something of a trend in that
::direction over the last hundred years.
:
:: Not in the UK, it's almost zero now other than for cut flowers.
:
:...and watercress, and tomatoes - and an increasing number of other
:things.

: Watercress is all grown outside hereabouts.

You may be right there. On further investigation I found little
evidence for commercial watercress operations being undercover.

: Tomatoes are mostly, if not nowadays entirely, grown outside the UK.

Certainly not entirely: http://www.edie.net/news/Archive/6619.cfm

:: Far too expensive.
:
:Expense is one of the main problems - but prices are falling.

: Eh? Industrial glasshouse costs are rising.

:I expect them to continue to do so.

: they will continue to rise, that's for sure.

In my estimation, the cost of building such things is likely to continue
to fall for some time - with technological developments in materials
science - and increased technological abilities in other areas.

Compare the expense of completely enclosing areas with transparent
weatherproof material now with the cost a hundred years ago - for
example.

Something similar will be true - probably throughout the construction
industry - and I expect we'll see increasingly large and sophisticated
constructions as a result.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/

Tim Tyler writes
In uk.rec.gardening Oz wrote:
: Tim Tyler writes
:In uk.rec.gardening Oz wrote:

: Lesse.
: A gram of penicillin (my very first exposure to antibiotics, first
: tablet, some seven years ago).

: Lets take strawberries, clearly a well sprayed product, particularly the
: imported stuff. Rough estimate that 5% had residues of 0.1 mg/kg.

: 10kg at 0.1 mg/kg gives you 1mg but only 5% had residues so

: 200kg of strawberries gives you 1mg residues

: so 200,000 kg or 200 tons gives you 1 gm residues.

: Assume all veg has the same level of residues as strawberries (highly
: unlikely since they have been singled out as having more residues than
: most stuff).

: If you eat 1kg of veg/day, then 200T is 200,000 days or 550 years.

: So sorry, I was wrong, it's more like ten lifetimes (even more if you
: take the 5-day course!).

: Hardly scary.

...but completely incorrect.

That's what comes of taking stuff incompletely quoted by others.

Taking the first page (of the 3.2) pages of results as a sample
(this is mainly UK strawberries) I calculated the average contamination of
the samples with more than .1mg/kg contamination to be 0.527mg/kg. That
puts you out by at least a factor of 57.2 - according to my sums.

Indeed.

Bit of cut & paste and reformatting gets the entire table to 61 out of
178 sampled or 0.34 mg/kg ave.

So to take a diet entirely comprised of these strawberries you need:

Take 3kg veg/day (!) and you are at 1mg/day
Takes 1000 days to reach the 1 gm, or three years.

If you want to pick representative contaminated produce for me,
then spinach might be your best bet. I eat a lot more green leafy
vegetables than strawberries.

Unfortunately no spinach, or cabbage. I can't believe they haven't
tested these but I note they are only quoting stuff found over the
reporting level. It seems likely, then, that this sort of product has
none so isn't in the tables. I advise you stick to cabbage and sprouts
wherever possible.

They do have lettuce. Again a very short growing season, much affected
by the weather and liable to high pesticide usage and known to be higher
in residues than most.

Anyway out of 180 samples the total was 27 or 0.15 mg/kg (excluding
'inorganic bromide') which on your 3kg/day gives you .45mg/day or 2000
days/gm or 5.5 years to get your gm.

Miles and miles below the allowed daily intake, which is miles below the
no effect level, which is miles below the toxic level.

However you may panic if you wish.

: Yes, but they have been using products approved many decades ago which
: very few conventional farmers use because they are typically highly
: toxic, not very effective and expensive. In the last few years several
: have been banned. Some examples a

: derris - rotenone - estimated human lethal dose 300-500 mg/kg.
: carcinogen.
: nicotine - LD50 rats 50-60 mg/kg toxic by ingestion, inhalation, skin.

: heavy metal compounds we already discussed.

: For comparison a nasty organophosphorous dimethoate has
: LD50 rats at 4000 mg/kg and you need less/ha.

: Certainly if I was asked to spray a field with derris or nicotine, I
: would refuse.

: I doubt anyone has developed tests to look at residue levels for these
: and I don't remember seeing them on the list of residue levels tested
: for.

It sounds to me like you're saying there are gaping holes in the
regulator's nets - and that you can get away with using as many
pesticides as you like - if you pick ones that are not commonly
tested for.

A previous poster pointed out that *detecting*, but not quantifying, is
fairly easy. I would be astonished if they didn't scan generally and if
anything had a big spike they would look at it. However they don't test
many organic produces, so they would be lucky to pick a contaminated one
up.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

Tim Tyler writes

: Then you either have a very small plot, aren't trying or aren't growing
: the right things.

Size is the main limiting factor. I estimate I have about ten square
metres to work with.

3m x 3m!

Then throw out most of it and stick to 5 sq m of swiss chard and 5 sq m
in runner and climbing french beans.

I'm not really trying to get my calories from my garden. Indeed, I
grow almost entirely very low calorie produce. My main aim at this stage
is to increase the diversity of fresh, good quality salad vegetables I
have available to me - not to feed myself entirely from my garden.

That can be bought cheaply in the store.

:: Give me some examples of LD50, noel and content of a few food plant
:: toxins then.
:
:Some other day, perhaps - since doing so would prove nothing.

: It proves we have NO DATA on most (if not all) food plant toxins.

Hardly - I think to prove something you have to make some sort of case
for it - rather assert and then challenge others to disprove it.

Thats precisely what you have been doing.
Anyway, you can find no data, fine.
You obviously didn't find the ames link, or uncle al's.

:::I suspect that eventually mechanical barriers to pests will eventually
:::make many of today's pesticides redundant.
::
::: Dream on, you have no idea what you are talking about.
::
::Rather obviously, I'm talking about growing a greater proportion of
::things "under glass" - or in controlled environments.
:
:: To feed the world?
:
:Yes.
:
:: speechless at the stunning level of ignorance
:
:Don't underestimate technological progress.

: I don't, I do understand economics.
: Just work out the energy cost of covering the UK arable area under
: glass. Go on, have a go.

I am not talking about glass. And I am /certainly/ not suggesting
donig this today. See where I wrote "eventually". I even did it
twice - to emphasize the point.

So what DO you mean, if not under glass?

: Watercress is all grown outside hereabouts.

You may be right there. On further investigation I found little
evidence for commercial watercress operations being undercover.

Quite.

: Tomatoes are mostly, if not nowadays entirely, grown outside the UK.

Certainly not entirely: http://www.edie.net/news/Archive/6619.cfm

Minute amounts.

:Expense is one of the main problems - but prices are falling.

: Eh? Industrial glasshouse costs are rising.

:I expect them to continue to do so.

: they will continue to rise, that's for sure.

In my estimation, the cost of building such things is likely to continue
to fall for some time - with technological developments in materials
science - and increased technological abilities in other areas.

Energy and raw material costs have started to rise.
Building costs follow it, even excluding the 80% cost that is labour.

Compare the expense of completely enclosing areas with transparent
weatherproof material now with the cost a hundred years ago - for
example.

100 years ago!
Compare the real cost of food 100 years ago.
Heck it's under 1/10 the real price it was 30 years ago (farmgate).
To buy stuff you must be able to sell your food at a profit.

Something similar will be true - probably throughout the construction
industry - and I expect we'll see increasingly large and sophisticated
constructions as a result.

Building costs are steadily rising in real terms, and can be expected to
continue to rise, particularly given the extraction taxes.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

"Oz" wrote in message
...

Absolutely true, but it's possible to have poor quality
mass-produced
organic produce (which is increasingly happening) and high quality
non-
organic produce. This is particularly true of small producers who
cannot
bear the regulatory costs of organic production and are doing it as
much
for love as money.

While politicians may be raving about the increase in organic, I have
talked
to a couple of organic dairy farmers who would go back to conventional
but
cannot afford to because this would mean paying back the conversion
grant.
The economics of organic production are getting rough, the
supermarkets have
started winding down the price of organic milk and other organic
produce
will follow.


As anyone who has eaten stubbsy's (non-organic but utterly superb)
smoked salmon can attest.


It's not whether it has an organic label stuck on it or not, it's
more
how it was produced in the first place.

When I did the first ring round to get people on Farmdirect that was
an
interesting experience. I came across a lot of people who were
passionate
about the value of organic production, but their passion was only
matched
for their contempt for the soil association.
If someone is willing to set to and produce decent food to the best of
their
ability, and do this to a set of standards they believe in, then I
have
nothing but respect for them. But I am afraid that if something has to
be
flown into the country, it isn't organic any more, no matter what some
certifying authority says. The idea that food miles are more virtuous
than
roundup is one for the logic choppers and 'how many angels dance on
the head
of a pin' brigade

Jim Webster

I would agree wholeheartedly with this. For a small scale producer, it
is very time consuming keeping upto date with all the regulations, and
filling in all the paperwork, and ticking all the boxes.

However, the "organic" branding serves as a guide for those consumers
who want to control their intake of chemicals, for whatever reason. The
fact that organic does allow some chemicals passes the by. The fact
that imported organic may not actually be so they conveniently forget
(some I think believe that only UK farmers cheat - which in organic I
do not think any do, processors, on the other hand .... )

When I was looking at certification bodies, I found the SA position to
be far too rigid. For instance, goats do not like getting wet (well,
mine do not). But the SA said that the goats had to be shut OUT all
throughout the grazing season, I also objected to the percentage levy
on
sales (as a farm based processor), and their policy on vaccination. I in
the end registered with the Organic Food Federation.

On food miles, the shorter the time between production and consumption,
the better the quality of food.
--
George Dawson
Goat farmer

As I suspected, strawberries tend to higher residues, lettuce is above
average and 'commodity' UK-produced veg is lowest of all.

For info: http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/committ...l_rep_2000.pdf

Commodity quarter Number Total Number Number
analysed with multiple above
residues residues MRL

rice* Q2 96 61 (64%) 12 (13%) 1 (1%)
carrots Q4 71 46 (65%) 13 (18%) 1 (1.4%)
lett: growers Q3 44 4 (9%) none 1 (2%)
yam Q4 42 11 (26%) 2 (5%) 11 (26%)
broccoli 1 Q1 28 4 (14%) none 2 (7%)
lettuce 1 Q1 35 24 (69%) 14 (40%) 3 (9%)
lettuce 2 Q3 36 20 (56%) 15 (42%) 6 (17%)
plums Q3 44 10 (23%) 2 (5%) none
cucumber 1* Q3 23 6 (26%) 2 (9%) none
pears 2 Q4 52 42 (81%) 25 (48%) none
head cabbage* Q4 72 11 (15%) 3 (4%) none
pears 1 Q3 84 52 (62%) 31 (37%) none
cucumber 2* Q4 36 10 (28%) 4 (11%) none
apples Q4 144 104 (72%) 50 (35%) none
broccoli 2 Q4 38 1 (3%) none none
peas (fresh)* Q4 27 3 (11%) none none
parsnips Q4 36 4 (11%) none none
peppers, sweet Q3 24 none none none
peas (frozen)* Q2 35 none none none


* EU Survey
** MRLs may be extended to composite and processed products but levels
are not specifically laid down in legislation. They are derived by
calculation on an individual product basis.


--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

GeorgeDawson writes
However, the "organic" branding serves as a guide for those consumers
who want to control their intake of chemicals, for whatever reason. The
fact that organic does allow some chemicals passes the by. The fact
that imported organic may not actually be so they conveniently forget
(some I think believe that only UK farmers cheat - which in organic I
do not think any do, processors, on the other hand .... )

I do not think UK organic growers cheat either.

However there are now some very large commercial organic growers with
associated conventional farms alongside. I have two next to me for
example. One day, if margins get tight and 50ac of highly valuable
produce is destined for ploughing under at a huge loss, I would be less
than certain.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

"GeorgeDawson" wrote in message
...


When I was looking at certification bodies, I found the SA position to
be far too rigid. For instance, goats do not like getting wet (well,
mine do not). But the SA said that the goats had to be shut OUT all
throughout the grazing season, I also objected to the percentage levy
on
sales (as a farm based processor), and their policy on vaccination. I in
the end registered with the Organic Food Federation.

I must confess that the animal welfare thing is the main axe I have to grind
with the Soil Association, (SA is such an appropriate acronym). Refusal to
allow vaccines (other than for fmd which they enthusiastically advocated)
has struck me as just plain cruel. Disease does not give a stuff about the
arbitrary whims of a certifying body.


On food miles, the shorter the time between production and consumption,
the better the quality of food.


I cannot see how you can justify organic certification for something that
has been flown in. When you look at the environmental damage caused as
opposed to some of the things the certifying bodies get upset about in the
UK you do begin to wonder if they are for real

Jim Webster

George Dawson
Goat farmer

In uk.rec.gardening Oz wrote:
: Tim Tyler writes

:: Then you either have a very small plot, aren't trying or aren't growing
:: the right things.
:
:Size is the main limiting factor. I estimate I have about ten square
:metres to work with.

: 3m x 3m!

More like 10m x 1m ;-)

: Then throw out most of it and stick to 5 sq m of swiss chard and 5 sq m
: in runner and climbing french beans.

That would be contrary to my stated aim of getting more diversity -
and would massively up my bean consumption (I go pretty easy on
most legumes).

:I'm not really trying to get my calories from my garden. Indeed, I
:grow almost entirely very low calorie produce. My main aim at this stage
:is to increase the diversity of fresh, good quality salad vegetables I
:have available to me - not to feed myself entirely from my garden.

: That can be bought cheaply in the store.

I'm /trying/ to grow things I can't easily get in store. My best source
for all my chinese salad veggies - for example - is miles away - and their
produce is apparently imported - and freshness leaves something to be
desired.

I can't buy russian kale, american cress - or indeed most of my sprouts
at all.

: You obviously didn't find the ames link, or uncle al's.

You're right there - the only "uncle al" I am familiar with is
unlikely to be the one you are referring to.

::::I suspect that eventually mechanical barriers to pests will eventually
::::make many of today's pesticides redundant.
:::
:::: Dream on, you have no idea what you are talking about.
:::
:::Rather obviously, I'm talking about growing a greater proportion of
:::things "under glass" - or in controlled environments.
::
::: To feed the world?
::
::Yes.
::
::: speechless at the stunning level of ignorance
::
::Don't underestimate technological progress.
:
:: I don't, I do understand economics.
:: Just work out the energy cost of covering the UK arable area under
:: glass. Go on, have a go.
:
:I am not talking about glass. [....]

Not /just/ glass, anyway.

:And I am /certainly/ not suggesting do[ing] this today. See where I
:wrote "eventually". I even did it twice - to emphasize the point.

: So what DO you mean, if not under glass?

Well, it doesn't /have/ to be glass. For example, some of the operations
I know of use polytunnels instead.

The original idea of using mechanical - rather than chemical - barriers to
pests doesn't necessarily require completely enclosing the plants at all -
although enclosure is probably the most effective approach.

The scarecrow is a form of non-chemical pest control agent - as are
slug-moats, fences, and nets.

These are all things that attempt to prevent the pests and produce
being in the same place at the same time - rather than poisoning
them once they arrive.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/

"Oz" wrote in message
...
GeorgeDawson writes
However, the "organic" branding serves as a guide for those consumers
who want to control their intake of chemicals, for whatever reason. The
fact that organic does allow some chemicals passes the by. The fact
that imported organic may not actually be so they conveniently forget
(some I think believe that only UK farmers cheat - which in organic I
do not think any do, processors, on the other hand .... )

I do not think UK organic growers cheat either.

However there are now some very large commercial organic growers with
associated conventional farms alongside. I have two next to me for
example. One day, if margins get tight and 50ac of highly valuable
produce is destined for ploughing under at a huge loss, I would be less
than certain.

good of you to help control their pest problems then isn't it :-)

Jim Webster


--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

In uk.rec.gardening Oz wrote or quoted:

:If you want to pick representative contaminated produce for me,
:then spinach might be your best bet. I eat a lot more green leafy
:vegetables than strawberries.

: Unfortunately no spinach, or cabbage. I can't believe they haven't
: tested these but I note they are only quoting stuff found over the
: reporting level. It seems likely, then, that this sort of product has
: none so isn't in the tables. [...]

Spinach comes out as the most pesticide-contaminated vegetable in:
http://www.consumerreports.org/main/...=1052595508632
and in:
http://www.ewg.org/pub/home/Reports/.../Chapter2.html

I would find it hard te believe that they didn't include it because
it showed little contamination.

Spinach consistently features in the Safety Directorate's produce
safety warnings - the last three warnings all concern spinach:

http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/citizen...r_residues.htm

``A PSD risk assessment suggests that consuming spinach containing
methomyl at concentrations of 6.1 mg/kg would erode safety margins built
into the acute reference dose. Any effects on consumers would be minor
(e.g. increased salivation, mild upset stomach, headache) and unlikely
to last for more than a few hours. Suppliers are reminded that produce
containing residues in excess of the MRL should not be put into
circulation.''

- http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/citizen..._Spain_AMH.htm

: I advise you stick to cabbage and sprouts wherever possible.

I'm keen on diversity, though. Consuming lots of any one thing can
potentially cause problems if the information you had about it proves
to be wrong. It's probably undesirable on nutritional grounds - as
well as on safety grounds.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/

"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

"Oz" wrote in message
...
GeorgeDawson writes
However, the "organic" branding serves as a guide for those
consumers
who want to control their intake of chemicals, for whatever reason.
The
fact that organic does allow some chemicals passes the by. The
fact
that imported organic may not actually be so they conveniently
forget
(some I think believe that only UK farmers cheat - which in organic
I
do not think any do, processors, on the other hand .... )

I do not think UK organic growers cheat either.

However there are now some very large commercial organic growers
with
associated conventional farms alongside. I have two next to me for
example. One day, if margins get tight and 50ac of highly valuable
produce is destined for ploughing under at a huge loss, I would be
less
than certain.

good of you to help control their pest problems then isn't it :-)

Too right ). A bit of drift with an insecticide, or fungicide.
Herbicides tend to show up a bit much.

--
George Dawson
Goat farmer

Jim Webster writes

"Oz" wrote in message

I do not think UK organic growers cheat either.

However there are now some very large commercial organic growers with
associated conventional farms alongside. I have two next to me for
example. One day, if margins get tight and 50ac of highly valuable
produce is destined for ploughing under at a huge loss, I would be less
than certain.

good of you to help control their pest problems then isn't it :-)

I perhaps didn't quite say it right.

"However there are now some very large commercial organic growers with
their conventional farm in the same ownership alongside."

They don't need me to do it, they have their own sprayman, sprayer and
store.

--
Oz
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Jim Webster writes

I must confess that the animal welfare thing is the main axe I have to grind
with the Soil Association, (SA is such an appropriate acronym). Refusal to
allow vaccines (other than for fmd which they enthusiastically advocated)
has struck me as just plain cruel. Disease does not give a stuff about the
arbitrary whims of a certifying body.

I most heartily agree with you.

Particularly as it's easy to get to use antibiotics, the vet just has to
say it's needed. Which is no different to conventional.

So effectively in many cases they are causing antibiotic use by refusal
to allow vaccines. Insane.

--
Oz
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GeorgeDawson writes

I did view the SA as being a little ironic during FMD when they
seemingly reversed their policies !!!

Hypocritical is what I would call it.

Mind you they are masters of spin, and they con most consumers very
effectively.

--
Oz
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