The following three quotes put perspective on nannies’ unfounded claims that organic agriculture is somehow better than conventional or genetically improved food production:
“Scientists can name Americans poisoned by organic lettuce. They may not have the data to know if the organic variety is riskier than conventional lettuce, but they know it’s foolish to assume that natural is better. E. coli are natural, too.”
— Columnist John Tierney in today’s New York Times.
“The environmental costs of cultivating more land for feed, converting more land to pasture and hauling several billion tons of manure would far exceed the environmental costs of manufacturing and transporting artificial fertilizer.”
— University of Houston’s Dr. Thomas R. DeGregori in Thursday’s Houston Press.
“Environmentalists frequently urge industry to adopt ‘Clean Technologies’ that reduce pollution and promote conservation. Why is it, then, that those same environmentalists advocate a ban on agricultural biotechnology that significantly reduces the use of potentially harmful pesticides, decreases soil erosion by up to 98 percent and helps prevent the destruction of ecologically important rainforests? Their opposition makes no sense.”
— John K. Carlisle, director of the Environmental Policy Task Force at the National Center for Public Policy Research, in a Knight Ridder op-ed.
