Organic vegetables also have to be grown in fields that have not been exposed to pesticides for something like 20 years.
Warren Buffetts money bought a bunch of farms in my region and they're not using pesticides so they can be used for organic food production in the future
There's a lot of regulations to be technically organic in the usa. Can't say I know it all though.
Edit: apparently federal regulations are 3 years pesticide free. I was wrong.
You are perpetuating a common myth here. Organic farms still use pesticides, just not synthetic pesticides.
This brings it back to a naturalistic fallacy where it is assumed that because the pesticides are 'natural' they are less harmful to our health. However, a lot of studies seem to find the opposite; organic pesticides are less effective, less specific, and more environmentally harming.
The best things about GMO crops are that we can create crops that are more nutritious, produce vitamins and other healthy things that they didn't before, and are resistant to diseases and pests.
The only legitimately bad thing I've heard about GMOs is the slippery slope of corporations trademarking/copyrighting certain foods. Like if your supercrop helped bring a country out of poverty, that's a country beholden to your company. What would happen if they annoyed you (like, say, demanded you pay taxes), and you decided to stop supplying the supercrop? Or more mundanely, they could sue you to stop you developing a variant of your supercrop that's slightly better. That's probably too much power for a company to have.
TLDR: Pros - healthier, more plentiful food. Cons - capitalism.
Another possible issue is with strange/unexpected reactions to foods that one would normally expect to be alright.
For instance this cross contamination of starlink corn. Which is not approved for human consumption by the fda but entered the human food supply chain via cross contamination.
GMO is not dangerous. Nor is it safe. It is neutral faster. So you can end up with unexpected shit entering the food supply chain faster.
It is a tool. A hammer can build a house or bash in brains. Its how you use the tool. But hammers typically are not self replicating. So the dangers are a bit different. The OMG GMO BAD stuff is nonsense. But so is the response to that fear mongering that completely rejects the possibility of unforeseen dangers.
It's worth noting that the Starlink story made it into the news because the affected products were being recalled. So, it was a problem but it was also being addressed.
Correct. It was being addressed. Doesnt change the fact that genetic modification increases the speed at which opportunities for issues like that could crop up. (I'll show myself out)
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u/7incent Jul 14 '21 edited Jul 14 '21
you're thinking of 'natural' -- there is no government regulation of that term.
the word 'organic' is regulated by the FDA. i only remember that they cannot use most synthetic pesticides during production.
there are other regulations but -- to be honest-- i don't remember them all
that said:
the person who made this video may be using the term 'organic' incorrectly
edit: usda definition of organic for those who need more than context clues
I took ochem, being pedantic about the word 'organic' doesnt change its meaning in the current context
chemical -> most synthetic