…in a splendid example of cults colliding, the Independent recently ran a piece asserting that ‘organic’ food was, among other crimes, bad for the environment. The whole article is well worth reading for any number of reasons, but here’s a sample:
The proponents of organic food – particularly celebrities, such as Gwyneth Paltrow, who have jumped on the organic bandwagon – say there is a “cocktail effect” of pesticides. Some point to an “epidemic of cancer”. In fact, there is no epidemic of cancer. When age-standardised, cancer rates are falling dramatically and have been doing so for 50 years. If there is a “cocktail effect” it would first show up in farmers, but they have among the lowest cancer rates of any group. Carcinogenic effects of pesticides could show up as stomach cancer, but stomach cancer rates have fallen faster than any other. Sixty years ago, all Britain’s food was organic; we lived only until our early sixties, malnutrition and food poisoning were rife. Now, modern agriculture (including the careful use of well-tested chemicals) makes food cheap and safe and we live into our eighties.
Meanwhile Jonah should enjoy this little nugget about the Soil Association, the principal lobbying group in the UK for ‘organic’ food:
The Soil Association invariably claims that anyone who questions the value of organic farming works for chemical manufacturers and agribusiness or is in league with some shady right-wing US free-market lobby group. Which is ironic, considering that a number of British fascists were involved in the founding of the Soil Association and its journal was edited by one of Oswald Mosley’s blackshirts until the late 1960s.