"Organic" farmers busted, one kills himself.

[Archae]

As I've said before, "organic" is a scam.

Coroner: Leader of Large Organic Food Scheme Dies by Suicide

A Missouri man blamed for running the largest organic food fraud in U.S. history has died by suicide, days after he was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A coroner says a Missouri man blamed for running the largest organic food fraud scheme in U.S. history has died by suicide, days after he was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

Livingston County Coroner Scott Lindley on Tuesday confirmed the death of Randy Constant in Chillicothe, Missouri. He said Constant died from "a self-inflicted situation" and said more details would be released soon.

A federal judge sentenced Constant to 122 months in prison at a hearing on Friday for leading what prosecutors dubbed the "field of schemes fraud." Constant was planning to report to prison in coming weeks after the Bureau of Prisons decided where to place him.

Prosecutors say that Constant falsely marketed non-organic corn and soybeans certified organic on a massive scale from 2010 to 2017.

https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2019-08-20/coroner-leader-of-large-organic-food-scheme-dies-by-suicide

Others in this scheme:

The grains were sold mainly for use as animal feed to companies that marketed organic meat and meat products. Constant was sentenced to 122 months in federal prison. Three Overton, Nebraska farmers whom he recruited to join his scheme also received sentences:

Michael Potter, 41, was ordered to serve 24 months behind bars.
James Brennan, 41, was sentenced to 20 months.
71-year-old Tom Brennan, father of James, was given a three-month sentence.

All four had pleaded guilty to wire fraud charges and cooperated with a two-year investigation that isn't over. A fifth farmer pleaded guilty in the case and is awaiting sentencing.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndia/pr/owner-northeast-iowa-organic-grain-brokerage-pleads-guilty-fraudulent-sales-totaling

[Turbineguy]

1. Even

Carbon monoxide is inorganic. He stuck with his methods right to the end.

[mr_lebowski]

28. But chemistry definition, it's actually not ... CO is an 'organic chemical' ... because Carbon (nt)

[pecosbob]

35. I believe CO is an inorganic compound as it lacks Hydrogen or Nitrogen

but I might be wrong...I often am.

[Drahthaardogs]

49. Yep. Carbides, and CO2 are also considered inorganic

They are exceptions.

[Turbineguy]

38. I thought so too.

So I looked it up. In order to be "organic" it needs both carbon and hydrogen.

This may be a newer definition because I too (College Chemistry 101 in 1970) was sure it was organic.

[Major Nikon]

2. Should have orchestrated his fraud legally like the rest

It does kind of underscore how weak the certification is when someone can get away with that for so long. It’s as if the industry is selling rubber stamps that aren’t worth the ink.

[Archae]

3. Of course. And all a food producer has to do is say "organic" or "no GMO"

And they can double or even triple the price.

Meanwhile "organic" farmers are using pesticides that are more toxic than the usual ones.

[Codeine]

4. Can you link a good source for this?

I tried to argue this point with some friends recently but I didn’t have the facts to hand and came off looking a bit silly.

[IronLionZion]

10. Here's a link to help you out

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/httpblogsscientificamericancomscience-sushi20110718mythbusting-101-organic-farming-conventional-agriculture/

[womanofthehills]

18. Bad research on that 8 yr old article by Wilcox

Scientific American Fact-checkers on Holiday

Christie Wilcox’s “Myth-busting 101: Organic Farming > Conventional Agriculture,” published last week, has already elicited rebuttals from food and ag writers at Mother Jones, Grist and more. As Mother Jones’ Tom Philpott notes, the piece is so predictable in its rehearsal of industry talking points as to warrant a big yawn. But it’s in SciAm and will no doubt serve as link bait in the ongoing debate over the future of global food and agriculture; so we find that a few basic corrections are in order.

First, the “myths” Wilcox claims to bust: 1) Organics don’t use pesticides; 2) Organic foods are healthier; 3) Organic farming is better for the environment; and 4) It’s all or nothing. Let's take each in turn.
http://www.panna.org/blog/scientific-american-fact-checkers-holiday

3 Ways Scientific American Got the Organic Ag Story Wrong

Over on the Scientific American blog, Christie Wilcox set out to expose the “myths” of organic farming. Frankly, the piece was so poorly reasoned that I read it with a yawn. But people take Scientific American seriously (as they should—it’s a great publication) and the piece was received with credulity on Matt Yglesias’ influential blog and at my former employer, Grist. (Grist has since published a critique of the Wilcox piece by Tom Laskawy).

Since some smart people seem to be buying what Wilcox is peddling here, let’s look at her central claims.

https://www.motherjones.com/food/2011/07/organic-agriculture/

[dalton99a]

5. +1

[GulfCoast66]

7. Don't forget Gluten Free!

[womanofthehills]

26. I don't think so - look at all the farmers with lawsuits against Monsanto

They care about their families health.

Bustos decided to go organic for personal reasons. “There was one time when I came home after dusting my pumpkin fields and my son was a small baby, rolling on the carpet. He reached at me and I saw the dust from the fertilizer coming off my pants. That was my ‘a-ha’ moment. I felt I couldn’t use those chemicals anymore because I might be harming my family,” he says.


https://www.farmflavor.com/new-mexico/new-mexico-farmers-transitioning-organic-farming/

[Drahthaardogs]

34. Plus modern pesticides are mostly pyrethrins

Which are derived from the chrysanthemum.

[womanofthehills]

37. Not true for farming

American soy and corn farming = Roundup

[Drahthaardogs]

39. I was talking insecticides not herbicides

And yes, glyphosate is used heavily on round up ready corn and soy. There are no organic herbicides that I am aware, although some actually mimic plant hormones.

[womanofthehills]

47. Actually, the term pesticide applies to herbicides, fungicides and insecticides

What is a pesticide

A pesticide is any substance used to kill or control insects, weeds, fungi, rodents, bacteria, or other unwanted organisms. The term pesticide also applies to herbicides, fungicides, and various other substances used to control pests.

Herbicides are, by far, the most commonly applied pesticide followed by insecticides, fungicides, and rodenticides.

https://www.stonyfield.com/playfree/pesticides-101

[hunter]

6. Believe it or not, there are plenty of honest organic farmers.

I also blame certain pesticides for depressing the intelligence of many U.S. Americans.

If you grow up in an environment saturated with certain pesticides you won't be as smart or as creative as you might have been.

[2naSalit]

8. +1

I became an organic farmer this year... I challenge anyone to come and see how we operate and then tell me we're a fraud.

[Blue_true]

16. What are your farming practices?

What do you use for fertilizer?

What do you use for weed control?

What do you use for pest control and soil fungus control?

[2naSalit]

17. We

Don't use fertilizer, our soil is full of all elements that make it perfect for whatever we plant, pretty much.

We either pull or cut weeds, burn the field in spring to kill seeds and detritus/roots.

Don't need fungus control because we don't have that problem.

We use one ick up truck on occasion and na ATV on occasion and a gas pump once a week to water two small plots.

Also, flood irrigate from artesian springs, have spectacular drainage throughout the property and a rather dry climate so fungus, so far isn't a problem. Also use fladry to ward of wildlife that might eat too much.

Granted this is a rather small, specific crop so we have many advantages over general vegetable production and other conditions that are common to other crops, but that's one reason we decided to go for it and see if we could make it work. So far we are doing well, some loss to grasshoppers and deer but not much. We do have quarter acre of corn and about forty spud plants going and a veggie garden to feed all our helpers but that's on a different part of the property and it's all organic as well.

We're in a good location with everything we need and the state monitors our crop since we have to be licensed to grow it.

[Blue_true]

25. Your practices are pretty sound. Look like you do adhere to a true organic regimen.

The fungicide thing is a little bothersome though. Many fungus are not annual and when they strike, they hit root systems hard. But you know YOUR soil, I am just some person on the Internet. I use companion plants (to the ones that I want to grow) as insecticide/fungicide agents. One benefit of companion crops for you is that in addition to protecting your main crop, they can provide complimentary cash streams with little added investment.

I am an engineer but have become interested in vegan, low-no chemical, low-no till farming. My interest is on specific crops whose derivatives I use for manufacturing consumer products. I am not a vegan, but the purity levels that I can achieve for the derivatives makes that route appealing.

[Archae]

54. Looks like you really do grow organically.

I'd like to try your produce, especially the potatoes!

(I love home-grown ones.)

It's the factory farm "organic" producers I don't like.
Mostly because they way overcharge for their produce.

[2naSalit]

56. I get what you're saying.

There is a wide range of what passes for organic and it shows when you make your food purchases. Our crop is not food but will be processed for medicinal use. But the veggies are great, I have fresh tomatoes every day and fresh raspberries! We just grow the veggies for personal use, I eat so much better when I'm there.

[Archae]

57. Fresh raspberries?

Yumyumyum…

I really love raspberries.

Can I move in with you?

[2naSalit]

58. Ha!

I just moved into my current housing and there is a big raspberry grove in the garden, there's one at the farm and I stopped by to visit my former landlord from a few years ago, yesterday, and that raspberry patch was booming too! My little freezer is now full for the winter. Wish blueberries grew around here.

If my place were big enough I'd ask you over for a raspberry party.

[womanofthehills]

20. If you have chickens, you have fertilizer & weed control

I live in the high desert and use soil from under my pine and juniper trees and aged chicken manure to augment my garden soil and I have sunflowers 20 ft high.

An organic raspberry farm near me, just lets the chickens into the raspberries early on in the season and the chickens take care of all the bugs. If you time your planting, you can also avoid some bugs. The later I plant squash in NM, the fewer bugs.

Most fungus in soil is beneficial. The only really bad fungus I've heard about is in super dry climates like Arizona where they have valley fever.

[2naSalit]

31. No livestock on our farm...

the property owners are only here in the summer so they have a dog, that's it. I don't live there and I have no pets.

I hate chickens, had to mind a bunch of them for a friend a few years ago and that's when I decided that the only good chicken is the one that's already cooked and on my plate!

Up here, in Montana, we have a lot of dry land farming as well as irrigated but until recently we didn't have the horrendous temperatures we have been seeing the last ten years, I can imagine that could cause some new problems with soil moisture.

The owner is an agronomist so I trust their knowledge on soils, between the two of us, we should probably write a book about our endeavor and what we are doing... there are so many lessons about nearly everything that we are amazed every day. And the background scenery can't be beat.

Chicken manure could be used in the veggie plot but the fields are just too much. By the time I have walked the fields in use right now, I will have covered two miles. It's how I get my exercise.

[BuddhaGirl]

9. Yes there are

The broad-brush attacks on organics is ignorant and tiresome.

I'm fortunate to have many good, organic farms around me.

[Ferrets are Cool]

12. The problem is not that there are NO organic farmers...

it is knowing which ones are frauds.

[womanofthehills]

27. Probably the Republican farmers

All the dem farmers I know in NM would never do that - they want to protect the environment.

[hunter]

13. Me too.

I'm fortunate to live in a place where organic food is easily available.

[Blue_true]

14. What do those organic farms use for fertilizer? Herbicides? Pesticides? nt

[womanofthehills]

22. Actually manure is a fantastic fertilizer

Composting is big with organic farmers. There are companies in NM that sell excellent composted soil by the truckload.

[Major Nikon]

29. So long as you don't mind numerous pathogens

Biological soil amendments (BSAs) such as manure and compost are frequently used as organic fertilizers to improve the physical and chemical properties of soils. However, BSAs have been known to be a reservoir for enteric bacterial pathogens such as enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC), Salmonella spp., and Listeria spp. There are numerous mechanisms by which manure may transfer pathogens to growing fruits and vegetables, and several outbreaks of infections have been linked to manure-related contamination of leafy greens.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/27726763/

[hunter]

40. Manure and other animal products are not a necessity in organic farming.

The easy availability of manure and other animal byproducts such as blood and bone meal, and the common use of these, is mostly a consequence of concentrated meat and dairy production.

[Major Nikon]

41. Nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium are

Manure is already more expensive as a source for those things, mostly because it takes a shitton more of it and it requires more resources to process and transport. So yes, there are other sources for those things, but when you want to stay within the realm of “organic” the price tends to skyrocket in a market that already has significant markup.

[hunter]

45. My primary interest in organic agriculture is insecticides and contaminated groundwater.

There's good evidence that insecticides interfere with neurological development in children.

Nitrates and other agricultural toxins are another huge problem when they contaminate drinking water.

Farmers tended to use far more inexpensive synthetic nitrogen fertilizers than necessary, disrupting more "natural" soil chemistries and biologies, which in turn required greater applications of herbicides and pesticides...

These days it's much easier to minimize and even localize the application of synthetic fertilizers.

[Major Nikon]

46. Here's the way I look at it

If the goal is to reduce environmental impact, then the methodology shouldn’t be limited by an arbitrary marketing standard that in no way guarantees less environmental impact and in many cases guarantees the exact opposite. It should be open to whatever method produces the best result.

[womanofthehills]

50. Agreed, and all these farming fertilizers are feeding toxic algae

I never remember not being able to swim in lakes in NM, but now we have warnings of toxic algae from farming runoff as do other states. Two days ago Cochiti Lake was closed due to toxic algae bloom, Abiquiu Lake closed the week before,
Elephant Butte has sections with toxic algae. When I was a kid, I swam in Lake Hopatcong in NJ and that is a total algae mess right now along with other NJ lakes. It's all over the US. You also have nitrates feeding the toxic red tides in the south. Toxic bacteria attacking almost the whole Mississippi coast. Yikes!

[Blue_true]

59. Good points.

I am partial to low-till or no-till farming that features companion and soil enriching plants. The soil enriching plants can be planted in late summer and mowed down in the spring.

I am no vegan, but I no longer use animal based or fish fertilizer, there are plant alternatives that are actually good for the earth or oceans as much as they are good for farming.

Excellent point on manure and bone meal. For a large farm or even a small one, use of those soil amendments require high density animal farms, feedlots or slaughterhouses.

[womanofthehills]

19. If you search past Monsanto DU discussions, Archae posts pro Monsanto

One of his posts from July 9, 2016 was titled "The Monsanto Haters are Really Desperate"

[BuddhaGirl]

36. Yep

I've noticed that particular agenda.

[keithbvadu2]

11. Related article - nutrition of today's crops.

Related article - nutrition of today's crops.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/114221725

[Blue_true]

15. Today's crops are not as nutrient dense as in the past. nt

[womanofthehills]

21. and they will get less nutrient dense as the climate warms

but organic tastes a million times better than non organic

[NutmegYankee]

23. They taste the same.

It’s the variety chosen that affects taste as most commercially viable varieties were bred for producing high yields and not taste. An heirloom variety will taste outstanding whether organic or not. I have organic garden beds and non-organic garden beds with no discernible taste difference when growing the same varieties.

[flvegan]

24. Because one is a declaration, an indictment of it all.

God above I wish I could be just that stupid. Life would probably be easier.

[G_j]

30. It does not follow

that this proves organic is a scam.

[2naSalit]

32. +1

[demmiblue]

33. It's his shtick. n/t

[Archae]

43. Yeah, ain't it just SOOOOO terrible I go with science, not hysteria?

[demmiblue]

44. Lol... wrong. n/t

[Archae]

55. Show me.

[womanofthehills]

51. You have backed Monsanto's science - which is all lies

The Big Lie: Monsanto and the New York Times

Similarly, for more than two decades the promotion of genetically engineered (GE) crops in the United States and worldwide has been based in the Big Lie. Led by Monsanto’s aggressive international marketing campaign the mantra has been, and still is, that GE crops “reduce pesticide use, increase yield and are key to feeding the world.” I have been working on this issue for decades and during that time have seen that virtually every major media story on GE crops began with this “Big Lie” claim, and using almost identical language. These claims, as with those in the Coke and AT&T commercials, defy common sense. Monsanto and the other leaders in promoting GE crops—Dow, Dupont, Syngenta and Bayer—are all chemical companies that make tens of billions of dollars in profits by selling ever more pesticides, especially herbicides. Why would they spend hundreds of millions of research dollars and then billions in advertising and lobbying to promote crops that actually “reduce pesticides” and thereby destroy their bottom line? Are these companies committing economic suicide in an altruistic attempt to feed the world? Obviously not. You can accuse Monsanto of many things, including myriad corporate crimes over many decades, but altruism is not one of them. As my organization and many others have scientifically demonstrated many times to a deaf media, the vast majority of GMOs are not designed to decrease herbicide use but to massively increase it. More than 90% of US corn, soy, cotton, and sugar beets have been genetically engineered to withstand massive doses of the toxic herbicides these companies make, and profit from. Normally care has to be taken using herbicides because they kill not just weeds but anything green, including the crops they come into contact with. But with these herbicide tolerant crops large scale operations can even conduct aerial spraying of their fields with these herbicides and the weeds die but the crops survive.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-big-lie-monsanto-and_b_13654204

[Archae]

42. Just saw an example of how organic can be a scam.

Was at the grocery store.

Store-brand gallon of milk was $2.90.

A HALF-gallon of organic milk was priced at $5.50.

Not to mention...

https://www.amazon.com/Altered-Genes-Twisted-Truth-Systematically/dp/B013GXD4KK/ref=sr_1_13?keywords=gmo&qid=1566760176&s=gateway&sr=8-13

[womanofthehills]

48. In NM organic milk is $4.50 and worth it - especially for children

Current-use antibiotics and pesticides undetectable in organic but prevalent in non-organic milk

Higher levels of growth hormone also found in non-organic milk, suggesting use of the GM growth hormone rbGH

Here's an important study that found residues of currently used antibiotics and pesticides in the milk of conventionally raised (non-organic) cows but not in organic milk. Some antibiotics were found in conventional milk at levels exceeding federal safety limits.

The study also found higher levels of the growth hormone bGH in the conventional milk. This suggests (but does not prove) that the farmers were dosing their cows with the genetically engineered bovine growth hormone rbGH, which is banned in Canada and Europe but allowed in the US.

The authors state that to the best of their knowledge, their study "is the first to compare levels of pesticides in the US milk supply by production method (conventional v. organic). It is also the first in a decade to measure antibiotic and hormone levels and compare them by milk production type".

https://gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/19108-current-use-antibiotics-and-pesticides-undetectable-in-organic-but-prevalent-in-non-organic-milk

[hunter]

52. People act like milk is a necessity. It's not.

I quit buying milk when our children were teenagers, maybe a dozen years ago.

The only reason we bought milk was because that's the way our parents did it, and we mindlessly accepted that milk was part of a healthy diet. Which was weird because both my wife and her dad are lactose intolerant.

There came a point when I noticed my kids were more likely to drink the soy milk their mom drank, and that gallons of milk I was still habitually buying were going bad before they were finished. I stopped buying milk entirely and there were few complaints

If I was raising children again I'd skip the milk.

I don't have anything nice to say about industrial scale dairy farming. I'm not a politician so I don't have to.

[Archae]

53. I hardly drink milk anymore myself.

I do use it in cooking, but that's about it.

I do like chocolate milk.

The point is though, milk is milk.

And these organic producers are selling milk at 2, 3, even 4 times the price of store milk.

Hence, it's a scam.