Organic Watch: Countering the Corporate Attack on Organic -- The corporate takeover of the organic food industry

Organic Watch: Countering the Corporate Attack on Organic -- The corporate takeover of the organic food industry: "Countering the Corporate Attack on Organics and
Fighting for the Family Farmer

Now that the organic industry has grown to over $12 billion in annual sales, agribusiness and biotechnology giants evidently view organics as a viable threat. Over the past few years they have launched a sophisticated and well-funded corporate attack aimed at discrediting organic food and farming practices.

Although their activities do not seem to have put a dent in sales growth, or consumer support of organic agriculture, nonetheless, their activities, including lawsuits and intimidation from government officials , have organic marketers and consumers rightfully concerned.

Attacks on organics have come from right-wing think tanks, lawsuits from Monsanto, threatening letters from the FDA, and have been facilitated by journalists who are either complacent about or outright hostile to organic agriculture. Some of these attacks have included: "

Legacy of farming methods comes home to roost - Opinion - smh.com.au

I'm doing research for a website on organic food that I'll be building next year. What I'm learning is mind-boggling. Notice the highlighted sentence below on the grain it takes to feed the birds, and how we use more grain than we get back in meat.

Legacy of farming methods comes home to roost - Opinion - smh.com.au:

It isn't called 'factory farming' merely because those sheds look like factories. Everything about the production method is geared towards turning live animals into machines for converting grain into meat or eggs at the lowest possible cost.

Walk into such a shed and you will find up to 30,000 chickens. The National Chicken Council, the trade association for the US chicken industry, recommends a stocking density of 85 square inches (548 square centimetres) a bird - less than a standard sheet of typing paper.

snip

Environmentalists say that this production method is unsustainable. It relies on the use of fossil fuel energy to light and ventilate the sheds, and to transport the grain eaten by the chickens. When this grain, which humans could eat, is fed to chickens, they use some of it to create bones, feathers and other body parts that we cannot eat. So we get less food back than we put into the birds - and less protein, too - while disposing of the concentrated chicken manure causes serious pollution to rivers and ground water.

snip

It's short article, worth a read.