Wrong about organic farming

http://www.fastcompany.com/1779059/nestle-chairmans-attacks-on-organic-food-are-wrong-heres-why

Here's Why Nestle Chairman's Attacks On Organic Food Are Wrong

BY FC Expert Blogger Anna LappéFri Sep 9, 2011

This blog is written by a member of our expert blogging community and expresses that expert's views alone.

Responding to Peter Brabeck-Letmathe's critique of organic food--that it's too expensive and downright dangerous--author and educator Anna Lappé says that he's wrong, and scared of an organic future.

News flash: the chairman of the board of one of the largest food companies in the world--whose tripling in profits from 2009 to nearly $43 billion in 2010 was generated from selling mainly processed foods produced with inputs from industrial, chemical farms--is “skeptical” of organic food.

Don’t you think someone who made $10.7 million in 2010 from a company whose profit primarily depends on chemical agriculture might have a bias in the matter? Yes, it would be understandable to think Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Chairman of the Board of Nestlé, might. It also might be understandable to want to know what others, those without such a financial interest in the food status quo, think about the viability of non-industrial agriculture. But in the article, like other press that pooh-poohs organic farming, those who disagree--if they’re mentioned at all--are portrayed as marginal or unqualified to speak to the issue.

In the piece in question, the other side is represented by unnamed (and unquoted) “nutrition professors and some food scientists.” No offense to those nutrition professors and food scientists, but what if the reader had had, instead, learned that the viability, efficiency, and safety of industrial agriculture is being questioned not only by professors and some food scientists but by countless agronomists, food security experts, economists, epidemiologists, and public health experts all around the world? What if instead of “nutrition professors and some food scientists,” you heard about the numerous peer-reviewed and meta-studies that contradict Brabeck-Letmathe’s claims.