[HN Gopher] One of biggest frauds in U.S. farm history
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One of biggest frauds in U.S. farm history
Author : evilsimon
Score : 63 points
Date : 2020-01-25 19:26 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.kansascity.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.kansascity.com)
| Animats wrote:
| From the article: _"They can test for GMO (genetically modified
| organisms) ... but corn that's not GMO, you can't tell whether
| it's been sprayed or not sprayed."_
|
| _" Technically, you can, but you're not likely to get a positive
| result unless the inspector hits it just right and collects a
| plant sample before the residues wash away."_
|
| Yes. See this Forbes article. By the time it reaches retail, you
| can't tell.[1]
|
| Non-organic food is probably healthier. Less insect residue. Also
| cheaper.
|
| [1]
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensavage/2016/02/08/inconve...
| m463 wrote:
| > Non-organic food is probably healthier. Less insect residue.
|
| Not a foregone conclusion.
|
| Reading the Forbes article, I wonder if the studies took
| organic food fraud into account, possibly even from Randy
| Constant.
|
| Also, there are a lot of interests - very well funded interests
| - downplaying glyphosate and other herbicides/insecticides. The
| net effect would be to make non-organic food seem costly with
| fewer benefits.
| ajross wrote:
| > Non-organic food is probably healthier. Less insect residue.
|
| Sorry, is "insect residue" a term of art? Any why would a bug's
| "residue" be unhealthy, exactly? (In particular in a way that
| would survive routine washing in a way that a pesticide would
| not?) I'd ask for a citation, but... yeah. You just made that
| up, right?
|
| None of that should be taken as a particular defense of the US
| organic food regulation regime, which is indeed a big mess. But
| what you wrote was just silly.
| ahopskin wrote:
| Why the fuck is this downvoted? This site has rapidly decayed
| from mere crap into absolute trash it seems.
| nine_k wrote:
| I buy organic fruit and vegetables, but not because I care
| about pesticides too much.
|
| Mainstream vegetables and fruit are optimized for looks and for
| shelf life (which measures in many months for much of produce).
| Taste takes the back seat.
|
| Organic produce is expected to have a shorter shelf life,
| smaller size, and some visual imperfections, because of how
| it's marketed. It can compete on taste, though. And noticeably
| tastier it is.
|
| Organic produce does cost a bit more (sometimes quite a bit).
| But eating untasty vegetables and plastic-feeling fruit is
| unpleasant, so I just avoid it, missing all the health
| benefits. Tasty organic produce does not have this problem :)
| DavidVoid wrote:
| The point of organic food was never for it to be healthier
| though right? From my understanding, it was pretty much always
| about reducing the use of synthetic fertilizers and -pesticides
| in order to increase (or at least not reduce) biodiversity in
| farmland wildlife.
| hedora wrote:
| You certainly can test for some non-organic foods at retail.
|
| For example, non-organic oats are often sprayed with roundup at
| harvest time, so cereals made from them routinely have unsafe
| levels of carcinogens in them:
|
| https://www.ewg.org/childrenshealth/monsanto-weedkiller-stil...
|
| Organic oats have less than 1/10th as much roundup in them on
| average:
|
| https://gimmethegoodstuff.org/pesticides-in-organic-oatmeal-...
|
| Also, the more farms go organic, the less contamination there
| will be in the organic crops.
| erikig wrote:
| "There's no proof that the meat [from animals fed from
| fraudulently marked "organic" produce] is any better for you, but
| some people believe it is and others have philosophical or
| environmental reasons for preferring it."
|
| Makes me wonder - who is the victim of this fraud?
| lovich wrote:
| Does it matter if organic is healthier or not? If you advertise
| a good for sale based on a specific characteristic, and then
| sell goods that don't have that characteristic, you have
| committed fraud. Whether or not that specific characteristic
| has an affect in the real world does not change the fact that
| you aren't selling what you advertised
| Maarten88 wrote:
| The animals, clearly
| pm90 wrote:
| People who hold that belief.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| As a farm boy from Wisconsin I'm obviously going to look at it
| a bit different than the majority of the HN crowd, but I'd say
| the victims were the farmers who were his competitors.
|
| That said, I completely understand the skepticism. Who's to say
| that those farmers aren't trying to get their yields up via non
| organic methods as well? (Of course, if they were, why would
| they have turned him in? But you never know.)
| Thorrez wrote:
| The customers who paid a higher price for something because it
| was falsely advertised.
|
| Just because there's no proof that organic is healthier doesn't
| mean it isn't healthier. And people buy organic for reasons
| other than health, such as the idea that it's better for the
| environment (e.g. no pesticides seeping into the ground).
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| Soil, environment and flora/fauna, insects and farm workers
| benefit from organic methods. It's the failure of certification
| bodies in that they haven't communicated that enough and only
| focused on the $ spending end consumer.
| downrightmike wrote:
| He scammed out a couple dozen million dollars each year and is
| fined 128 million, which ruined him and he'd never be able to pay
| it back. This is the kind of punishment That needs to happen to a
| lot of industries, really any of the crimes people commit should
| cost them more than they gained. But he must have been too small
| potatoes, so he got an appropriate sentence.
| diogenescynic wrote:
| I suspect similar organic frauds are going on all over. I know
| someone who was fired for not going along with faking the
| statistics that a food service vendor was using for marketing.
| There need to be more regulations to verify something labeled as
| organic actually is.
| blazespin wrote:
| I suspect many of his buyers weren't particularly concerned that
| he was 'defrauding' them. He probably sold at a discount and it
| gave them the label that they were consuming organic.
|
| Also, the article is very hyperbolic. It's pretty standard in the
| industry to fudge when it comes to organic.
| cprayingmantis wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if during the next few years you saw a
| number of stories like this come out. From my talks with folks
| there isn't as much oversight in the organic sector as we're led
| to believe. That's all hearsay so take it with a grain of salt.
| [deleted]
| rblatz wrote:
| Being from Ohio I knew quite a few farmers, or people that grew
| up on farms. They all laugh at organic and say it's bullshit.
| There is typically no way to tell after the fact if something
| is or isn't organic. Same with rBGH free dairy products.
|
| Farmers have known for years that the label is only as good as
| the word of farmer, and with economic pressures to cheat, it's
| not surprising to find cheaters.
| tsomctl wrote:
| Except for those with leaky digestive systems, and non-
| organic produce is a guaranteed way to get a headache.
| analog31 wrote:
| In some states, you're not allowed to label milk as rBGH-
| free, because all milk is rBGH free. They have to label it as
| being made from cows that the farmers promise not to feed
| rBGH to.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| If you are passing off one product as another, deliberately
| defrauding your buyers, you are running serious risks. It
| wont be the feds taking the farm. It will be Whole Foods'
| lawyers coming to recover the cost of pulling your product
| off shelves. And insurance doesn't cover fraud.
| gniv wrote:
| > There is typically no way to tell after the fact
|
| Consumer Reports (and others) did studies that showed non-
| organic food have lots more pesticide residue than organic
| food. That of course doesn't mean they are better for you or
| that they are tastier.
| bad_user wrote:
| No, non-organic has more residue of _expected pesticides_.
|
| The often unspoken truth however is that many chemicals
| aren't tested for. For example copper sulfate, used as
| organic fungicide.
|
| In other words conventional agriculture uses far more
| substances that the USDA tests for, a vast majority of
| them, whereas organic agriculture uses substances that
| aren't covered by USDA tests. Which should be obvious.
|
| This doesn't mean that:
|
| 1. Organic agriculture uses less pesticides (bullshit,
| unless you're talking about GMOs, another hot subject)
|
| 2. Organic produce is in any way healthier
|
| Both of these statements lack credible evidence. And we
| might actually find instances in which the substances used
| in organic agriculture are more unhealthy than their
| conventional equivalents.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Depends on the food. Broccoli, possibly, because you eat
| all of it. But nobody eats a banana peel.
| bluntfang wrote:
| Gonna go out on a limb here and say that consuming more
| pesticides is bad for you.
| yborg wrote:
| You can get certification from an auditing organization that
| you are following organic practices, so for farms willing to
| spend the extra money on that, it's a little better than
| someone's word. I know someone who works as an auditor in
| this space for a living, and they are pretty busy.
| NeedMoreTea wrote:
| Trading Standards in the UK are able to detect organic
| products, and will periodically take samples from farms and
| manufacturers for lab testing. There have been samples taken
| from stores, and prosecutions -- not enough, but the ability
| is there.
|
| That's over and above the Soil Association regulations and
| inspections. SA is the organic standards body in the UK.
|
| So it sounds like the US problem is lack of oversight. Of
| course thanks to the deliberate under funding of the state,
| particularly of local councils, by recent Tory governments
| the UK is rapidly catching up to that lack of oversight --
| Trading Standards are severely underfunded currently as
| councils are forced to fund more urgent needs first.
|
| https://www.gov.uk/guidance/organic-produce-tests-and-
| inspec...
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