Enthusiastic noob ♡

[bashling]

Hi there!

My name is Eva. I am an organic vegetable farmer! (ﾉ ◠‿◠)ﾉ And a commuter cyclist. Over the past three years or so, I have reduced my meat and dairy consumption drastically since I have had consistent access to great-tasting, organically grown, fresh, local fruit and vegetables. I also have intermittent access to great-tasting, organically raised, fresh, local meat through collaborative relationships with other farmers in the area, so I do eat meat occasionally. Having learned more and more about plant biology and, particularly, the breeding history of fruit and vegetables through my farming experience, I am considering heading down a more vegan and fully self-sufficient path. I am interested in learning about what a balanced, healthy vegan diet looks like day to day, meal by meal. I am also curious what long-term vegans' thoughts might be on wild-harvested food vs. organically farmed food (wild plants vs. cultivars, basically) and their experiences with foraging. I haven't foraged much myself, but I'll be going out a few times this Spring to see what I can find. Now this post is starting to get long, but I should mention that I am also curious to know how to go about sourcing or growing things like nuts, seeds, grains and fruit that do not grow/are not grown commercially in my zone (6a). I love rice, coconut oil and citrus fruit, but I'm up here in the North, so stocking my pantry and such with these types of things increases my carbon footprint more than I'd like.

If there are vegan gardeners and/or farmers out there, I would love to discuss literally anything farming-related with you. ⊂(◠‿◠ )⊃

[Red]

Hello Eva, well done on reducing!

It's a good idea to farm your own veggies, but why do you grow organic in particular?

[bashling]

It's a good idea to farm your own veggies, but why do you grow organic in particular?

It speaks to a lot of my values, but I'll try to be brief! Organic makes sense to me because the methods and ideology are as harmonious with Nature as farming can possibly be. I believe in biology; I believe Nature is the perfect system and absolutely rules over us. Organic farming yields more nutrient-dense food, improves the quality of the land, encourages a biodiverse habitat, participates in land conservation efforts, provides fresh food to local communities, etc. It tastes better. I feel better eating it. I feel a greater sense of food security growing it. Conventional farming methods can and do destroy the soil microbiome, to the point where no food crops will grow. I do not think food coerced from dead soil is healthy to eat and I do not see conventional farming as a sustainable food system because soil is not a renewable resource, unfortunately. I could go on, but I'll leave it there for now!

[brimstoneSalad]

Welcome! Do you grow veganic, or manure & blood/bone meal based growing?

I believe in biology; I believe Nature is the perfect system and absolutely rules over us.

I don't think that's what biology teaches, you mean you believe in nature? Biology has a lot to do with understanding and harnessing nature so it can do better (biology is a field of science and literally means study of life -- to understand it). It's like how horticulture improves plants so they can produce more or tolerate droughts etc. Compare the modern banana to a wild banana to get the idea.

Organic farming yields more nutrient-dense food,

What do you mean?

improves the quality of the land [...] Conventional farming methods can and do destroy the soil microbiome, to the point where no food crops will grow.

Well, I think it depends on what you're comparing it to. Conventional agriculture isn't a monolith, there's good and bad. No-till practices improve the land, rotating legume crops improves the land. It's not like the application of a chemical undoes all of the work these plants do. It takes a LOT of human meddling (and mostly through tilling or grazing) to really degrade land.

I do not think food coerced from dead soil is healthy to eat

I have to strongly disagree there. Vegetables are healthy foods no matter how they're grown as long as they're not grown in heavy metals (e.g. arsenic in rice). The problem with calling conventional vegetables unhealthy is that people who can not afford or don't have access to organic vegetables end up eating NO vegetables at all because they've been frightened away from the only veggies they have. Messages like these really harm marginalized groups.

and I do not see conventional farming as a sustainable food system because soil is not a renewable resource, unfortunately.

That's a myth, actually. Soil is very much renewable by good farming practices. You can take dead land and plant deep rooted plants and legumes and they'll renew the soil over a few years. Farmers used to do this more accidentally out of tradition by leaving land fallow.
Obviously it's a lot better if we renew the soil *as* we are growing so we don't have to abandon farmland for years to be restored by natural processes, but soil is innately renewable.

Now some very rich sources of phosphate, for example, aren't as renewable on a human time scale. If you're using crushed rock to replace the minerals you're taking it can be very hard to keep up. That's where deep rooted plants come in: they can draw these minerals from deep the the soil and deposit them on the surface by shedding leaves. Not need for arguably non-renewable sources. There are also alternative sources that are fully renewable we've discussed elsewhere on the forum, but I don't want to go on too long.

Soil can also be created from other resources: For example, on rocky islands people have dredged up sand from the sea and mixed it with seaweed which decomposes and produces a fertile soil. A soil is a substrate, it just needs those essential minerals and the ability to drain and hold a certain amount of water. You can help the plant microbiome along faster by inoculating the soil with probiotics, but it's an inherent truth in biology on Earth that "everything is everywhere", the right microbes will find and multiply in the soil, carried by birds and the wind from as far away as they need to if they weren't already there (which they probably were, just not in the amounts we wanted them to be).

[bashling]

Welcome! Do you grow veganic, or manure & blood/bone meal based growing?

Thank you. Aged cow manure/vegetable compost and fish emulsion. On the acre that I manage alone, I’m using only composted horse manure for now.

I don't think that's what biology teaches, you mean you believe in nature?

I believe in studying Nature/plant biology in order to work with it rather than overcome it. Farming in and of itself tries to exert control over Nature; organic farming is an attempt to mimic Nature as closely as possible while providing optimally tailored conditions to ensure plants thrive.

"Organic farming yields more nutrient-dense food" What do you mean?

This article explains it better than I possibly could, but there is definitely more research to be done.
https://ndnr.com/botanical-medicine/nut ... nal-foods/

Conventional agriculture isn't a monolith, there's good and bad. No-till practices improve the land, rotating legume crops improves the land. It's not like the application of a chemical undoes all of the work these plants do. It takes a LOT of human meddling (and mostly through tilling or grazing) to really degrade land.

Good and bad, sure. I know conventional farmers who are very concerned about soil health and spray as seldomly as possible, but we choose not to do so at all. The principles organic farms abide by are extremely strict and there is clearly a higher standard in preserving and protecting farmland in general. Chemicals make pollinators sick and that seems like a bad omen to me; I want nothing to do with that. I love bees!

Vegetables are healthy foods no matter how they're grown as long as they're not grown in heavy metals (e.g. arsenic in rice). The problem with calling conventional vegetables unhealthy is that people who can not afford or don't have access to organic vegetables end up eating NO vegetables at all because they've been frightened away from the only veggies they have. Messages like these really harm marginalized groups.

Sure, I'll concede your point here. I know there are food deserts out there. There is a higher demand for organic vegetables than can be supplied even where currently available, and that is a shame, and it should change. I am proud to be a part of the organic farming movement and to help effect that change as the average age of the American farmer continues to rise. Many organic farms are small farms that provide food to their local communities through partnerships with independent grocery stores, relationships with chefs, and selling directly to customers through weekly CSA pick-ups during the growing season. Our farm also donates to the local food bank. Through the CSA business model, farmers are able to offer discounted produce to families and those who buy in enjoy the bounty of the harvest. There is a widespread misconception that organic farming can't feed the world or that organic produce is not "affordable" when in fact, small family farms fed America before Big Ag, and folks grew gardens full of heirlooms for fun, and peeps had a relationship with where their food came from. Farm law and food culture have changed over the years and reshaped our perception of food and our expectation of what it should cost. I probably shouldn't ramble on any longer, but I think it is important to note that high quality food is hundreds and thousands of dollars cheaper than high quality healthcare. Insert Hippocrates quote here.

That's a myth, actually. Soil is very much renewable by good farming practices. You can take dead land and plant deep rooted plants and legumes and they'll renew the soil over a few years. Farmers used to do this more accidentally out of tradition by leaving land fallow.

I get what you are saying, but I think soil is just not as renewable as you think it is, at least when it comes to growing vegetables. The phrase "fertility issues" immediately comes to mind.

As a final note, I just wanted to thank you for engaging with me. I did not really expect all this in response to an introductory post! I am now a few weeks in to this journey of transforming my diet and my will is seriously ironclad. We currently have no meat, no eggs, no dairy in the apartment and I have lost my taste for real cheese (did not think that was possible). I am enjoying vegan cream cheese, coconut yogurt, veggie bacon and veggie dogs these days and my boyfriend just baked some delicious vegan brownies for us, yay!

[brimstoneSalad]

Aged cow manure/vegetable compost and fish emulsion.

Vegetable compost is great, but do you think cow manure and fish are really ethical or sustainable fertilizers?
Consider how harmful over-fishing is to the ocean, and how cattle are contributing to climate change, not to mention the harm to sentient creatures.

Killing and grinding up a fish to fertilize broccoli then eating the broccoli doesn't seem to me a whole lot different from just eating the fish in ethical or environmental terms.

This is why I think we should support veganic agriculture instead of animal-based organic. In veganic agriculture they use crop rotation and sustainable legumes are grown as green manures. They actually fix nitrogen from the atmosphere (unlike cows).

On the acre that I manage alone, I’m using only composted horse manure for now.

Are you working to switch to plant based fertilizers?

organic farming is an attempt to mimic Nature as closely as possible while providing optimally tailored conditions to ensure plants thrive.

I think to do that you'd have to be doing permaculture and let the plants reach deep into the earth for their nutrients. There is some really interesting work there.

There are few things more damaging to the soil than plowing which is a form of strip-mining top-soil and inhibits its ability to capture carbon (releasing it instead), and I don't think there's anything natural about importing ground up phosphate rocks, spraying on toxic mineral pesticides and extracted oils from poisonous plats, and mass produced animal feces and ground up fish from oceans half a world away where the ecosystem is being decimated by the practice.

I don't see mainstream organic practice as an improvement. Maybe some small farms are different, but the laws of organic agriculture grant a grandfather exemption to so many harmful substances that have just been around longer and don't do anything to address the most damaging practices.

This article explains it better than I possibly could, but there is definitely more research to be done.
https://ndnr.com/botanical-medicine/nut ... nal-foods/

I think perhaps you're looking at very outdated sources.
That article references a 2008 paper from an interest group based on a small number of studies, a more recent and rigorous 2012 Stanford meta-analysis did not find significant differences: https://annals.org/aim/article-abstract ... tic-review
So I strongly recommend you read that paper if you can. If you can't access it I can try to get some longer quotes from it and reference some of the data.

As to the article, there are a lot of half-truths at the start of the article that make me skeptical (they talk about pesticide residue, but permitted organic pesticides can just as harmful; when studied they've been found to cause cancer about as often as modern synthetic ones -- so that's a lie of omission on their part, you can't complain about one pesticide but ignore others with unknown dangers).
Even e.g. neem, which may have more effects than we know of https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3841499/ (something I'm concerned doesn't wash off of organic produce and isn't properly tested for)

In terms of that data, I'd prefer to look at the actual source to see the reported nutritional differences myself.
Again I want to mention that that research is out of date and more recent research has not shown a difference, so please keep that in mind, but I'll check this out anyway as a thought experiemnt.

Please read along in the original paper here: http://www.organic-center.org/reportfil ... NAL_V2.pdf

There were 236 valid matched pairs across the 11 nutrients. The organic foods within these matched pairs were nutritionally superior in 145 matched pairs, or in 61% of the cases, while the conventional foods were more nutrient dense in 87 matched pairs, or 37%. There were no differences in 2% of the matched pairs.

As I hope you can see, even based on that outdated and limited analysis, it's not quite so black and white. Nutritional properties just vary a lot between crops, and sometimes the conventional crops were actually more nutritious than the organic ones.

Perhaps you could make an argument that those 60% of crops are better organic, and that the 37% are better conventional. 60% is more than 37% for sure, but not so radically more you could make any sweeping generalizations. It's also important to consider the type of nutrients we're talking about along with the costs.

For five nutirents, Figure 2 shows the percent of total matched pairs for which the orangic sample nutrient level exceeded the conventional sample level by eleven percent or more. Almost one-half of the 57 organic samples in these matched pairs
exceeded the conventional sample nutirent level by 21% or more. [...] About 22% of the 145 matched pairs in which the
organic samples were more nutrient dense fell within a difference of only 0% to 10%, which can be regarded as minor.

In other words, more than half of that 60% exceeded the conventional produce by 20% or less. And and a lot of that less than 10% more.

Consider this:

I have five dollars with which to buy vegetables this week. I can buy four pounds of conventional vegetables, or I can buy two pounds of organic vegetables.

If I can afford to eat TWICE as many vegetables by choosing conventional, I SHOULD choose conventional because I will absolutely be consuming more nutrients that way. Organic produce doesn't have twice the nutritional value of conventional, most of the time (70% of the time) it either has less than conventional or 20% or less additional nutrition.

Organic foods need to be less than 25% more expensive to be on average worth it nutritionally, and that's only if you're very generous about which nutrients are the most important to agree with that paper's conclusions:

The average serving of organic plant-based food contains about 25% more of the nutrients encompassed in this study than a comparable-sized serving of the same food produced by conventional farming methods.

If you want to I can go into why, even with their data, those conclusions are wrong. For example, fiber (which is the most important and one they didn't cover) and vitamin A, but even taking that at face value and trusting that outdated source, the economics don't make sense.

The price difference as it stands today there's no way it's worth it most of the time. Here's one informal survey: https://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nut ... foods.aspx

The thing is, one of the major reasons *some* conventional foods have a little less nutrition is because the crop yield is higher, sometimes due to larger fruits (though they don't necessarily have more cells in them, sometimes just more starch). It's one of those dilemmas; grow more food, but the food has slightly lower nutritional value. It's ultimately worth it for two reasons:

1. The nutrition doesn't drop as fast as the yield increases, so you still get more overall from the land.
2. We can use less land to grow more food, which means we can use fewer resources and let more land regrow forest.

In terms of public health and food security in balance with ecology, it just doesn't make sense to trade that yield. And when it comes to massive scale industrial organic agriculture by agricultural megacorps that have gotten higher yields, I don't expect you'd see those nutrient differences anymore once you account for the growing practice.

Again, though, I'd recommend reading that Stanford meta-analysis if you can access it.

Nutritional value was not significantly different. There were only two differences, one very important and one not:

Very important: In animal based foods, there was lower risk of antibiotic resistant bacteria in the organic meats etc.
This can literally be life or death, but organic meats are not free of antibiotic resistant bacteria -- maybe due to the farmers using antibiotics anyway, or neighboring farms.

Not important: There was a small pesticide residue of tested pesticides on some conventional produce:

Two studies reported significantly lower urinary pesticide levels among children consuming organic versus conventional diets, but studies of biomarker and nutrient levels in serum, urine, breast milk, and semen in adults did not identify clinically meaningful differences. All estimates of differences in nutrient and contaminant levels in foods were highly heterogeneous except for the estimate for phosphorus; phosphorus levels were significantly higher than in conventional produce, although this difference is not clinically significant. The risk for contamination with detectable pesticide residues was lower among organic than conventional produce (risk difference, 30% [CI, −37% to −23%]), but differences in risk for exceeding maximum allowed limits were small.

This is not important because "dose makes the poison", it's present in urine because the body is easily removing it. It's not as clear that this is the case for toxic organic pesticides like neem, nor is it clear if they were testing for it. There's a big problem here in that people are only looking for modern pesticides and ignoring the many toxic products OK'd by organic standards.

Also, it's not important because even if dangerous, modern pesticide residue is easily removed from produce by washing it which everybody should to remove bacterial contamination in either case.
Nutritionfacts has some videos on the topic, and the conclusion was that a salt water solution was very effective and removing even the most stubborn fungicide: https://nutritionfacts.org/2017/04/20/t ... egetables/

Good and bad, sure. I know conventional farmers who are very concerned about soil health and spray as seldomly as possible, but we choose not to do so at all.

Maybe you don't spray anything, but that's not the case for most organic farming. There are a plethora of approved (and very toxic) organic pesticides that are used very heavily by the big guys -- in fact, *more* heavily than in conventional farming because they're not as effective gram for gram against the target.

Chemicals make pollinators sick and that seems like a bad omen to me; I want nothing to do with that. I love bees!

Well that's not true of all chemicals. Only insecticides are most likely to harm pollinators, or being directly sprayed by any kind of surfactant (soap) which will kill any insect because of the way they breathe.

Many of the most important agricultural chemicals have nothing to do with insecticide. Herbicide, for example, can be used instead of plowing or any kind of tilling to kill weeds and *preserve* soil from the harms of tilling.
Some organic farmers are doing that by laying out cardboard over the field to kill the weeds with weeks or months of shade, but that sacrifices valuable time that land could be productive and it means more forest need to be converted into cropland to feed the world.

I can sympathize a lot with no-insecticide, but it's harder to get behind no herbicide because there don't seem to be many viable alternatives.

Our farm also donates to the local food bank. Through the CSA business model, farmers are able to offer discounted produce to families and those who buy in enjoy the bounty of the harvest. There is a widespread misconception that organic farming can't feed the world or that organic produce is not "affordable" when in fact, small family farms fed America before Big Ag, and folks grew gardens full of heirlooms for fun, and peeps had a relationship with where their food came from.

It's great that you're donating to food banks!
Organic farming (specifically veganic farming) can feed the world too as long as long as animals are left out of it (those are the big waste), but it's a question of ecological cost: how many more acres need to be farmland instead of forest?
More yield means more fields can regrow forests. Organic can't compete on yield yet, and a large part of that is weed competition.

I agree that more people should probably have gardens, and I also agree that consumers probably shouldn't be given these pesticides because they're less likely to have the training to use them safely. So when it comes to organic (and hopefully veganic) agriculture I think we can have a good discussion about how a LOT of our food (maybe most of our produce) should be grown in our front yards, back yards and on patios and even windows with veganic methods. I don't think that will handle the staples (like grains and beans) which require much more land and to be grown ecologically I think at least need to utilize some herbicide and other limited pesticides to make sure yield is high enough that we can rewild as much land as possible.

I probably shouldn't ramble on any longer, but I think it is important to note that high quality food is hundreds and thousands of dollars cheaper than high quality healthcare. Insert Hippocrates quote here.

That's a misconception, though. Again: vegetables are good no matter what. Maybe even better if you wash them well, but they're absolutely nutritious whether grown organically or conventionally. There's never been any good evidence of different health outcomes there, the only thing is that people should eat more vegetables, and if them being cheaper achieves that then that's a crucial goal. You're not going to spend more on healthcare because you ate conventional vegetables instead of organic, to the contrary if you could afford to eat MORE veggies by buying conventional you're probably going to spend less on healthcare -- and that is the irony here.

That's a myth, actually. Soil is very much renewable by good farming practices. You can take dead land and plant deep rooted plants and legumes and they'll renew the soil over a few years. Farmers used to do this more accidentally out of tradition by leaving land fallow.

I get what you are saying, but I think soil is just not as renewable as you think it is, at least when it comes to growing vegetables. The phrase "fertility issues" immediately comes to mind.

Again, that's a myth.
Please read this article which addresses one of the myths: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... a-fantasy/

The panic over only having so many harvests left is really potentially dangerous. Soil is absolutely capable of not only being regenerated, but created from nothing but sand and compost. Any organic material (that is "organic" in the scientific sense) contains the building blocks for life, whether it's seaweed, mulch, humanure, etc. Adding ground up rock can replenish minerals, and soil microbes do the rest. Please take the time to read up more on soil science; there's nothing there in nature that nature can not rebuild.

There are some legit concerns about the sustainability of importing and grinding up phosphate rock to maintain a system that's arguably unsustainable, but once we run out of easily accessible high phosphate rock supply we can turn to better practices -- such as recovering those nutrients from human sewage to achieve a true complete cycle. Or as I mentioned earlier, methods of permaculture (or alleycropping I didn't mention) that can draw up those nutrients from deep in the soil where they'll never deplete in a human timescale.

As a final note, I just wanted to thank you for engaging with me. I did not really expect all this in response to an introductory post!

Thanks, I hope this isn't too much!
I think we will agree on a lot, but I also think we disagree on a lot and I hope we can turn to the science to be more informed.

I am now a few weeks in to this journey of transforming my diet and my will is seriously ironclad. We currently have no meat, no eggs, no dairy in the apartment and I have lost my taste for real cheese (did not think that was possible). I am enjoying vegan cream cheese, coconut yogurt, veggie bacon and veggie dogs these days and my boyfriend just baked some delicious vegan brownies for us, yay!

That's awesome! Very glad for you.
I think one thing we'll agree on is the harm to the world from animal agriculture. The more we can turn to plants the better for all of our futures, no matter how they're grown.