Waging war on modern agriculture and global nutrition

Demands for organic or subsistence farming worldwide would devastate nature and nutrition

Paul Driessen

The World Economic Forum says the world faces a new crisis, “One-third of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions come from food production.” With the world’s population expected to reach 10 billion people by 2050, it is therefore “urgent” that we launch a “radical” and “comprehensive” transformation of the global food system – from “reinventing” farming to “reimagining” how food is produced, processed, distributed, consumed and disposed of.

Reinforcing this message, Stop Ecocide Now founder Jojo Mehta expanded on Greta Thunberg’s incendiary 2020 rant that “our house is on fire and you’re fueling the flames.” Farming is a “serious crime,” equal to “genocide,” Ms. Mehta told elites at the 2024 WEF meeting in Davos.

Their grasp of agriculture is epitomized by Michael Bloomberg’s suggestion that anybody can be a farmer: “You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, you add water, up comes the corn.”

Modern farming and its supposedly dangerous greenhouse gas emissions are a tad more complicated.

Modern mechanized farming employs oil derivatives as fuel for equipment and feed stocks for herbicides and pesticides, natural gas to dry grain and make fertilizers, and livestock to provide protein.

Tractors, trucks, farmers and livestock emit carbon dioxide, adding to the 0.04% of CO₂ in Earth’s atmosphere (equivalent to $40 of $100,000). Cattle emissions add methane to the existing 0.0002% CH₄ in the atmosphere (20¢ of $100,000). Nitrogen fertilizers add to the “dramatic” 200-year rise in atmospheric nitrous oxide (N₂O), bringing it to a still minuscule 0.00003% (that’s 3¢ of $100,000).

These emissions allegedly drive “cataclysmic” climate change and extreme weather, endangering all life on Earth. But then what caused five Ice Ages (including the Pleistocene Era and its mile-high glaciers, which ended 12,000 years ago), the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods, and the Little Ice Age (1350-1850) to come and go?

Of course, natural forces can’t drive climate hysteria and WEF-Gore-Biden anti-fossil-fuel agendas. Fear-mongering political, activist, media and academic elites therefore ignore them.

In the Real World, the wondrous reality is that, after centuries of excruciatingly slow progress, agricultural advances over the past 75 years have been nothing short of astonishing. Dr. Norman Borlaug’s Green Revolution employed plant breeding techniques that multiplied yields of vital grain crops, saving hundreds of millions of lives.

Since 1950, American farmers increased per-acre corn yields by an incredible 500% and other crop yields by smaller but still amazing amounts – while using used less land, water and fuel ... and fewer fertilizers and pesticides per ton of produce. Their exports helped slash global hunger and malnutrition even further.

Meanwhile, despite supposed impacts from manmade climate change, farmers in Brazil, India and many other countries have also enjoyed record harvests.

Multiple miracle technologies contributed. Hybrid seeds combine valuable traits from different related plants. Biotech seeds protect crops against voracious insects and destructive viruses, while reducing water and pesticide demand. Virus-resistant biotech cultivars have even replaced endangered papayas in Hawaii, cassava and bananas in Africa, and other crops.

Nitrogen (ammonia) fertilizers, synthesized from natural gas and atmospheric nitrogen, have joined phosphorus and potassium in supercharging soils. Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide spurs plant growth and reduces water demand even further.

Long-lasting herbicides control weeds that would otherwise steal moisture and nutrients from crops – and enable farmers to utilize no-till farming that avoids breaking up soils, reduces erosion, retains soil moisture and preserves vital soil organisms.

Technologies developed in Israel make it possible to grow an amazing array of crops in the Negev and Arava Deserts, which receive a fraction of the annual rainfall that Arizona gets. Desalination plants turn seawater into 80% of Israel’s drinking water, dramatically reducing pressure on the Sea of Galilee, manmade reservoirs and groundwater supplies.

Israelis then recycle 90% of their home, business, school and hospital water – for use in agriculture, where drip irrigation delivers precise amounts of water precisely where crops and other plants need it, minimizing evaporation.

Huge high-tech tractors use GPS systems, sensors and other equipment to steer precise courses across fields, while constantly measuring soil composition, and injecting just the right kinds and amounts of fertilizers and herbicides, along with seeds, to ensure optimal harvests.

Not all these technologies are available across the globe. However, farmer can access information about both the technologies and the modern practices through online libraries and programs on cell phones.

Instead, this progress is under assault – by ill-advised or ill-intended, but well-funded organizations that want to turn the Green Revolution into Green Tyranny, Eco-Imperialism and global malnutrition.

Their hatred of biotech crops is intense and well-documented. But many also despise hybrid seeds. They want modern herbicides and insecticides banned, in favor of “natural” alternatives – which are often toxic to bees, fish, other animals and people and have not been tested for long-term harm to humans.

These agricultural anarchists also demand “natural” fertilizers, which typically provide a fraction of the nutrients that modern synthetic fertilizers do. At the very least, they want global organic farming, which would mean much lower crop yields per acre than conventional farming, and plowing many millions of additional acres of wildlife habitat and scenic land, to get the same amounts of food.

They say people in Africa, Asia and Latin America should practice subsistence farming – which they prefer to call “traditional” farming, Agro-Ecology, “food sovereignty,” or the “right to choose” “culturally appropriate” food produced through “ecologically sound and sustainable methods,” based on “indigenous agricultural knowledge and practices.”

In plain English, Agro-Ecology is rabidly opposed to biotechnology, monoculture farming, non-organic fertilizers, chemical pesticides, and even mechanized equipment and hybrid seeds.

You can imagine how Agro-Ecologists would react if African farmers wanted to assert their food sovereignty, self-determination and right to choose by planting biotech Bt corn, to get higher yields, reduce pesticide use, enjoy better living standards and send their kids to school. The agro-anarchists would vilify them as vile supporters of violence against women, land-grabbing corporations, expropriation of indigenous rights, genocide and other “crimes against humanity.”

They also promote “alternative protein.” They say Africa would be “the perfect laboratory” for testing new foods – such as “crackers, muffins, meat loaves and sausages” made from lake flies. In fact, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Popular Science magazine and many other outfits extol the virtues of “entomophagy” – the clever progressive term for eating bug burgers, instead of hamburgers.

They even offer recipes and techniques for processing “edible insects” into tasty, nutritious products that can improve diets and livelihoods, create thriving local businesses, and even promote inclusion of women. In fact, they say, bugs can have twice as much protein per pound as beef; grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, beetles, ants and cicadas make great snacks, desserts, guacamole and even entire meals; and mealworms have “an earthy flavor, similar to mushrooms,” making them excellent additions to brownies. Sautéed with a little salt, mealworms also make “protein-boosted potato chips.” Yummy!

Who are these guys – these agriculture and nutrition anarchists and revolutionaries? Stay tuned.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate change, environmental policy and human rights.

Someone Didn't Get the Sri Lanka Message

By Rich Kozlovich 

On September 24, 2022 this piece appeared on Malcolm Out Loud, Taking Back Control of Your Life: Week 3 The Importance of Being Organically Grown.  Let me get right to the chase: This is absolute nonsense!

The go green, back to nature, organic, all natural crowd has done more damage to humanity than even the insane communists did in the 20^th century, and they killed over 100 million innocent people, and the recent "go green" food disaster in Sri Lanka should have been the last word on that, but apparently someone didn't get the message.

At the end of WWII the world’s population was 2 billion people, and it took thousands of years to get there, yet in 75 years it soared to almost 7 billion people, and pesticides played a major role in that.  If these products were as harmful as these radical misfit nitwits claim, how did that happen?

Medicine advanced, but medicine can’t fix starvation, nor can it fix the disasters pests inflict on humanity, and malaria is one of them.  The ban on DDT  alone probably killed over 100 million people, not to mention their destructive behavior in stopping Golden Rice from being introduced for 20 years, which would have prevented 500,000 kids from going blind every year—and even dying—due to severe Vitamin A deficiency.   In 20 years that amounts to 10 million children who suffered unnecessary irreparable damage and/or died.  All that can hardly be classified as anything less than crimes against humanity.   And that's the tip of the iceberg.  When you hear these misfits claim what they do "is for the children", know that in reality what they do "is to the children". 

All their claims are speculation, junk science, mutilated science and fraudulent science filled with weasel words and phrases.   The Tulane study  regarding endocrine disruption (ED) is a perfect example.  It was clearly fraudulent but as a result of that fraudulent study the Food Quality Protection Act added an ED component to it and we lost two whole categories of pesticides and the nation became infested with bed bugs. 

 

As for Atrazine causing devastation to the frog population......FALSE!

 

The fact is we rarely hear this horsepucky any longer because we now know it’s caused by a fungus.  A dangerous infectious disease with the potential to drive species to extinction, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) is also known as chytrid fungus. It has already decimated more than 200 amphibian species and rewired eco systems all over the world.   And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of fallacious claims by these misfits at the EWG and their claptrap regarding the “dirty dozen”.   

 

People are living longer, healthier better fed lives with more variety of foods available than any time in human history, and modern chemistry is directly responsible.  That's history, and that history is incontestable. 

 

Banning Modern Agriculture and High Crop Yields?

Paul Driessen July 25, 2022

In just seven decades, America’s conventional (non-organic) farmers increased per-acre corn yields by an incredible 500% – while using steadily less water, fuel, fertilizer and pesticides – feeding millions more people. Among the many reasons for this miracle is their ability to control weeds that would otherwise steal moisture and nutrients from this vital food, animal feed and fuel (ethanol) crop. 

Long-lasting herbicides don’t just control weeds. They also promote no-till farming, which helps farmers save costly tractor fuel and avoid breaking up soils – thereby reducing erosion, retaining soil moisture, safeguarding soil organisms, and locking carbon dioxide in the soil (reducing risks of “dangerous manmade climate change,” some say). 

In the United States, the second most widely used herbicide after glyphosate (Roundup) is atrazine, which is critical to controlling invasive and hard-to-kill weeds impervious to other herbicides. Atrazine is used on 65 million acres of corn, sorghum and sugarcane. That’s equivalent to Colorado or Oregon, on croplands scattered across a dozen Midwestern states. It’s also used on millions of acres of golf courses, lawns and highway medians nationwide.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has periodically reviewed atrazine science – which now comprises more than 7,000 studies over the past 60 years. It has found the herbicide is safe for people, animals and the environment. 

But that hasn’t stopped the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), Pesticide Action Network (PAN) and other groups from campaigning to have atrazine banned outright or regulated into oblivion. 

Extreme environmentalists also oppose fossil fuels, genetically engineered crops, and manmade fertilizers and insecticides. But they are silent about dangerous “natural” organic pesticides, including many that are lethal to bees and fish – and about cadmium and other toxic metals that can leach out of solar panels dumped in landfills – even though all these toxic chemicals could end up in our waterways. 

Last year, I explained how activists successfully used collusive sue-and-settle lawsuits to force EPA to develop a formal process for evaluating whether endangered species were “likely” to be “adversely affected” by exposure to common pesticides. Facing court-ordered deadlines for completing the new assessments, the agency unsurprisingly found that the vast majority of species would “likely be adversely affected” by herbicides and other pesticides. 

But it did so by employing the standard that even one affected plant or animal of a species would trigger prohibitions on using the chemicals. EPA also utilized hopelessly deficient satellite imagery, statewide crop and atrazine data, toxicity studies of unrelated laboratory animals, computer models, and best guesses. The garbage-in/garbage-out exercise bears little relation to real-world use, exposure or risks. 

CBD, PAN and other anti-pesticide groups recently sued EPA again, in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. EPA used the lawsuit to justify asking the court to order the agency to “reconsider” a 2019 regulation. So now EPA has proposed that detectable levels of atrazine in US aquatic ecosystems must not exceed the astonishingly low average level of 3.4 parts per billion (ppb) over a 60-day period. 

EPA calls this the “concentration equivalent level of concern,” or CE-LOC. But 3.4 ppb is equivalent to 3.4 seconds in 11,500 days – nearly 32 years! Atrazine isn’t plutonium. It’s been used and studied since 1958. To suggest that 3.4 ppb could devastate American ponds and rivers defies reason, and science. 

These outfits aren’t even dealing with actual field or pond observations and evidence of harm. They’re talking about extrapolations, backed up mainly by secretive models, conjectures and activist pressure. However, the effects on American agriculture are likely to be profound, and widespread. 

This focus on protecting aquatic life goes back two decades or more; it is so “inside baseball” in its details and complexity that eyes roll and readers fall asleep. The essence is this. Barely three years ago, EPA set the atrazine CE-LOC at 15 ppb, based on a host of government, academic, industry and activist studies and comments. Even the US Geological Survey and Agriculture Department weighed in. Prior to that, it was the still-reasonable level of 10 ppb. 

In 2016, EPA proposed but ultimately rejected the 3.4 ppb LOC, after numerous farmers and scientific groups pointed out the shoddy methods and poor science the agency used to get there. But this June 30 – employing the court order that the agency itself asked for – EPA “re-evaluated” its decision. The agency dishonestly claimed it had intended all along to set that extremely low standard, and presented its decision for public comment, almost as a fait accompli. 

Anticipating the uproar its proposal would cause, EPA said it would seek “external peer review” of its aquatic species risk assessment and 3.4 ppb decision. But this is a far cry from having a formal, balanced  Scientific Advisory Panel do a full, impartial, scientific review, under standards actually set by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). 

This 3.4 ppb LOC will result in major restrictions on atrazine use and/or necessitate extensive, expensive measures by farmers to control runoff – all based on estimated, predicted, computer-generated atrazine levels across multi-county or multi-state watersheds in which atrazine-based herbicides are used on acreage in who-knows-what proximity to those watersheds. 

The near-zero LOC amounts to an effective ban on using atrazine-based  herbicides – amid growing international grain shortages, widening hunger, soaring fuel and fertilizer prices, increasing mandates to turn more corn into ethanol (to replace “non-renewable” gasoline), and other important considerations. 

This Biden EPA decision certainly looks like a “major federal action,” representing a “transformative expansion” in EPA’s regulatory authority, and raising “major questions” about what specific language in FIFRA gives EPA such enormous, unprecedented authority. It would certainly seem that this 3.4 ppb edict defies the legal standards just recently articulated by the US Supreme Court in West Virginia v. EPA, regarding the agency’s asserted authority to regulate power plants in the name of climate change – wherein the court used precisely those quoted terms to reject EPA’s arrogation of authority. 

EPA’s proposed standard would certainly result in significant regional and national political, economic and agricultural consequences. It would certainly affect a significant segment of the US economy – and intrude into arenas that are the province of the US Departments of Agriculture and Energy. It would also undermine EPA’s own climate change mitigation and prevention initiatives. 

America’s premier environmental agency seems to be telling the Supreme Court, try and stop us again. 

Biden Administration policies have already made energy insanely expensive (up to $5 a gallon for regular and $9 in some California cities), created supply chain crises for baby formula and other essential consumer goods, and sent inflation soaring to 9.1% annualized, compared to 1.5% in January 2021. These policies are battering millions of American families. 

The President just returned from Saudi Arabia, where he begged the king and prince to produce more oil, so that Team Biden can continue restricting production of America’s own vast petroleum resources. This is embarrassing, demeaning, hypocritical and destructive. 

Amid widespread hunger in Sri Lanka, and even in Germany and the UK, due to extreme green policies, Team Biden seems to think it should cause still more damage – and must kowtow more to extremists.

As the nation flirts with the possibility of recession, would Team Biden really risk another Depression Era Dust Bowl – which occurred in part because of too much plowing, amid still-record high temperatures and droughts decades before anyone conceived of manmade, fossil-fuel-driven climate crises? 

This 3.4 ppb LOC is bad science, bad policy, bad agriculture, bad economics, and perverse morality. Anyone wishing to weigh in on the proposal can submit comments until September 6. 

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books, reports and articles on energy, environmental, climate and human rights issues.

 

Correct or cancel Mom’s grocery bag misinformation

Misleading claims on organic food grocery bags deceive shoppers on bees and pesticides 

Paul Driessen April 28, 2022

I don’t deliberately avoid organic foods or markets, but I don’t seek them out either. Claims that organic food tastes better or is more nutritious are not supported by evidence and certainly don’t justify the far higher prices. Mostly, I’m put off by assertions that organic food is pesticide-free, safer and more planet-friendly. Those assertions are simply false advertising; deliberate misinformation. 

Mom’s Organic Market shopping bags provide an excellent example. They’re emblazoned with six “Bee Informed” messages that help customers Bee the Change, Give Bees a Chance, and Save the Bees from a looming Armageddon attributed to synthetic pesticides. The Bee Misinformed messages merit correction. 

1. The #1 irrigated crop in the US is lawn grass, using over 10 trillion gallons of water per year. Mom’s didn’t say where its number came from; and if this basic information is fishy, what about the other messages? The Natural Resources Defense Council says US lawns consume three trillion gallons per year – not ten. Still, too many people overwater, use fine sprays that let too much water evaporate, and/or water lawns during the hottest hours or days of the week. The better message is, water smarter. 

2. Suburban lawns and gardens receive more pesticide applications per acre than agriculture. This may be true, but is it? Can’t Mom’s be more transparent about its sources? Homeowners should use lawn and garden chemicals carefully, responsibly and sparingly – and assume that any chemical (synthetic or organic) may be toxic and dangerous: to bees, other insects, fish, wildlife, pets, children and themselves. 

3. A single bee colony can pollinate over 300 million flowers a day. Busy as a bee – sure. But really? A typical hive (colony) has 10,000 to 80,000 worker bees. Assuming 50,000 on average, this means each bee would have to visit 6,000 flowers per day. Perhaps in a sprawling canola field; but otherwise pretty unlikely. Again, what’s Mom’s source? 

4. Scientists found bee-killing neonicotinoids in 75% of honey sampled from around the world. Now we’re getting into the nitty-gritty of ongoing organic food and environmentalist campaigns to frighten people (especially moms) into going full-organic and avoiding conventionally grown food. 

The scientists are finding parts per billion. 1 ppb is equivalent to 1 second in 33 years – or 50 drops of water in a 50-by-25-by-2-meter Olympic-sized swimming pool: 2 teaspoons in 660,000 gallons. 

Used primarily to coat seeds, neonics become part of the plant tissue and target only pests that actually feed on the crops, particularly during early growth stages. They greatly reduce the need for aerial or ground-level spraying with other chemicals that are much more of a threat to bees and other pollinators. They are a far lower risk to honeybees or wild bees than some organic pesticides – or Varroa destructor mites that attach to bees, suppress their immune systems, carry deadly diseases, create pathways for other diseases to enter bee bodies, and can cause well-publicized “colony collapse disorder.”

Neonics may be detected in honey because so much comes from vast canola fields in western Canada, where canola is grown with neonic-coated seeds, and beekeepers place their hives in the fields because bees thrive there and produce delicious honey. Don’t equate detection with danger. 

5. There are traces of 20 different pesticides in the average American’s body. Mom’s could at least post the source for this assertion on its website. More important, these parts per billion are detectable only because modern lab equipment is so sophisticated. The traces are not at levels that should cause concern. 

And what about organic pesticides? Organic farmers also use many different pesticides to protect their crops. But Mom’s, Greenpeace, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and the organic food industry don’t look for or talk about traces of organic farming pesticides: in honey, on produce or in human bodies. Perhaps they don’t want people (especially mothers) to know or think about that. 

The Risk Monger’s Dirty Dozen List of Toxic Organic Pesticides provides an informative overview of “natural” fungicides and insecticides used on organic farms – including chemicals that are toxic to bees, other insect and wildlife species, and humans. 

Among those organic farm chemicals, copper sulfate is highly toxic to bees, deadly to fish, and bio-accumulative in soil and water. Pyrethrin neurotoxin pesticides are also very toxic to bees – and are possible human carcinogens; originally derived from flowers (which is why they can still be classified as organic), they are now manufactured synthetically. Like neonicotinoids, nicotine sulfate is derived from nicotine; it can paralyze bee wings and legs, and is poisonous to humans; it’s dusted or sprayed on crops, so it can impact bees, birds and other non-target organisms. 

Other “natural,” “organic” chemicals that are highly toxic to bees include rotenone, spinosad, hydrogen peroxide, azidirachtin (neem oil), citronella oil, and even garlic extract and acetic acid. 

If Greenpeace, the EWG or the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) ever spent the time and money to test for these chemicals, they’d undoubtedly find “traces” of “organic” chemicals on “organic” produce. 

6. Roughly 0.1% of pesticides reach their targeted pests, leaving 99.9% to impact the environment. That sounds farfetched because it is, especially for crops grown using neonic-treated seeds so that the pesticide becomes a systemic part of the plant and targets pests that try to eat the crops. 

Today’s farmers are far more careful and judicious in how, where and how much they use chemicals to control the insects, viruses, molds and other pests that want to beat you to the foods you enjoy. They also employ a variety of “integrated pest management” techniques – including corn, cotton and other crops that splice Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) genes into the plant structure, to control pests that feed on those crops, thereby reducing the need for hand, tractor or aerial spraying with chemicals. 

(Organic farmers often spray live Bt bacteria on crops. But that carries risks that the spray could drift onto nearby plants and beneficial insects. It’s a mystery that EWG doesn’t wax apoplectic about that.) 

Those who still harbor concerns might be comforted knowing that the USDA conducts a Pesticide Data Program that’s been ongoing now for three decades. The PDP tests different (conventionally grown) produce every year – and issues a “report card” on how well US and international farmers comply with Environmental Protection Agency rules designed to protect moms and families from (conventional) pesticide-related health issues. 

While the annual EWG “Dirty Dozen List” is designed to instill unfounded fears about eating non-organic fruits and vegetables, because of alleged pesticide poisoning – the PDP analyses are scientific and data-driven. (At least it doesn’t blame manmade climate change.) The PDP goal is to ensure that all pesticide residues have fallen to levels that pose no risks to humans by the time they reach supermarkets. 

The latest 200-page report provides comforting news for consumers. It’s available here – or you can read plant pathologist Steve Savage’s summary and commentary here and here. 

One further issue deserves mention. Not surprisingly, Mom’s bags are made of kraft paper. Plastic bags (we’re told) are petroleum-based and clog landfills. Of course, it’s more complex than that. 

I operated bag-making machines during college. Paper and paper-bag-making processes are tree, energy and chemicals-intensive; and heavier, bulkier paper bags take years to break down in landfills. The volume of either is trifling, however, compared to pollution and waste from solar panels and wind turbines. 

The bottom line is simple. As the USDA and Risk Monger emphasize, pesticide residues on both conventional and organic fruits and vegetables almost never pose risks to moms, dads, kids, or other planetary creatures. Bee not afraid. Enjoy eating them, because they’re good for you. 

And correct or cancel Mom’s misinformation. 

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of many articles on the environment. He has degrees in geology, ecology and environmental law.

 

If you touch these precious leftist concepts, you'll get a screaming fit

October 7, 2021 By Mark C. Ross

Affirmative Action: Obviously a euphemism for institutionalized racism.  Apparently, it's OK to discriminate against people of European descent rather than blindly consider merit.  And in the absence of merit, mediocracy becomes more prevalent.  This is the left's preferred remedy, rather than allow the "clients" of this practice better access to quality education so they can have more marketable skills.

Minimum Wage: Based on the myth that standards of living can be elevated by government edict rather than increases in productivity.................. 

Homelessness: Another euphemism, this time for conspicuous vagrancy.  Now they're using the term "unhoused," while I prefer "street bums."  The explanation proffered for this sacred cow is a shortage of affordable housing.  It just so happens that all housing is affordable, or else it's vacant.  What good is a vacant property to its owner?  Taxes; insurance; and, often, debt service are still being charged..............

Redlining: Politically motivated misrepresentation of homeownership statistics.   A while back, it was discovered that the inner cities, home to the less affluent, had a much lower rate of homeownership than, say, the suburbs.  Duh...................

Organic Produce: Not all that political, but a fair measure of gullibility and the absence of critical thought among its adherents.  The theory behind the nutritional superiority of organic produce is that chemical growth enhancements such as fertilizers and pesticides are toxic to humans.  How?  Why?  Bruce Ames, a biochemist at U.C. Berkeley, developed a test for minute traces of carcinogens in food sources.  He also discovered that when insects bite a fruit or vegetable, the plant naturally produces alkaloid toxins to protect itself from further attacks.  

Nicotine is an example of one of these alkaloid toxins.  Also, "organic" farming relies on animal manure instead of chemical fertilizers — and e. coli contaminations are a particularly common problem as a result.  Might as well also touch on genetically modified produce.  Almost all food is genetically modified — not necessarily in laboratories, but by centuries of selective breeding.  For example, take a cabbage, or Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, or broccoli.  They're all the same plant, just carefully cultivated variants of the original source............To Read More.....