The grain it's self isn't usually sprayed with pesticide and herbicides are only used when the plants are vevy, very young way before the grain kernels start to form to reduce competition from weeds and allow less fertilizer to be used according to Fifelee a HBT member whose father grows barley.
abracadabra mentioned me early in this thread, so I figured I would post my whole rant. I really hope this post doesn’t end up sounding combative, as I really do believe in most organic produce especially with fruits and vegetables. But I also feel the organic label is just blindly accepted as better when that isn’t true in all cases. In my experience grains are one of the exceptions where organic is actually worse.
My father and I farm barley and wheat in central Montana. I feel I have some unique insight as I have seen our land farmed many different ways over the years. My grandfather was organic by default (everyone was organic in those days). My father has followed more conventional farming changes. As a conventional farmer I understand if you are wary of my information, but nonetheless I will try to accurately describe the pros/cons of the different farming practices I have witnessed.
I do see the benefit of organic when it comes to fruits, vegetables, and even hops. These items often get directly sprayed with nasty chemicals. But when it comes to grains, they are typically only sprayed with herbicides before planting (with the same Roundup people use in their yards) or in the plants infancy long before the seed is even formed and sometimes not at all if the farmer had good weed control before planting. As for pesticides, I can't even remember the last time we sprayed them on grain fields.
From what I can gather organic farmers of fruits and vegetable produce similar yields (sometimes even better) to conventional farming methods. This is far from true with grain farming. Talking to organic grain farmers in our area and knowing what my grandfather produced, organic grain land produces less than half the yield of conventional methods. This decreases the food supply and increases prices. Now this is great for the farmer, but bad for the consumer especially the poor who struggle to afford food. Another side effect of less productive organic land is that more land has to be broken up from its "natural" state to grow the same amount of food. Unlike fruits and vegetables where lots of food can be produced on a small amount of land, grains require vast areas. Lower yielding organic grains cause vast tracts of land to be broken up from its natural state. Largely because of the high grain prices (yes ethanol is a major factor, but lower yielding organic grains also play an big economic role) we have broken up 700 acres that where previously in native grass.
To control weeds organic grain farmers go back to the old days of plowing a field. This drastically increases land erosion often into river and streams. The recent drought was just as bad as the dust bowl of the 1930's. The reason topsoil didn't blow away and the country didn't starve this time was because of newer farming practices, practices that organic farmers can't use. In addition to erosion, plowing a field burns vastly more fossil fuels than the alternative. Since we started using more modern non-organic farming practices our diesel consumption has dropped by over half.
Let me also address some of the concerns organic proponents often mention. Again I feel these concerns are much more valid for fruits and vegetables than grains.
Pesticides – Only used in very rare cases for grains. We haven’t uses them in over 15 years.
Human waste for fertilizer – While I can’t say it doesn’t happen it would be waste (pun intended) on grains because of the vast tracts of land needed. I am guessing, but I doubt if all the waste in our country couldn’t even fertilize 1% of the grain crop. Again if someone did fertilize with human waste it would make much more sense to do it on fruits and vegetables.
GMO – I to have some concerns about GMO, but we also have to face reality in that GMO creates better yields in grains. Lower yields mean more land is needed to get the same grain. Therefore non-GMO organic grains means less natural land. I have no idea which is better for the big picture, GMO and more natural land or organic food. No good answers here.
Chemical Fertilizers – Most grains are raised with dry fertilizers. The fertilizers are largely just nitrogen, phosphate, and potash. Yes these fertilizers cause damage like what we see in the Gulf of Mexico. Without them we would need at least twice the amount of land in grain production, which causes increased erosion and habitat loss. No good answers here either.
Radiation – As far as I can tell, radiation only applies to fruits, vegetables, and meat to eliminate the potential of things like e-coil. Grains are dry and don’t carry such diseases.
I hope it doesn't seem like I am attacking organic supporters, as I am an organic guy in many cases. I just think there is a lot of disinformation out there especially when it comes to organic grains, which do have some very serious environmental side effects.
