Organic Farming Is Not Sustainable

choi

Henry L Miller, Organic Farming Is Not Sustainable; Moe labor with lower yields is a luxury only rich populations can afford. Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2014 (op-ed).
online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304431104579550002888434432
or
www.hoover.org/news/daily-report/178831
(“Organic * * * farms produce far less food per unit of land and water than conventional ones. The lower yields of organic agriculture--typically 20%-50% less than conventional agriculture--impose various stresses on farmland and especially on water consumption”)

Note:
(a) “A Study by the Institute for Water Research at Ben-Gurion University in Israel, published last year in the journal Hydrology and Earth System Science, found that * * *”
(i) Dahan O et al, Nitrate Leaching From Intensive Organic Farms to Groundwater. Hydrology and Earth System Science, 18: 333-341 (2014).
www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/18/333/2014/hess-18-333-2014.pdf

Read the Abstract only.
(ii) “[L]ast year” because it was published online last year, but in physical form on Jan 27, 2014.

(b) “One prevalent myth is that organic agriculture does not employ pesticides. Organic farming does use insecticides and fungicides to prevent predation of its crops. More than 20 chemicals (mostly containing copper and sulfur) are commonly used in the growing and processing of organic crops and are acceptable under US organic rules. They include nicotine sulfate, which is extremely toxic to warm-blooded animals, and rotenone, which is moderately toxic to most mammals but so toxic to fish that it's widely used for the mass poisoning of unwanted fish populations during restocking projects.”
(i) nicotine
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine
(found in the nightshade family (scientific term: Solanaceae; which include tobacco) of plants; is made in the roots and accumulates in the leaves of the plants; constitutes approximately 0.6–3.0% of the dry weight of tobacco; functions as an antiherbivore chemical, consequently, nicotine was widely used as an insecticide)
(ii) rotenone
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotenone
(section 1 Discovery: In 1902, a Japanese chemist, NAGAI [Nagayoshi 長井 長義] isolated a pure crystalline compound from Derris elliptica which he called rotenone, after the Japanese name of the plant roten)
(iii) I can not find the kanji for “roten.” In fact, Japanese government uses katakana for “roten” in part because it was alien (from southeast Asia)/
(A) 植物検疫と残留農薬規制をめぐる內外の情勢. 日本植物防疫協会, 2011 (symposium).
www.jppa.or.jp/symposium/data/S230908.pdf
(“ロテン”)
(B) Garland Cannon, The Japanese Contributions to the English Language; An historical cictionary. Otto Harrassowitz, 1996, at page 199
books.google.com/books?id=GiCTPPnBuHEC&pg=PA199&lpg=PA199&dq=Derris+%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC+roten&source=bl&ots=xCM-Qe-LHe&sig=JwNi7Q7iwDUehtdrILMSSNbGhZ4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Zo93U6j-DrfLsQSkvIGQAg&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Derris%20%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%20roten&f=false
(“Rotenone, n. (1924) industry Old var. rotenon [Poss. < J <*roten or *rōten the derris plant, first imported to Japan at teh end of the Meiji period (RH notes noncommittally 'said to be < Japn,' and in fact neither word is recorded in the largest J. dictionaries; derris in J. is invariably derisu, E) + -on(e), chem. suffix, ult. <Gk -ōnē female descendant--a widely used insecticide develioped in Tokyo in 1902]”)

(c) “Perhaps the most illogical and least sustainable aspect of organic farming in the long term is the exclusion of ‘genetically modified organisms,’ but only those that were modified with the most precise and predictable techniques such as gene splicing. Except for wild berries and wild mushrooms, virtually all the fruits, vegetables and grains in our diet have been genetically improved by one technique or another, often through what are called wide crosses, which move genes from one species or genus to another in ways that do not occur in nature. Therefore, the exclusion from organic agriculture of organisms simply because they were crafted with modern, superior techniques makes no sense. It also denies consumers of organic goods nutritionally improved foods, such as oils with enhanced levels of omega-3 fatty acids.”
(i) wide cross (n): “(genetics) A mating between individuals of different genera”
McGraw-Hill Science & Technology Dictionary, undated.
www.answers.com/topic/wide-cross
(ii) HC Sharma, How Wide Can a Wide Cross Be? Euphytica, 82: 43-64 (1995)
link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00028709
("wide crosses can be as wide as one can make them. * * * Hybrid seed set is too variable to predict whether a wide hybrid, where no seed was obtained in one attempt, will not be possible")
(iii) Naturally in nature different species (whose singular and plural forms are identical) does not mate, because the very definition of “species” prohibits it.