Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Food & Farming

Organic Food not Nutritionally Better than Conventional

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passion fruit yeppoon 2009A SYSTEMATIC review of literature over 50 years finds no evidence for superior nutritional content of organic produce.

There is no evidence that organically produced foods are nutritionally superior to conventionally produced foodstuffs, according to a study published today in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Consumers appear willing to pay higher prices for organic foods based on their perceived health and nutrition benefits, and the global organic food market was estimated in 2007 to be worth £29 billion (£2 billion in the UK alone). Some previous reviews have concluded that organically produced food has a superior nutrient composition to conventional food, but there has to date been no systematic review of the available published literature.

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Costing a Whale

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LAST week the International Whaling Commission (IWC) met on the Portuguese island of Madeira and agreed that climate change is a threat to whales.   A decision on the Danish proposal for Greenland to hunt 10 humpback whales a year was postponed.  Australia’s Environment Minister was there and told the meeting that whale-watching is a growing industry worth more than whale hunting.  Ian Mott disagrees:

“THE claim, by Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett, that whales are worth more alive than dead betrays a breathtaking level of economic ignorance and a dangerous penchant for simplistic, “Cargo Cult” panaceas.

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Cattle as Part of the Australian Landscape

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 WHY do so many environmentalists consider cattle something to be excluded from the Australian landscape? 

According to Ian Mott, a third generation landholder, they modify parts of the landscape but they do not destroy it.  In the following note, Mr Mott suggests modifications to government advice on the management of livestock in riparian zones. 

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Wheat Crops and Sunspots

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“IT is now more than 200 years since the great astronomer William Herschel observed a correlation between wheat prices and sunspots. When the latter were few in number, he noted, the climate turned colder and drier, crop yields fell and wheat prices rose. In the past two years, sunspot activity has dropped to its lowest point for a century. One of our biggest worries is that our politicians are so fixated on the idea that CO2 is causing global warming that most of them haven’t noticed that the problem may be that the world is not warming but cooling, with all the implications that has for whether we get enough to eat.

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