Quote of the Day: "Romantic Agri-myths"

Then there are the romantic agri-myths, like the “organic” one, which lots of people have bought into. It goes like this: Organic food, farmed using manure instead of chemicals, is better for you and better for the land. None of that’s true-nitrogen is nitrogen-but it’s pretty good marketing if you’re selling poor produce at exorbitant prices. (Organic farming is inefficient, so production costs are generally higher.)

- Nina Fedoroff, the State Department’s chief technology adviser, attempting to discredit organic farming in a Seed magazine forum on biotechnology.

Grist food writer Tom Philpott also took part in the forum, and later ripped Fedoroff for "using her high position in government as a megaphone to amplify and legitimize a bunch of industry-friendly nonsense." Fedoroff is a holdover from the Bush administration State Department, and as Philpott puts it, "the fact that she enjoys direct access to our top foreign-policy official should give us all pause." 

-Mark