Why bother with organic?

[wildcrafter]

Just an FYI-

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=toxic-pesticide-banned-after-decades-of-use

and a why you may care.

http://www.croplifefoundation.org/Insecticide_Benefits/Crop_Studies/Combined_Document_Hops.pdf

I'm curious about what compounds are actually now approved for use on hops....sorta. I'll only grow organic food and hops because,,, I can,,,and I care.

[wildcrafter]

Here's a little research about pesticide residues and beer. Do you care?

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf020089n

[gitchegumee]

Just read "The Omnivores Dilemma." Great read that I highly recommend to anyone interested in what they eat. Even "certified organic" is a sham. As is "free range", "sustainable" (my favorite) and any other touchy-feely warm-inside phrases. The only way to be sure what is in your food is to grow it yourself.

[wildcrafter]

I think having a goal to shoot for is important and no system is without faults. Certified Organic is a marketing tool, yes,,,but within that system's goal lies no room for gnarely chemicals for consumers to unwittingly ingest.

Yes,,aldicarb,,,Temik,,,is a chemical put on hops. Here's just one source of info.

http://toxipedia.org/display/toxipedia/Aldicarb

After all the time, money, and passion one puts into a brew they feel proud of,,why include ingredients of potential harm?

I wonder if hops will eventually get reclassified as food and not like cotton.

[liammckenna]

'Certified Organic' is indeed a sham in the US thanks to lobbying by 'big organic'.

Not so in most of the world. It actually still means something.

Pax.

Liam

[wildcrafter]

Liam- as far as the hop world turns,,some folks have convinced the powers that be that hops are so fragile that the gnarliest of chemicals can be put on hops,,,that go in beer,,,that we drink. Think cotton,,think hops.

Hops need to be reclassified as food to inhibit what can be used on the crop,,unless you like the residues.

[liammckenna]

I'm with you Wildcrafter.

What can we do?

Could we start a petition/campaign? I'm sure we small brewers/growers could gather a few million signatures amongst us.

Seriously.

Even if much of these residues are left in the trub, many of us give that trub with our spent grains to a farmer who feeds it to his/her cows, which then concentrate this crap into their milk which we then feed to our children.

Great.

Perhaps we should all grow our own hops. Overly simplistic solution, I know. But if enough of us did it, perhaps the message might start to penetrate the fog.

Kind of like when us small brewers arrived 20 or so years ago and forced the sleeping giants of the North American beer industry to re-evaluate their business plans and their approach to preservatives/additives and flavour profiles of their evolving portfolios.

Keep it real. Keep it clean. Keep it free of crap.

Pax.

Liam

[wildcrafter]

What to do, Liam? I'm not sure. Vote with your dollars?

How does a brewer certify the grower? That's what's needed.

Perhaps look at the farm records of who you buy from? According to the Bayer Crop Science site on Temik,,,the application of Temik with the aldicarb is to be 96 days or so before the harvest of the hops. Pretty dang potent stuff to last for a whole growing season!

http://www.bayercropscience.co.za/Products/Product.aspx?p_id=1050

Personally,,I won't grow plants that need coddled,,,because they died before they got cloned up enough. The only hops that gets cloned up here are plants that have survived long enough for us to do so.
I want idiot proof hops.

I've mentioned it before that I wonder if the Euro hops have encountered native pests of North America and that is why they need coddled. Nobody took care of all the native H. L. var. neomexicana hops for a very long time and they have survived far more environmental issues than the Euro hops that were imported by the Pilgrims a mere few hundred years ago. Why nobody ever tried to breed up native hops before is beyond my imagination.

Nothing happens when nobody cares? If you ask for nothing,,you might just get nothing.