Justified.

Last week the United Kingdom's Food Standards Agency published an extensive report on organic food that concluded with this bombshell: "There is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs." The finding—based on a review of 55 relevant studies conducted over the past 50 years—now threatens an organic food industry that has been growing at an annual rate of 20 percent for the past couple of decades and is now worth something like $23 billion in global sales. The overwhelming success of the organics market has a lot to do with the pervasive belief that eschewing synthetic pesticides and fertilizers makes food more nutritious. Now we know that belief may be unfounded. . .

First, the demographic profile of organic consumers makes this debate one that's hardly worth having. There's no broad public health issue at stake here. Organic food costs 60 percent more than conventional and comprises a mere 2.5 percent of the food eaten in the United States.

That's a crock of manure. False marketing claims should always be exposed and denounced. That's a basic responsibility of government, the media and civil society. It's not as if this was a harmless enthusiasm since there are far more growers who are denied that 60% premium on their produce though their food is just as good, and the public is being bilked. Worse, developing countries have been seriously harmed in a variety of ways by such nonsense. Trying to limit the scope of the problem to a few urban wankers with more money than sense abdicates social responsibility.

Another factor undermining the FSA study is the fact that the terms "organic" and "conventional" encompass a wide spectrum of practices. It's so wide, in fact, that accurately comparing the categories is virtually impossible. For example, it's well-known that large, industrial farms overuse pesticides and fertilizers, but many conventional family farms practice integrated pest management, selectively employ advanced fertilizers to reduce runoff, spray very selectively, and establish grazing systems for livestock that rely on environmentally sound rotational schedules.

It may be "well known" but it's mythical. Large industrial farms are among the most conscientious users of ag chemicals not least because it's profitable to be parsimonious in their use. They are the leaders and early adopters of precision techniques that accurately and variably apply chemicals in the amounts needed without overuse. It reduces costs by reducing total amounts used while maintaining high yields. These processes continuously improve, as any thoughtful person would expect. What is true is that they use huge quantities of such chemicals, as we should expect since they produce the overwhelming majority of food.

Likewise, the environmental virtues of organic agriculture are conspicuously (and deservedly) touted, but the glowing reports rarely note that most organic food comes from large corporate operations, that some organic farmers rely heavily on natural pesticides that are toxic in high doses, that organic compost can contain more contaminants than conventional fertilizer, and that soil erosion can be as bad or worse on organic farms. There is no standard "organic" or "conventional" farm, so any broad comparison is little more than speculative.

These theorectical virtues may be conspicuously touted, but they are deceitful accounts that fail to consider the whole system and total impact. It's another marketing myth.

The organic vs standard ag debate is worthless but not because there is no issue to debate so much as because the debate is uninformed and superficial. We really would benefit from getting higher quality information widely reported so that growers could respond to sensible market pressures rather than cynically meeting a nonsensical checklist that increases the value of their crops for no logical reason. It can also be argued that this is an ethical issue of huge proportions since those who suffer the most from organic nonsense are the food insecure people in developing countries, those who can least bear the costs of this nonsense carry the largest burden.