Organic seedless grapes, isn't that an oxymoron?
I became
a part of the organic movement twice. The first time in the early
1970's when (1) a few growers joined the Briarpatch (the first small business network). (2) many small
groceries joined and (3) a group of farm pest advisers became my
clients. I ended up giving them all business advice and even giving
lectures at their conventions.
I was involved again in the early 1990s when I started the campaign to label genetically engineered food. I quickly found that my efforts should be directed to getting the USDA to define 'organic' to exclude genetically engineered food... so my labeling campaign would not be needed. I did and we won.
Hence, I feel particularly qualified to comment on organic seedless grapes. The term 'organic' is a preposterous notion and the USDA only accepted the industry definition because we were so politically strong. Our definition, of necessity, focused on growing conditions, what is used as fertilizers, what is used to control pests and of course the exclusion of genetically engineered foods. We needed a definition that the USDA could use in the field.
But the USDA definition of
organic was inherently off base. We never included the millennia years
old Japanese fertilizer tradition of human waste, because Mexicans use
of it and created a horrible health hazard. We didn't require the use
of horse pulled harrows, or double digging, or free scatter planting of
seeds which many early organic farmers treated as essential.
We did our best to define the undefinable notion of organic, but at the time we never even discussed the use of seedless fruits.
Let me just say it here and now.: If you constantly have to grow a new batch of seeds that can not reproduce themselves... that sure as hell ain't organic. Is the mule something 'natural and organic?' How about everything else that can't reproduce?
Of course such a definition would make the complaint about Monsanto selling farmers patented seeds meaningless. It would mean that hybrid varieties of many food plants (all patented) all of which are up to 10 times more productive than non-hybrids unavailable to 'organic' farmers and put them out of business.
I was involved again in the early 1990s when I started the campaign to label genetically engineered food. I quickly found that my efforts should be directed to getting the USDA to define 'organic' to exclude genetically engineered food... so my labeling campaign would not be needed. I did and we won.
Hence, I feel particularly qualified to comment on organic seedless grapes. The term 'organic' is a preposterous notion and the USDA only accepted the industry definition because we were so politically strong. Our definition, of necessity, focused on growing conditions, what is used as fertilizers, what is used to control pests and of course the exclusion of genetically engineered foods. We needed a definition that the USDA could use in the field.
We did our best to define the undefinable notion of organic, but at the time we never even discussed the use of seedless fruits.
Let me just say it here and now.: If you constantly have to grow a new batch of seeds that can not reproduce themselves... that sure as hell ain't organic. Is the mule something 'natural and organic?' How about everything else that can't reproduce?
Of course such a definition would make the complaint about Monsanto selling farmers patented seeds meaningless. It would mean that hybrid varieties of many food plants (all patented) all of which are up to 10 times more productive than non-hybrids unavailable to 'organic' farmers and put them out of business.