This Emerging Food Source May Get Banned from Organic (and it's not GMOs)

The rules for qualifying an agricultural system as organic are very outdated. Aquaponics is a completely organic system when though of in terms of inputs. If something unnatural is put in to the system, it will collapse. I have grown fruits, veggies, herbs, and nugget all aquaponically for the past two years. I have much larger yields compared to soil based systems and the majority of the produce has a very sweet flavor compared to most soil grown varieties. I will always implement aquaponics into my life but in no way am I saying to abandon soil growing. I am also a huge advocate of permaculture. These two practices fit hand in hand. As land and water supplies are continually being raped by the modern agricultural machine we only have a few choices to maintain a quality food supply: begin growing aquaponically, preferably in a vertical orientation and learn how to heal the land with permaculture.

In the end, we have already fucked up the Earth so who cares

I understand why the NOSB may be against labeling hydro and aeroponics as non-organic and I can also understand why the proponents of these systems are bummed. Ultimately I could care less. The tech behind hydroponics and aeroponics constitutes one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs man has ever achieved in the reduction of his environmental impact Hydroponics and aeroponics beats every other system hands down so in the end it doesn't really matter how we label it.

did you know the FDA only regulates the term 'organic' with food, and not other products? Just an interesting tidbit that is on the edge of relevancy. who cares if it can be called organic as long as it can be used in 100 years when the population has grown to such a level that the world is running out of food. (though it kind of already is)

I'll take Hydro over GMO any and every day!

Rice industry where you @ they are about to kill you

Great article.
I have eaten hydroponic tomatoes and frankly, they taste nothing like tomatoes. They look like them, but niether smell nor taste like them.
I have to agree with lookatmypix and a few others here. Soil is very complex, and the sun, wind, and rain all play a part in how the micro-organisms work and how the plant uses the bacteria to make it what it is.

Who cares it's just a designation, it means nothing. I won't lose sleep because some hipster asshole that eats an 'organic only diet' has to use his brain instead of his labels.

If there are no added chemicals and the genome is left untouched I consider it organic, no matter how the plant grows.

interesting post Nettle, and nice to see you back

Monsanto must be trying to find ways to keep the USDA busy while they rape the planet

i mean, it's not "natural" but i dont see how or why it shouldn't be considered organic food just because of hydroponic systems. since and nature can coexist.

I really don't see a problem with this method. It is, for the most part, natural and it seems to work fine. I guess I can understand it being not considered organic, but does that necessarily mean it's on the same level as the synthetic crap?

I don't think it should be labelled organic.
Thank you for this post and this information, it inspired me to write this:
http://current.com/items/92091558_aquaponics-hydroponics-aeroponics-are-the-arti...

Silly rule. As long as the crops are not altered genetically to grow via the medium used, I do not see what the fuss is. Isn't this similar to hydroponics?

The requirement for soil is perfectly fine as this is how plants grow naturally. If it isn't natural, it isn't organic, so this OK by me.

"Yet vegetables grown in recirculating systems are proven to have exactly the same nutritional value as any other and are perfectly healthy."

Didn't Monsanto say the same thing about GMOs?

I'd like to know how they tested the nutritional value of the food. I have a real problem with things like this because there seems to be a general consensus that food needs to be "re-invented" in a sense. Why? Food doesn't need to be reinvented; the stuff we evolved eating is as good as it's going to get. Soil itself is a very complex environment. No longer requiring soil for the growth of plants suggests that we [think] we know exactly how it works and what is needed out of the soil for the plant to thrive optimally. This is seen in the artificial nutrient solutions that they use. I'm really just not sure we fully understand the complexity of a soil environment yet to be able to call these plants organic.

But, ultimately, the "organic" designation is just semantics and changes nothing about the food itself.

Take note that by "natural" I mean how the plants grew before human interference.

We went over the USDA's basic standards for Organic Certification in my BIO-103 (Environmental Sciences I) class last semester, and they're very strict. Literally everything has to be Organic and certain methods must be carried out. Soil is specifically mentioned when it comes to fruits, vegetables, grains et cetera. So it then follows that if this doesn't meet the CURRENT standards, then they can't approve it. Furthermore, this is an emerging source of food production (as the article states) and the board may not feel comfortable approving something so new. Lastly, I wonder would the products be banned from gaining the Organic label or would they be denied approval (two different things)?

Overall I think the board is following the precautionary principle, wait till more research is done, specifically on this method, then bring it back up for a potential certification.