organic – A Plant Out of Place

How much yield is enough?

August 28, 2016February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

Last week, two colleagues and I published a paper in PLOS ONE titled “Commercial crop yields reveal strengths and weaknesses for organic agriculture in the United States.” The article presents an analysis of USDA crop yield data to compare organic and conventional farms in the US. We were pretty careful in the paper not to overstate our conclusions, since our goal was simply to see where organic yields were competitive (or not) with conventional crop yields. I explain more about …

Crops / GMO / Herbicides / Imported from Control Freaks

What does a GMO label tell you about herbicide use?

March 24, 2016February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

There has been quite a bit of discussion lately about various food companies deciding to label their products for GMO content in response to Vermont’s GMO labeling bill. I’m still mostly indifferent to GMO labels, and frankly, have grown tired of this particular debate. But there seems to be at least one misconception that I wanted to briefly address. If you follow the GMO issue at all, you’re probably aware that a large majority of GMO crops currently being grown are herbicide …