Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Organic food/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 18:32, 22 February 2007.

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Organic food

• This article has been a "Good Article" for a while now. It includes many references, and is fairly comprehensive about the area of food industry which is growing the fastest. With more and more new stores (including Walmart) now carrying Organic food it is a topic of increasing importance. This article describes Organic Food accurately and even addresses it's criticisms. JabberWok 22:46, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
• Object External jumps in text, citation tags. "Legal definition", "Sustainability" & "For the environment" should be converted from lists to prose. + Ceoil 11:00, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
• Object - Citation needed tags, lists and clunky prose do not a featured article make.

Organic food is produced according to certain legally regulated standards.

The opening sentence doesn't adequately explain what organic food is. The concept is not so difficult as to defy a one-sentence explanation.--Nydas^(Talk) 11:29, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Observation Quite a few things are produced according to certain legally regulated standards. --Ouro (blah blah) 17:23, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• Comments

• Due to cosmic rays nothing can be produced in the absence of ionising radiation.
• I dislike the split of the discussion of the effects of organic farming and organic food into "for" and "against" sections. These should be merged.
• The often-claimed nutritional benefits of organic food are not discussed.
• Residues from organic pesticides such as copper, rotenone and pyrethrin and are not discussed.
• Large numbers of one and two-sentence paragraphs.
• What does the "Facts and statistics" section contribute to the article?
• Some references are just links with no title or access date.

Drop me a note on my talk page once these concerns have been addressed. TimVickers 00:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

• To your ionizing radiation comment, strait from the National Organic Program website, "Organic food is produced without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation." It's just the legal definition.

It is indeed possible to make something without using ionising radiation, however, the article states that "they were processed without ionizing radiation or food additives." Read literally, this sentence says ionising radiation was not present during their processing. Just inserting the word "using" would fix this.

• Having separate "for" and "against" sections has precedent, for example, here's a couple articles which have separate sections for critisism:

• Capitalism - and Critique of capitalism
• Christianity - and Criticism of Christianity
• Socialism - and Criticisms of socialism

I know this happens, but I think it is both unnecessary and poor style.

• I'm not sure where these "often-claimed" nutritional benefits of organic food are being made. Do you have a reference?

Link the article is incomplete if this common topic is not discussed.

• Pesticide residues? As mentioned in the Food safety section with two references, Organic food has consistently been shown to have about 1/3 the pesticide residues that conventionally grown food has. Why do you specifically ask about rotenone and copper? JabberWok 04:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The article seems to imply that organic food is grown without the use of pesticides. This is incorrect as copper, rotenone and pyrethrin are used in organic farming. Discussion of pesticide residues should therefore at least mention the toxicity and environmental stability of these allowed pesticides. TimVickers 05:21, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The second sentence of the article states that organic food is made "without the use of conventional pesticides."

The next mention of pesticides says "Organic farms do not release synthetic pesticides..." and another mentions "...organic farms using 50% less fertilizer and 97% less pesticide."

Later, "While organic agriculture aims to keep pesticide use to a minimum, it is a common misconception that organic agriculture does not use pesticides."

My question to you is, what sentences specifically imply that pesticides aren't used? JabberWok 01:46, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I had missed the pesticide mention in the sustainability section, this needs to come much earlier and be integrated into the pesticide residue section. This lack of clarity stems from the strange separation of facts that should be integrated, rather than separated into "For" and "Against" sections. TimVickers 02:22, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Oppose No changes in response to suggestions. TimVickers 21:08, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.