Science Communication Bulletin – March 8, 2010 establish that either is better. Nor is there evidence that organic food is healthier. According to Sir John [head of Britain‟s Food Standards Agency], „the current scientific evidence does not show that organic food is any safer or more nutritious than conventionally produced food‟.” The reasons presented from the passage illustrate the response most authors throughout my research had: that the higher cost of organics was not worthwhile. The bottom line with these arguments is that they make excuses for not acknowledging the solution to the concerns expressed by authors for the need to protect the earth and its resources. This solution to the problem being ignored is the employment of sustainable agriculture: the production of organics. Whether or not there is a difference deemed to be significant enough in organics as far as nutrition, safety and taste goes, the fact that current farming practices are unsustainable and will destroy our ability to farm and produce food to sustain human life cannot be contested and it will happen sooner than we think. Perhaps this discovery illuminates where authors perceive people‟s preferences lie, that health will rank higher on the list of importance than the environment, otherwise, the environmental benefits of sustainable agriculture would be reason enough to pay more for organics and the discussions of nutrition, safety and taste would not be needed. Political With today‟s concern regarding climate change, discussions of sustainable agriculture should be involved since scientists have published the assistance these methods provide in reducing the harmful effects of climate change. However, the connection between sustainable farming methods and climate was only made once in the same article I previously mentioned being primarily framed in science and technology. USA Today (1999) carefully illustrates to the reader that sustainable agriculture “can preserve carbon and nitrogen in the soil, thus reducing emissions.” The article continues: “Moreover, they [researchers at the Rodale Institute] maintain that organic methods can produce the same yields as conventional systems that use synthetic fertilizer. If the major corn/soybean growing region of the U.S. were to adopt these organic practices, they say, the percentage of estimated annual carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from fossil fuel combustion in the nation could be reduced by one to two percent.” At the end of the article, the relationship to the Kyoto protocol was even mentioned in quoting another researcher at the Rodale Institute: “This [reducing the fossil fuel emissions associated to conventional farming methods] would be a significant contribution in light of the Kyoto protocol, equivalent to the total carbon dioxide emissions for countries like Iraq, Egypt, Greece, Denmark, and Sweden.”
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It seemed more important to construct an article which discussed the definition of organic agriculture and what sustainable methods incorporated than to make this connection to the role sustainable agriculture will play in the bigger picture and current crises such as climate change. This type of emergent theme was placed into the political category because essentially, it is in the hands of policy and decision makers to generate a definition that can in-turn be used as a guideline for determining allocation of such things as subsidies. Many articles actually make the point to mention that there is no financial reward currently for farmers to convert to more sustainable methods. This is happening when simultaneously messages from the research industry are clear to say that sustainable farming is the all-around better choice for the earth and for human health. Indeed there should be governance of this issue especially when the business markets are demanding more sources for organically produced foods. Social Contrary to how the journalists are portraying organics negatively because of their higher associated cost in the grocery store, small pockets of people are quite literally “eating up” the bountiful quantities of organics now stocked and more accessible to them than ever before. This was a consistent emergent theme throughout my data. To meet these new demands of the public the organics business is booming. Laced with concern were the emergent themes of social nature from the farmers. Farmers are crying out for better legislation to control the number of organic farms allowed to be classed as organic. According to veteran organic farmers: “It is as much a philosophy as it is a practice, and the farms that are getting faulty certification and claim to be farming organically miss the point of it altogether.” It seems that as much as these expert organic farmers want to see organic farming proliferate, they want their industry and “sacred philosophy” to be understood and not be undermined by the appeal and attraction to big money. The story line of people asking “what exactly is organic?” plays a large role and, in some cases takes on the entire theme of an article. Further discussion on the outcome and affect of this story line‟s popularity is best addressed when deconstructing the rhetorical features involved and therefore can be found discussed in more detail in that section of this paper. Farmers are quite satisfied with their own techniques of continuing the livelihood and philosophy of sustainable practices. Unique to their own culture of farming and definitely an emergent theme from the research are the personal account stories of people learning life on an organic farm. For example, author