I always figured “organic” growers had peanut and gluten “allergies”

It makes sense. One idea generally follows another.

The paradox of unanimity “has implications for food and agriculture. Few fields of popular interest have cultivated a wider array of glib axioms of empowerment than food: genetically modified organisms are bad, local is better, you shouldn't eat food your grandmother wouldn't eat, and so on. In the context of Main Street foodie wisdom, these claims enjoy something close to unanimity. But, for all their support, none comes closer to the unanimity quotient than the gilded assertion that organic food is food grown without pesticides.”

Ah, yes, the “axioms of empowerment,” so necessary to Liberal/Progressive living. Buy organic, buy local.

http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/forget-what-youve-heard-organic-food-is-not-food-grown-without-pesticides

And the advertising that follows, especially in chain groceries, as to wit:

My wife and I were shopping at a Kroger in North Little Rock, Ark., where a sign in the produce department proclaimed, “We Buy Local.” I asked a man who was restocking lettuce, “In which local area were those pineapples grown?” He did not answer that question, but did say the “local” purchases of other fruits and vegetables were Mississippi and Florida. How “local” Mississippi and Florida were in terms of miles he did not say. In the case of Mississippi, the answer would be “Not very many,” but definitely more than to be considered “local.” Anything grown in another state is not “locally produced.”

In the organic food community, “organic farmers sometimes want to be around the conventional growers because pesticide drift helps reduce pests on their farms as well.” There is more than pesticide drift, of course. Some “organic foods” receive insecticide spraying as a routine part of farming.

Link at http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/