""Organic" doesn't mean much to me" JS

In the U.S. such terms as "organic", & "all natural" have specific legal definitions. The FDA Internet site may list the definitions. Producers aren't allowed to use these terms unless their produce meet the criteria.
Problem is some of that food isn't as safe as the regular produce. e. Coli is the example I heard.
If synthetic or processed fertilizers are used, the producers can't make the claim. So they use manure instead.
The synthetically fertilized crops are OK. But some of the others can get contaminated with e. Coli.
Problem is, some of these crops are salad crops, frequently eaten uncooked, raw.
Thus these special crops cost more, and may be more dangerous.
"I'm thinking of the scandal over mechanically recovered "meat", back at the time when the CJD/BSE scares were going around. It still hasn't been determined whether BSE was initially caused by feeding MRM to cattle." JS

JS,
The explanation I got was that CJD was found to be a disease disproportionately found in human cannibals.
Turns out cannibalism seems to promote this.
So what?

So for years, ranchers etc. realized that there was nutrition left over in the waste that was left over after slaughter.
So they'd grind it up, and feed it back to their cattle again. This functionally turned their cattle into cannibals.

When they learned of the consequences of this, and the increased risk of BSE, they dropped the practice; or at least tried to exclude brain and spinal cord tissue.
That seems to have been a substantial element of dialing it back.
"we are putting ourselves at risk of famine" JS

The Irish potato famine.
The potatoes grown there were (at that time) essentially a monoculture. A large % of those potato crops were bred from a single plant.
So when that particular potato blight struck Ireland, it swept through their potato crops, doing great damage.

These days in the U.S. we do have huge monoculture crops; agri-bidness.
But we don't rely on our crops natural immunity. We use chemical fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, & pesticides to protect them.

I'm not saying: therefore it's not a problem.
I think it's really important to at least keep our legacy methods and seed a viable option. Biodiversity is important.
"patents" JS

If we let the non-GM seed grain atrophy, go sterile yes.
I think Bill Gates or somebody has a significant store of such seed, way off in a repository in Greenland or something.
But seed / grain in storage seems to go sterile over time.

"Whenever you start posting dictionary quotes, we know you've been bested." captainkbt