Debate about "The Omnivore's Dilemma" between Hurst & Pollan

I think this agricultural debate about farming techniques is interesting. Michael Pollan makes some good points in his essay titled “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” about how GMO’s and pesticides should be eliminated from farming practices. He also goes on to talk about how animal agriculture should be humane and free range. This sounds positive and progressive for farmers to be have more organic practices but Pollan fails to discuss how expensive such practices are. Blake Hurst, President of the Missouri Farm Bureau defended industrial farming techniques with his essay titled “The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-intellectuals”. Organic farming techniques are more expensive which would raise the price of food altogether and make it difficult for lower-income families to purchase groceries. Also the crop yield would be less if organic practices would be used because crops would be more susceptible to weeds and insects. Also for animal agriculture the yield would be less. For example Mother Pigs eat their young sometimes and by accident roll over and crush their piglets if they’re not put into pens separating them. But Pollan is calling for free range animals and in this situation that would be a negative outcome as the pork yield would drop and thus raising the price of pork if free range pork became the norm. Another example that Hurst provided was how a neighbor of his lost 4,000 turkeys during a thunderstorm. They were free range turkeys but they are smart enough to know to find shelter during a storm and stayed out in the open, unprotected. Their beaks would be open and they would drown because of it. Overall, Hurst and Pollan have good arguments but I think that organic methods is an expensive alternative and not everyone has the monetary means to pay for the higher priced organic foods. Blake Hurst does well to defend industrial farming and I appreciate his perspective towards understanding real-world issues with agriculture.