About a week ago, the Environmental Protection Agency released a report expressing concern that Monsanto's genetically modified Bt-corn was causing corn rootworms to develop Bt resistance in at least four states.
Bacillus thuringiensis is not a pesticide -- it is a bacterium that occurs naturally in the soil and attacks corn rootworms and other insects. In healthy living soil, this bacteria should be able to help control populations of insects that damage crops. As the insects develop resistance, the Bt develops toxicity, in a balanced state of continuous evolution. It ought to concern organic growers everywhere that the vast oceans of Bt-corn are creating superbugs that vastly outpace the ability of Bt to keep up. It's akin to creating mice that are resistant to coyotes and housecats.
Monsanto isolated the toxin from the Bt and inserted it into living crops, essentially making the crop itself as deadly to insects as the soil bacteria. Their New Leaf potato was the first crop to be genetically modified with Bt, back in 1995. Since then, Bt has been added to dozens of other crops, including cotton, rice, and corn, the latter of which is heavily subsidized in the US by payments from the USDA. The EPA's report notes in several places that continuous corn planting -- year after year without rotation of even one other crop -- creates the selective pressure necessary to make rootworm resistance most likely. Scientists quoted in the report recommend, at the very least, alternating Bt-corn with non-Bt corn. But this would require farmers to endure sacrifice years, where they can expect most of their corn crop to be destroyed by the superworms already present in their fields, in an effort to pursue the greater good of reducing overall rootworm resistance.
After the initial assumption that the individual farmer struggling to make payments on his combine is probably not at all interested in sacrificing a year's worth of positive cash flow, my first question is this: Where exactly could a midwestern corn farmer find non-GMO seeds in the quantities needed for thousands of acres? Over 80% of corn grown in the United States is genetically modified -- about 11% of the world's total -- and sources for open-pollinated seed continue to be threatened. Monsanto has sued hundreds of small farmers for patent infringement when pollen from their GMO crops drifted into neighboring fields, making some farmers afraid to save their own seed at all.
On the bright side, the Organic Farmers and Growers Association is fighting back. In a lawsuit initiated March 2011, this association is asking a judge to declare that pollen drift, over which farmers have very little control, cannot be considered a source of patent infringement. I hope that one day, we'll see organic farmers suing Monsanto for the damages caused when their seed escapes and contaminates heirloom, open-pollinated varieties.
Showing posts with label organic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label organic. Show all posts
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
since when does bigger mean better?
For the second part of my discussion on what "organic" means and why I support it, I'd like to address the myth that bigger is better. One of the most tired arguments against organic agriculture is that it might be a fine designer food for those wealthy enough to afford it, but it's just not big enough (efficient enough, cheap enough, productive enough, et cetera) to feed the whole world. Multinational agribusiness corporations like Monsanto claim that organic just can't keep up. Of course, they also claim that any method that increases the tons of crop yield per acre is sustainable because it will produce more food from less land, and therefore allow us to free up more land for forests. Or, you know, suburban housing developments and strip malls. Whoever has more money this week.
Monsanto may be the world-wide expert in getting the most corn, soy, and canola from an acre of land. (Although a Kutztown University study showed that yields of organic corn per acre were similar using organic methods, and that the organic yields were actually higher during years with poor rainfall.) But I don't think it's accurate to say that they are better at producing food.
In the United States, thanks to the last fifty or so years of Farm Bill legislation, we have a national system where low-quality corn is heavily subsidized by the federal government. This isn't the type of sweet corn you eat at your summer picnic. Most of this corn is destined to become another product -- ethanol, feed lot cattle, new forms of plastic, and of course, thousands of different types of food additives. Subsidizing corn production hasn't brought us cheaper food at the grocery store. What it has brought us is a new "food science" industry which is dedicated to increasing the proportion of grocery-store packages laden with high-fructose corn syrup and other junk devoid of actual nutrition. We are now seeing a resurgence of rickets, the 19th-century disease where children's bones fail to form properly due to Vitamin D or calcium deficiencies. Where in the past this disease was the scourge of the malnourished, it is now affecting children who are otherwise obese. Shouldn't it be a sign that something is seriously wrong with the way we produce and distribute food when children can be overweight from eating too much food, and still simultaneously suffer from malnutrition?
Globally, we humans are growing several times more grain than everyone on earth could possibly eat. In fact, one study concluded that if all the world's current conventional farmland were converted to organic, we would still produce more than enough tons of food to feed the global population, without bringing any additional land into cultivation. The problem is not, and has never been, that we don't produce enough food for everyone. The problem is that many people are too poor to buy it.
Do you remember the Green Revolution? It promised to bring new methods of cultivation, irrigation, pesticides, and fertilizer to poor regions of India and other "third-world" nations. But as India native Vandana Shiva writes eloquently in her book The Violence of the Green Revolution, that promise just didn't hold up to reality. Chemical inputs, like nitrogen artificially synthesized from the air, come in exchange for money. In her words, "It doesn't matter how much bread you can buy for a dollar, if you aren't making any dollars during the day." Thousands of farmers mortgaged their land in order to pay for their first season of input, lured by the promise of increased yield. But at the end of the growing season, the prices they earned for their crops were not enough to pay their loans. (Sound familiar? The U.S. Department of Agriculture identifies avoiding debt as one of the most important things a small farm can do to stay in business.) Many people suspect this vicious cycle of poverty and hunger is driving the startling increase in Indian farmer suicides.
By contrast, the aim of organic is to create a closed-loop system, where off-farm inputs are minimal. This means that the fertilizer you use on your crops comes from your own animal manure or vegetation compost. Ideally, it doesn't take money to buy those things -- and in fact, it reduces the money you have to pay to haul that "trash" away and store somewhere in a landfill. As a future farmer in the process of creating a business plan, this lack of initial capital is extremely attractive to me here in my wealthy nation. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development came to a similar conclusion in their 61-page report explaining why organic agriculture has a greater potential for feeding human beings in Africa than conventional methods.
Conventional farming hasn't convinced me it can grow more food. But it has shown that it's sinisterly effective at reducing the number of farmers.
Monsanto may be the world-wide expert in getting the most corn, soy, and canola from an acre of land. (Although a Kutztown University study showed that yields of organic corn per acre were similar using organic methods, and that the organic yields were actually higher during years with poor rainfall.) But I don't think it's accurate to say that they are better at producing food.
In the United States, thanks to the last fifty or so years of Farm Bill legislation, we have a national system where low-quality corn is heavily subsidized by the federal government. This isn't the type of sweet corn you eat at your summer picnic. Most of this corn is destined to become another product -- ethanol, feed lot cattle, new forms of plastic, and of course, thousands of different types of food additives. Subsidizing corn production hasn't brought us cheaper food at the grocery store. What it has brought us is a new "food science" industry which is dedicated to increasing the proportion of grocery-store packages laden with high-fructose corn syrup and other junk devoid of actual nutrition. We are now seeing a resurgence of rickets, the 19th-century disease where children's bones fail to form properly due to Vitamin D or calcium deficiencies. Where in the past this disease was the scourge of the malnourished, it is now affecting children who are otherwise obese. Shouldn't it be a sign that something is seriously wrong with the way we produce and distribute food when children can be overweight from eating too much food, and still simultaneously suffer from malnutrition?
Globally, we humans are growing several times more grain than everyone on earth could possibly eat. In fact, one study concluded that if all the world's current conventional farmland were converted to organic, we would still produce more than enough tons of food to feed the global population, without bringing any additional land into cultivation. The problem is not, and has never been, that we don't produce enough food for everyone. The problem is that many people are too poor to buy it.
Do you remember the Green Revolution? It promised to bring new methods of cultivation, irrigation, pesticides, and fertilizer to poor regions of India and other "third-world" nations. But as India native Vandana Shiva writes eloquently in her book The Violence of the Green Revolution, that promise just didn't hold up to reality. Chemical inputs, like nitrogen artificially synthesized from the air, come in exchange for money. In her words, "It doesn't matter how much bread you can buy for a dollar, if you aren't making any dollars during the day." Thousands of farmers mortgaged their land in order to pay for their first season of input, lured by the promise of increased yield. But at the end of the growing season, the prices they earned for their crops were not enough to pay their loans. (Sound familiar? The U.S. Department of Agriculture identifies avoiding debt as one of the most important things a small farm can do to stay in business.) Many people suspect this vicious cycle of poverty and hunger is driving the startling increase in Indian farmer suicides.
By contrast, the aim of organic is to create a closed-loop system, where off-farm inputs are minimal. This means that the fertilizer you use on your crops comes from your own animal manure or vegetation compost. Ideally, it doesn't take money to buy those things -- and in fact, it reduces the money you have to pay to haul that "trash" away and store somewhere in a landfill. As a future farmer in the process of creating a business plan, this lack of initial capital is extremely attractive to me here in my wealthy nation. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development came to a similar conclusion in their 61-page report explaining why organic agriculture has a greater potential for feeding human beings in Africa than conventional methods.
Conventional farming hasn't convinced me it can grow more food. But it has shown that it's sinisterly effective at reducing the number of farmers.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
the basic premise of organic
Are chemicals ever acceptable? Does 'natural' mean 'safe'? Is it even possible to feed the whole world sustainably?
Digress with me a moment to draw a comparison. I teach basic land navigation -- use of a map and compass -- to junior high school kids. There is so much I want to show them, from shortcuts for accurately plotting latitude and longitude, to how to navigate past obstacles like swamps and giant rocks. But increasingly, I find myself coming back to the basics. Many of these kids start out learning, for the first time, that the arrow on a compass points north. That fact is so basic, I sometimes forget to even cover it. But soon, I find myself backtracking -- starting at the beginning. Without comprehension of the most basic concepts, the finer points are mere hubris. Lately, I find myself doing the same thing when it comes to political and ethical arguments for organic farming. I'm defending even basic choices my family makes, like taking the time and effort to sort out the recyclables from the compost.
Here's a basic question:
What is organic?
I'd like to hear your answers, but I'll start with my own. The first thing that comes into my mind when I say "organic" is the absence of chemicals. But that requires us to define chemical. I remember a high school teacher who maintained that every single substance ever known to man should be considered a chemical, to be precise, whether it was synthesized in a laboratory or naturally occurred growing out of the ground. I disagreed with this assertion in 10th grade, and I still do. A chemical, to me, is something that is deliberately synthesized by humans, and doesn't occur naturally. Natural systems have trouble breaking it down, because it's new and bacteria don't recognize it. And because it's new, its long-term effects on human health and the environment really can't possibly be known for many generations, no matter how many studies we conduct or what interest groups fund them.
In my house, we do nearly all of our cleaning with vinegar. We don't have oven cleaner, countertop cleaner, bathroom scum cleaner, or even bleach. We do this for money-saving reasons: From personal experience, the vinegar is just as effective for cleaning up all the things I used to use those other products for, and does it for less than a tenth of the price. We do this for space-saving reasons: I keep a 5-gallon jug, and a small refillable spray bottle, of vinegar in my cupboard and don't need to make space for thirty other types of cleaners. We do this for environmental reasons: vinegar is a naturally occurring substance, made from the fermentation of apples or other fruits. If I spill it outside or flush it down my drain, tiny creatures in my ecosystem know what it is and know how to break it down and recycle it. I'm concerned about the saponification of our watersheds and streams, and so I choose to use fewer chemical soap products. And lastly, but perhaps most importantly, we do this to protect our family's health.
Have you ever noticed that household products that we deem safe to use on a daily basis suddenly become off-limits once you are pregnant? Pregnant women are supposed to avoid everything from tuna fish (mercury) to oven cleaner (toxic fumes) to conventionally grown apples (pesticides.) Were I to suggest these substances were inherently dangerous, many people would scoff -- my great-grandmother used those products, and nothing ever happened to her! (You know, except that breast cancer she almost died from.) But tell the same people that they ought to feel comfortable using them while pregnant, and they pause. Hey, maybe a lady carrying a tiny being inside ought to avoid regular apples. You know, just in case. Tiny beings can only handle a tiny concentration of pesticides, and several studies have shown that the human tissue containing the highest concentration of pesticides is breastmilk.
I'm sure there's some debate as to what concentrations of various pesticides, herbicides, and poisons is considered safe. But my conclusion is, if I know it's deadly in any reasonable concentration, why would I voluntarily introduce it into my home? Doesn't my family already face enough stress that is completely outside of my control? Reducing the number of poisons we ingest is one thing that is completely within my control.
Look for a part II of this discussion coming soon. I welcome your comments.
Digress with me a moment to draw a comparison. I teach basic land navigation -- use of a map and compass -- to junior high school kids. There is so much I want to show them, from shortcuts for accurately plotting latitude and longitude, to how to navigate past obstacles like swamps and giant rocks. But increasingly, I find myself coming back to the basics. Many of these kids start out learning, for the first time, that the arrow on a compass points north. That fact is so basic, I sometimes forget to even cover it. But soon, I find myself backtracking -- starting at the beginning. Without comprehension of the most basic concepts, the finer points are mere hubris. Lately, I find myself doing the same thing when it comes to political and ethical arguments for organic farming. I'm defending even basic choices my family makes, like taking the time and effort to sort out the recyclables from the compost.
Here's a basic question:
What is organic?
I'd like to hear your answers, but I'll start with my own. The first thing that comes into my mind when I say "organic" is the absence of chemicals. But that requires us to define chemical. I remember a high school teacher who maintained that every single substance ever known to man should be considered a chemical, to be precise, whether it was synthesized in a laboratory or naturally occurred growing out of the ground. I disagreed with this assertion in 10th grade, and I still do. A chemical, to me, is something that is deliberately synthesized by humans, and doesn't occur naturally. Natural systems have trouble breaking it down, because it's new and bacteria don't recognize it. And because it's new, its long-term effects on human health and the environment really can't possibly be known for many generations, no matter how many studies we conduct or what interest groups fund them.
In my house, we do nearly all of our cleaning with vinegar. We don't have oven cleaner, countertop cleaner, bathroom scum cleaner, or even bleach. We do this for money-saving reasons: From personal experience, the vinegar is just as effective for cleaning up all the things I used to use those other products for, and does it for less than a tenth of the price. We do this for space-saving reasons: I keep a 5-gallon jug, and a small refillable spray bottle, of vinegar in my cupboard and don't need to make space for thirty other types of cleaners. We do this for environmental reasons: vinegar is a naturally occurring substance, made from the fermentation of apples or other fruits. If I spill it outside or flush it down my drain, tiny creatures in my ecosystem know what it is and know how to break it down and recycle it. I'm concerned about the saponification of our watersheds and streams, and so I choose to use fewer chemical soap products. And lastly, but perhaps most importantly, we do this to protect our family's health.
Have you ever noticed that household products that we deem safe to use on a daily basis suddenly become off-limits once you are pregnant? Pregnant women are supposed to avoid everything from tuna fish (mercury) to oven cleaner (toxic fumes) to conventionally grown apples (pesticides.) Were I to suggest these substances were inherently dangerous, many people would scoff -- my great-grandmother used those products, and nothing ever happened to her! (You know, except that breast cancer she almost died from.) But tell the same people that they ought to feel comfortable using them while pregnant, and they pause. Hey, maybe a lady carrying a tiny being inside ought to avoid regular apples. You know, just in case. Tiny beings can only handle a tiny concentration of pesticides, and several studies have shown that the human tissue containing the highest concentration of pesticides is breastmilk.
I'm sure there's some debate as to what concentrations of various pesticides, herbicides, and poisons is considered safe. But my conclusion is, if I know it's deadly in any reasonable concentration, why would I voluntarily introduce it into my home? Doesn't my family already face enough stress that is completely outside of my control? Reducing the number of poisons we ingest is one thing that is completely within my control.
Look for a part II of this discussion coming soon. I welcome your comments.
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