My first encounter with the rather mind-blowing extent to which agriculture accounts for landuse change was when I watched this TED talk by Jonathan Foley  some time last year.

In the video, he shows through satellite & ground-base data the presence of agriculture (- agriculture uses 40% of terrestrial land. However if we include neighbouring, "partially-used" land affected by agriculture, the number rises to a whopping 75%. Hence, agriculture has a huge influence on habitat structure,biodiversity and the water cycle.

The root cause of that was in effect was sparked by the Green Revolution, a revolution driven with the aim of producing food for an ever-growing population. It was probably the most major change the sector has seen. However, some like Bayliss-Smith say that the paradigms like this we have seen thus far are in fact not revolutionary enough to tackle the problems of today. 

In this post I will attempt to incorporate lessons learnt from the Green Revolution while merging together recommendations laid out by Foley et al (2011)  in a very succinct and comprehensive reviewespousing the aims of  the agriculture ofthe future. 

Problem #1: Wholesale adoption of technology without adaptation to localized environments

An analysis by Griffin 1974 compared pre (1955-65)- and post (1965-75)- green revolution production levels and found that in fact, when averaged, there was no overall acceleration in production. Instead, it saw large increases in small areas (E.g. rice in Africa and wheat in the Far East) while others benefit less (E.g. Latin America). Why didn't the green revolution give the worldwide-good it promised? It was partly because the only way 1st world-originating High-Yielding Varieties could yield high yields was with the prerequisite of 1st world mechanics and technologies of fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation (Paarlberg, 2010).

Principle #1: Much care has to be taken when touting a "global or cure-all" solution, and many good solutions still have to be tailored to local conditions.

Problem #2: A Technocractic Approach

Perhaps then, learning from the sentiments of the past, accruing the technology isn't the whole picture.  Indeed, the Green Revolution with its bias toward big farms had caused many social problems and did not provide all farmers with the benefits it touted. Benefits were indeed seen for farmers in Asia where local conditions required less mechanical input (hence capital), but inequality was worsened in Latin America where expensive machinery etc. was required. (Paarlberg, 2010).

Principle #2: Socially-sensitive Change is required

This change is to be shaped in context of the social/political & economic fabric. The nature of how many of these agricultural societies function has been through small farms on which they depend on for subsistence. Implementing these large-scale solutions so quickly were not suitable for the social context (at least then). A solution needs to be one that can be adopted well by the citizens of  that country and where they would really benefit (not just corporations across the globe). This is necessary for a sustainable solution.

Problem #3: Perspectives have been to narrow- EITHER Ignoring the Environment OR  Dismissing Productivity

Stephen Stanford (Arenown specialist in African agriculture) said in the New Scientist on thegreen revolution in Africa: "Twenty years ago there was a very strong belief that many technical solutions were already known and that the real difficulty was getting them adopted. We thought that solutions were all in bottles in the shelf. Now we've come more and more to the feeling that we don't have that shelf-load of technology"

Foley et al. argue that most paradigms have either focused on

1. an increase in production that is detrimental to the environment

Even if technology could be adopted, the problem in fact lies with that technology. The idea of the green revolution did not take into account environmental costs related to fertilizer-over use, excessive freshwater extraction (irrigation is the largest use of freshwater, responsible for 70% global freshwater withdrawals), high energy consumption, risks associated with monocropping (lack of biodiversity and resilience through over-favoring of certain traits through GMO as HYVs were less resistant to floods) and transport emissions. (I just realised… all these aspects straddle many of the global environmental issues we see today!) In essence, what the green revolution did was shift the economic costs of production to environmental costs without minimizing costs i.e. it wasn't really that efficient. Higher production came at a cost that would eventually hurt ecosystems- for example, on farm degradation (depletion of nutrients without fertilizers) was turned into off-farm pollution (excessive nutrient runoff).

OR

2. conservation strategies that do not have production as a goal
• It is known that low-yielding traditional methods could lead to soil erosion and nutrient depletion resulting in potentially arable land lost. Unsustainable low-yield farming had led to ~70% deforestation. For example, the Dustbowl of the 1920s- America's most serious disaster then- included the destruction of arable land as big as Pennsylvania state resulting in the migration of 400,000 farmers. (Abraham, 1991). Conservation strategies like  organic farming have shown to have lower yields overall than conventional high-input systems (Seufert et al., 2012). Hence these back-to-basics models are also lacking...

Principle #3: An Ecologically sound approach taking into account the myriad of Environmental Goals in addition to Food Security

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v478/n7369/images/nature10452-f2.2.jpg

This figure (Foley et al., 2011) shows the need for a future solution to meet both goals of food security(with yields rising between 1985-2005 slower than before, the status quo seems to be unsatisfactory) and environmental goals. With regard to the latter, what is of bigger concern today is that agricultural land is still expanding despite its already large landuse, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and habitat destruction. Expansion takes place mainly in the tropics today with 80% of new croplands occupying land which was once forests. Not only does this have a massive impact on biodiversity & ecosystem services (which are so rich in that area), clearance also accounts for 12% of CO2 emissions i.e. main energy use within agriculture (30-35% of agricultural GHG). Also, another reason why it makes much sense to stop this expansion is because gains made through agriculture are mainly through intensification! Hence, the costs of expansion definitely outweigh the benefits today.

According to Foley et al., (2011) , such a solution of stopping land expansion and meeting water needs while ensuring food security would require "closing yield gaps" through "increasing agricultural resource efficiency". This would be done through:

• Better use of Genetic technology
• Taking advantage of past experiences through "reforming conventional agriculture and adopting lessons from organic systems and precision agriculture" .
• Organic practices have their performance benefits such as being shown to grow beter under drought conditions (i.e. higher resilience). Still, in developing countries, organic agriculture has significantly lesser yields (-40%). However, the disparity is less great in the developed nations and certain crop types especially with the implementation of better management  practices (-15%). For example, "organic yields are low in the first years after conversion and gradually increase over time owing to improvements in soil fertility and management skills" (Seufert et al., 2012). Hence there is a need to find out what these 'best management practices' are for various crops and conditions and implement them quickly.
• We could also maximize efficiency through tackling the high excesses of nutrients in small areas (E.g. China, USA, Western Europe) such as through proper management that prevents disproportionate fertilization to output, allowing us to increase nutrient efficiency without compromising on food yields. Organic systems are also known to be N-limited and do not perform as well under irrigated conditions(Seufert et al., 2012). Hence it would make sense for the issue of N-limitation to be addressed while reducing irrigation (reducing water needs). "Precision Agriculture" an evolution of conventional systems whereby GIS,  GPS and infrared technologies farmers enable them to understand the conditions of their environment and requirements of their crops better (e.g. measuring the depth of the soil etc.), allowing them to give fertilizer inputs only to the extent that they are being utilized. Positive results have come about with this method with this form of conventional agriculture now increasing yields by 5% while at minimizing impacts at the same time (Paalberg, 2010).

Principle #4: Remember, yields ¹ food!

Food accessibility is once again another way of ensuring better allocation of  limited resources. It could be achieved via 2 ways:

• Shift in dietary preferences
• Today, only 62% of crops is allocated to  human food  while 35% to livestock in the form of feed. Foley et al. put forth that there is a need to re-evaluate devoting such large amounts of crops to animal feed. While great reductions in meat consumption are likely to be difficult,  comparing "intrinsic food production" to "delivered food production" there is potential for a 49% increase (this is known as the "diet gap").

• Reduce Waste
• According to FAO, 1/3 to 1/2 of food is not consumed due to post-harvest losses great (40%). This takes the form of poor conditions of storage/ transport for developing countries and consumer waste in developed countries. It would be of special interest to reduce waste from high intensity produce e.g. dairy (Foley et al 2011).

In Conclusion...

Abraham (1991) argues that the Green Revolution, it has generally be driven by undemocratic financial motivations which have not solved world hunger and inequalities. There have been gains throughout but at environmental cost. However, this is not to say that 'conventional systems' are all bad as we have seen from the higher yields in some areas and has been the precursor to its more efficient birth-child of  'precision agriculture'. In the end, as Seufert et al. (2012) suggest, "there are many factors to consider in balancing the benefits of organic and conventional agriculture and there is no simple way to determine a clear 'winner' for all possible farming situations" instead, "we should evaluate the costs and benefits of different management options…. We will probably need many different techniques, including ..possible hybrid systems. "

Strictly speaking, all landuse change of natural environments by humans due to agriculture could be seen as 'damaging the natural environment'. The question to ask is perhaps to what extent has agriculture been or is going to be harmful or beneficial? Perhaps a helpful plumbline to guide us would be considering harm if the long-term costs to humans exceed the short-term food production gain and whether or not these agricultural methods can be part of the solution (instead of the problem) of various environmental issues.

Non-linked References:

Robert Paarlberg. Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know.  2010. Oxford University Press.

John Abraham. 1991.Food and Development: The political economy of hunger and the modern diet. WWF & Kogan Page Ltd.

Calls for change- The debate about GMOs

To start us off, here's an infographic produced in the debate about GMO labeling

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was in search of some principles which would be helpful as we explore alternatives or aim to tweak current practices. I came across this review "

Radically Rethinking Agriculture for the 21stCentury" in Science by Fedoroff et al (2010)

In it he lays out several principles including:

1. Implementing ecologically sound farming practices
2. Exploring genetic variability
3. Improving post-harvest mechanisms of transport and storage etc.
4. Preventing leakage and pollution by making sure one closes the loop of nutrient flows to (E.g. The relatively new system of Aquaponics- which allows nutrient re-use instead of wastage; see here for a very short but succinct introduction 
5. Improvement of crops via conventional and molecular methods (i.e. GMOs)

I was honestly surprised seeing 1),2) and 5) lumped together.

Going by the information I have come across in the past,  it seemed clear in my mind that GMOs were generally all about increasing yields without considering the environment and reducing biodiversity and are  essentially bad for the environment and health. If this were true, in effect point 5) contradicts 1) & 2).

Fedoroff et al put forth that "there is a critical need to get beyond popular biases against the use of agricultural biotechnology and develop forward-looking regulatory frameworks based on scientific evidence" and that

1. "They have also had environmental and health benefits, such as decreased use of pesticides and herbicides and increased use of no-till farming"  => ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFIT

2. "The first few GM crops that have been grown very widely… have increased agricultural productivity and farmers’ incomes." => SOCIAL/ ECONOMIC BENEFIT
3. "The world has consumed GM crops for 13 years without incident" => HEALTH BENEFIT

He says that in light of the impacts of future climate change crops will need to buffer against the stresses of heat, drought, flooding and salinity, and GMOs are our best defence against these as they allow us to manipulate corps and tailor-make them according to the future challenges we predict e.g. making plants with greater nitrogen use efficiency. All these sound fine and well, but is there any cost to GMOs? The support they give for GMOs is that there are already apparent benefits we experience from them.

Thinking that my preunderstanding might indeed be formed from bias information/popular thinking I have been influenced by, I decided to investigate further:

The evidence/citation(there's only 1 though) provided for all of this was , was from a report by two  economists, Brookes & Barfoot, 2009 asessing the "GlobalImpact of Biotech Crops: Environmental Effects, 1996-2008" 

Fedoroff strongly encourages the use of GMOs: he contends that there is "excellent safety and efficacy record of GM crops" and the support he gives stems from those in the paper by Brookes & Barfoot (2009) who say that GMOs result in:

1. Decreased  pesticides (-8.4%)
2. Decreased herbicide

3. Increased no-till practices which will allow greater efficiency (e.g. Carbon sequestration) leading to significant falls in GHG (equivalent of removing 6.9mil cars on the road)

A cursory reading of this article would indeed advocate an uninhibited promotion of GMOs as the solution to our food problems. However, I feel that much more caution has to be exercised.

Here are some issues I have with Brookes & Barfoot's article. The difference in pesticide & herbicide use are measured

• Comparisons against 'conventional' farming only
• My opinion:It was noted that there is also evidence that environmental impact of GMO-coupled herbicides is said to be lower than other traditional herbicides. Therefore, GMOs might give better benefits to conventional farming. However, given the possible (high) costs to thewidespread adoption & consumption of GMOs (this also brings into question point iii of the above), I think it better that we look into more 'ecologically sound' alternatives. For example, they state that the adoption of GM is an important contribution to adoption of no-tillage (NT) practices in conventional systems. Even if this is true in the area of conventional-tillage systems, it is not to say that there are no better alternatives. In addition, it must be noted that "the large-scale adoption of zero teillage started well before the introduction of GM crops, indicating that in many cases weeds can also be managed in a zero-tillage system with conventional soy".

(Bindraban et al 2009)

Hence there doesn't really look to be a very strong case here.

• Data obtained by private market-research possibly with special interests
• My opinion:Most of the tables given with regard to the values amount of herbicide used in GM crops VS Conventional crops are given by Monsanto, which not only is the monopoly behind GM crops, but also does not have a greatreputation when it comes to welfare of farmers, bringing to question the reliability of the data.  (this also brings into question point ii of the above)

• In fact, Bindraban et al 2009 state results that  their results contradict Brookes & Barfoot (2009) as they show higher impact of GMOs using the same method but with different data input. Thought it must be noted that the areas from which data was collected was different and so it is not directly comparable. They also note that GM herbicide use could increase in the future with increasing resistance. Their conclusion is more conservative: that there is currently no environmental benefit from using GMOs and the "herbicide application rate and the environmental impact from these herbicides was found to be higher in GM soy than in conventional soy" and this warrants more investigation.

With all these considered, it must be said that the intention behind Fedoroff et al's article seems well to me: "However, it is not at all a foregone conclusion that our current crops can be pushed to perform as well as they do now at much higher temperatures and with much less water and other agricultural inputs. It will take new approaches, new methods, new technology—indeed, perhaps even new crops and new agricultural systems. The issue I have is with the fervent, seemingly non-discriminatory support for GMOs while not exploring other equally 'smart' alternatives.

Though I'm not an expert on this, based on the above, its suffices me to conclude that while GMOs are not 'evil' in themselves, the risks tend to exceed the benefits mainly because as of today most of it is not inherently ecologically sound in its intentions. Perhaps GMOs will be viable and superior option in the future but this is not currently reflected the record of its use thus far.

Yep, so because of all these, I do not deny the possibility of GMOs doing good but have decided that I would not pursue, in this blog at least, to explore GMOs as a more 'ecologically desirable' alternative.

This was kind of a detour from my search for 'principles' and an attempt to look more critically into the assertions made by this particular paper. Next week I will go on to draw on the past experience of the green revolution to hopefully tease out some lessons ;)

For more information on GMOs, see this 'brochure' by respected experts in the field:

"GMO Myths and Truths " 

In very recent news, the bid to implement GMO-labeling  has been making the headlines in the US:

Presenting the Problem of Food Security

“In this era of tightening world food supplies, the ability to grow food is fast becoming a new form of geopolitical leverage. Food is the new oil. Land is the new gold.” – Lester R. Brown, author of a new book :Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity

My past posts have touched on the agricultural impacts   in environmental degradation and health/nutritional problem.  Brown goes even further to exert that 'food is now the weakest link of human civilization'.  I haven’t read his new book, but from this video and an article published by the man himself , he does present a convincing case that food looks to be an important challenge of the future. While I'm sure many would disagree or view with scepticism his catastrophic doomsday predictions, if he has gotten his facts right about the number households going below the "minimum threshold" and preparing for foodless days as a norm, and this really does warrant for greater action.  Whether you would agree if this is the most important environmental problem or not, one thing is for sure: any solution has to take into account (especially light of climate uncertainty and the social trends (population boom and diet shifts)) that any environmental solution that touches on both 1) production/food security and 2) environmental sustainability. Foley et al (2011)

explains that in the past, systems and movements have addressed one or the other but not both. With a new insight gained on the different types of problems ahead of us, any viable solution cannot, as far as possible,  ignore both issues or bring the two into conflict (i.e. it cannot be a zero-sum game!)

Stay tuned for the next post in which I will try to lay out some principles by which we could evaluate practical alternatives for the future :)

The "anti-synthetics" movement of Organic agriculture: Desirable or just plain irresponsible?

What is the Organic Movement?

"Only what's Natural"

The Organic Movement was mandated through the creation of legal standards for “organic food” by the USDA in 1990. Organic farming constitutes agricultural processes that reject anything synthetic: pesticides, fertilizers, GMOs etc.

Beginnings

The Organic Movement was born out of a vitalist movement where crops were nurtured by products of other living things only. In the US, the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) was also formed with the objective of boycotting large "factory farms", as seen by the setting up of the Cornucopia Institute 

So, why do people go Organic? Here I evaluate Organic Farming in 2 areas: Health & Environment.

We don't know for sure if organic foods are healthier

A recentmeta-analysis (synthesis of original research) carried out in Stanford showed  that going organic did indeed lessen (-30%) pesticide & antibiotic-resistant bacteria exposure. However the researchers concluded that there is little known about the clinical significance of this. What they could show clearly was that there was no significant difference in nutrient levels between conventional and organic foods. Other naysayers also remind us that organic farming can still use natural chemicals which might be toxic at levels (e.g. copper used for wine) used are actually used in organic farming and are not tested for. The researchers at Stanford concluded that health was not a sure basis to go organic. However, other researchers  point out  that while there doesn't seem to be obvious macronutrient nutritional differences,  the jury is still out on the overall health benefit, and as it would be premature to discount the possible harm of pesticide exposure because no long term decadal long studies have been carried out. In my opinion, the reduction of pesticide exposure might hold some weight especially in the light of the high prevalence of lifestyle diseases of today like cancer (i.e. though toxicology tests have shown that levels are of reasonable concern, the issue lies with the validity of these toxicological standards over long-term exposure, especially without long-term human studies carried out.

There are other instances of health benefit to consumers. Even if these synthetics are largely in non-toxic quantities on vegetables/crops, these can accumulate to undesirable amounts up the food chain because of their effect on non-target organisms. For example, Asia's fields have been known to be contaminated by pesticides which are subsequently ingested by paddy-field crabs & fish which are important food sources for locals.  There is much evidence to show this accumulation, however, they are at not currently known to be at toxic levels (Chen et al, 1984)

While not so much a concern now, the horrors of instances like the DDT episode (a widely used pesticide that was thought to be relatively harmless but now viewed as undesirable because of its long-term persistence which has shown evidence of carcinogenic effects in the long-term) still lingers at the mind of many who advocate going organic.

The Health of Farmers

The prolific (and especially excessive) use of pesticides does however pose a more direct harm to farmers. This is especially for farmers in less developed countries where protection gear cannot be afforded and safety rules are not well implemented.

Is there an environmental basis for going organic?

 "Living in harmony with nature" is yet another phrase that goes along the tune of the movement. Organic agriculture does benefit the environment in numerous ways, including reduced pollution. There is a smaller impact on connected & adjacent ecosystems as there isn't as much nutrient runoff that pollutes water bodies and causes potentially irreversible and undesirable changes (see previous post on such problems). With organic agriculture, there also isn't long-term undesirable effects on non-target organisms such as predators of pests. Hence, while the level of toxicity may be low enough for humans to tolerate but lethal to other beneficial organisms not only play directly useful roles but are important in the integrity of ecosystems through competitive/predatory effects through the foodweb. In the third world, high yielding-varieties (brought about by the green revolution) require 10-20 times the previous annual rate of pesticide application resulting in the doubling of pest-resistance within 10 years from introduction.

So it seems clear to me that conventional agriculture isn't a very sustainable way of pest-control/ crop-maximization as there is a high possibility that more lethal and higher concentrations of pesticides will be required (versus lower, more acceptable concentrations now). The use of such synthetic pesticides doesn't seem to be an ecologically sound/sustainable principle and as Joel Salatin (a farmer made famous for the impressive economic viability of his farming methods by producing very high yields with holistic and ecologically-aware methods and without synthetic products) puts it: it's basically like a "drug trip".

Biodiversity of crops

Some say that modern agriculture is the largest-scale (and to some non-consented) experiment on the health of our bodies and the environment. So it would be interesting to take a look at the Experiments of  Rothamsted, the longest-running (from~ 1850s) experiments carried out since the advent of synthetics (and coincidentally started by Lawes, the person who commercialized them). Rothamsted consists of plots of grass, wheat & turnips with all kinds of treatments & controls whose conditions have been maintained over the centuries.

It is interesting to note that the change in crop reactions over the years. Initially, synthetic N & P increased yields, but later on, inorganic N led to low biodiversity (2-3 VS 50 species) of various plants (E.g. grass, herbs). Back then, the environmental problems of pollution weren't apparent and monocrops were seen as the way to go as farmers could 'specialize' in a crop and produce it it bulk. (I will explore more on biodiversity in the future…)

Still, it must be noted that environmental protection was not the original interest of its pioneers, and today it may not either. "How is this so?" You may ask, given the organic movement going all 'natural'. Let's simplify things and consider what will happen if the majority of us were to go organic…

Firstly, as I mentioned previously, the global environmental problems we face today aren't isolated to just the concerns of nitrogen use or pest resistance. Instead, agriculture also taps into the areas of transport (leading to green gas emissions) and ecosystem degradation.

1. Transport & GHGs

4.4 billion tons of manure would be needed to fulfil the effects of 65 million of chemical nitrogen. What this entails is higher number of livestock, grain feed & transportation.

2. Landuse

Organic farming is a less efficient way  (60-70% yields of conventional farming)  of farming. More land is needed to yield the same biomass and more land is needed for livestock to produce manure, this would mean a requiring a much higher % of global land being dedicated to agriculture. To put it into perspective, "if Europe tried to feed itself organically, it would need an additional 28 million hectares of cropland, equal to all the remaining forest cover of France, Germany, Denmark, and Britain combined" 1  The distressing implications of this are: increased deforestation (ecosystem services) and destruction of wildlife habitats (biodiversity). In addition, the strict prohibition of synthetic N also means the degradation of now viable cropland in the future- because of the high demands on crop yields, it is said that soil health needs to be maintained not only by good practices (manure and crop rotation) but also with the addition of some amount of synthetic nitrogen/fertilizers to restore the soil.  The rejection of such fertilizers means that organic farming has two consequences:

Firstly, this means that many soils might become depleted of their nutrients and farmers have to abandon ship and move on, clearing even more land (as seen in Africa due to a lack of nitrogen use (but not in the context of organic agriculture)).

Secondly, highly reliant on tillage of the soil (i.e.  also does not allow the use of no-till practices which are increasingly seen as favourable to the environment as it prevents soil erosion and reduces GHGs by increasing Carbon sequestration in the soil and reduces the need for machinery (equating to diesel-use).

The Unique Situation of Today: Population Boom

It seems that modern agriculture is in much better stead to cope with today's challenges than organic agriculture. This is because we have to tailor to a pressing need of a burgeoning population. This is probably the strongest argument going for those who oppose organic farming and they call it purely unrealistic and irresponsible. In his book "Bountiful Harvest: Technology, Food Safety and the Environment", Degregori argues that with the ever increasing number of mouths to feed, what is responsible is to maximize productivity through: 1) crop protection against other organisms and 2) soil nutrient renewal- this is what is sustainable for the sustenance of human life. In conventional agriculture, this takes the form of 1) synthetic pesticides, disease resistance (GMOs), and 2) synthetic fertilizers.

Personally…

From a personal note, over the past year, I have subscribed to a health newsletter advocating, based on scientific evidence, the superiority of the more “natural” forms of food- e.g. organic food in terms of nutrients and the environment.  The past year has been spent trying to eat organic as far as my wallet allows it and minimizing any exposure to pesticides.

Writing this blog post has helped me to understand better the complexities and half-truths of that. From the above, I cannot say that there is scientific prove for this but it still remains a personal choice of mine (i.e. am practicing the precautionary principle here/it is better to be safe than sorry). May I also put forth that there maybe a case made in the minimization of pesticide exposure: given the assumption that conventional agriculture applies pesticide residues at levels legally allowed, one could question the strength of that legal requirement. For example, organophosphates in synthetic agriculture has been correlated to have detrimental mental effects on children, but we are currently prevented from knowing the exact mechanisms because of the nature of its complexity. As Michael Pollen concludes in his response to the hype about the meta-analysis, "the absence of proof means that we either haven't studied it or we haven't found it yet, it doesn't mean we won't. In the meantime, there's a precautionary principle: even though the case isn't closed on low levels of pesticides in our diet, there are very good reasons to minimize them."

Still, does this have other trade-offs that I had not expected?

Does this choice of health conflict with the environment?

DeGerogri argues that the organic movement is but a manifestation of antitechnology elitism when in fact humans are “inherently technological beings” as seen by the developmental path we have taken. Along these lines, the organic movement might be a mindless knee-jerk reactions to the bad of modern agriculture. Does it mean that organic agriculture is all good? Based on the above, no.  But is it all bad? The answer too is no.  Which then is better?

Interestingly, Lawes' conclusion after years of experimentation at Rothamsted was that the idea of "growing as fine crops by the aid of a few pounds of some chemical substances as by the same number of tons of farm-yard dung" was a  delusion. Instead he recommended "selecting a locality where I could obtain a large supply of yard manure at a cheap rate". Now it would be interesting to find out what inclined him to saying that. Along those lines, Joel Salatin and farmers like him aren't advocates (and even oppose to some extent) the organic movement. But they are not advocates of modern industrialized agriculture either.  Perhaps the common denominator is because the idea of 'organic' isn't radically 'natural' enough- natural not in the sense of nothing synthetic but natural in the sense of working really alongside nature in terms of understanding and maximizing sound ecological principles.  And in the process, both health (nutrient quality) and environmental benefits (lower impact farming through higher yields per area and lower pollution) are maximized.

Lepisto argues that perhaps modes of production should be the way to evaluate a product's sustainability and not the 'organic' label or certification. For example, wines can be produced at the same quantity if it is grown in the appropriate climate without the use of any pesticides or insecticides. While there isn't much nutritional benefit between foods with and without the organic label, it might be because of the non-discriminating nature of the term. Organic is often associated with natural but there can still be use of practices that while having no synthetics apply large-scale industrial processes that do not take the health of the animals and crops as first concern. For example, cows can be fed on organic grain but they are not in their most natural habitat of being pasture-fed, with the soil certified organic or not. In fact, healthy fats (omega-6:omega-3 ratio, high CLA which is protective against many lifestyle diseases) are much higher in grass-fed cows as compared to cows on organic stall feed. So it is the same with vegetables where multicropping and biodiverse farming methods (which tend to be on smaller hence less industrial farms)- studies have shown that they boast of higher nutrient levels. To put it in the words of Farmer Kira Kinney of Evolutionary Organics farm (a multi-crop farm) "Large-scale organic is much the same as conventional agriculture in that it is all numbers -- get the most yield in the fewest days." This would then explain the seemingly lack of evidence for going organic in terms of health.

In the end if you ask me, with some proper tweaking especially, I do think that going organic is the lesser of two evils. But apparently, there are alternatives to both modern industrial non-organic and organic farming. And I am really excited to read and find out more ;) Stay tuned!

Alternatives I would be exploring in the subsequent posts:

1. Biodynamic Farming
2. Agroforestry
3. Urban Agriculture
4. & whatever else interesting crops up ;)

Additional References & Further Reading:

1. Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know. Robert Paarlberg. 2010. Oxford University Press. Chapters: "Agriculture, the Environment and Farm Animals" & "Organic Food.

2. Alan Weisman. 2007.The World Without Us. Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press.

3. John Abraham. 1991. Food and Development: The Political Economy of Hunger and the Modern Diet. WWF & Kogan Page Ltd

4. Organic Agriculture: Fifty (Plus) Shades of Gray.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-wartman/organic-agriculture_b_1894660.html

5. The Truth Behind Organic Labels.

http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-agriculture/truth-behind-organic-labels.html

Ah... the marketing industry. Should have known better. 


BBC One Programme: Rip Off Food: 1. What's the Label?

"Decode the array of nutritional information and discover what goes into a genuine cornish pasty. There is a look at how portion sizes play havoc with calorie count, plus find out how food manufacturers can give an appetising and meaty name to a product that is meat-free and the shortcuts they can take to make cream-free ice cream - it is all legal."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01nr447/Rip_Off_Food_Whats_in_a_Label/ (available till this Friday!)

Trying to eat well & responsibly isn't as easy as I thought it would be. I have been impressed by movements in recent years to increase consumer awareness about what exactly goes into their food, as seen by more alternative products sprouting around in the supermarkets. But it looks like there is much more to be done! This programme tells us about how companies just make-up names of farm names that do not exist/ show idyllic packaging to make it sound rural or natural. Given the natural bent of supermarkets to manipulation for profits, I guess what's most reliable is to look for the accreditation logos/labels & to know the meaning behind them..

Watched this just after I was feeling a tad silly spending so much time in the supermarket today peering around fish labels to see if they are farmed or line caught and at the vegetable section to see if they are local or imported... haha.

READ THE SMALL PRINTS EVERYONE!
Otherwise you might be paying more for nothing and supporting the wrong causes.