I am always a sucker for a catchy sounding report -- like the one the World Business Council for Sustainable Development released last week: "Agricultural Ecosystems: Facts and Trends." It had it all: the noble sounding "Council," the association between agriculture and ecosystems, and the appeal to my inner science-geek with words like "facts" and "trends." I printed it out enthusiastically and got out my highlighter, ready to read all of the fascinating new insights into agriculture, food, and the environment.
I was intrigued by the beginning section on consumer patterns which detailed the increased demand for meat in developing countries and the impact this might have worldwide. One section focused on the role of animal production in climate change. I skipped along to the climate section nodding my head in agreement the entire time: converting grasslands to agriculture is a huge source of carbon dioxide emissions; conventional agriculture can threaten biodiversity; and agricultural greenhouse gas emissions can be mitigated by integrated crop management and minimum tillage. I balked a bit when they cited that agriculture produced 14 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the year 2000 (since then the United Nations has stated that animal production alone produces 18 percent of our global greenhouse gas emissions), but I still felt confident that the report might be worth something.
Maybe I set my expectations a bit high.
The report was in the home stretch and almost had me on board, until it started to mention the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications and biotech crops. The ISAAA, a front group for the biotech industry, has been pushing biotech crops as a solution for climate change because of their supposed reduced tillage (and thus reduced carbon emissions). The report notes that because of biotech crops and reduced tillage, more than 14.8 million tons of CO2 have been removed from the air. Suddenly this report didn't seem so unbiased anymore.
I must say though, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development wasn't completely one-sided, they did give a little shout out for those of us who aren't jumping up and down about GMOs. "Some members of the public have concerns about biotechnology -- generally these refer to its perceived negative impact on food safety and the environment." That's it -- no attempt to counter these "members of the public." Food safety and human impacts aside, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development has completely overlooked the latest research with regards to no-till and organic agriculture.
For nine years the United States Department of Agriculture conducted a study to examine the difference between conventional no-till agriculture and organic agriculture. The USDA results, out last year, demonstrated that not only does organic agriculture increase soil health but also it offsets more emissions than conventional no-till farming. In laymen's terms: Even the best conventional agriculture can't beat organic. The research doesn't stop there. Last week I attended a Congressional briefing presented by the Rodale Institute discussing their studies over the past 30 years comparing conventional and organic farming methods. Systems using cover crops and compost, combined with no-till organic practices, had the lowest energy inputs when compared to conventional no-till and traditional organic.
Adopting no-till, cover crop and compost farming methods would result in an agricultural system that could mitigate 40 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions. It is as far away from the Monsanto monocropped field of corn as you can imagine, and the potential benefits could fundamentally change our nation's entire agricultural focus.
What the USDA and the Rodale Institute confirmed is that a quick technological fix for our agricultural system does not exist now and never was a viable solution. Those who tout biotech crops as means to reduce climate change have clearly not considered the vast inputs, and consequential emissions, of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, transportation, and farm equipment that come with these seeds. Agriculture has a unique opportunity to mitigate and even reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. To harness that potential, we should begin to promote the methods of farming proven to reduce emissions. Biotech crops: not included.
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Comments
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wiscidea Posted 9:31 am
30 Jul 2008
Suppose someone genetically engineers -- using genes from wild relatives of the cultivated potato -- the exact potato variety you wish to grow so you will not have to apply fungicide or pesticide. They do it once and sell you the potatoes to grow and propagate and distribute to your heat's content.
Before... natural chemicals extracted from plants grown elsewhere.
After... zero chemicals. No need to extract chemicals from another crop grown somewhere else on the planet on additional acreage.
How is the first method more sustainable than the biotech crop?
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Asa Posted 2:05 pm
30 Jul 2008
After... pests with increased tolerance to the pesticide and a now useless "natural chemical," for both farmers who did and didn't use the GM product.
That is: when the pesticide is always present, as it is in BT potatoes, for example, BT resistant pests are artificially selected, leading to a pest population that is unaffected by what had been a useful tool for managing outbreaks.
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wiscidea Posted 3:53 pm
30 Jul 2008
Engineering potatoes to resist a fungus, for example, does not involve creating a potato that produces a fungicide! We could slightly modify a plant protein that the fungus exploits to attach to the plant so it no longer serves as a route toward infection. Or we could link a receptor for the fungus on the surface of the plant to a natural defense system. Some plants are not resistant to certain fungi simply because the two organisms did not evolve side-by-side and natural selection didn't create a link between attack by the specific fungus to the plant's defense system. We can transfer that link from a resistant plant to a non-resistant plant.
As far as insects are concerned, we might increase the number of certain types of hairs on the surface of the plant so sensitive tissue is no longer vulnerable. Or make the plant a bit stickier so pest cannot easily move about. Or modify a protein the insects exploit to find the plant. There is far more to making plants resistant to insects than expressing Bt in the leaves!
As far as viruses are concerned, one strategy involves engineering the plant to express just one of the proteins the virus normally uses to assemble a new coat. Throwing off the balance of viral proteins in the infected cell interferes with the assembly and spread of new virus particles. If the virus is no longer a threat, there might be no need to spray the plants with chemicals that kill the insect that spreads the virus.
Basically, if the "frankenplants" described do not work, we can always resort to traditional forms of pest control. There is no need to engineer plants to express pyrethin, Bt, the active compounds found in Neem Tree oil, or any other natural pesticide. There is no need to employ methods that could create pests resistant to current pesticides,
All the proteins added to the plants could be found in plants we already consume for food. Perhaps environmentalists should demand restrictions on genetic engineering to ensure that all the genes moved from plant to plant come from species we already consume and reduce the use of chemicals rather than calling for a total ban on genetic engineering.
There is far more to genetic engineering of plants than RoundUp resistance and Bt expression. There are sincere efforts to find stable or easily replaced forms of pest resistance and strategies for preventing the development of new strains of pests that are resistant to currently used pesticides, natural or synthetic.
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MarkHC Posted 4:32 pm
30 Jul 2008
In current production there really isn't much more to GM foods than Bt and Roundup-ready expressions. We might one day have sufficient understanding of genetics to safety produces the wonderful variations that you imagine. But the current generation of GMO food is crudely engineered, and required manipulation and suppression of science in order to by-pass proper questions of safety.
The health risk inherent in current generation GM foods may do for GM what Chernobyl did for nuclear power.
For health risks see http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/GeneticRoulette/He ...
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amazingdrx Posted 5:25 pm
30 Jul 2008
You grow the natural plants that repel or suppress parasites along with the potatoes. Even using crop rotation and mixing mulch made from the repellant plants into the soil for the next potato crop.
Mulch that stops fugus and pests. And suppresses weeds.
And you make and apply the mulch and do the selective planting with robotic equipment, program it and watch it work. All powered with renewable electricity.
With perfect organic fertilizer and water injected around each plant, they out compete almost every weed and pest anyway. Mulch and mowing/mulching applied by robots, could eliminate pesticide, herbicide, chemical fertilizer, diesel fuel, 5000 dollar per month tractor payments, and all the GHG that agrichem farming produces.
With the productivity of this organic robotic method, the food per farmer figures could be as high as with chemical ag. no human stoop labor for picking either, robots can do it, and a lot faster to maximize flavor and shelf life.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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John former Marine Posted 10:27 pm
30 Jul 2008
Il faut cultiver notre jardin.
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Meredith Niles Posted 5:05 am
31 Jul 2008
Additionally, the biotech industry is quick to try to claim that GMOs are encouraging no-till agriculture, and as I pointed above, that this is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Biotech companies want to emphasize that no-till agriculture has increased and would like everyone to believe that this is because of GMOs. Like many claims about GMOs though- this is false. The USDA found that with soybeans for example, conservation tillage increased mostly during the years 1990-1996, when biotech crops were not even planted commercially. This is yet another way that the biotech industry tries to make GMOs look good, but their claims go unfounded.
Meredith Niles
Cool Foods Campaign Coordinator
The Center for Food Safety
http://www.coolfoodscampaign.org
http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org
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turanga leela Posted 7:26 am
31 Jul 2008
I can't wait to see what wonder-crops they proffer next...
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RichardDR Posted 2:15 pm
31 Jul 2008
The report notes that because of biotech crops and reduced tillage, more than 14.8 million tons of CO2 have been removed from the air. Suddenly this report didn't seem so unbiased anymore.
Alternatively, you're demonstrating your own biases.
I note you don't link to the study you talk about, so we can't determine for ourselves if it really says what you said it says, or if you cherry picked anything. But I will link to a study:
Environmental impacts of food production and consumption (funded by DEFRA), reports for example that organic milk requires 80% more land, organic wheat requires 100% more land, and organic potatoes require 150% more land than non organic. Admittedly they also say organic required fewer carbon inputs. there is a bit of a trade off. Even so, your statement "Even the best conventional agriculture can't beat organic" is plainly absurd. You write earlier:
converting grasslands to agriculture is a huge source of carbon dioxide emissions
.... and yet, where do you think the extra land for growing organic is going to come from?
turanga leela wrote:
...is a good source on the political strong-arming with a friendly face that Monsanto has been known for over the past 10+ years. The whole Golden Rice thing stands out as a shining example of this. You would have to eat about a truckload a day of Golden Rice to prevent blindness from Vitamin A deficiency
Two problems:
A "truckload" is a ridiculous exageration. And that's being polite.
You're about three years out of date. (Just over 4oz a day = the RDA. And the RDA is much more than you need to avoid blindness.)
Oh, and they're planning to give it away.
You know, I could take opponents of GM more seriously if they were more honest.
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John former Marine Posted 10:39 pm
31 Jul 2008
Il faut cultiver notre jardin.
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Meredith Niles Posted 2:28 am
01 Aug 2008
Olesen, et al., 2006. Modelling greenhouse gas emissions from European conventional and organic dairy farms. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 112, 207-220)
Gronroos et al., 2006. Energy use in conventional and organic milk and rye bread production in Finland. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 117, 109-118.
Cederberg et al., 2000. Life Cycle Assessment of milk production- a comparison of conventional and organic farming. Journal of Cleaner Production. 8, 49-60.
The link to the USDA study is here: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/jul07/soil0707.htm
In writing, "Even the best conventional agriculture can't beat organic" I am referring to the ability of organic to increase soil health and to offset carbon emissions. I believe that the USDA study clearly demonstrates this.
You also assume that organic agriculture requires more land to produce, and assume that yields in organic agriculture are lower, when you state, "where do you think the extra land for growing organic is going to come from?" In fact this is not true. Numerous studies have demonstrated that organic agriculture can yield equal to, or even above conventional systems. For example, please see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/July05/organic.farm.v ... to read about a 22 year study done at the Rodale Institute in conjunction with people from Cornell University, the University of Maryland and the USDA that demonstrated organic agriculture provided the same yields as conventional with far fewer fossil fuel inputs.
Meredith Niles
Cool Foods Campaign Coordinator
The Center for Food Safety
http://www.coolfoodscampaign.org
http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org
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RichardDR Posted 7:33 am
03 Aug 2008
Thanks for the additional information. Just to be clear, I did not just assume that yields in organic agriculture are lower. That was actually the conclusion of the study I cited that showed organic milk requires 80% more land, organic wheat requires 100% more land, and organic potatoes require 150% more land than non organic.
This is a link to the the actual Rodale Institute study you gave as an example. Interesting report. I looked to see if there might be an explanation for why the studies reported different results, vis-à-vis yields in organic v non-organic. I wonder if part of the answer wasn't in this piece on page 15:
However, the organic grain rotation required a legume cover crop before the corn. This was established after the wheat harvest. Thus, corn was grown 60% of the time in the conventional rotation, but only 33% of the time with the organic rotation. Stated in another way, the yields per ha between organic and conventional corn for grain may be similar within a given year; however, overall production of organic corn is diminished over a multiple-year period because it is grown less frequently. On the other hand, the reduced amount of corn grown in the organic rotation is partly compensated for with the additional crop of wheat.
Or again on page 28:
Depending on the crop, soil, and weather conditions, organically managed crop yields on a per hectare basis can equal those from conventional agriculture, but it is likely that organic cash crops cannot be grown as frequently over time because of the dependence on cultural practices to supply nutrients and control pests.
- This is what I have sometimes seen before with these types of studies. In the methodology though, I couldn't tell exactly how they had allowed for this in their calculations. It did appear that they were talking about actual yields overall (ie including the zero yields during the increased down time for the organic fields), but that's inconsistent with the two paragraphs I quoted above.
I think the relative yields actually obtainable for organic v conventional are crucial to know. While organic may require less energy input, if significantly more land is needed for organic then any benefits in reduced energy inputs may be overtaken by the increased carbon losses (not to mention loss of wild lands) that result from the larger area of land being farmed. With these differing studies, I'm not convinced we know the answer.
I'd be interested in any other studies you have read on this subject though. If you have any links to actual studies.
John:
I don't know where you're getting your data from, so I can't comment, but I got mine from the USDA:
it is estimated that 50% of a 1- to 3-year-old child's RDA for vitamin A (300 ug) could be met with 72 grams of dry rice (a child¿s typical portion is 60 grams of rice, and this amount is usually eaten more than once a day)
That's 144g a day or 5oz. My 4oz conversion was done in my head and was a bit off - apologies. Way short of "a truckload", anyway.
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wiscidea Posted 11:29 pm
03 Aug 2008
Left out of the equation when this study is used to oppose conventional agriculture... for every acre of organic potatoes, another acre of land was devoted to growing lupines to use as mulch and fertilizer. Technically, wouldn't the yield therefore be closer to half that of conventional agriculture?
Just asking.
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