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Spoiled: Organic and Local Is So 2008
Our industrial food system is rotten to the core. Heirloom arugula won't save us. Here's what will.
in the end, winning over skeptical consumers won't be enough. Given the reality of what consumers can and can't do, market liberalizers' enduring fantasy—that the collective power of tens of millions of conscientious shoppers will force suppliers to correct their bad practices—has been replaced by a grimmer understanding: Until we can make the market see all the costs of unsustainable farming, and until we learn how to temper its obsessive focus on ever greater efficiencies, market-driven sustainability will fail. This reality became evident last August, after Whole Foods recalled ground beef due to an E. coli scare. The problem was that Whole Foods' supplier, Coleman Natural Beef, processed its meat at Nebraska Beef, a large, low-cost plant infamous for health violations (including a 5-million-pound beef recall in July for E. coli). In essence, Whole Foods sought to create a new value—sustainability—without changing the supply chain.
If we're going to ask the market to pull in a new direction, we'll need to give it new rules and incentives. That means our broader food standards, but it also means money—a massive increase in food research. (Today, the fraction of the federal research budget spent on anything remotely resembling alternative agriculture is less than 1 percent—and most of that is sucked up by the organic sector.) And, yes, it means more farm subsidies: The reason federal farm subsidies are regarded as anti-sustainability is mainly because they support the wrong kind of farming. But if we want the right kind of farming, we're going to have to support those farmers willing to risk trying a new model. For example, one reason farmers prefer labor-saving monoculture is that it frees them to take an off-farm job, which for many is the only way to get health insurance. Thus, the simplest way to encourage sustainable farming might be offering a subsidy for affordable health care.
We'll also need potent new incentives on the demand side of the equation. Sustainable food products make up only about 2 percent of our food supply in no small part because consumer demand is soft. Yes, some will pay extra for organic or local food. But for most consumers, the costs quickly exceed the tangible benefits—especially as food prices have climbed.
Given that we're not seeing spontaneous consumer demand (even after decades of consumer education by advocacy groups), we must create it via government procurement programs. Federal agencies and food programs are among the biggest purchasers of food in the world. If they didn't buy solely from the lowest-cost bidder, as they're now required to, but could instead source from local or organic producers, or farmers practicing polyculture, this massive new customer would remake American agriculture in a heartbeat. "If someone like the Department of Defense or even the VA hospitals changed how they purchased, it would be huge," says Ferd Hoefner, policy director for the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
But would it be sufficient? Or does sustainable food simply cost too much to be feasible? After all, industrial food is cheap not only because of the efficiencies of scale and technologies, but also because the industrial system is so good at ignoring, or externalizing, costs such as ecological degradation or poor nutrition or underpaid labor. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the hidden costs of conventional meat production alone are huge—each year, salmonella outbreaks cost an estimated $2.5 billion; properly cleaning up manure leaks would cost at least $4 billion. If our food system reinternalizes such costs—say, by shifting from feedlots to a less concentrated free-range model—food prices will rise. Grass-fed cattle can take twice as long to reach slaughter weight as corn-fed cattle and require more pastureland at a time when pastureland is in short supply—which is why grass-fed beef costs about 30 percent more than conventional beef.
Does that matter? Most Americans could afford to spend more for their food—or could afford to eat less of the resource-intensive foods. It's no coincidence that Americans, who spend less than a dime of every dollar on food—the least in the world—also consume about 200 pounds of meat per capita each year—the most in the world. But in many other parts of the world, spending more on food or cutting back on meat aren't practical or ethical options; nor are investing in vertical farms, store-top produce, or many of the other more Earth-friendly but more capital-intensive farming technologies. As Iowa State's Liebman notes, the resources for sustainable farming—not only adequate soil and water, but access to capital, technology, and market—aren't distributed fairly or evenly, which means the chances for "finding solutions in Iowa are probably a lot higher than in the Sahel."
This disparity underlines what ultimately may be the most critical question about the future of food. We may be certain that the existing food system is broken. We may also be confident that we can develop a more sustainable replacement. What we're still waiting to find out is whether sustainability is something we'll all benefit from, or whether it, too, will go to the highest bidder.
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Comments
i think it's a no brainer,
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Mar. 18, 2009 7:35 PM PDT.
i think it's a no brainer, then, to not support such industries as the meat and dairy producers as the EASIEST step in the right direction. It takes way more dead cows and pollution to feed a smaller number of people than it does with veggies. going vegan is such a simple, healthy, sustainable way of living. i don't get how anyone who gives a shit about the environment can still eat products of waste and death and pollution and damage their own bodies in the process.
Organic Can Feed the World
Submitted by Organic Trade Association (not verified) on Thu Mar. 19, 2009 5:43 AM PDT.
Thank you for this thoughtful piece. In it, you raise a number of important issues, including that of organic agriculture as a viable means of sustaining the world's population. A common misperception is that organic cannot feed the world. In fact, several studies have shown that organic production is on par with, and in some cases superior to, conventional production levels, and that it offers a compelling and sustainable alternative to conventional approaches toward addressing the world’s hunger problems.
A United Nations report—Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa—released in October 2008 found organic farming offers African and other developing countries the most hope for feeding their people. Findings by the U.N. Environment Programme showed that organic practices raise yields, improve the soil, and boost the income of developing countries’ small farmers. Similarly, the Long-term Agro-ecological Research (LTAR) initiative at Iowa State University’s Neely-Kinyon Farm found yields equal or greater than conventional counterparts for organic corn, soybeans and oats. In 2007, for instance, the organic corn yielded more than the conventional with 209 bushels per acre compared to 188 bushes per acre for the conventional corn. Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Michigan found that organic farming can yield up to three times as much food as conventional farming on the same amount of land in developing countries.
In light of such findings, as well as the many personal health and environmental benefits that organic agriculture has to offer, it is becoming clearer that organic offers a sustainable solution that addresses the world’s hunger problems and the long-term health of the planet.
research funding: fighting for crumbs
Submitted by organic researcher (not verified) on Thu Mar. 19, 2009 11:17 AM PDT.
One particular absurdity in this article:
“(Today, the fraction of the federal research budget spent on anything remotely resembling alternative agriculture is less than 1 percent—and most of that is sucked up by the organic sector.)”
No mention of the 99%+ of ag research funding being "sucked up" to improve the performance of transgenic crops, herbicides, and other proprietary and damaging technologies. Investing in organic research will provide benefits to all farmers regardless of production method because organic research is starting to investigate fundamental questions of how soil influences plant productivity and quality. Organic farms are more productive under drought conditions and are much more efficient at sequestering carbon than conventional farms. Exploring these potentials certainly warrants more funding being invested into organic research. Let's take that money from the billions being spent to study toxic technologies, not pit "alternative" against "organic" research efforts!
Masanobu Fukuoka
Submitted by Hugo Pottisch (not verified) on Thu Mar. 19, 2009 3:09 PM PDT.
I am late to a very interesting party. It is rare that one finds an article about natural farming. I am not sure the author did his homework - but I am oh so glad he at least mention no-till as being out there. After all - nature has been at it for millions of years, growing stuff, without much machinery or bio labs. If we suddenly needed those to survive - I am not sure that we are moving in the right direction when it comes to risk and security and stability... obviously not.
One cannot understand the relationship between agriculture and nature without understanding Masanobu Fukuoka. One cannot understand Masanobu Fukuoka without having read his books. This web site does not do his books justice:
http://fukuokafarmingol.info/index.html
Thank you for pointing out
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Mar. 19, 2009 6:29 PM PDT.
Thank you for pointing out Coleman Natural Foods choice for a processor. Nothing irritates me more than these larger "natural" and "organic" companies following the conventional business model. It irritates me to see frozen organic veggies in the corner co-op store...labeled grown in China or Mexico. Do I really think these veggies are organic according to my standards? How about grass fed beef from South America? I'm just plan angry that these companies are out there jumping on the natural and organic band wagon...but doing absolutely nothing about sustainable farming right here in our own country. I'm tired of hearing that it is impossible to feed everyone in the country sustainably...maybe it's time we spend less on blackberries, laptops, video games, expensive cars and clothing and more on food. Real food. What a concept.
Wow - so much to comment on
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri Mar. 20, 2009 11:39 AM PDT.
This article is so amazingly badly missinformed. I feel like vomiting. Roberts should be ashamed of spreading such a tangled web of lies. MoJo should be ashamed of printing this propaganda piece. I dont even know where to start with correcting all the garbage in this article. :<
Not Sustainable
Submitted by Peak Oil (not verified) on Sat Mar. 21, 2009 7:19 AM PDT.
No agricultural method is sustainable because human population is not being sustained at levels which can be supported without massive use of fossil fuels. Western civilization still uses 10 calories of fossil fuels for every one calorie of food consumed. When the world supply of oil begins to drop, then the human population will die off quite precipitously. And what agricultural method survives without tractors, refrigeration, electric water pumps, chemical fertilizer and petroleum-based pesticides? Organic.
Peak population
Submitted by xoddam on Mon Mar. 30, 2009 1:47 AM PDT.
The idea that the earth has the capacity for infinite growth is plainly absurd.
But the idea that it is already beyond its capacity to sustain human life is equally absurd, when so much of the resources "consumed" are merely wasted.
We are indeed pushing limits in a few areas -- greenhouse gases, for instance, and loss of biodiversity -- but these are only temporary problems from which the planet and its biosphere will recover, if not destroyed.
There is no shortage of energy available to the terrestrial economy. Global warming is because of an *excess* -- the planet as a whole is not presently radiating enough of its heat energy into space to maintain thermal equilibrium with the heat we receive from the Sun.
Get some perspective. We need never forgo tractors, refrigeration, electric water pumps, and useful chemicals. Indeed, we will extend the use of these tools to people who today cannot dream of affording them.
Jonathan Maddox (xoddam)
no shortage of energy???
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue Apr. 28, 2009 3:30 PM PDT.
I'm afraid that is patently, and dangerously, wrong. First you acknowledge that the concept of infinite growth is an absurdity, but then you claim that there's no shortage of energy available. You do realize, don't you, that fossil fuels are a nonrenewable source of energy? That the only question about "peak oil" is when, not if?
Harder for many people to understand is the impossibility of replacing our current energy portfolio 1 x 1 with renewables.
I think people should have
Submitted by JBosque (not verified) on Sat Mar. 21, 2009 8:24 AM PDT.
I think people should have their own little veggie gardens, pesticide, herbicide, and insecticide free.
Free range beef and free range chicken. Let's get back to the way of our ancestors and leave all the chemicals alone.
Bioengineered corn is killing Latin Americas natural corn species, not to mention farmers get stuck having to purchase seeds for each years crops. Who wants to eat laboratory corn?
The modern chemical induced way is killing us and our environment.
The Myth of No-Till has already been debunked
Submitted by Organic George on Sat Mar. 21, 2009 1:48 PM PDT.
Please refer to:
The Myth of Nitrogen Fertilization for Soil Carbon Sequestration
S. A. Khan,* R. L. Mulvaney, T. R. Ellsworth, and C. W. Boast University of Illinois
HOME GROWN
Submitted by APOLLO on Sat Mar. 21, 2009 6:47 PM PDT.
Excellent article. It was written from the point of view of farmers, distributors, wholesalers and retailers - people who make money growing and selling food, which is understandable. However, the crucial factor in the food cycle is the consumer. While the author addressed the possibility of modified consumer habits he omitted the idea of encouraged participation of the consumer in the production of their own food. All of the problems discussed in the article (supply, environment, sustainability, etc.) would be greatly alleviated by educating and supporting home grown food. If consumers grew an appreciable amount of their own food (say an additional five percent) it would remove an enormous burden from the food distribution system. Besides, garden grown food tastes better.
Where have all the models gone?
Submitted by mithraic on Sun Mar. 22, 2009 12:26 PM PDT.
It seems that all trade off discussions focus on trading off costs. Not to be naive about the matter, but everyone is in the box of trading costs against costs against costs and then maybe against benefits! Are there no other measures that determine the value of what is done on this planet than MONEY?
You (we) seem to convert everything- I mean everything - to solely economic terms. In fact you are probably so ingrained in the MEMES of our times that you are saying "But that is the only way we can do it!". Is it?
Ask. Are there other ways of measuring, which if rewarded, would result in different outcomes? NOTE well: I am not saying any other way is better. Each way comes with its own box. However, we seem to have been stuck in this Malthusian-Keynesian economic box for up to a couple of centuries and its not working for us. One foot on the gas one foot on the brakes simultaneously! Private sector fighting public sector etc . This is typical bang-bang control theory gone nuts.
Many people have exploited this box to bring us here. They are experts at exploitation. There will always be master manipulators of circumstance. Hunting dogs will always hunt. Let us not shoot them for being masterful, but can we give them something different to exploit to bring us to a different place? Let us seek to change boxes at least conceptually to see if differing results obtain.
What if we rewarded the food industry based on how many kids made it through high school because they were well nourished and interested in community enough to want to be useful to their community? What if we down played the bling factor in favor of the social factor? How would we have to design that box? We would have to provide education ( pretty much there) and health care- oh my - to ensure we had these kids grow up to give back.
The heightened interest in selfishness ala Ayn Rand only typifies the model we operate under even though we like to pretend otherwise. Our neighbors aren't starving because they want to. They aren't starving because they think its a neighborly thing to do so you can ride around in 5 cars a Hum Vee and a 300 foot yacht. For the most part our neighbor's model of life collided with other models the exploiter's model and lost.
In the past this usually means extinction of the species. Should we let it happen. Are we dodos or a species that can help dodos. What does our model have to look like so that we can have our neighbors with different ideas on the same ship. In the end when there is no one and nothing left to exploit - the exploiters implode. Look at our state of finance once we took all the regulations off. You could make a DVD called "exploiters gone wild" ( and then sell it for 19.95 on late nite television!!)
Or are we going to go back to the same box that puts everything in terms of cost and somehow decide it's too "expensive" to help our neighbor. With that kind of thinking, when will you be the "neighbor" and be cut loose from the planet because WE simply cant afford to keep YOU alive?
Hogwash
Submitted by suedehead (not verified) on Mon Mar. 30, 2009 9:21 AM PDT.
Dear MoJo:
I work in a supermarket. No, not an organic, natural foods corporation—a conventional supermarket that sells mass produced food from global mega-giant food conglomerate.That kind of supermarket. And I have a bone to pick with your article by Paul Roberts. His article like this to me: you’re a bunch of fussy middle class elites who insist on eating organic and local foods while poor and working class people are forced to eat mass-produced garbage that makes them sick. So in order to deny your class status and assuage your middle class guilt, you should just get used to eating mass-produced garbage that makes you sick too, just like the working class—instead of asking the question, why are are poor and working class people forced to eat mass-produced garbage that makes them sick? Well that’s great if you have a choice to eat mass-produced garbage, but where I’m located there are no natural foods corporations, so I’m forced to eat it.
Except at the local farmer’s market. That’s the only place where I can get no or low-spray vegetables and get chicken that was raised in a humane manner on an actual small family farm where the animals are fed actual food and not treated like “protein coagulators.” So what’s Robert’s beef about local food? I gladly gave up trying to get organic food that is flown thousands of miles from plantations around the world so that I could have locally grown food that is grown by people I know and care about.
Get this Roberts: it’s not just about reducing C02 emissions or pesticides. If you think that’s all it is, you’re missing 90% of the point of what local food is about. It’s about building local economies. Small, local farms are small businesses. And when I spend my food dollars at the local farmer’s market, I know those folks are friends with other small business owners and they are more likely to spend their money with their neighbors and people they know. So the money stays in the community; local community ties are strengthened; resilience is enhanced. Not just local food resilience, like, oh god, what do we do in an oil shortage and we no longer have a choice to buy food from a distance, be it a natural foods conglomerate or global mega-giant food corporations? In that case we’ ll be forced to either grow food locally—or go hungry. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about community resilience. When small local farms are supported, land stays under cultivation instead of being paved over and having cement boxes dropped on them. Local water systems are protected. But even more than that, social ties are strengthened. I see that all the time in my little community. The small farmers help each other. For free. When one farmer’s barn got swept under by a swollen river, small farmers from all over the area came to rescue their cows and livestock, and to save their house. Is ADM going to do that for you Mr. Paul Roberts? or Monsanto?
So back to the conventional supermarket that what I work in every day. Roberts, if all you’re counting is food miles and C02 emissions, then you’re missing 90% of what the global mega-giant food conglomerates are about. What about the billions of dollars that are spent every year on food advertising and marketing? It has absolutely nothing to do with producing nutritious food and getting it to the people who need it. It’s about making a profit, and that’s all they are in this business for. People have to eat, so let’s make as much profit off it as we can. Add that into your middle-class-guilt-relief formula.
Next, add in all the food packing and packaging that goes on between the point where the food is produced, all the billions of pounds of paper and plastic that they are enshrouded in, for the entire period that it is processed, wrapped and packaged, packed into boxes and pallets, shipped in freezers, offloaded onto docks, on-loaded onto refrigerated planes, offloaded onto refrigerated trucks, trucked to stores, offloaded onto docks, sorted onto pallets, placed in backroom freezers, coolers, shelves and dry docks, ripped out of boxes, ripped out of packages, rewrapped and repacked into new packages with new labels and price tags, placed in front end freezers, coolers, shelves and display cases, then bundled, sold or thrown out. Billions of pounds of paper and plastic packaging, millions in energy spent on freezing, cooling, displaying, and just pushing the stuff around. Add all that into your middle-class-guilt-relief formula.
Now back to the farmer’s market. So a few small farmers drive their trucks and vans into town a few miles to the farmers market and burn some diesel on the way. Fine. But look at the amount of paper, plastic, aluminum, freezing, cooling, etc., they are not using. Most local farmers don’t have millions to blow on advertising and fancy packaging. They use the most minimal packaging required to keep the food safe and in good condition until they can sell it to you directly. After washing and minimal processing, most vegetables go into boxes and baskets on the farm, they’re loaded onto a van, and then set out on the table at the market for you to pick up and put in your bag. Subtract that from your middle-class-guilt-relief formula. Compute. Local farming has less impact on the environment and uses less fossil fuels than mass-produced garbage from mega-giant food conglomerates.
Nice work.
Submitted by Bob Belinoff (not verified) on Mon Mar. 30, 2009 11:52 AM PDT.
The author is smart, bold and quite correct. what will work tomorrow is not a variation on something that already exists. We are going to have to make some leaps here....your point about shrinking your footprint by changing what you eat rather than where you get your food from is - painful (for me, I love meat) but I
eat less and less of it and I know that what you say is true.
Paul, I am a New Mexico based documentary film maker making films for USDA and many others about food, and it would be good to talk with. You can see my work at www.publichealthzoom and www.ourtalkingheads.com.
I enjoyed your article, you write well, often very rare. BUt I was most amazed by the controvery you stirred up. I printed out and read everyone of them.
You're on to something.
Best
Bob Belinoff
bob@digitalwkshop.com
You know, every now and
Submitted by danaseilhan on Mon Mar. 30, 2009 6:18 PM PDT.
You know, every now and again I consider resubscribing to MoJo and then I read something like this and wonder when you guys lost your damn minds.
Whether a "$4 heirloom tomato" (where the hell do YOU shop?) will "save the world" isn't dependent on price. Price was never the point with heirlooms. The point with heirlooms is that growing and eating them preserves their gene pool because there's market demand for them. If we standardize tomatoes into one variety that's industrial-ag-friendly, that severely reduces the tomato gene pool and leaves the tomato extra-vulnerable to diseases and pests... and extinction, really. If someone out there sees an opportunity to bilk customers when it's no more expensive to grow an heirloom than an F1 hybrid (really, it's not), well, that says more about the ethics of heirloom growers than it does about heirlooms themselves.
And I'm beyond tired of the hysteria about meat and dairy. It's about to push me away from the progressive movement because let me tell you, I would never in a million years identify as a conservative and definitely not as a neocon, but sometimes they are right about you. And it was bad enough not having a champion in national politics when I wanted to be able to stay home with my kids and not be faced with societal disapproval or economic punishment (I can thank you guys for TANF, for instance), but I guess I tried to overlook that. I cannot, however, overlook progressives trying to force me into a diet that will kill me. With guilt-tripping, no less! I've TRIED being vegetarian, even vegan. I have to get my energy from somewhere. I can't drink vegetable oil all day. That leaves starches. Guess what? I'm part Native American, and diabetes runs strongly in my mom's family. She was diagnosed at forty and I'm thirty-five. You do the math. I thrive on animal-based foods, am saner, and my blood sugar is more stable throughout the day but hey, what's a little anecdotal evidence? Never mind the science, which you PETA freaks consistently ignore.
There's an elephant in the living room and all sides of the political aisle refuse to see it or talk about it. I'm surprised at this coming from progressives, but you ignore it too, if it doesn't suit your agenda: There are too many people on this planet. Period. And if you find a way to make more food more cheaply you will make the population problem even worse and it's already disastrous. Human beings did not thrive for hundreds of thousands of years on bowls of rice and tofu and miso soup with grilled seitan on the side. You're ridiculous. You really are. Look into the field of paleopathology sometime. Look at the way our species lost average height and got sick far more often and suffered a reduction in life expectancy after agriculture was invented. Population is a function of food supply. Human health is a function of food type and quality. If there are so many of us now that we cannot function on our proper species diet, a 50-cent tomato with $100 in externalities foisted off on slave workers and environmental catastrophe isn't going to save us any more than a mythological $4 heirloom tomato will.
We don't need biotech. We need birth control.
By the way, if the best you can do in gauging ecological damage in food production is to look at water use or flatulence, here's one for ya: What do you think it's doing to the planet when you cut forests to grow crops? You don't have to clear forests to raise food animals. And animals always provide fertilizer to make up for the plants they eat. Wheat doesn't do that.
Seriously. Please try. You're supposed to be the muckrakers.
2 Rad 4 MoJo
Submitted by Suedehead (not verified) on Tue Mar. 31, 2009 9:18 AM PDT.
It's become clear from Paul Roberts article that eating, buying and locally growing organic and naturally produced foods-especially growing it yourself!-- is SO RADICAL that even MoJo can't stomach it.
So TAKE POWER from the global mega-giant producers of mass-produced garbage and GROWN YOUR OWN ORGANIC.
Fuck MoJo. I'm not going to take any corporate-sponsored crap from them either, no matter how strong their radical credentials are. Just shows you that everyone can be bought out eventually.
Eat this, MoJo!
Submitted by scooterboi (not verified) on Tue Mar. 31, 2009 5:13 PM PDT.
Paul Roberts had the audacity (of hope?) to suggest that big box retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot might grow food on their rooftops. This is utterly absurd. Did Mr. Roberts count or even consider the enormous cost and the extreme technology required to grow food this way? How do you get water to these crops when it's not raining? How do you get the soil up there and make sure it isn't blown or washed off the roof? Where is the ecosystem to replenish nutrients--or do you just spray it with Sam's fertilizer and weed killer?
Wouldn't it make more sense for big box retailers to install solar panels on their millions of miles of rooftop, so at least they could supply their own electricity? But they refuse to do anything as comparatively simple as install solar systems.
But I can see a day when abandoned malls and big box stores will indeed be used to grow food--inside their bombed out hulls. Holes will be punched through the roof to let in sunlight and rain on crops grown inside. When impoverished and starving suburbanites, their communities decimated by peak oil, become desperate enough, they will use the abandoned bombed-out hulls of big box stores to grown their own local 'organic' food
another spin
Submitted by Rick Exner (not verified) on Mon Apr. 6, 2009 12:45 PM PDT.
Setting aside the author's attempt to personalize the situation - ask yourself how welcome *organic* farmers are at a meeting of the Crop Protection Institute - the article still can't have it both ways. Yes, organic often behaves like an industrial machine. That's not good, but where did that model come from? No mention.
Using Matt Liebman's farming systems data, the author assumes the voice of (conventional) reason - you can't expect us to go back to a more labor-intensive agriculture. Never mind that Liebman shows the farmer can pay him/herself *quite well* for the additional labor. But I forgot, we're just critiquing alternative agriculture here.
And at a time when African farmers are asking the U.S. to *stop* subsidizing agricultural exports, it would be seemly to give a nod to the local food systems in those countries that have withered on the vine thanks to cheap energy and our need to find mouths for our surplus.
Permaculture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri Apr. 10, 2009 1:34 AM PDT.
Interesting article. Clearly no single sustainable agriculture method is going to be the answer. However, readers - and the author - might be interested in checking out the design methodology that integrates a vast array of such methods into a cohesive whole: Permaculture.
Permaculture projects the world over are consistently demonstrating that careful design and approriate land use can deliver dramatically improved yields while greatly reducing the need for external inputs of energy, nutrients or seeds while restoring degraded ecosystems and soils.
Some examples of projects can be found here:
http://permaculture.org.au/project_profiles/world_permaculture_projects.htm
UPDATE: Join the fray
Submitted by Laura McClure on Fri Apr. 10, 2009 10:24 AM PDT.
We'll be hosting an expert-led reader forum April 13-17 on MotherJones.com around the question: Is organic and local so 2008? Link coming Monday, I hope you'll join us for the debate!
Spoiled article
Submitted by Laura (not verified) on Fri Apr. 10, 2009 5:34 PM PDT.
This article is full of fascinating and thoughtful information, but is 'spoiled' by its title which is confrontational and judgmental. Or maybe that's just how journalism thinks it attracts readers? Even MoJo?
Any other positive title could have been considered - something that suggests expanding our ideas about sustainable agriculture and what is possible and/or necessary. Organic and local food movements have done hero's work in bringing the issue of safe, healthy and just food production into the mainstream. Give credit where it's due and then further the conversation please, but we're all so tired of the 'war' approach (I'm right, you're stupid) as a way of solving our mutual challenges.
PERMACULTURE
Submitted by David Rubinson (not verified) on Mon Apr. 13, 2009 12:17 PM PDT.
I have waded through Roberts' ignorant essay, and a large pile of comments. I have yet to find the word PERMACULTURE anywhere. How can all of you, many of whom call yourself experts of various kinds, seemingly not know about, nor positively support, the concept and practice of Permaculture, when it is so clearly the key to global sustainable self-renewing food production ? Please - I beg all of you to immediately do the research. As in many other current global "crises" -- we must re-think all the old models, and construct new ones- not dissect, defend or protect the "zombie" industries like giant banks and massive agriculture.
Thanks,
DR
Cover Crops Can Do the Job
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon Apr. 13, 2009 2:38 PM PDT.
Ever hear of cover crops, or" green manures?"
They hold the soil all winter AND add organic matter biomass and nitrogen (depending on the crop, back to the soil. In other words, a farmer can feed his soil, which will feed the crop. Just like nature does it.
Industrial ag has it backwards, feeding the PLANY, not the soil, to produce overlarge bags of water. Produce grown on an organic soil teeming with life is vastly more nutrient dense. The USDA's own statistics bear this out - the nutrient density of produce has dropped for the last fifty-plus years, according to their figures.
"Buying organic" promotes healthy soils, and actually rebuilds the vanishing resource.
It's your vote with the only true power you have - the power of how you spend your dollar - for a healthy and sane planet.
Ever hear of Peak Oil? Google "Peak Topsoil." Scary times. Till up a small patch of ground if you can. It takes several years to build a healthy soil that can feed you well.
Mr. Roberts,
Submitted by J4zonian (not verified) on Tue Apr. 14, 2009 3:34 PM PDT.
"One farmer in Oregon with a few hundred acres can grow more pears than the entire state of Oregon eats,"
So maybe part of the answer is for the person with a few hundred acres in Oregon to plant most of it in carbon-sequestering trees (much of which can have other values besides as a carbon sink and natural forest—like wood, varied nut and fruit crops, etc.) with understory crops and integrated livestock (ducks, geese, goats, sheep, etc.) as a permaculture, yielding far more food than monocultural pears would and not forcing Oregonians to come up with 1095 versions of pear torte. Maybe another part is for the urban people also to permaculture—in whatever way they can. (I kept quail for eggs on the back porch of a shotgun apartment once, for example.)
The marketization (by which I assume you mean the commodification/ mechanization/ concentration) of agriculture has in fact made food LESS efficient. If you look at Roy Rappaport’s Pigs for the Ancestors, some of Howard and/or Eugene Odums’ studies on energy, and a great little booklet for educators called “Energy and Order” you see the “primitive” Tsembaga of New Guinea actually got more calories out of their food for what they put in than we do. So our system loses on all counts.
“Efficiency” of the kind you’re talking about , and what drives modern life, is the efficiency to externalize bads (poisons, cyclical monetary loss, poverty, ecological destruction, societal degradation…) while internalizing goods (money). In terms used about the ongoing financial crises, it’s socializing loss while privatizing profit. What you call efficiencies of scale and technologies are mostly, simply that—the increased ability to externalize that comes with having more of the interchangeable commodities of money and power. Therein lies almost the entirety of "economies of scale". And if food prices rise as medical costs (single payer, anyone?) and ecological externality-caused costs fall, it seems on balance to be a fantastic bargain, even if we need to redistribute a little ill-gotten profit to smooth out the rough transition for those it’s been ill-gotten from.
Anybody who’s had a greenhouse knows what white flies are, and knows glass houses don’t eliminate the use of pesticides. Eliminating the use of pesticides eliminates the use of pesticides. The complex ecosystem of organic permaculture helps, and creative answers to inevitable problems arise as they’re needed, given a balance of fairness and freedom. The urban skyscraper version of New Alchemy’s integrated dwellings doesn’t have to make a profit on farming alone, as is the point in permaculture, organics, and holistic lives. You don’t have to depend on just one thing.
I see solutions to every “problem” you bring up, all in keeping with organic agriculture. I keep thinking we don’t disagree on much, just are looking at different parts of the elephant, but I think some of the terms for elephant parts in your article could mislead people or make them think there are holes where there aren’t.
Don’t think of the analogous elephant for that last part, please. I mean holes in the argument for organics. It holds water just fine.
Stop the pot shots!
Submitted by Diana (not verified) on Thu Apr. 16, 2009 9:27 AM PDT.
Fie on Paul Roberts for joining in the pot shots that are exchanged between organic and no-till proponents! I work with farmers of both persuasions and get frustrated when they criticize the sustainability of the "other practice" and then cry foul when they in turn are criticized. Neither system is perfect, both have their strengths and weaknesses - but they also have much in common. I believe we in agriculture could accomplish a lot more by working together to improve production systems and recognzing that we can learn a great deal from farmers with experience in different "fields".
But perhaps Roberts' goal is to stir up politicizing and dissent?
Organic production...
Submitted by Earth Day (not verified) on Wed Apr. 29, 2009 1:33 AM PDT.
Organic production helps protect your health and future generations. Organic farming never uses toxic and persistent pesticides. This helps keep air, water, and soil clean. Now nearly every food you eat has an organic alternative. Many non-food agricultural products are also being grown organically as well. On Earth Day, we should take stock of the impacts we have on the environment, which is part of the point of Earth Day. One environment impacting products is one you would never think of ? money, its organic. How we make our physical currency is interesting. Credit cards and debit cards are all made from petroleum products, usually from polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, a plastic that lasts forever and emits a highly toxic gas when burned. Paper money is biodegradable, but the manufacturing of it has significant impact, as well as growing the cotton used in making it. It is a good idea to think of new ways to repair credit with the planet on Earth Day.
saving the world is a must
Submitted by yvet (not verified) on Tue May. 5, 2009 6:40 PM PDT.
saving the world is a must for us.
Food, sustainable, nutritious and ethical
Submitted by Mike Holland (not verified) on Mon May. 25, 2009 6:50 PM PDT.
Thank you for your attempt at flipping the organic-leaf to look at the underside. Still...
It seems your comment that we are stuck with trans-world food shipping to be able to support our billions is off base... How much container shipping was there in 1900 with a Billion people and no synthetic fertilizer... Need for Trans-shipping busted.. shipping food around the world has nothing to do with supplying billions and everything to do with making $billions. It is simply cheaper to grow in country A and ship to B and thereby make a larger profit.
The same notion applies to your quote from Matt Liebman, the polyculture expert at Iowa State University, says a reintegrated model can require almost twice the labor hours of a conventional agribusiness one.
The profit sucking noise that big-ag hears in poly-culture is the requirement for complexity and better trained employees. Mono-culture makes its money by reducing the amount of trained farmers needed, replacing them with semi-skilled mono-croppers. They may even be past farmers, but mono-culture forces them to specialize and reduce their knowledge of the land and become dependent on corporate suppliers, all of which conspires to make Poly-culture more intensively profitable and LESS labor intensive... It's how you cut the Labor definition that counts and how you qualify Labor... Ask a poly-farmer about their children's participation at work and compare that answer to a Mono-culturalist's response.
Finally, you mention our nearly 7 billion mouths to feed as if they are a curse forcing us to continue down the road of big-ag; shipping food across countries and oceans, using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. In fact, there is a perfectly sane answer that we are approaching, and that is lowering the number of mouths to feed.
We are not stuck with 7 Billion people, we are not stuck with shipping food across the ocean and we are not stuck with monoculture agriculture and giant food companies controlling policy. All these things are reversible and though we approach them as givens, it's up to us to see how our sustainable future is limited by these assumptions.
Why can't we get over it and
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu May. 28, 2009 5:12 PM PDT.
Why can't we get over it and just eat the shit? How about a global warming hot apple pie: http://apocalypsecakes.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/global-warming-hot-apple...
hello Your post makes me
Submitted by club penguin (not verified) on Wed Jun. 3, 2009 11:46 PM PDT.
hello
Your post makes me wonder if some folks will accept biotechnology as a tool for sustainability. Imagine crops that require fewer chemicals, less fertilizer, etc. some of these are possible today and others are in the works.
I am a new Mother Jones
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Jun. 17, 2009 5:52 AM PDT.
I am a new Mother Jones reader. I am a mother and preschool teacher. I am trying to educate myself on what foods are best for my family. I am trying use my dollars to make good choices where I can. I sometimes buy organic and local. This article really opened my eyes to the complexity of issues regarding food production. The concept that organic is not necessarily sustainable really surprised me. Obviously there is more to it than that, but it gets me thinking. Which is the point, I think. So while many responders to this article have deep convictions and a lot more information than I have, I think there are lot more people out there like me who could really use to be educated on this kind of stuff. We are the purchasers and consumers.
Wow, I sense some
Submitted by sarahliz on Wed Jun. 24, 2009 5:30 PM PDT.
Wow, I sense some unwarranted hysteria. I live in Brooklyn, NYC, where I work as a chef and food writer. I shop (and have worked) at the farmer's market, I belong to a CSA, I belong to a food co-op, I willingly fork over $4.00 for an organic heirloom tomato, and grow veggies on my fire escape. I cherish the connections I make through the food I choose to purchase and feel lucky to live in a place where those choices are possible.
However: My sense was that the author's intention was not to rally the troops and shut down the good-for-nothing small farms. His point was that the global food system is an enormous beast, and pragmatically, we have to be willing to think outside the box as we try to move towards sustainability for people of all social, political, geographical, and economic sectors.
This has always been the goal of any food system, and these systems continue to evolve all the time--just think how brilliant the Green Revolution seemed in the 1950s! We must remain flexible and open-minded about what constitutes sustainability, or we stagnate as a society. I may not have thrilled to each of the author's suggestions, but I did appreciate his spirit of innovation.
Although I remain a huge proponent of the organic/local food movement, at times it seems a diluted soundbite for the media, and sadly, consumers. When I worked at the farmer's market, I was astounded by how many shoppers didn't want real information about agriculture. They just wanted to know if it was organic or not. Period.
Kudos to the author for challenging my ideals and giving me some food for thought. A dose of healthy debate never hurt a soul.
Fertilizing Chemicals
Submitted by Margaret (not verified) on Wed Aug. 5, 2009 3:48 AM PDT.
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Margaret
Like it or not
Submitted by Randomdumping (not verified) on Fri Aug. 14, 2009 9:21 AM PDT.
I'm not the first to say it but if you fix the broken food system you will by default fix the health care system or at least go a longs ways towards improving it. I think that the current big agri-business food system is reaching critical mass and they are scared. We should start seeing some of them reinvent themselves into something totally different to satisfy the growing demand for "organic" or "green" or "sustainable" foods. We will need to be vigilant and watch them closely. The masses are still addicted to packaged foods and there's no better place to make ridiculous health claims then on the glossy labels of food like products.
Thanks
Submitted by Funny Quotes (not verified) on Sat Sep. 12, 2009 3:47 AM PDT.
Great post, one of the most informative posts on this subject online actuallly.
Thanks and keep up the great work.
Great article
Submitted by Duchess723 on Fri Sep. 18, 2009 3:22 AM PDT.
An in depth "realist" view has definitely been under reported. It takes more than just a moral compass to navigate the complexities of our food issue. One thing mojo - as excited as I was while reading this article, the excitement was hard to maintain as there were SO MANY grammatical errors. Please proofread carefully...you wouldn't want to be compared to the la times or USA today now would you? :) keep up the good work!
A major overhauling is
Submitted by Kate Henlay on Sat Sep. 19, 2009 11:28 PM PDT.
Agreed with you on the issue.
Do some research, join a
Submitted by nospraynotillnocompactionofsoil (not verified) on Tue Jan. 5, 2010 11:52 AM PST.
Do some research, join a local CSA (within 25 miles), you'll save money (get multiple $4 heirloom tomatoes and a bunch of other stuff with your $12-15 weekly expenditure).
If food systems become localized, no farmers will have the nonsensical burden of feeding the world.
No-till is fairly difficult to achieve but is possible. Masanobu Fukuoka is an obvious case study. His labor intensive method warrants respect.
I like the methods of Emilia Hazelip for small scale vegetable production.
I think somewhat large scale, no-till, energy efficient grain production is possible but economically impossible under our current system of subsidies and the biochemical companies sinister manipulation of agriculture as we know it.
If anyone has an energy efficient, non-polluting, way to do no-till using technology that would be great. Let's put people to work trying to develop appropriate technologies for this purpose and stop developing pollutants.
Small local diverse farms are the best solution at this point. More farms, not bigger farms, will produce more per acre if run efficiently. All pretty obvious stuff. All without a doubt proven.
I would much rather see more jobs in agriculture an not more jobs in labs that produce industrial chemicals.
links of london
Submitted by links of london (not verified) on Mon Jan. 11, 2010 8:47 PM PST.
Support by UK shopping links of London earrings was intuitive and nowadays we have matured internationally with stores in 1990.links of londonThe party resulted from a clean exact for her wife, links london
Thank you feel about the suggested use of the apple chips, which
Submitted by seovisitors (not verified) on Fri Feb. 5, 2010 11:23 PM PST.
Thank you feel about the suggested use of the apple chips, which has something more to know.
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