Sustainable Farming

Recently, I wrote about the report from the Union of Concerned Scientists about the non-existent benefits of genetically modified crops:

Failure to Yield: Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops
... Despite 20 years of research and 13 years of commercialization, genetic engineering has failed to significantly increase U.S. crop yields. ...

Biotechnology crops, like the Roundup Ready seeds from Monsanto are exacerbating the problems they were supposed to solve:

As more acres of "Roundup Ready" crops are planted, the use of the pesticide has increased. The increased application has led some weeds to develop a resistance to glyphosate, the generic term for the chemical in Roundup. And, in turn, farmers have had to apply stronger doses of pesticide to kill the superweeds.

- Business Week, February 2008

Nonetheless, we tend to think of technological progress as a net positive. Is biotechnology the answer to the problems of mechanical and chemical technology of the past few decades?

Do we need biotechnology to feed the world?

We've seen that the world already produces enough food for everyone. Hunger is not a result of scarcity, but of inequitable distribution.

... The second fallacy is that genetic engineering boosts food production. Currently there are two principal types of biotechnology seeds in production: herbicide resistant and "pest" resistant. [Herbicide resistant crops] allow farmers to apply [Roundup] in ever greater amounts without killing the crops. ... [The "pest" resistant crop] produces its own insecticide.
...
genetically engineered seeds do not actually increase overall crop yields. ... [in] more than 8,200 field trials... Roundup ready seed produced fewer bushels of soybeans than similar natural varieties.

(The other troubling aspect of GM foods - the terminator seed technology, is currently under a de-facto ban. It is legally prohibited in India and Brazil.)

Is biotechnology safe?

• There is no overall reduction in pesticide use with genetically modified crops.
• GM foods brings its own pollution hazard - biological and genetic pollution. The harmful effects of GM organisms on natural ecosystems is well documented.
• Genes from modified organisms can spread to other organisms, with unpredictable consequences*.
• Biotechnology may bring new toxins and allergens into the human food supply.*

Biotechnology is expensive and inefficient:

Despite the billions of dollars spent creating transgenic organisms, biotechnology is yet to bring to market a single product that actually benefits consumers. Why should the public pay for this effort that offers no advantages, but increases risks?



* For example the StarLink corn recall: Wikipedia, New York Times, and more stories from the NYTimes.

We've read a while ago that even many environmentalists think of the corn-belt style agriculture as a necessary evil, to be tolerated so that the environment elsewhere can be protected. I've personally heard this argument from a very well educated and knowledgeable friend. This just goes to show that Big Food propaganda machine has been very successful.

Propoganda - Sustainable agriculture is "low-yield":

A typical claim of the industrial apologists is that the industrial style of agriculture has prevented some 15 million square miles of wildlands from being plowed under for "low-yield" food production. ... They also claim that if the world does not fully embrace industrial agriculture, hundreds of thousands of wildlife species will be lost to low yield crops and ranging livestock.

There is overwhelming evidence of higher productivity and efficiency of small, biodiverse, low mechanization, petro-chemical free agriculture (see also here and here). Can anybody really believe that industrial agriculture and factory meat-farming, which are net destroyers of energy, water, and soil can benefit the environment in any way?

...sustainable or alternative agriculture minimizes the environmental impacts of farming on plants and animals, as well as the air, water, and soil, often without added economic costs. ... Organic and diversified farming practices increase the prevalence of birds and mammals on farmlands and ensure biological diversity for the planet.

Poisoning the environment:

Pesticide use - endemic to industrial agriculture - has been clearly identified as a principal driving force behind the drastic reduction in biodiversity on America's farmlands. .... there are no fewer than 50 scientific studies that have documented the adverse environmental effects of pseticide use on bird, mammal, and amphibian populations across USA and Canada.
...
Chemical fertilizers - which are also a key component of industrial agriculture - pose an even greater risk to soil and water quality... Aquatic and marine life are especially vulnerable to the tons of residues from chemically treated croplands that find their way into our major estuaries each year.

Wildlife habitats:

... the huge, monocultured fields characteristic of industrial agriculture have dramatically reduced the wildlife populations by transforming habitats, displacing populations of native species, and introducing non-native species. ... Diversified farming techniques, on the other hand, incorporate numerous varieties of plants, flowers, and weeds, and encourage the proliferation of various wildlife, insect, and plant species.

No myth can hide the fact that decades of industrial agriculture have been a disaster for the environment. Its chemical poisoning has caused eco-cide among countless species. ... the tilling, mowing, and harvesting operations of industrial agriculture have affected, and continue to catastrophically destroy wildlife, soil, and water quality.

Along with the illusion of abundance, supermarkets create an illusion of choice (40 types of breakfast cereals! 60 varieties of juices!). However, if you look at the ingredients, this illusion breaks down rapidly.

The illusion of the package:

Each year, more than 15,000 new food products come to market in the U.S. ... However, these introductions rarely represent an increase in food choices for the consumers. The packages attempt to hide the fact that we are essentially increasing the same set of ingredients over and over, even though they go by different names. ... a full 95% of the calories we eat come from only 30 varieties of plants.

The loss of diversity:

By growing all our crops in monoculture, industrial agriculture not only limits what we can eat today, but also reduces the choices of future generations. ... a study of the seed stock readily available in 1903 vursus the inventory of the U.S. National Seed Storage Laboratory... found an astounding loss of diversity: we lost nearly 93% of lettuce, over 96% of field corn, about 91% of field corn, more than 95% of tomato, and almost 98% of asparagus varieties.

"Big Food" dictates what we eat:

A handful of companies own most of the food brands in the market. For example, Kraft Foods, (the second largest food company in the world, after Nestlé) owns around 150 brands worldwide. Large food manufacturers have also been acquiring and introducing organic brands.

Why does this matter?

The goverment, bending under pressure from agribusiness, has never required labels that inform consumers about pesticides and other chemicals used on crops, or the residues still left on those foods at the time of purchase. ... "nuked" processed foods are not labled*. ... under pressure from the biotechnology industry, [the U.S. FDA] has decided not to require genetically engineered foods to be independently safety tested or labled. ... Agribusiness not only uses its political muscle to prevent food labling, it also has pushed through laws to stop critics from getting importnat information about food to consumers ... [by pressuring] 13 states to pass "food disparagement" legislation.

What's the alternative?

By choosing ... local, small-scale organic farming ... we could not only give ourselved the choice of safe and healthy food and a cleaner environment, but we could also incorporate literally thousands of ddifferent varieties and tastes into our diets.

*For the latest on food irradiation labling, see here.

Proponents of mega-farming often insist that highly mechanized, chemical intensive industrial agriculture produces food more effciently than small scale farming. I have already written about The Myth Of Large Farm Productivity, as well as the Energy Cost Of Food to show that this is false economically as well as energetically. Below are the facts against the proposed "efficiency" of mega-farming from the book Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy Of Industrial Agriculture:

... how does the "bigger is better" myth survive? ... because of a deeply flawed method of measuring farm "productivity" ... as the production per unit area of a single crop. ... If we are to compare accurately the productivity of small and large farms, we should use total agricultural output, balanced against total farm inputs and "externalities," rather than single crop yield as our measurement principle. 

...

Though the yield per unit area of one crop may be lower, the total output per unit area of small farms, often composed of more than a dozen crops and numerous animal products, is virtually always higher than that of larger farms. 

...

There is virtual consensus that large farms do not make as good use of even [farm labor and modern technology] because of management and labor problems inherent in large operations. Mid sized and many smaller farms come far closer to peak efficiency when these factors are calculated.

People in the developed world spend the least fractions of their household expenditure on food. ("We should all thank our productive and efficient farmers and ranchers for making that bargain possible." - Katy Coba, director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture) Does this reflect the true costs of industrial agriculture?

Environmental costs:

Intensive use of pesticides and fertilizers seriously pollute our water, soil, and air. ... animal factories produce 1.3 billion tons of manure each year. Laden with chemicals, antibiotics, and hormones, the manure leaches into rivers and water tables, polluting drinking supplies and causing fish kills. ... Currently, consumers pay billions of dollars annually in environmental costs directly attributed to industrial food production, not including the loss of biodiversity and topsoil...

Health costs:

Conventional analyses also ignore the human health costs of consuming industrial foods, including the contribution of pesticides, hormones and other chemical inputs to our current cancer epidemic... Taken together, these medical health costs [of cancer, food borne illnesses, obesity, diabetes etc.] are clearly in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

Tax subsidies:

Price supports, price "fixing", tax credits, and product promotion are all forms of welfare for agribusiness. ... Taken together, these subsidies add almost $3 billion to the hidden cost of food to consumers.

In conclusion:

When we calculate the real price, it is clear that far from being cheap, our current food production system is imposing staggering monetary burdens on us and future generations [in the form of environmental, health and social costs]. By contrast, non-industrial food production significantly reduces, and can even eliminate most of these costs.

This is the third in the series of excerpts from the book Fatal Harvest. While these facts are now much better known, at least in the "organic lifestyle" community in the first world, industrial farming practices are increasingly being promoted by corporations and governments in the developing world. Hence, I am posting these excerpts so that they are available to everyone who is interested in this issue.

There are numerous laws and regulations about food safety in the United States, but is the food really safe? What are the effects of the industrialized the food production system?

Increases diseases from pesticides:

... at least 53 pesticides classified as carcinogens [and 165 potential carcinogens] are presently applied in massive amounts to our food crops. ... A National Cancer Institute study found that farmers who used industrial herbicides where six times more likely than non-farmers to develop non-Hodgkin's lymphoma... exposure to compounds like PCBs and organophosphate insecticides during critical periods of development [in young people] can cause permanent, long-term damage to the nervous and reproductive systems.

Increased infections:

... reported cases of disease from salmonella and E. coli pathogens are ten times greater than they were two decades ago... The CDC saw none of these pathogens in meat until the late 1970s when "animal factories" became toe dominant means of meat production. ... fruits and vegetables get contaminated by these pathogens through exposure to tainted fertilizers and sewage sludge.
... nearly 50 percent of U.S. antibiotics are given to animals... Infections resistant to antibiotics are now the 11th leading cause of death in the United States.

Increased diseases from diet:

... people are consuming more calories, preservatives, and sugar than ever in history, while reducing their intake of fresh whole fruits and vegetables. ... these changes have lead to overwhelming increases in obesity, Type II diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease among Americans. ... The Surgeon General has determined that two out of every three premature deaths is related to diet.

What is the solution?

Increased dependence on chemical, nuclear, or genetically engineered inputs will only intensify the problem. The real solution is to return to sound organic agricultural practices. ... food production that is safe for the environment, human to animals, and based in community and independence is also a food supply that is safe and nutritious for humans.

We hear over and over again that industrial agriculture is the only way to feed the growing global population and end world hunger. What's the truth?

There is no shortage of food:

...enough food is grown worldwide to provide 4.3 pounds of food per person per day, which would include two and a half pounds of grain, beans, and nuts, a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk, and eggs.

Why do 800 million people go hungry every day?

Industrial system has ... [forced] subsistence peasants off the land, so that it can be used for growing high priced export crops. ... the new 'landless' then flock to the newly industrialized cities where they quickly become a class of urban poor ... Their access to food is solely by purchase. Very often, they simply do not have enough money to buy food, so they starve.

Global corporations favor luxury, high-profit items:

As export crops and livestock use up available land, small farmers are forced to use marginal, less fertile lands. Staple food production for local use plummets, and hunger increases. ... during industrial agriculture's prime years (1970-90) the number of hungry people in every country except China actually increased by more than 11 percent.

What's the solution?

We need a major shift in efforts to feed the world, where the focus is on supporting local agriculture, where people live close to (or on) land, grow food to feed their own communities, and use ecologically sustainable techniques. In other words, hunger can only be solved by an agricultural system that promotes food independence.

I have been reading quite a few books in the past month or so, mostly on academic research towards increasing agricultural sustainability. While most of these are probably not of interest to non-academicians, the general message is that making small scale changes, using appropriate technologies, and incorporating biodiversity to utilize and enrich local natural resources is the way forward.

One of the books that everyone should read is Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy Of Industrial Agriculture.


Written by world renowned scientists, activist, and thinkers, Fatal Harvest is a comprehensive and eye opening exploration of the biological, ecological, and social aspects of managing land for long term sustainability and productivity. Wendell Berry, Vandana Shiva, and Miguel Altieri are some of the contributing authors.

The individual essays are grouped in seven sections -

1. Farming as if Nature Mattered: Breaking the Industrial Paradigm
2. Corporate Lies: Busting the Myths of Industrial Agriculture
3. Diversity, Scale, and Beauty: Contrasting Agrarian and Industrial Agriculture
4. Industrial Agriculture: The Toxic Trail from Seed to Table
5. Biodiversity and Wildlife: The Overappropriation of Wildlife Habitat by Agriculture
6. A Crisis of Culture: Social and Economic Impacts of Industrial Agriculture
7. Organic and Beyond: Revisioning Agriculture for the 21st Century

Sections two and seven are probably the most important ones from the point of view of raising awareness. 'Corporate Lies' methodically disproves the common propaganda about the benefits and inevitability of industrial agriculture, while 'Organic and Beyond' reviews the current and future efforts required for feeding the growing global population in a sustainable manner. (In the next few posts, I'll summarize the 'Seven Deadly Myths of Industrial Agriculture'.)

Along with the highly readable, informative, and thought-provoking text, the many beautiful photographs (often contrasting industrial and sustainable approaches) in Fatal Harvest get the point across. All these articles and photos do make the book quite large (15 x 12 inches!) and heavy though.

If you want a more mobile version, try the The Fatal Harvest Reader, which is a condensed version of the book, (and sans many of the photographs), as well as the Fatal Harvest website.