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1. 10 Reasons Why Organic Can Feed the World And 10 reasons GM won’t1. 10 Reasons Why Organic Can Feed the World
Ed Hamer and Mark Anslow
The Ecologist, March 2008

Can organic farming feed the world? Ed Hamer and Mark Anslow say yes,
but we must farm and eat differently

1. Yield

Switching to organic farming would have different effects according
to where in the world you live and how you currently farm. Studies
show that the less industrialised world stands to benefit the most. In
southern Brazil, maize and wheat yields doubled on farms that changed
to green manures and nitrogen fixing leguminous vegetables instead of
chemical fertilisers. In Mexico, coffee-growers who chose to move to
fully organic production methods saw increases of 50 per cent in the
weight of beans they harvested. In fact, in an analysis of more than
286 organic conversions in 57 countries, the average yield increase
was found to be an impressive 64 per cent.

The situation is more complex in the industrialised world, where
farms are large, intensive facilities, and opinions are divided on how
organic yields would compare. Research by the University of Essex in
1999 found that, although yields on US farms that converted to organic
initially dropped by between 10 and 15 per cent, they soon recovered,
and the farms became more productive than their all-chemical
counterparts. In the UK, however, a study by the Elm Farm Research
Centre predicted that a national transition to all-organic farming
would see cereal, rapeseed and sugar beet yields fall by between 30
and 60 per cent. Even the Soil Association admits that, on average in
the UK, organic yields are 30 per cent lower than non-organic.

So can we hope to feed ourselves organically in the British Isles and
Northern Europe? An analysis by former Ecologist editor Simon Fairlie
in The Land journal suggests that we can, but only if we are prepared
to rethink our diet and farming practices. In Fairlie’s scenario, each
of the UK’s 60 million citizens could have organic cereals, potatoes,
sugar, vegetables and fruit, fish, pork, chicken and beef, as well as
wool and flax for clothes and biomass crops for heating. To achieve
this we’d each have to cut down to around 230g of beef (1/2lb),
compared to an average of 630g (11/2lb) today, 252g of pork/bacon,
210g of chicken and just under 4kg (9lb) of dairy produce each week -
considerably more than the country enjoyed in 1945. We would probably
need to supplement our diet with homegrown vegetables, save our food
scraps as livestock feed and reform the sewage system to use our waste
as an organic fertiliser.

2. Energy

Currently, we use around 10 calories of fossil energy to produce one
calorie of food energy. In a fuel-scarce future, which experts think
could arrive as early as 2012, such numbers simply won’t stack up.
Studies by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs over
the past three years have shown that, on average, organically grown
crops use 25 per cent less energy than their chemical cousins. Certain
crops achieve even better reductions, including organic leeks (58 per
cent less energy) and broccoli (49 per cent less energy).

When these savings are combined with stringent energy conservation
and local distribution and consumption (such as organic box schemes),
energy-use dwindles to a fraction of that needed for an intensive,
centralised food system. A study by the University of Surrey shows
that food from Tolhurst Organic Produce, a smallholding in Berkshire,
which supplies 400 households with vegetable boxes, uses 90 per cent
less energy than if non-organic produce had been delivered and bought
in a supermarket.

Far from being simply ‘energy-lite’, however, organic farms have the
potential to become self-sufficient in energy - or even to become
energy exporters. The ‘Dream Farm’ model, first proposed by
Mauritius-born agroscientist George Chan, sees farms feeding manure
and waste from livestock and crops into biodigesters, which convert it
into a methane-rich gas to be used for creating heat and electricity.
The residue from these biodigesters is a crumbly, nutrient-rich
fertiliser, which can be spread on soil to increase crop yields or
further digested by algae and used as a fish or animal feed.

3. Greenhouse gas emissions and climate change

Despite organic farming’s low-energy methods, it is not in reducing
demand for power that the techniques stand to make the biggest savings
in greenhouse gas emissions. The production of ammonium nitrate
fertiliser, which is indispensable to conventional farming, produces
vast quantities of nitrous oxide - a greenhouse gas with a global
warming potential some 320 times greater than that of CO2. In fact,
the production of one tonne of ammonium nitrate creates 6.7 tonnes of
greenhouse gases (CO2e), and was responsible for around 10 per cent of
all industrial greenhouse gas emissions in Europe in 2003.

The techniques used in organic agriculture to enhance soil fertility
in turn encourage crops to develop deeper roots, which increase the
amount of organic matter in the soil, locking up carbon underground
and keeping it out of the atmosphere. The opposite happens in
conventional farming: high quantities of artificially supplied
nutrients encourage quick growth and shallow roots. A study published
in 1995 in the journal Ecological Applications found that levels of
carbon in the soils of organic farms in California were as much as 28
per cent higher as a result. And research by the Rodale Institute
shows that if the US were to convert all its corn and soybean fields
to organic methods, the amount of carbon that couldbe stored in the
soil would equal 73 per cent of the country’s Kyoto targets for CO2
reduction.

Organic farming might also go some way towards salvaging the
reputation of the cow, demonised in 2007 as a major source of methane
at both ends of its digestive tract. There’s no doubt that this is a
problem: estimates put global methane emissions from ruminant
livestock at around 80 million tonnes a year, equivalent to around two
billion tonnes of CO2, or close to the annual CO2 output of Russia and
the UK combined. But by changing the pasturage on which animals graze
to legumes such as clover or birdsfoot trefoil (often grown anyway by
organic farmers to improve soil nitrogen content), scientists at the
Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research believe that methane
emissions could be cut dramatically. Because the leguminous foliage is
more digestible, bacteria in the cow’s gut are less able to turn the
fodder into methane. Cows also seem naturally to prefer eating
birdsfoot trefoil to ordinary grass.

4. Water use

Agriculture is officially the most thirsty industry on the planet,
consuming a staggering 72 per cent of all global freshwater at a time
when the UN says 80 per cent of our water supplies are being
overexploited. This hasn’t always been the case. Traditionally,
agricultural crops were restricted to those areas best suited to their
physiology, with drought-tolerant species grown in the tropics and
water-demanding crops in temperate regions. Global trade throughout
the second half of the last century led to a worldwide production of
grains dominated by a handful of high-yielding cereal crops, notably
wheat, maize and rice. These thirsty cereals - the ‘big three’ - now
account for more than half of the world’s plant-based calories and 85
per cent of total grain production.

Organic agriculture is different. Due to its emphasis on healthy soil
structure, organic farming avoids many of the problems associated with
compaction, erosion, salinisation and soil degradation, which are
prevalent in intensive systems. Organic manures and green mulches are
applied even before the crop is sown, leading to a process known as
‘mineralisation’ - literally the fixing of minerals in the soil.
Mineralised organic matter, conspicuously absent from synthetic
fertilisers, is one of the essential ingredients required physically
and chemically to hold water on the land. Organic management also uses
crop rotations, undersowing and mixed cropping to provide the soil
with near-continuous cover. By contrast, conventional farm soils may
be left uncovered for extended periods prior to sowing, and again
following the harvest, leaving essential organic matter fully exposed
to erosion by rain, wind and sunlight. In the US, a 25-year Rodale
Institute
experiment on climatic extremes found that, due to improved soil
structure, organic systems consistently achieve higher yields during
periods both of drought and flooding.

5. Localisation

The globalisation of our food supply, which gives us Peruvian apples
in June and Spanish lettuces in February, has seen our food reduced to
a commodity in an increasingly volatile global marketplace. Although
year-round availability makes for good marketing in the eyes of the
biggest retailers, the costs to the environment are immense. Friends
of the Earth estimates that the average meal in the UK travels 1,000
miles from plot to plate. In 2005, Defra released a comprehensive
report on food miles in the UK, which valued the direct environmental,
social and economic costs of food transport in Britain at £9 billion
each year. In addition, food transport accounted for more than 30
billion vehicle kilometres, 25 per cent of all HGV journeys and 19
million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in 2002 alone.

The organic movement was born out of a commitment to provide local
food for local people, and so it is logical that organic marketing
encourages localisation through veg boxes, farm shops and stalls.
Between 2005 and 2006, organic sales made through direct marketing
outlets such as these increased by 53 per cent, from GBP95 to GBP146
million, more than double the sales growth experienced by the major
supermarkets.

As we enter an age of unprecedented food insecurity, it is essential
that our consumption reflects not only what is desirable, but also
what is ultimately sustainable. While the ‘organic’ label itself may
inevitably be hijacked, ‘organic and local’ represents a solution with
which the global players can simply never compete.

6. Pesticides

It is a shocking testimony to the power of the agrochemical industry
that in the 45 years since Rachel Carson published her pesticide
warning Silent Spring, the number of commercially available synthetic
pesticides has risen from 22 to more than 450.

According to the World Health Organization there are an estimated
20,000 accidental deaths worldwide each year from pesticide exposure
and poisoning. More than 31 million kilograms of pesticide were
applied to UK crops alone in 2005, 0.5 kilograms for every person in
the country. A spiralling dependence on pesticides throughout recent
decades has resulted in a catalogue of repercussions, including pest
resistance, disease susceptibility, loss of natural biological
controls and reduced nutrient-cycling.

Organic farmers, on the other hand, believe that a healthy plant
grown in a healthy soil will ultimately be more resistant to pest
damage. Organic systems encourage a variety of natural methods to
enhance soil and plant health, in turn reducing incidences of pests,
weeds and disease.

First and foremost, because organic plants grow comparatively slower
than conventional varieties they have thicker cell walls, which
provide a tougher natural barrier to pests. Rotations or
‘break-crops’, which are central to organic production, also provide a
physical obstacle to pest and disease lifecycles by removing crops
from a given plot for extended periods. Organic systems also rely
heavily on a rich agro-ecosystem in which many agricultural pests can
be controlled by their natural predators.

Inevitably, however, there are times when pestilence attacks are
especially prolonged or virulent, and here permitted pesticides may be
used. The use of organic pesticides is heavily regulated and the
International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM)
requires specific criteria to be met before pesticide applications can
be justified. There are in fact only four active ingredients permitted
for use on organic crops: copper fungicides, restricted largely to
potatoes and occasionally orchards; sulphur, used to control
additional elements of fungal diseases; Retenone, a naturally
occurring plant extract, and soft soap, derived from potassium soap
and used to control aphids. Herbicides are entirely prohibited.

7. Ecosystem impact

Farmland accounts for 70 per cent of UK land mass, making it the
single most influential enterprise affecting our wildlife. Incentives
offered for intensification under the Common Agricultural Policy are
largely responsible for negative ecosystem impacts over recent years.
Since 1962, farmland bird numbers have declined by an average of 30
per cent. During the same period more than 192,000 kilometres of
hedgerows have been removed, while 45 per cent of our ancient woodland
has been converted to cropland.

By contrast, organic farms actively encourage biodiversity in order
to maintain soil fertility and aid natural pest control. Mixed farming
systems ensure that a diversity of food and nesting sites are
available throughout the year, compared with conventional farms where
autumn sow crops leave little winter vegetation available. Organic
production systems are designed to respect the balance observed in our
natural ecosystems. It is widely accepted that controlling or
suppressing oneelement of wildlife, even if it is a pest, will have
unpredictable impacts on the rest of the food chain. Instead, organic
producers regard a healthy ecosystem as essential to a healthy farm,
rather than a barrier to production.

In 2005, a report by English Nature and the RSPB on the impacts of
organic farming on biodiversity reviewed more than 70 independent
studies of flora, invertebrates, birds and mammals within organic and
conventional farming systems. It concluded that biodiversity is
enhanced at every level of the food chain under organic management
practices, from soil micro-biota right through to farmland birds and
the largest mammals.

8. Nutritional benefits

While an all-organic farming system might mean we’d have to make do
with slightly less food than we’re used to, research shows that we can
rest assured it would be better for us. In 2001, a study in the
Journal of Complementary Medicine found that organic crops contained
higher levels of 21 essential nutrients than their conventionally
grown counterparts, including iron, magnesium, phosphorus and vitamin
C. The organic crops also contained lower levels of nitrates, which
can be toxic to the body.

Other studies have found significantly higher levels of vitamins - as
well as polyphenols and antioxidants - in organic fruit and veg, all
of which are thought to play a role in cancer-prevention within the
body. Scientists have also been able to work out why organic farming
produces more nutritious food. Avoiding chemical fertiliser reduces
nitrates levels in the food; betterquality soil increases the
availability of trace minerals, and reduced levels of pesticides mean
that the plants’ own immune systems grow stronger, producing higher
levels of antioxidants. Slower rates of growth also mean that organic
food frequently contains higher levels of dry mass, meaning that fruit
and vegetables are less pumped up with water and so contain more
nutrients by weight than intensively grown crops do.

Milk from organically fed cows has been found to contain higher
levels of nutrients in six separate studies, including omega-3 fatty
acids, vitamin E, and beta-carotene, all of which can help prevent
cancer. One experiment discovered that levels of omega-3 in organic
milk were on average 68 per cent higher than in non-organic
alternatives. But as well as giving us more of what we do need,
organic food can help to give us less of what we don’t. In 2000, the
UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that organically
produced food had ‘lower levels of pesticide and veterinary drug
residues’ than non-organic did. Although organic farmers are allowed
to use antibiotics when absolutely necessary to treat disease, the
routine use of the drugs in animal feed - common on intensive
livestock farms - is forbidden. This means a shift to organic
livestock farming could help tackle problems such as the emergence of
antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

9. Seed-saving

Seeds are not simply a source of food; they are living testimony to
more than 10,000 years of agricultural domestication. Tragically,
however, they are a resource that has suffered unprecedented neglect.
The UN FAO estimates that 75 per cent of the genetic diversity of
agricultural crops has been lost over the past 100 years.

Traditionally, farming communities have saved seeds year-on-year,
both in order to save costs and to trade with their neighbours. As a
result, seed varieties evolved in response to local climatic and
seasonal conditions, leading to a wide variety of fruiting times, seed
size, appearance and flavour. More importantly, this meant a constant
updating process for the seed’s genetic resistance to changing
climatic conditions, new pests and diseases. By contrast, modern
intensive agriculture depends on relatively few crops - only about 150
species are cultivated on any significant scale worldwide. This is the
inheritance of the Green Revolution, which in the late 1950s perfected
varieties Filial 1, or F1 seed technology, which produced hybrid seeds
with specifically desirable genetic qualities. These new high-yield
seeds were widely adopted, but because the genetic makeup of hybrid F1
seeds becomes diluted following the first harvest, the manufacturers
ensured
that farmers return for more seed year on year.

With its emphasis on diversity, organic farming is somewhat cushioned
from exploitation on this scale, but even Syngenta, the world’s
third-largest biotech company, now offers organic seed lines. Although
seedsaving is not a prerequisite for organic production, the holistic
nature of organics lends itself well to conserving seed. In support of
this, the Heritage Seed Library, in Warwickshire, is a collection of
more than 800 open-pollinated organic varieties, which have been
carefully preserved by gardeners across the country. Although their
seeds are not yet commercially available, the Library is at the
forefront of addressing the alarming erosion of our agricultural
diversity.

Seed-saving and the development of local varieties must become a key
component of organic farming, giving crops the potential to evolve in
response to what could be rapidly changing climatic conditions. This
will help agriculture keeps pace with climate change in the field,
rather than in the laboratory.

10. Job creation

There is no doubt British farming is currently in crisis. With an
average of 37 farmers leaving the land every day, there are now more
prisoners behind bars in the UK than there are farmers in the fields.
Although it has been slow, the decline in the rural labour force is a
predictable consequence of the industrialisation of agriculture. A
mere one per cent of the UK workforce is now employed in land-related
enterprises, compared with 35 per cent at the turn of the last
century.

The implications of this decline are serious. A skilled agricultural
workforce will be essential in order to maintain food security in the
coming transition towards a new model of post-fossil fuel farming.
Many of these skills have already been eroded through mechanisation
and a move towards more specialised and intensive production systems.
Organic farming is an exception to these trends. By its nature,
organic production relies on labour-intensive management practices.
Smaller, more diverse farming systems require a level of husbandry
that is simply uneconomical at any other scale.

Organic crops and livestock also demand specialist knowledge and
regular monitoring in the absence of agrochemical controls. According
to a 2006 report by the University of Essex, organic farming in the UK
provides 32 per cent more jobs per farm than comparable non-organic
farms. Interestingly, the report also concluded that the higher
employment observed could not be replicated in non-organic farming
through initiatives such as local marketing. Instead, the majority (81
per cent) of total employment on organic farms was created by the
organic production system itself. The report estimates that 93,000 new
jobs would be created if all farming in the UK were to convert to
organic.

Organic farming also accounts for more younger employees than any
other sector in the industry. The average age of conventional UK
farmers is now 56, yet organic farms increasingly attract a younger
more enthusiastic workforce, people who view organics as the future of
food production. It is for this next generation of farmers that
Organic Futures, a campaign group set up by the Soil Association in
2007, is striving to provide a platform.

Ed Hamer is a freelance journalist
Mark Anslow is the Ecologist’s senior reporter
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2. And 10 reasons GM won’t [feed the world]
Mark Anslow
The Ecologist, March 2008

1. Failure to deliver

Despite the hype, genetic modification consistently fails to live up
to industry claims. Only two GM traits have ever made it to market:
herbicide resistance and BT toxin expression (see below). Other
promises of genetic modification have failed to materialise. The much
vaunted GM ‘golden rice’ - hailed as a cure to vitamin A deficiency -
has never made it out of the laboratory, partly because in order to
meet recommended levels of vitamin A intake, consumers would need to
eat 12 bowls of the rice every day. In 2004, the Kenyan government
admitted that Monsanto’s GM sweet potatoes were no more resistant to
feathery mottle virus than ordinary strains, and in fact produced
lower yields. And in January 2008, news that scientists had modified a
carrot to cure osteoporosis by providing calcium had to be weighed
against the fact that you would need to eat 1.6 kilograms of these
vegetables each day to meet your recommended calcium intake.

2. Costing the Earth

GM crops are costing farmers and governments more money than they are
making.. In 2003, a report by the Soil Association estimated the cost
to the US economy of GM crops at around $12 billion (£6 billion) since
1999, on account of inflated farm subsidies, loss of export orders and
various seed recalls. A study in Iowa found that GM soyabeans required
all the same costs as conventional farming but, because they produced
lower yields (see below), the farmers ended up making no profit at
all. In India, an independent study found that BT cotton crops were
costing farmers 10 per cent more than non-BT variants and bringing in
40 per cent lower profits. Between 2001 and 2005, more than 32,000
Indian farmers committed suicide, most as a result of mounting debts
caused by inadequate crops.

3. Contamination and gene escape

No matter how hard you try, you can never be sure that what you are
eating is GM-free. In a recent article, the New Scientist admitted
that contamination and cross-fertilisation between GM and non-GM crops
‘has happened on many occasions already’. In late 2007, US company
Scotts Miracle-Gro was fined $500,000 by the US Department of
Agriculture when genetic material from a new golf-course grass Scotts
had been testing was found in native grasses as far as 13 miles away
from the test sites, apparently released when freshly cut grass was
caught and blown by the wind. In 2006, an analysis of 40 Spanish
conventional and organic farms found that eight were contaminated with
GM corn varieties, including one farmer whose crop contained 12.6 per
cent GM plants.

4. Reliance on pesticides

Far from reducing dependency on pesticides and fertilisers, GM crops
frequently increase farmers’ reliance on these products.
Herbicide-resistant crops can be sprayed indiscriminately with
weedkillers such as Monsanto’s ‘Roundup’ because they are engineered
to withstand the effect of the chemical. This means that significantly
higher levels of herbicide are found in the final food product,
however, and often a second herbicide is used in the late stages of
the crop to promote ‘dessication’ or drying, meaning these crops
receive a double dose of harmful chemicals. BT maize, engineered to
produce an insecticidal toxin, has never eliminated the use of
pesticides, and because the BT gene cannot be ’switched off’ the crops
continue to produce the toxin right up until harvest, reaching the
consumer at its highest possible concentrations.

5. ‘Frankenfoods’

Despite the best efforts of the biotech industry, consumers remain
staunchly opposed to GM food. In 2007, the vast majority of 11,700
responses to the Government’s consultation on whether contamination of
organic food with traces of GM crops should be allowed were strongly
negative.

The Government’s own ‘GM Nation’ debate in 2003 discovered that half
of its participants ‘never want to see GM crops grown in the United
Kingdom under any circumstances’, and 96 per cent thought that society
knew too little about the health impacts of genetic modification. In
India, farmers’ experience of BT cotton has been so disastrous that
the Maharashtra government now advises that farmers grow soybeans
instead. And in Australia, over 250 food companies lodged appeals with
the state governments of New South Wales and Victoria over the lifting
of bans against growing GM canola crops.

6. Breeding resistance

Nature is smart, and there are already reports of species resistant
to GM crops emerging. This is seen in the emergence of new
’superweeds’ on farms in North America - plants that have evolved the
ability to withstand the industry’s chemicals. A report by then UK
conservation body English Nature (now Natural England), in 2002,
revealed that oilseed rape plants that had developed resistance to
three or more herbicides were ‘not uncommon’ in Canada. The superweeds
had been created through random crosses between neighbouring GM crops.
In order to tackle these superweeds, Canadian farmers were forced to
resort to even stronger, more toxic herbicides. Similarly, pests
(notably the diamondback moth) have been quick to develop resistance
to BT toxin, and in 2007 swarms of mealy bugs began attacking
supposedly pestresistant Indian cotton.

7.. Creating problems for solutions

Many of the so-called ‘problems’ for which the biotechnology industry
develops ’solutions’ seem to be notions of PR rather than science.
Herbicideresistance was sold under the claim that because crops could
be doused in chemicals, there would be much less need to weed
mechanically or plough the soil, keeping more carbon and nitrates
under the surface. But a new long-term study by the US Agricultural
Research Service has shown that organic farming, even with ploughing,
stores more carbon than the GM crops save. BT cotton was claimed to
increase resistance to pests, but farmers in East Africa discovered
that by planting a local weed amid their corn crop, they could lure
pests to lay their eggs on the weed and not the crop.

8. Health risks

The results of tests on animals exposed to GM crops give serious
cause for concern over their safety. In 1998, Scottish scientists
found damage to every single internal organ in rats fed
blightresistant GM potatoes. In a 2006 experiment, female rats fed on
herbicide-resistant soybeans gave birth to severely stunted pups, of
which half died within three weeks. The survivors were sterile. In the
same year, Indian news agencies reported that thousands of sheep
allowed to graze on BT cotton crop residues had died suddenly. Further
cases of livestock deaths followed in 2007. There have also been
reports of allergy-like symptoms among Indian labourers in BT cotton
fields. In 2002, the only trial ever to involve human beings appeared
to show that altered genetic material from GM soybeans not only
survives in the human gut, but may even pass its genetic material to
bacteria within the digestive system.

9. Left hungry

GM crops have always come with promises of increased yields for
farmers, but this has rarely been the case. A three-year study of 87
villages in India found that non-BT cotton consistently produced 30
per cent higher yields than the (more expensive) GM alternative. It is
now widely accepted that GM soybeans produce consistently lower yields
than conventional varieties. In 1992, Monsanto’s own trials showed
that the company’s Roundup Ready soybeans yield 11.5 per cent less on
harvest. Later Monsanto studies went on to reveal that some trials of
GM canola crops in Australia actually produced yields 16 per cent
below the non-GM national average.

10. Wedded to fertilisers and fossil fuels

No genetically modified crop has yet eliminated the need for chemical
fertilisers in order to achieve expected yields. Although the industry
has made much of the possibility of splicing nitrogen-fixing genes
into commercial food crops in order to boost yields, there has so far
been little success. This means that GM crops are justas dependent on
fossil fuels to make fertilisers as conventional agriculture. In
addition to this, GM traits are often specifically designed to fit
with large-scale industrial agriculture. Herbicide resistance is of no
real benefit unless your farm is too vast to weed mechanically, and it
presumes that the farmers already farm in a way that involves the
chemical spraying of their crops. Similarly, BT toxin expression is
designed to counteract the problem of pest control in vast
monocultures, which encourage infestations. In a world that will soon
have to change its view of farming - facing as it does the twin
challenges of
climate change and peak oil - GM crops will soon come to look like a
relic of bygone practices.

Mark Anslow is the Ecologist’s senior Reporter

Think Simply. Think Wisely.
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