What I do know is that in a country of 340 million people, it's unintelligent to advocate "local polyculture" where every little area of the country has its own diverse little ecosystem. There's been a reader vs. Patrick go around on Sullivan's blog about The Omnivore's Dilemma a book I won't pretend to have read. The commenter writes:
Pollan is as critical of industrial organic farming as he is of industrial farming in general because he thinks that centralized food production makes us susceptible to attack or disease and limits the diversity in a healthy diet and severs important cultural ties to food. He came away from writing the book an advocate of local polyculture, not an advocate of organic farming.
Here's the quote from a farmer (Blake Hurst) that sparked the backlash:
Biotech crops actually cut the use of chemicals, and increase food safety. Are people who refuse to use them my moral superiors? Herbicides cut the need for tillage, which decreases soil erosion by millions of tons. The biggest environmental harm I have done as a farmer is the topsoil (and nutrients) I used to send down the Missouri River to the Gulf of Mexico before we began to practice no-till farming, made possible only by the use of herbicides. The combination of herbicides and genetically modified seed has made my farm more sustainable, not less, and actually reduces the pollution I send down the river.
Here's the problem I see: local polyculture works when you have tiny little isolated villages in 1720 that were self-sufficient, and only by necessity. What I cannot understand is how people expect a nation of our size, with a population that is 98% not farming, to feed itself a genetically diverse, locally grown, cornucopia of foodstuffs when all but a couple of us don't have time to farm.
The other problem I see with this argument is the complaint that beef and pork are unnatural, or at least we eat an unnatural quantity of them. The anti-red-meat-people typically advocate more fish, both for the sake of the environment, and for hyped up circulatory health benefits.
Except, the world fish market is in a state of free-fall, environmental collapse, with major food species disappearing, prices sky-rocketing, chemical substances found in fish rising, and fish habitats disappearing!
Corporate, no-till farming, which I have argued for on this blog, is probably the most sustainable way we can feed 7 billion people on this planet (without destroying the planet). The other two options, environmental collapse or human population collapse...seem less fun.
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3 comments:
As a former farmer, I can tell you that industrialization of agriculture has saved the world to the point that the world takes it for granted.
I can say from speaking with my grandparents, both farmers, the difference across the board from the quality and quantity of food produced from farms.
Let's just look at advancement during my lifetime, the GMO years. 20 years ago, the average field on my family's farm produced around 20-25 bushels of soybeans per acre and 80-100 bushels of corn per acre. During this time, we, my parents included me in the tillage process, tilled the soil around 3-5 times. Plow, Disk, multfinish, and finally drill. During this time excess furtilizer was used to overcome the amount lost do to soil erosion.
At this time, crops would lack production if a drought happened that year or a late or early frost occurred. There was no 105 day corn if the weather was wet late into may.
Last year, it was about average for a farm year, kind of wet in the spring, low rainfall in august. On the same land, my parents produced around 55-65 bushels per acre of soybeans and 125-175 bushels per acre of corn.
The advancement in genetic engineering and herbicide development brought these results, more food per acre.
Not only did yeilds improve, but the amount of chemicals and furtilizer has decreased by a ton. My parents have been reducing the amounts of fertilizer and herbicides that they use consitently every year because weed competition has reduced so much. In the near future, my parents may only need to apply chemicals once on soybeans and corn instead of the usual twice a year.
These results have kept the price of food low, very very very low. Think about the percentage of you money that you spend at the grocery store. Do people even spend 20% of their income per month on food anymore? Highly doubtful. Think about that, you spend less than 1/5th of your income on your most basic need.
Without these advancements, the United States wouldn't be what it is today. There would be no 2 cars per household. Your food costs would be substantially higher consuming the wants that your savings currently purchase.
I think that's Pollan's point, though, right? He thinks our food has gotten too cheap and the costs of keeping it cheap are hidden and borne in other ways--from toxins in our bodies to livestock populations susceptible to one big plague to obesity and hypertension (also, crappy, tasteless meat).
I think there room for middle ground on this sort of thing. It's good to have some locality and redundancy in the food supply and it's definitely good to have some heirloom breeds of turkey around in case a bad flu kills off the near-clones packed against each other in pens. It's good to have people experimenting with ways to raise food without needing massive prophylactic doses of antibiotics that get passed into our bodies.
All the same, we obviously need industrial food production and will need it for the foreseeable future.
Ben,
The point I was making is that the advancement of technology is getting to the point where we use less chemicals, vaccines, herbicides in all agricultural products.
My father uses less ounces (no longer pints) of herbicides per acre than he ever used to.
In my final response to your claim about a happy medium, I reply, it is already in place. The greatest thing about the United States is that we have CHOICE. When you go to a restaurant or grocery store, you can choose organic foods, or if you are like the majority of Americans, you choose to save money at the cost of your health (your words).
Money maybe the root of all evil, but it is our own choices that decide who we are and how evil we want to be. If you believe your thoughts about we are all getting sick because of agricultural development, then you can purchase your groceries accordingly. Growing up on a farm and seeing the results of crops and livestock, I will keep purchasing my genetically improved ingredients at a cheaper cost.
BTW, back when everything was 100% organic, people didn't live past 50. I feel confident that due to the advancement of these products, I will make it past that mark with ease.
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