Sustainability's Prologue

This was the most recent post I did on the AgWeb site -- thought you all would appreciate it as well . . . remember, the new link/location for my EcoPragmatism blog is at: www.agweb.com/blog/ecopragmatism

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By Sara Hessenflow Harper

It is a scientific fact that energy never "dies," it just changes form. Now think about political issues as a form of energy.

This week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced new rules for regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants for the first time. As the March 26, 2012Wall Street Journal noted:

"The new rules will essentially make it unviable to build new coal-fired power plants, unless they are fitted with yet-to-be-commercialized carbon-capture technology. The rules would limit the permissible emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to a little more than half of what a typical coal plant emits today, administration officials have said."

Natural-gas fired power plants will meet the new regulations.

Under the Lieberman-Warner climate change market-based bill that was being debated in Congress – and even more so in the Stabenow ag offsets bill expected to be included until the climate change debate fell apart in the Senate, there would have been a way for coal plants to continue operating by purchasing greenhouse gas reductions, or offsets, from the uncapped and exempt agricultural sector. Utilities could have purchased offset credits from farmers undertaking approved activities like soil carbon sequestration, methane capture from manure and nitrous oxide reductions from precision application and management of fertilizers.

There were several news stories about the new regulations, but the world did not end as many had feared/predicted it would. This is partly because things have shifted in ways that could not have been foreseen during the heyday of the climate debates in Congress. First, and foremost, significant new amounts of natural gas have been found – bringing the cost of natural gas to record low levels. In fact, there aren’t many coal-fired power plants that are being planned right now anyway both because of the highly competitive position of natural gas and of the uncertain regulatory outlook for coal-fired plants both on the GHG issue and having to do with the further restricting of conventional pollutants.

Still, proponents of the coal industry point out that this could all change again if natural gas prices swing back up suddenly – as they have done before. This could leave the U.S. power sector with fewer fuel choices and potentially higher costs down the road – since there is no climate law in place outlining an offsets purchase alternative.

So what does this have to do with the agricultural industry? This example serves as a powerful anecdote of why it is critical for the ag sector to jump in and set its own course on sustainability.

In working on legislative issues for more than a decade now, I have seen many controversial policies and issues ebb and flow – but rarely do issues of magnitude simply "go away."

Usually what happens is an issue will be addressed by a particular policy proposal – a legislative bill or agency regulation. If that particular way of handling the issue is too unpopular, a specific bill may fail. That does not, however, mean that the underlying issue is gone – but rather, that the energy of that issue has gone somewhere else. Some people who were deeply engaged in the fight over the particular bill might then gleefully declare the entire issue to be "dead." But this is often confusing the end of a particular incarnation of a policy with the larger forces driving an issue.

In this case, the end of the climate change bill in the U.S. Senate, has not at all been the end of the climate change issue – or policies to address it. They have simply morphed into agency regulations using existing laws and into private "corporate sustainability policies."

I argue that in many ways, the way that climate change is being addressed now – without a defined legislative outline and without an offsets market, could be worse for the agricultural sector than if a bill like Lieberman-Warner containing a robust offsets title had passed.

Why?

First, under that bill, as I mentioned before, there would have been the ability for farmers to get paid in exchange for choosing to quantify, measure and sell some of the environmental benefits they can provide through good stewardship of their land. Without that bill, farmers are leftbeing pushed in this direction by multiple and often disagreeing elements of the private market – except they will likely not be paid for it. Instead, measuring and improving sustainability will likely, in the long run, become the price for doing business.

Second, although our legislative process can be messy, it is well-defined, understood and provides input opportunity in a forum (the Senate) that protects minority interests. Since climate change was not able to be addressed there, it is now being addressed in the much more difficult arenas of agency regulation (for example, these latest EPA rules on power plants) and in the private marketplace. Here, agriculture makes up about 2% of the population and there is no Senate to hold special the rights of that small number.

Third, the offsets market would have provided a new agricultural "eco-market" solution for a major environmental problem at a time when the consumer-farmer trust gap has been a growing. It would be tougher for urban "elite" foodies to make the claims they do about conventional agriculture if the industry was playing a major part in solving the climate change issue these folks care so much about.

As Shakespeare said, "What’s past is prologue."

Looking out at the evolving sustainability discussions, debates and policies, it seems clear to me that there is another messy opportunity before the industry. I know many will say "Agriculture isengaging in sustainability!" Yes, there is more involvement in this topic every day. Still, there is a great difference between re-stating what you think, only louder, and recognizing the need to roll up your sleeves to do the tough business of compromise.

Certainly, there are elements within ag that are working hard and smart on this. And, just like any other market force – there will be those who understand and get ahead of this issue to their own market advantage. The question is whether the broader industry positions itself well on this issue. Much of that will depend on which lessons industry leaders take away from examples like the one we have talked about today.

New Location for This Blog

Hello readers - Sorry its been so long since I updated this blog. I have an exciting announcement: the EcoPragmatism blog has been picked up by AgWeb.com -- a leading agriculture information website.

You can find ongoing discussion about pragmatism, environment and agriculture topics at: www.agweb.com/blog/ecopragmatism/

Thanks!

Did Organic Farms Cause Germany's E.coli Outbreak?

I don’t know. The E. coli vector was sprouts from an organic farm, but how did the E.coli get in the sprouts?

I am not hoping to stomp on Small, Local or Organic today. I of course feel somewhat vindicated on my stance concerning the supposed clear superiority of these supposedly more “sustainable” methods. As I write this, there is news today that another outbreak has occurred in French Beef.

Yes, cute, protected, smaller scale, non- GMO –fed beef.

It’s not even the same strain of E. coli. So these are two entirely different accidents, but it’s not supposed to happen there, or so say the over-simplifiers among us in the SLO church (Small, Local, Organic).

But really, it could have happened to anyone. Most anyone, anyway. All reports indicated that this particular farm was an exemplar of hygiene that would put many American organic farms to shame.

So, what’s the deal?

First off, if your child gets one of these nasty strains of E. coli, and it also has genes for antibiotic resistance, this is a VERY big deal. It is so tragic. So tragic, that even though I was “safe” in the U.S.A. I wanted to boil everything I gave my daughter.

Yet, when you actually look at the number of cases truly virulent E.coli infection in the developed world, it doesn’t seem so scary at all.

The famous Jack-in-the Box outbreak that the T.V. news magazines had specials on that caused some people to yell that “Our Food System Is Broken!” – how many people died from that outbreak? Do you remember?

Four.

In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in the USA, only about 61 people die a year from E. coli infections from all sources.

That’s all.

“It could have happened to almost anyone you say?” Yes. Just about. Let me explain.

First off, E. coli is not some rare evil germ. Look at your tummy. There are billions of E.coli in there. In fact, they are beneficial to human health, pro-biotic, as they say, so don’t try to get rid of ‘em.

They are generally so beyond benign that they are a favorite for study in various fields of non-medical Microbiology. They are ubiquitous. Residing not only in you, but in your dog and horse. They are also in most farm animals and in species in the wild, and that is where we start to get into trouble.

The Great Thinkers of the Small and Organic movement seized on the very well publicized Jack in the Box outbreak as an opportunity to spread fear not only about health safety standards, but also to malign our entire food system as unsafe. Even the most basic understanding of the Biological systems that produce E. coli would have prevented all but the most cynical from this line of reasoning. Here’s why:

In Evergreen, CO eight children became sick from an E. coli infection that seriously confused local officials until they were all linked to a certain soccer field.

Elk droppings from the mountains were found to have contaminated the field with pathogenic E. coli. It was not because they ate meat that was finished in a big CAFO, and it wasn’t because they bought some cheese from hippies at a Farmers’ Market. It was really a freak accident.

E. coli infections have probably been with us for a very long time. But, long ago, conditions like those found in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle were quite common, partly because we were rather ignorant of the Microbiological factors in disease.

So, if this bug lives in our guts and it is in our dogs and cats, why does it cause disease sometimes? To put it simply: the VAST MAJORITY of E. coli does not cause any harm whatsoever, as I said above. But there are strains that have some bad traits; some E.coli produce toxins that are harmful to humans (but seemingly not to wildlife or livestock.) Also, the little guys need a gene to make a protein that allows them to stick to your gut to be extremely virulent. Worse, E.coli seems particularly adept at developing resistance to antibiotics, so what might have been a nuisance can become a tragedy. Having all three traits means big trouble.

But by far the vast majority of E. coli do not have these traits. And by far the majority of cases do not lead to death.

So, how do people come down with nasty strains of E. coli and what can be done to prevent it. If you listen to your average new urban romantic, the kind that wants everyone to become small scale artisans producing expensive goods for our neighbors, the answer is “by eating a hamburger produced in our awful food system, which may have meat from [X] many cows in it…” but it would seem to make the most sense that you are most likely to get some nasty E. coli from some “raw” milk or cheese, from an organic farmer that composted his manure for less than twelve months (see link to the right for related study).

(The Organic Standard is 90 days)

or a small scale artisan whose very smallness allowed him to slide under the health authorities’ radar (thanks new health safety law!)

In 1996, a small, local butcher in the quaint sounding town of Wishaw, in Lanarkshire, Scotland sold meat that killed 21 people, which was the worst recorded outbreak of pathogenic E. coli, ever.

Was Frontline doing an hour-long special on how small shops are killing us?

No.

Of course not.

Some raw cheese sold by an outfit called “Sally Jackson Cheeses” to Whole Foods caused a four-state pathogenic E. coli outbreak just a few months ago

They were, in fact, a Romantic’s Dream Farm, small and organic:

I’m guessing the Urban consumers who bought the supposedly more healthy and certainly more expensive cheese wrapped in Chestnut leaves felt a little ripped off, much like the folks who believed the world was going to end this year did…

But if you look at this farms’ website, the farm looks wonderful. Perfect. Looking at it, I feel sad that such a place had this accident. Really sad. But this goes to show that for all those people who go out to “Look at the farm” and . . . I don’t know, look the farmer in the eye, make sure he hates the legal entity known as the “corporation” ---doing so is likely useless without bringing various agar broths, petri dishes and polymerase chain reaction kits.

The truth is this: the organic farm that grew sprouts didn’t manufacture the pathogenic E.coli any more than Jack in the Box did. The question is where did the E. coli come from - and – did the food producers follow the rules to prevent an outbreak. No one actually knows for certain WHERE exactly the contaminated meat came from (which beef supplier) in the Jack in the Box outbreak. What was discovered was that the restaurant chain was not cooking its patties to an internal temperature of 155 degrees, the Washington State standard, and was, for taste reasons, only cooking to the FDA standard of 140 degrees.

If the outbreak had occurred elsewhere, they might not have been liable for the deaths.

Same goes with the German sprout farm in the quaint sounding town of Bienenbüttel. No one has likewise figured out how the E. coli got into the sprouts, but it is known well that Sprouts are a very dangerous vector for E. coli, organic or not.

Indeed, the issue is not small farm vs. large farm, organic farm vs. not organic farm,
local farm (but, maybe it is, somewhat.) versus distant farm; it is rather: do the people who supply our food comply with best safety practices? And, are they far from sources of external contamination?

Since beneficial E. coli is ubiquitous in the environment, it would likely be too onerous to close down all operations if some were detected. I am not sure, but I would guess that testing for the dangerous sub-strains of E. coli is rather expensive. Indeed, safety IS expensive, it is just not more costly than tragedy.

The question then becomes, can the people who supply our food afford to comply; can they still make a profit if they are held to a higher standard? In the case of producers and restaurants with large economies of scale, the answer is a resounding “YES!” – but for small producers, well, I just have to trust what their lobbyists told the government when they got exemptions from new food safety laws.

It would no doubt be harder for them, but I’m sure the government and most taxpayers would be glad to have less outfits to inspect.

Perhaps ironically, Jack in The Box (and this is not an endorsement, I’ve never eaten there) is now one of the safest restaurants in America.

They probably hadn’t much choice.

But despite our apparent inability to ensure 100% safety in our food, whether “conventional” or “organic,” far too little testament is ever paid to how SAFE our food systems are in the developed world, especially in the United States. Why? When one person dies, it can become a national news event.

I think two things can be blamed… one is savvy business practices from the organic food industry, who want more market share. The other is the invisible nature of things like E. coli, and radiation. When something is an invisible menace, people become even more fearful, and when children are dying… But, really, even though this is a problem we need to continue working on, more people in the USA die from lightning strikes

Or drown in bathtubs in a year.

The fact that humans are lousy at prioritizing risk is a different subject, and has been extensively written about. But it is worth a mention here. By the way, salmonella (remember that?) is a MUCH bigger killer in the USA.

As are swimming pools.

So, my advice for most of us is to just calm down. You probably should be very careful with hamburger meat and small children. It should be noted though, that “no fast-food hamburger-associated outbreaks have been reported since 1995, demonstrating that changes in the fast-food industry, such as carefully regulating cooking temperature of hamburgers, are both possible and effective.” That’s a quote directly from the CDC. Home cooked hamburger? That’s when you need to be most careful.

You should always thoroughly cook cabbage and sprouts. For the activists among us, I’d suggest they push for higher food safety standards across the board and not just for some producers and not others. Unfortunately, I think tougher standards will hurt the Local food movement the most, at least regarding livestock. Why? Because, and I am no epidemiologist, but from what I’ve read plus a dash of Common Sense suggests to me that the biggest problems with E. coli (along with Bird Flu and other killers) have to do with the intersections with domestic animals with wild animals, and with animals in general and human populations. You see a lot more pathogen infested groundwater in areas like in asia where you’ve got families with 2 cows on the property than you have in towns in Kansas five miles from a CAFO. Right now, towns are relaxing their livestock zoning restrictions due to political pressure nationwide. It might be smart to remember that those particular restrictions were enacted for a reason.

Epilogue:

For those of you who don’t want to believe a word of this, I’ve found the link for you. Apparently, some people think this German Outbreak is all a Big Food plot.

http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/weaponized-e-coli-used-to-destroy-organic-foods-a-detective-starts-a-‘food-safety’-investigation/

The author has apparently also never heard of horizontal gene transfer between bacteria. It’s been studied since the 1950s…. Ditto that France has already irradiates a whole bunch of food and they protect small farmers like no bodies’ business.

The High Cost of a Small-Scale Bias

I hear often from people who earnestly believe that small-scale and "local" farming approaches are not only superior for the environment, but for consumers. I find in situations like this, it is very helpful to look at a case study, if one is available. So it was with great interest that I read in a November 2010 Economist article that the nation of Japan protects its small-scale farmers 5 times as much as the U.S.

Japan takes protecting small, local farmers very seriously. This is mostly because Japan has a LOT of small farmers, and they wield considerable political power. How much power? Well, Japan’s foreign minister, Seiji Maehara, was quoted saying that a tiny number of farmers hold the rest of the Japanese economy hostage. Oddly, small farmer income averages higher than large farmer incomes because price supports only apply to small farmers.

One of the effects of this is that Japanese pay twice as much for their food as they should, according to the OECD. From the above mentioned Economist article:

"Japan’s farmers are a protected class, treated twice as generously as Europe’s and five times as generously as America’s. Tariffs on polished rice are as high as 778%, and on butter reach 482%. Thanks to tariffs and other distortions, Japanese pay twice as much for their food as they should, according to the OECD."

Another effect is that farm sizes have stayed small --since it is quite lucrative to farm compared to other occupations, small land-owners have a disincentive to rent their land to larger, more efficient operators.

Compounding the effect of these price supports are sky high tariffs for agricultural staples such as rice (778%)!! and butter (482%). These tariffs hurt Japan in negotiating trade between other countries for manufactured goods, and the contribution to Japan’s cost of living discourages foreign investment.

These policies came into place partially to guarantee Japan’s Food security, yet experts
insist that this internal and external protection of small farmers undermines Food Security, prevents Japan from exporting agricultural products, and taxes citizens in various direct and indirect ways. Very undemocratic ways as well I would add! I found this information from a great online article from the East Asia Forum. The article notes:

"Japanese agriculture is in a free-falling decline. In the years between 1960 and 2005, the share of agricultural output in GDP dropped from 9 per cent to 1 per cent, the food self-sufficiency ratio from 79 per cent to 41 per cent, and agricultural land, indispensable for food security, from 6.09 million hectares to 4.63 million hectares.

Meanwhile, the ratio of part-time farm households, which derive more than half their income from non-farm employment, increased from 32.1 per cent to 61.7 per cent. The percentage of farmers over 65 years old also jumped from 10 per cent to 60 per cent.

[. . . ]

If the Japanese government were to abandon the production adjustment program and bring the producer price of rice down from the current 15,000 yen to 9,500 yen per 60kg, small-scale farmers would stop farming and start lending out their land. The government could then focus its support on full-time farmers so that they could pay their land rent (the government may pay the rent directly). Such plans would help concentrate limited agricultural land resources on full-time farmers, thereby expanding farm sizes and reducing production costs. Given the narrower target, the financial burden of such support would not exceed the current expenditures of the production adjustment program.

The price for Japanese rice has come down from 20,000 yen to 15,000 yen in the past decade, while the price of Chinese rice, which Japan imports, has risen from 3,000 yen to 10,000 yen."

So, what we have here is the dream vision of many in this country: lots of people farming, supported by the government -- and yet the result is disastrous for consumers -- and not really that great for farmers!

In addition, contrary to popular belief, small farms are often worse for the environment. More labor inputs per unit output combined with pressure to get the most out of a little plot of land leads in Japan to more environmental harm from small farmers:

The structural policy promoting large-scale farms can also bring environmental

benefits. Agricultural census data indicate that large-scale rice farms tend to have a higher

adoption rate of environmentally friendly farming practices. For example, while 73% of

rice farms that cultivated 15 ha of paddy adopted environmentally friendly farming

practices, only 44% of those that cultivate less than 0.5 ha of paddy did so (Figure 2.43).

Due to the fixed week-end time available for farming, small-scale side-business rice

farms limit their total labour input by substituting other purchased inputs. Moreover,

some large-scale rice farms, that market their own products, differentiate according to

environmental characteristics and food safety. Pesticides and fertilizer purchases per unit

of land for small-scale rice farms is significantly higher than that of large-scale rice farms

(Figure 2.44). (p. 99)

We have all heard about Europe’s protected small farmers, but since they are not as protected as the Japanese small farmer, the ill effects to European society as a whole are not quite as glaring. They are visible to all who care to look, but for those who only see romantic pastoral scenes and small fields of lavender, perhaps there is an incentive to not look carefully.

Why is this relevant here? There have been efforts toward “internal” protectionism for small farms in the USA. Most famous was the attempt by the Northern California Federal District court (yes, that one) to block the planting (and did, for a while) of GMO sugar beets, for fear that it would contaminate non-GM sugar beets -- this in spite of the fact that the product, sucrose, is a chemically identical product no matter the plant of origin. In fairness, the basis for the ban was to prevent corruption of the gene pool of organic products, but one has to wonder if this was just merely disguised anti-competitiveness ideology favoring less productive farmers.

We seem to be able to recognize the value of having professionals handle things like healthcare, but we want everyone with any desire to grow a plant to be called a "farmer" and all treated alike? Bringing in a large crop at a good price for the consumer while protecting the environment takes great skill, strategic thinking and resources -- not just good intentions! Japan's example shows just how counterproductive it can be to focus on an idyllic image (small scale farming) rather than a desired outcome (cheap, abundant, safe and environmentally-conscious food production)

Food Insecurity: A Core Threat to Sustainability

Have you been following the events in the Middle East? The so-called “Arab Spring” that has been a boon for forecasting pundits of various flavors and colors? Well, I am not going to make any predictions here but I’d like to write something informative about the woefully underreported, and possibly the strongest motive force behind the protests: The Arab Food Crisis.

Yes, this whole political eruption has very little to do with Presidents Obama or Bush, is not driven by a desire for democratic secular or Islamic government -- it is driven by hunger, by not being able to look their children in the eye because the money they make is not covering food expenses. Social media didn’t cause it either.

Indeed, contrary to most reporting, the man who burned himself alive and touched off the region's storm of protests was not “an unemployed university graduate”, but a poor food vendor.

Iran has shown that a bunch of discontented university students cannot stage a revolution without considerable help, this is a broader-based political crisis. Iran has sufficient oil-revenue to buy off Iran’s poor, at least for the time-being.

There is an old Russian phrase: Well Fed Horses Do Not Rampage. People are more like horses than they’d sometimes like to admit – their politics get mighty similar when stomachs start growling and when hunger keeps them from sleep.

Certainly there are many underlying problems and grievances that exist in the Arab world -- and in the rest of the world for that matter. The desire to change many of these things is indeed noble. I'm not commenting here on the rightness or wrongness of the social and political structures that are under attack: dictators, corruption, high unemployment, abuse of human rights, etc -- only making the point that these forces by themselves have not been enough to move people to the streets until you add in the difficulty of obtaining enough food. And that even if these other problems are addressed, yet there is still not enough food - no reform can last for long.

What I am trying to point out is that the Arab world is only self-sufficent in energy production, and in much of that world, they aren't even self-sufficent in that. Because they follow traditional practices in areas like Agriculture, they aren't self-sufficient in anything. Yet, people want to protect inefficient practices in the name of "sustainability" when being uncompetitive actually leaves people more vulnerable.

What has caused all this? There’s several factors that I’ve tried to condense for you:

The World Bank reports that Arab countries import over half their food.

Forty million Egyptians live on less than US$2 a day and 30% of Syrians make under US$1.60 per day.

The Arab population has surged ahead in recent decades. The population of Egypt, for example, has more than tripled in the last one hundred years, yet the entire region is entering a water crisis and still engages in very inefficient small holding farm practices, making it the world’s largest wheat importer.

An excellent report to give you more depth on this topic is the UN Development Programme's 2009 Arab Human Development Report. Look at p. 12 for the food insecurity section. Just one quotation of note from the report:

"The [Arab] region’s low self sufficiency rate in staple foods is one of its most serious development gaps"

Meanwhile a totally new threat to Arab security has arisen that is far more dangerous than Israel or al Qaida: the rise in relative wealth in Asian countries, which creates more inelastic demand pressure on commodities’ prices, which in turn, when supply is constrained, creates sharp price increases, price increases that Arabs in the populous countries very often simply cannot afford.

The well-informed power brokers in the region are hardly blind to this problem; there are voices in Washington calling for massive food aid to Egypt while Saudi Arabia is mostly taking care of its own, stockpiling grain and buying up sub-Saharan farmland leases.

Both countries know how explosive this could be; life in the Middle East is tragically cheap, hunger and humiliation makes it cheaper, and millions of people with nothing to lose, well, even bullets cannot control them.

So, why this downer of a blog post? Well, it doesn’t matter if you read the New York Times’ optimism or the far Right’s fears of Islamic take-over, the fundamentals have been woefully underreported.

In a society where many of the thinkers on sustainability care more about whether their salad greens are esoteric-sounding than nutritious and who believe that it is perfectly fine to insist that per acreage yields be sacrificed for food grown with “heirloom” seeds, accidental DNA, accidental chemistry, and little economy of scale ---- while millions more people are getting hungry --- well, people are a lot less informed then they think they are.

Lest you think I am not enough a “Live and Let Live” type of person, believe me when I tell you I would be perfectly happy if the folks who think that feeding their kids cookies with locally grown, organic ingredients as opposed to a carrot is a hallmark of good parenthood would just keep their policies in their own households -- but they don’t. In fact, they’ve done grave harm to the world’s poor people already with their good-intentioned ludditism, and they want to do more.

Much more.

In just one sad example of many: Something amazing happened following the Haitian earthquake. 135 tons of various vegetable seeds were sent to Haitian ports.

Marching Haitians carrying signs with anti GMO slogans on them welcomed the seeds. These marchers were stirred up by non-Haiti based international NGOs. Some readers no doubt are nodding their heads in approval, but consider three things:

1. The seeds weren’t even GMO, they were Hybrid; farmers have been using hybrid seeds for over 100 years.

2. 2. Hybrid seeds produce “heirloom” seeds as their progeny. You only have to buy more hybrid seeds if you like them. Hybrid seeds are just heirloom seeds that have been crossed. Just like farmer Fred did in 1870.

   3. These NGOs did not send the desperate people of Haiti any “organic” seeds, or any other kind of seeds for that matter.

This is hardly a fluke incident. I could write an entire post detailing similar irresponsible ideology-driven tomfoolery going on in Africa. If I get time, maybe I will.

Sustainability can't just be about personal preferences. To be truly sustainable, it must address the growing issue of food insecurity in the world and consider the consequences of promoting inefficient production systems as superior to technologically and scientifically based ones.

Organic Pesticides Part 2

By Sara Hessenflow Harper

So, I've gotten some interesting feedback on my last post, Organic Farming's Pesticide Problem. As often happens when I write something that challenges the conventional thinking of those who view organic as the ultimate food goal for us all -- I was accused of being merely a paid gun for the (synthetic) chemical industry as a means to dismiss the facts and scientific bits I brought forward for their consideration. To be clear, I don't have clients from the chemical or seed company world and I get no compensation from corporations, or anyone else for that matter for doing this blog. That doesn't mean that I would be opposed to working with them or anyone else, if I like what they are doing regarding sustainability.

What really amuses me about this repeated tactic is that so often it is they (organic extremists) who make outrageous claims about modern, high-tech, highly efficient agriculture with no proof and seemingly, no need to provide any scientific context or support for things they "just know" to be true -- like natural pesticides must be better than synthetic. So often folks who value the system of organic farming seem to value the system itself as the end goal, rather than engaging with the broader agricultural community in support of goals we all share: maintaining a safe, healthy, sustainably grown food supply.

My science-loving husband sent me a great piece from a June 2007 posting in the Tierney Lab, a science blog in the New York Times on the cancer-causing affects of pesticides (organic vs synthetic) and why its so important not to get hung up on these descriptions when looking at safety and sustainability. I highly encourage you to read the full posting by clicking here.

A particularly important excerpt from the NYT science blog:

"Dr. Ames was one of the early heroes of environmentalism. He invented the widely used Ames Test, which is a quick way to screen for potential carcinogens by seeing if a chemical causes mutations in bacteria. . . .

But Dr. Ames began rethinking this war against synthetic chemicals after thousands of chemicals had been subjected to his test. He noticed that plenty of natural chemicals flunked the Ames test. He and Dr. Gold took a systematic look at the chemicals that had been tested on rodents. They found that about half of natural chemicals tested positive for carcinogencity, the same proportion as the synthetic chemicals. Fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices contained their own pesticides that caused cancer in rodents. The toxins were found in apples, bananas, beets, Brussel sprouts, collard greens, grapes, melons, oranges, parsley, peaches — the list went on and on [........]

He and Dr. Gold note that “many ordinary foods would not pass the regulatory criteria used for synthetic chemicals,” but they’re not advocating banning broccoli or avoiding natural pesticides in foods that cause cancer in rodents. Rather, they suggest that Americans stop worrying so much about synthetic chemicals:

Regulatory efforts to reduce low-level human exposures to synthetic chemicals because they are rodent carcinogens are expensive; they aim to eliminate minuscule concentrations that now can be measured with improved techniques. These efforts are distractions from the major task of improving public health through increasing scientific understanding about how to prevent cancer (e.g., what aspects of diet are important), increasing public understanding of how lifestyle influences health, and improving our ability to help individuals alter their lifestyles."

The point here, again, is that the distinction between "natural" and "synthetic" is ultimately far less important than what these chemicals do and how they act on us and the environment. To say that something is inherently better because it is natural is to really misunderstand nature, and chemistry.

Nature is not some warm fuzzy thing just waiting for big bad people to mess up. Nature is a system with many complexities -- and humans are part of nature, not outside of it. We do ourselves and the planet a huge disservice by believing that something as complicated as our natural system can be reduced to moral, human-created terms such as "good" or "bad." There are positive natural chemicals that can be used in ways that reduce the consequences we as humans find objectionable, but that is a far cry from giving everything that is "natural" a free pass from critical analysis. At the same time, just because human beings can make a chemical doesn't mean that its automatically a good or bad thing.

Critical analysis and scientific study, my friends, is the only way that we can be sure that we are making progress and to get a better understanding for the side-effects or consequences that just simply are a part of working within a complex system. Let's agree that no category is off limits from the scrutiny of study, ok?

I mentioned in my previous post that some of the natural pesticides used in organic farming can be quite toxic. Upon doing a little more research on the chemical of rotenone I discovered the EPA banned its use as an accepted pesticide for organic farming, or any other kind of farming a few years ago. Imagine that! In fact, a Feb 2011 National Institutes of Health (NIH) study found:

"New research shows a link between use of two pesticides, rotenone and paraquat [actually a non-specific herbicide], and Parkinson's disease. People who used either pesticide developed Parkinson's disease approximately 2.5 times more often than non-users."

So, prior to EPA banning rotenone, for example, organic farm workers pulling weeds where this natural chemical had been applied may now face a double than average risk of developing Parkinson's Disease!! This is a real occupational health threat, mostly because organic farming is more labor intensive - but you don't see big environmentalist ad campaigns out about it because . . . it's a natural chemical, used by traditional peoples, no less.

Just as there can be unintended consequences from using human-made chemicals, so too are there consequences for assuming the superiority of one chemical over another because it is made by nature to kill bugs, rather than by people -- to do the same thing.

When we apply critical analysis to all chemical use -- natural, or synthetic, we have the best chance of avoiding or minimizing unwanted side effects from their use. We are also in a better position to see the trade-offs that could come with making the choice to not use these chemicals at all -- which would likely be far less food production at a time when the world needs far more. Encouraging a policy choice with such big implications deserves more research and less automatic assumption.

Organic Farming's Pesticide Problem

Philosophy and emotion have their place in our society, but it is dangerous to use deductive reasoning and feelings as the means of assessing something as complex as the sustainability of our agricultural system. People who narrowly define agricultural sustainability as "Slow, Local & Organic," often do so because they believe that these structures or means are superior without knowing the full scientific story.

Take the issue of pesticides . . . for a majority of the public, "organic" likely means "no pesticide was used" in their minds, but this is not the case. Life, and chemistry, is a bit more complicated than that.

Many organic crops use pesticides; some are quite toxic and their use can have more negative environmental impacts than some synthetic ones. The only thing that makes an “organic” product different than a conventionally grown crop, pesticide-wise, is a conceptual bright-line drawn between chemicals that were synthesized by a non-human organism versus ones made by mankind.

The problem with this bright-line is that when an agricultural chemical is made by people for human use, you can be pretty confident that the people making it have peoples’ interests in mind. When it is made by a different species, you can be pretty sure those things are not a priority at the time they were synthesized.

Now, I’m not trying to say that all organically produced crops have more or more dangerous pesticides in them. Blueberries, for instance, are now notorious for absorbing at least some pesticides -- but blueberries that are raised “wild” like lowbush varieties in Maine use virtually no pesticides. In cases like this, if you are worried about pesticides, buying Organic may make sense.

In many other cases, it does not.

Not yet at least. This is because of that conceptual bright-line mentioned above. Instead of organic growers asking Is this chemical more dangerous to humans? And does this chemical persist in the environment? -- they are asking first Was this chemical made by man, or by “nature?”

This is a philosophical and unscientific distinction.

In fact, it is a vestige of a materialistic vitalism wherein al-chemists believed that certain chemicals contained “vital force” that could not be synthesized by chemists. Oddly, the area of chemistry called “organic chemistry” also gets its name from these beliefs, and the name has stuck even well after scientists have discovered that one could synthesize these chemicals (one of the first of these was, coincidently, the fertilizer urea which is non-toxic and identical no matter where it comes from), and that many “organic” chemicals are in fact anything but life-bringing. (Such as VOC’s, Volatile Organic Compounds, the things that give you a headache when you paint a room.) So, while people have a mysterious “vital spark” that makes them live, chemicals do not, and chemists today consider the “organic” designation rather arbitrary, since they know they can synthesize any “organic” chemical from “inorganic” precursors.

Now, indeed, there are certainly things to fear about a world that is unregulated and ignorant of the dangers of chemicals. Up until the 1950s, arsenic (!) was the most widely used pesticide in the United States. Oh, it killed bugs all right!

And, don’t worry, it’s not man-made, it occurs naturally.

But the fact that arsenic is both persistent and also deadly to mammals eventually made it cede the ground to DDT when it gained in popularity in the 1950s due to the fact that DDT was much less toxic to humans than arsenic. In fact, Paul Hermann Mueller received a Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering how effectively DDT kills bugs; it was well-earned.

Not that I’m suggesting DDT is the safest choice. It has negative effects on humans and animals as it bioaccumulates. But for the time, it was a giant step forward.

Today’s pesticides are, according to the EPA, safe in the levels we ingest them, no matter whether it is an inspected crop from agribusiness or from a small organic farm. That is, if they fall under the same regulations, which small organic farmers have resisted falling under.

Why is this? Why should we assume that organic farmers that use Rotenone, a substance first used by South American Indians to paralyze fish to make them float to the surface -- and also a substance that a study showed small amounts caused Parkinson’s disease in rodents, are bringing a safer product to market? A more “natural” product, perhaps, to a tinieth degree, and most likely a safe one, but probably not a safer one.

And I care why? Because the organically grown one is a more expensive product, and people have a history of being fooled by deceptive marketing. If American consumers are spending more for products that are safer and better for the environment then I want those products to be safer and better for the environment.

See, meanwhile, many people are making the claim that "industrial ag" as they call it, is spewing chemicals and fertilizer all over the place. Bad Chemicals. Perhaps the most toxic they can find. The technological advances that they are sure are beneficial on a college campus are somehow a bad thing in the fields. Improving just about anything is just fine except when it comes to the chemicals we use to deal with life, these people are saying in effect.

Of course, the farmer is not their chosen villain in this story; it’s the dastardly chemical and fertilizer companies who have tricked the unwitting farmer into paying for these wasteful, unnecessary and environmentally damaging inputs. This belief forms the underpinning for why buying organic and local is so beneficial in their minds. Were these people all mere counterculturists of some kind, the effect of this ignorance would be limited. Unfortunately, many of these people are very competent in their chosen fields, mostly outside of farming and the hard sciences. Worse, sometimes they are even scientists and professors who are teaching our future leaders. This has a big impact on the world-view in our cities.

A chemist knows that chemicals produced inside living things do not have a soul or a halo of health about them that synthetic chemicals do not have. Chemicals are often dangerous. Period. A plant does not care if a chemical it produces is toxic to humans (or, it might even be pleased…) nor does it want the chemical to break down quickly. The truth that any microbiologist knows is that the most dangerous toxins known are produced by these natural, organic “chemists”; nothing is more toxic, by weight, than the toxins that cause tetanus or botulism, and both are made naturally within organisms.

In fact, the top ten most toxic chemicals are all made organically by organisms; ricin is made by a bean, others are made by coral, fungi and fish. But a human chemist wants something highly effective AND highly safe, since he is competing with all the other plant and human chemists who came before him.

The result of ignoring this basic science is a class of farmers who get a sort of “free pass” (organic farmers) regarding the environmental impacts of their pesticide use (because the chemicals they use, while toxic to a degree, are “natural”), and another class who are encumbered only by efficacy, safety and environmental impacts, not by ideology. So in effect proponents of organic farming are asking that farmers use “accidental” chemicals that can be less effective, used in larger quantities and have greater impacts on the environment and human health. We don’t restrict ourselves to “accidental” organic medicines, like penicillin; if a chemist comes up with a more specific or more effective antibiotic, we say “bravo!”

There are studies out there that illustrate these very points. Here’s one that shows that many more applications of a cocktail of organic pesticides must be made to achieve the effect of just one application of a low-impact synthetic pesticide:

And here, a study showing that some organic pesticides not only don’t work as well, but also had greater environmental impacts when compared with some synthetic pesticides:

Another issue proponents of local agriculture in particular fail to consider is an entirely different kind of toxin. A toxin that is rather unacknowledged but is especially relevant to the “local” part of the SLO (small, local, organic) movement, because “local” usually means “near urban centers” since that is where we find big markets for food.

This “stealth” toxin is lead. Urban garden plots are often full of it. When Michelle Obama planted her garden outside the White House, things got off to a slow start because someone had the foresight to check for lead. There were elevated levels --nothing too scary -- but still over the legal limit in the Netherlands. This is sometimes a far more dangerous problem for local gardeners whose urban plots have lead levels damaging to small children.

Lest you think differently, I am all for the evolution of conventional agriculture to move more towards “working with nature,” which they often are already doing. Absolutely. I think all farmers look forward to continuing to learn and adjust towards this goal in the coming years. I just want this process to be real progress, and not just some brand of reheated mysticism.

Ultimately, the point here is the same resounding point I usually try to drive home: it is about finding a balanced approach, not a short-cut (like only buying organic) that assumes one system is always inherently better than another without the facts to back up that belief.

In terms of the sustainability issue, if we are looking for ways that enable us to feed the world with the least impact on the planet, why would we take highly scientific, targeted chemical tools off the table in favor of accidental "natural" options that may cause more damage? Is that really sustainable?