Ann Clark on Organic food.

These are some comments Ann wrote in response to John's comments on 
genehack.org, on the topic of organic food. 'Thought y'all might be 
interested.

-dru
--

 Dru:  I recently commented more fully on the organics issue at one of 
the virtual "debates" on GM, which I was invited to contribute to 
earlier this year.  One was SCOPE, sponsored by the AAAS, if memory 
serves; the other was the HMS Beagle site, on GMF, sponsored by 
Elsevier Press.  I assume both are still mounted.

 In brief:

 1.  The evidence that organics yield less than conventional is scanty, 
inconsistent, and quite commodity-specific.  Perhaps the largest review 
of this issue was published by Stanhill in 1990, involving more than 
200 comparisons if memory serves.  The ratio of organic:conventional 
was 0.91, with one-third of the ratios above 1.0 - meaning, higher (not 
lower) yields from organics.  More recent studies by Parr, Pappendick 
and others (USDA) have concluded that there is more variation in yield 
among fields and years than between organic and conventional farms.

 2.  Some grains and many livestock commodities show little if any 
yield reduction - and may well yield more.  Some fruits and veggies 
typically yield less, sometimes much less.  So, relative yield 
performance is very commodity-specific.

 3.  Considering that organic yields reflect the individual efforts of 
a few hippie granola crunchers and tree huggers, acting in a virtual 
vacuum of institutional research support, and they still manage to 
produce yields 91% of conventional - one can only wonder a) what 
organic yields *could* be if they got just a little help, and b) what 
have we in conventional ag research been doing with all that research 
funding we got all these years?

 4.  The "problem" of agriculture in North America and Europe is not 
producing enough, but producing too much.  We are so productive, we 
cannot give it away - a reality that has pertained for decades.  And 
yet we continue to exhort farmers to produce more, knowing full well 
that they are necessarily marketing into an inelastic demand market, so 
increasing supply can only lower price - which it does and has, for 
decades.  I won't omment on the obvious concentration of power issues. 
Increasing yield also requires increasingly costly inputs to produce, 
and receives a lesser unit price, which narrows the profit margin per 
unit of product.  Thus, to stay even, farmers must produce more - get 
larger, buy out the neighbors (we call them 'inefficient'), and 
consolidate.  This is the "cheap food policy" gone mad.  Ag researchers 
must be the only class of professionals in the world that rates its 
success on how many of its own clients it drives out of business.  One 
can only wonder when the seemingly inexhaustible supply of inefficient 
farmers will be exhausted.

 5.  Thus, even if organic produced less (per ha; per cow) this would 
not be a bad thing.  In fact, it would be a good thing, for both 
farmers and consumers.  No one need starve, because as I say, so much 
of what we produce is vastly in excess of what we actually need.  And 
what about the starving millions (billions?) - don't they count.  
Frankly, no. They don't have any money to buy our products, so they 
don't count.  I'm not saying it should be that way - just stating the 
facts.

 6.  Be clear also that a very large majority - like 70-90%, depending 
on the grain - of what we produce in North America is fed to livestock, 
either here or after export.  The global figure is 40%.  Many of these 
classes of animals - specifically ruminants, but also pigs and to some 
extent chickens - can do very well on no grain at all.  My field of 
expertise is pasture and grazing management, so I will state my bias up 
front, but I've produced excellent meat from straight pasture, with no 
grain supplement, and I know many commercial producers who do the same. 
The best beef in the world is arguably from Argentina - solely grass-
based.  So - it does not seem imprudent to ask why we cannot feed 
whatever meat/milk/eggs animals we need on the ration they evolved to 
consume in the first place?  This approach would solve many problems 
(biocide dependence, stress-induced illness; manure concentrations) by 
avoiding them in the first place.  And organics is very well suited to 
pasture-based production systems.

 Hopefully, that will answer some of the questions.  Ann


Dru Oja Jay   ||   <http://www.dru.ca>   ||   <[email protected]>