Shapin has some worthwhile (albeit unoriginal) observations about the
sociology of food and agribusiness, but in the second- and third-to-last
paragraphs of this piece he is simply repeating fallacious, ideological
assertions about organic farming systems, productivity and hunger. A
somewhat more scientific treatment appears in the recent issue of World
Watch magazine. Here is a snip, and information about the article is below.
"Looking at 77 studies from the temperate areas and tropics, the Michigan
team found that greater use of nitrogen-fixing crops in the world’s major
agricultural regions could result in 58 million metric tons more nitrogen
than the amount of synthetic nitrogen currently used every year… In
addition to looking at raw yields, the University of Michigan scientists
also examined the common concern that there aren’t enough available sources
of non-synthetic nitrogencompost, manure, and plant residues- in the world
to support large-scale organic farming…The Michigan results imply that no
additional land area is required to obtain enough biologically available
nitrogen, even without including potential for intercropping (several crops
grown in the same eld at the same time), rotation of livestock with annual
crops, and inoculation of soil with Azobacter, Azospirillum, and other
free-living nitrogen-fixing bacteria."
From:
World Watch Magazine: May/ June 2006
http://www.worldwatch.org/pubs/mag/2006/193
Can Organic Farming Feed Us All?
Two recent studies reveal that a global shift to organic farming would
yield more food, not less, for the world's hungry, writes Worldwatch
Institute Senior Researcher Brian Halweil in "Can Organic Farming Feed Us
All?" Organic farming tends to raise yields in poorer nations, precisely
those areas where people are hungry and can't afford chemical-intensive
farming. Where there is a yield gap between conventional and organic crops,
it tends to be widest in wealthy nations, where farmers use copious amounts
of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides in a perennial attempt to maximize
yields. "In poorer nations, organic farming techniques like composting and
green manuring and biological pest control may be farmers' best hope for
boosting production and reducing hunger," writes Halweil.
Beyond this yield advantage, organic farming has proven benefits for
wildlife, water and air quality, and food safety. And while analysts on the
two sides of this issue are constantly at odds, some experts are starting
to advocate a middle path that uses many of the principles of organic
farming and depends on just a fraction of the chemicals used in
conventional agriculture. Such an integrative system, they believe, would
have great benefits for farmers, consumers, and the environment. "The lack
of widespread support for organic farming from governments, industry, and
farmer organizations is short-sighted and may ultimately be contributing to
world hunger," says Halweil.
At 07:55 AM 5/9/2006, Rick Roush wrote:
>http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/articles/060515crat_atlarge
>
>
>PARADISE SOLD
>What are you buying when you buy organic?
>by STEVEN SHAPIN
>Issue of 2006-05-15
>Posted 2006-05-08
....
>Pollan seems aware of the contradictions entailed in trying to eat in this
>rigorously ethical spirit, but he doesn’t give much space to the most
>urgent moral problem with the organic ideal: how to feed the world’s
>population. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a serious
>scare about an imminent Malthusian crisis: the world’s rapidly expanding
>population was coming up against the limits of agricultural productivity.
>The Haber-Bosch process averted disaster, and was largely responsible for
>a fourfold increase in the world’s food supply during the twentieth
>century. Earl Butz, Nixon’s Secretary of Agriculture, was despised by
>organic farmers, but he might not have been wrong when he said, in 1971,
>that if America returned to organic methods “someone must decide which
>fifty million of our people will starve!” According to a more recent
>estimate, if synthetic fertilizers suddenly disappeared from the face of
>the earth, about two billion people would perish.
>
>Supporters of organic methods maintain that total food-energy productivity
>per acre can be just as high as with conventional agriculture, and that
>dousings of N-P-K are made necessary only by the industrial scale of
>modern agriculture and its long-chain systems of distribution. Yet the
>fact remains that, to unwind conventional agriculture, you would have to
>unwind some highly valued features of the modern world order. Given the
>way the world now is, sustainably grown and locally produced organic food
>is expensive. Genetically modified, industrially produced monocultural
>corn is what feeds the victims of an African famine, not the gorgeous
>organic technicolor Swiss chard from your local farmers’ market. Food for
>a “small planet” will, for the foreseeable future, require a much smaller
>human population on the planet.
>
>Besides, for most consumers that Earthbound Farm organic baby arugula from
>Whole Foods isn’t an opportunity to dismantle the infrastructures of the
>modern world; it’s simply salad. Dressed with a little Tuscan extra-virgin
>olive oil, a splash of sherry vinegar, some shavings of Parmigiano
>Reggiano, and fleur de sel from the Camargue, it makes a very nice
>appetizer. To insist that we are consuming not just salad but a vision of
>society isn’t wrong, but it’s biting off more than most people are able
>and willing to chew. Cascadian Farm’s Gene Kahn, countering the criticism
>that by growing big he had sold out, volunteered his opinion on the place
>that food has in the average person’s life: “This is just lunch for most
>people. Just lunch. We can call it sacred, we can talk about communion,
>but it’s just lunch.”
Mark
Mark Lipson
Policy Program Director
Organic Farming Research Foundation
www.ofrf.org
831-426-6606
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