How dare she plant an organic garden outside the White House and bill it as an example of healthy choices? Well, some people are angry and they’re not going to take it! Industry leaders are calling on their fellows-in-interest to write letters to Obama to pressure her to use pesticides in her garden. You couldn’t write better satire! Really, it’s like something out of Thank you for Smoking.
As I’ve said, the benefits of organic produce at present are greatly oversold by an increasingly corporatized organic industry. And right now we don’t have any agricultural models which can feed the whole planet with existing organic methods, though there is promise. And yes, organic practices do present their own problems, environmentally as well as health-wise. But for these companies to panic over a single garden is indicative of a corporate culture which actually resists the basic engine of progress according to most free-market ideologists – the demand of the consumer. They want the consumer to shut up and stop thinking about what they’re putting into everybody’s mouths. After all, but for conventional practices, a midwesterner couldn’t buy strawberries three months early (no kidding, that’s actually in their letter).
I also love it when major ag business starts talking about the intrepid family farmer. You know, the kind of person representing the tens of thousands who have been put out of business and if they’re lucky rehired as serfs to caretake their acquisitions.
What’s really funny is that it’s horrible politics. If they’d just kept their mouths shut, the garden would have been a feature story in fluff media for a few days, with everybody saying “well, isn’t that nice,” with the garden becoming at best the subject of a Trivial Pursuits question and future hippies’ conversation, “there was once an organic garden that the White House” which you half believe as you sedgeway into conspiracy talk of Y3k. This story is good for a round of debate on the major networks.
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March 29, 2009 at 8:29 pm
salmon girl
How do you know there is no model for organic farming that can feed the world at present. Is that true, or a mantra of the pesticide companies? Cuba feeds itself organically. True, the big corporate model of raking in the bucks might not work, but it doesn’t mean you can’t feed the world organically. Recently in the sentient times I’ve read studies that it can be done, is being done in places. Yes We Can, you go Michele!
March 29, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Eric Kirk
SG – there are some studies which have suggested that in key crops organics can match or come close to matching the yields of some of the prominent conventional methods, but most studies indicate otherwise and they’re not all financed by pesticide companies. There was a Swiss study a few years ago which suggested promise for the future, but they acknowledged that not only do the yields last longer, but they can’t remain on the market for anywhere near the same duration – certainly not long enough to survive distributions to famine areas of the world. A more recent study was even more promising for corn and soy. There are studies which emphasize different situations, some indicating that organic farming fares better in drought or other extreme conditions, and that in the third world they actually yield more than “conventional” farms down there, partly due to the fact that the more efficient fertilizers and pesticides are less available and affordable in those countries. Most of the studies acknowledge that in first world countries, conventional methods yield better than conventional.
The biggest indication that the yields have not caught up are the prices, which though they’ve come closer to conventional prices in recent years still remain higher, sometimes very significantly. This can’t be accounted for in economies of scale anymore, now that organics represent something like 5 percent of the US market.
The Swiss study, which was conducted by organics advocates, acknowledged that yields are on average 20 percent below conventional methods, but it was over a 22 year study. The problem is that organic grains were found to be 60 to 70 percent below the conventional yields.
There’s another problem with organic methods and that’s the depletion of minerals from the soil, the biggest losses being phosphorous and potassium. The industry thus far has not developed organic fertilizer which adequately replenishes the soil, and so yield could actually start to decline for older organic farms with mineral spent soil. Manures and other organic fertilizers are also less efficient in supplementing nitrogen.
On the plus side, the Swiss study indicates more water retention in the soil. And obviously there are more beneficial insects and other animals around.
The detractors ignore the progress which has been made. But conventional methods aren’t sitting still either. One of the advantages of the genetically altered plants is that some allow for “no-till” farming which is more energy efficient and in some ways more green than organic methods.
One pro-pesticide study indicates that if we were to switch to organics tomorrow as many as 2 billion people would perish. Obviously that’s a bit melodramatic, but I don’t think emotional arguments should dominate the discussion. It’s much more complicated than anybody really wants to acknowledge. I urge people to read up, and don’t just memorize the talking points for the position which conforms to your own values and lifestyle. Educate yourself as to the nuances of the discussion. The stakes are very high.
March 29, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Michael
Discussionss of global food scarity which don’t address the issue of meat consumption are silly. I don’t support absolute veganism, as some animals in complex poly-cultures add tremendously to production through recycling wastes, and upgrading inedible or unappealing substances into eggs, milks, young males and old females, but a meat centered diet is global suicide. The Economist magazine last year largely absolved bio-fuels (not that I think ethanol is a realistic energy solution) for most of the recent world wide food price increases blaming it instead on “rising east asian affluence” instead of rising east asian meat consumption. Human waste too is going to have to return to farmland. Conventional farming is dependant on phosphates, the easily mineable deposits are due to run out in less than 40 years. Americas stunning wheat corn and soy harvests are dependant on mined water which may run out sooner. BTW the World’s Fair champion wheat of 189(2?) was from Humboldt Co..
March 30, 2009 at 4:49 am
Lisa Solaris
Conventional “no till” methods as described above are accomplished by killing off the vegetation by spraying herbicides, before planting RoundUp ready seeds.
The Corporate Ag Green Revolution did indeed provide a flush of abundant calories for a time, in the same way that nitrogen runoff into a river will produce algae bloom. The problem is that soil is a living organism, and can only handle chemical saturation for so long before becoming severely impaired.
In a large, monocultural farm setting, organic practice can be at a disadvantage when comparing yields. So the issue here is not merely one of chemical ag vs. organic but also one of scale.
Some reporters argue that the reason that starvation was avoided when the USSR collapsed was that the “dacha” system of individual garden plots
was still widespread, and that the people were already growing up to 50% of their own calories.
Small organic farms, using an ecologically scientific approach
March 30, 2009 at 4:52 am
Lisa Solaris
can produce good a good yield sustainably. Widespread home gardening, a food-not-lawns approach, is a very sane strategy for food security.
March 30, 2009 at 6:27 am
Fred Mangels
Salmon Girl wrote, “Cuba feeds itself organically.”.
A quote from an article in the Weekly Standard:
A recent article in the Cuban press, noted in a study by the USDA’s Office of Global Analysis, quoted a high-level Cuban ministry of agriculture official who revealed that 84 percent of all food consumed in Cuba is imported..
The article can be read at http://tinyurl.com/cuq3vo
March 30, 2009 at 11:52 am
Eric Kirk
I’ve also read some disturbing articles which suggest the Cuban claim may be a fraud, with the government now admitting that they import like 80 percent of their food surreptitiously using dollars acquired from tourists. Pity of true, although encouraging on another front if the admission is harbinger to further openness with Castro on the sidelines.
March 30, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Fred Mangels
Well, in fairness, I suppose Cuba’s food import problem isn’t necessarily a condemnation of organic gardening so much as a condemnation of the way the run their agricultural programs.
March 30, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Eric Kirk
True. They may have produced plenty of food but messed up the distribution so that it spoiled before it could be consumed. More facts would be helpful.
March 30, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Mr. Greenjeans
There is/was an interesting article and comment section about theFood Safety Modernization Act of 2009 here. The comments section is especially interesting. The whole damn thing is interesting really. Spend a few minutes and read it.
March 30, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Mr. Greenjeans
Well that was screwed up. Amadinejad? WTF? Sorrrrrry!! Try this here. I sure wish there was an edit feature here.