The unsustainability of organic farming
"Sustainable" has become one of the buzzwords of
the twenty-first century. Increasing numbers of universities offer courses or
even programs in "sustainability," and many large companies boast
substantial departments devoted to the subject. In April, many of the iconic
multinational companies in the agriculture/food sector were represented at a
three-day "Sustainable Product Expo.
As with many vague, feel-good concepts,
"sustainability" contains more than a little sophistry. For example,
sustainability in agriculture is often linked to organic farming, whose
advocates tout it as a "sustainable" way to feed the planet's rapidly
expanding population. But what does "sustainable" really mean, and
how does it relate to organic methods of food production?
The organic movement's claims about the sustainability of
its methods are dubious. For example, a recent study found that the potential
for groundwater contamination can be dramatically reduced if fertilizers are
distributed through the irrigation system according to plant demand during the
growing season; organic farming, however, depends on compost, the release of
which is not matched to plant demand. Moreover, though composting receives good
press as a "green" practice, it generates a significant amount of
greenhouse gases (and is often a source of pathogenic bacteria in crops).
The study also found that "intensive organic
agriculture relying on solid organic matter, such as composted manure that is
mixed in to the soil prior to planting, resulted in significant down-leaching
of nitrate" into groundwater. Increasing the nitrate levels in groundwater
is hardly a hallmark of sustainability, especially with many of the world's
most fertile farming regions in the throes of drought.
A fundamental reason that organic food production is far
less "sustainable" than many forms of conventional farming is that
organic farms, though possibly well adapted for certain local environments on a
small scale, produce far less food per unit of land and water. The low yields
of organic agriculture – typically 20-50% below conventional agriculture –
impose various stresses on farmland, especially on water consumption.
A British meta-analysis published in 2012 identified some of
the stresses that were higher in organic agriculture. For example, it found
that "ammonia emissions, nitrogen leaching, and nitrous oxide emissions
per product unit were higher from organic systems," as were "land
use, eutrophication potential, and acidification potential per product
unit."
Organic food just became the ultimate battleground
Lower crop yields in organic farming are largely inevitable,
owing to the arbitrary rejection of various advanced methods and technologies.
Organic practices afford limited pesticide options, create difficulties in
meeting peak fertilizer demand, and rule out access to genetically engineered
varieties. If organic production were scaled up significantly, the lower yields
would lead to greater pressure to convert land to agricultural use and produce
more animals for manure, to say nothing of the tighter squeeze on water
supplies – all of which are challenges to sustainability.
Another limitation of organic production is that it works
against the best approach to enhancing soil quality – namely, the minimization
of soil disturbance (such as that caused by plowing or tilling), combined with
the use of cover crops. Such farming systems have many environmental
advantages, particularly with respect to limiting erosion and the runoff of
fertilizers and pesticides. Organic growers do frequently plant cover crops,
but in the absence of effective herbicides, they often rely on tillage (or even
labor-intensive hand weeding) for weed control.
Organic problems for Whole Foods
At the same time, organic producers do use insecticides and
fungicides to protect their crops, despite the green myth that they do not.
More than 20 chemicals (mostly containing copper and sulfur) are commonly used
in growing and processing organic crops – all acceptable under US rules for
certifying organic products.
Perhaps the most illogical and least sustainable aspect of
organic farming in the long term is the exclusion of "genetically
engineered" (also known as "genetically modified," or GM) plants
– but only those that were modified with the most precise techniques and
predictable results. Except for wild berries and wild mushrooms, virtually all
the fruits, vegetables, and grains in European and North American diets have
been genetically improved by one technique or another – often as a result of
seeds being irradiated or undergoing hybridizations that move genes from one
species or genus to another in ways that do not occur in nature.
The exclusion from organic agriculture of organisms simply
because they were crafted with modern, superior techniques makes no sense. It
not only denies farmers improved seeds, but also denies consumers of organic
goods access to nutritionally improved foods, such as oils with enhanced levels
of omega-3 fatty acids.
In recent decades, conventional agriculture has become more
environmentally friendly and sustainable than ever before. But that reflects
science-based research and old-fashioned technological ingenuity on the part of
farmers, plant breeders, and agribusiness companies, not irrational opposition
to modern insecticides, herbicides, genetic engineering, and "industrial
agriculture."
Commentary by
:
Henry I.
Miller and Richard Cornett. Miller is a physician and molecular biologist, and
a fellow in scientific philosophy and public policy at Stanford University's
Hoover Institution. He was the founding director of the Office of Biotechnology
in the US FDA and is the author of "The Frankenfood Myth." Richard
Cornett is Communications Director for the Western Plant Health Association, a
California-based nonprofit agricultural trade group.
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