You say you want a totally organic world?

[Guest guest]

(You just have to wonder who is funding Dr. DeGregori's research.)

http://www.houstonpress.com/issues/2000-08-24/skewer.html

08/24/2000

Full of Manure

You say you want a totally organic world?

By

Just this past August 11, the mighty American Broadcasting Corporation, via

its employee Stossel, issued an apology to all viewers of ABC's

investigative journalism program 20/20, for a story he had anchored in

February that had been rerun in July. The organizations that he cited as

having caused him to indulge in a public self-criticism session of his story

were not the usual pressure group suspects who can bully huge media

operations such as ABC. He was not apologizing for offending the

sensibilities of the Israel lobby or even the National Rifle Association.

The new 900-pound gorilla on the block was -- The Organic Trade Association.

Backing it in a one-two combination was an obscure Washington, D.C.-based

organization called the Environmental Working Group.

Stossel begins his mea culpa by stating, " I said, in essence, why buy it

when it costs so much more? I interviewed a critic who questioned some of

the widely assumed advantages of organic produce: that it's more nutritious

or safer. "

A reasonable question. Stossel then went on to submit some organic produce

to testing. The pressure groups took issue with some fine points of the test

procedure. Then he apologized for not revealing some data he had researched

on chicken -- the report was on produce, not meats. (Incidentally, how did

the Organisation Polizei find out what had been left out?) Finally, he had

stated that no pesticides were found on either the organic or the

conventionally grown produce. This was the final nail in his and ABC's

coffin: It was discovered that the laboratory Stossel's group had hired had

never done a test for pesticides.

Maybe Stossel should have stayed out of the supermarket and come down to

Houston for a videotaped chat with the University of Houston's Dr. R.

DeGregori. A professor of economics, DeGregori wrote an article for the

publication of the American Council on Science and Health. It is titled " Can

Organic Agriculture Feed the World? " And it entirely sidesteps issues such

as how many disease-causing microorganisms can dance the Macarena on the

head of a radish or whether taking a bite out of a conventionally grown

apple will cause you to keel over like an animated cockroach in a Raid

commercial.

He correctly identifies the organic-produce industry as being, at its core,

a sort of agricultural Luddite movement. The Luddites, to be fair, were

working-class craftspeople who saw mechanized textile-making as a threat to

their livelihoods, which it most certainly was. Modern Luddites tend to be

professional people who don't want to live in a thatched hut, but think

others should be encouraged to do so. DeGregori writes, " " Sustainability'

has become a major buzzword for the nineties and may remain so into the next

century. Few people would oppose sustainable techniques -- ways of using a

particular resource (e.g., agricultural) so that the resource is not

depleted or irrevocably damaged. Virtually no one would approve

unsustainable techniques -- methods that endanger human survival, as by

lowering food production. "

Thus, the appropriate question is not whether sustaining resources is

desirable, but which purported sustainable techniques work.

In agriculture, the intellectual position on sustainability is too often

romantic and antitechnological. " Back to nature " enthusiasts who favor

so-called organic agriculture -- farming supposedly without the use of

manufactured fertilizers, growth stimulants, antibiotics or pesticides --

represent an extreme of this position. Organic food buffs have corrupted and

greatly diluted the meaning of the word " organic, " which for more than a

century in organic chemistry has meant " containing or consisting of carbon

compounds. " All artificial pesticides are organic.

What would a, like, you know, totally organic world look like? DeGregori

explains dryly, " Organic agriculture started off on the wrong foot. As

applied to this mode of farming, the term " organic' originally meant

" without the use of artificial (synthetic or inorganic) fertilizer.'

However, bacteria must decompose organic (plant or animal) material before

plants can absorb its inorganic components. Plants absorb and use inorganic

substances from animal manure and other organic matter exactly as they do

the same inorganic substances that constitute artificial

fertilizers.Although animal manure is generally considered better for soil

structure, it may have a high content of salts, and it may harbor toxic

chemicals, viruses, harmful bacteria, insects, worms or other pests. "

The professor then makes a second, perhaps more important point, which we

could boil down to this: There's not enough cow flop to go around. DeGregori

continues: " And farmers must use manure in relatively large amounts, since

it always contains less nitrogen than artificial fertilizers.So even if

manure were the better fertilizer, the quantities of manure necessary to

provide plants with enough nitrogen severely limit its usefulness in feeding

the world's population: Transportation costs would be prohibitive. And

replacing artificial-fertilizer nitrogen -- which now provides more than

twice as much nitrogen for agriculture worldwide than manure provides --

with the nitrogen in manure would require a three- to four-fold increase in

world animal production and concomitant increases in feed production.

" The environmental costs of cultivating more land for feed, converting more

land to pasture and hauling several billion tons of manure would far exceed

the environmental costs of manufacturing and transporting artificial

fertilizer. "

And we won't even get into the greenhouse gases generated by all those extra

cows.

[Guest guest]

The answer to this is very simple. Instead of debating organic or not,

tell industry to produce anything it wants to as long as everything is

clearly labeled as to what went on it and in it. Then the " free

marketplace " can decide the " sustainabilty " of the product or company.

Europe appears to work on this principle and has rejected many of our

products based upon informed consumers. We, here in the US, are not

afforded the respect of industry who legislates to keep such information

hidden in the guise of " trade secrets " or " no need to know since it

can't hurt you " . I will decide what will harm me thank you very much.

Barbara

http://community.webtv.net/Raisyl/PHOENIXRISING