Greens: Apologize to High-Yield Farmers!
Organic farms get only about half the yield of high-tech farming, primarily because they refuse to use nitrogen to tap the full yield potential of their seeds, and secondly because they allow too much pest damage in their fields. Equally damning, organic disallows no-till farming, which cuts soil erosion by up to 95 percent, because it requires herbicides to control competing weeds. Nor have any health or food safety benefits been documented for organic foods.
Now we are learning that organic farming is also worse for global warming than high-tech farming. What’s left for the organics to claim?
I recommend that “green” organizations send their apologies to Norman Borlaug, care of the World Food Prize Foundation, 1700 RuanCenter, 666 Grand Ave., Des Moines, IA, 50309. Norman died last September. But I like to think that somehow he’ll get the messages.
By the way, this year’s World Food Prize Winners are Jo Luck and David Beckmann. Ms. Luck has turned Heifer International into one of the world’s biggest efforts to help third world farmers earn more and get better nutrition. Beckmann runs Bread for the World, which has organized more than 250,000 people into a lobby for ending hunger. Last year’s winner was Gebiza Ejeta, an Ethiopian-born plant breeder whose high-yield sorghum varieties have boosted food availability for millions in semi-arid regions. Perhaps the letters of apologies should include grateful contributions from the vast “green” grant machine.
Resources:
“High-yield Agriculture Slows Pace of Global Warming, Say Stanford Researchers,” Stanford Report, June 14, 2010.
“Greenhouse Gas Mitigation by Agricultural Intensification,” Jennifer Burney, Steven J. Davis and David B. Lobell, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0914216107; 2010.
“Greens: Apologize to High-Yield Farmers!”
Not likely to happen anytime soon. The left and the greens are mostly resistant to facts. Their “facts” are often nothing more than a belief-system. One doesn’t throw a belief-system overboard easily, just sayin’.
Greens…. Even when they do something right its for the wrong reason. They may be right that the farms used 600 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) I have no way to affirm or challenge the number. But that did nothing to alter the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. CO2 is not a greenhouse gas.
The earth has been on a slow warming trend since the last ice age and will continue in that vein until it starts to cool going into the next one. Mankind and his activities have virtually no affect on it. The people that say different I think are probably the leftover quacks that were telling us in the 1970`s that we were entering an ice age.
Earth has its cycles of ice age then warming that have gone on for millions of years. We can not change it and for anyone to think they can is just plain wrong or they are doing it to defraud people of money.
You’re so right. In the 70′s & early 80′s, according to the “best science available” we’d all be human popsicles by the year 2000. Do they do it to “defraud people of money”? Well, Al Gore, the Grand High Exalted Mystic Pooh Bah of All Warmers, recently bought a $9 million house on the Pacific coast which, according to HIS “best science available”, should be under 20 feet of water by next Friday. Would Ol’ Al rip off businesses & taxpayers for his share of the billions expected to be generated by carbon exchanges in which he’s invested? Nah, that’s just another stupid conspiracy theory….isn’t it?
I don’t believe the author actually believes any of the global warming hype. This is just a case of throwing their own logic back at them.
Greenies…..HA!
Inasmuch as none of their theories ever were, or are required to be, backed by evidence, this will have no impact on their wacko-followers.
Raised to believe their pimply asses matter more, and they posess the skills to control the environment with their brains.
I can hear the enviro-weenies shuffling through their playbook to find the right page that will tell them what to say. The authors of the report are in the back-pockets of “Big Agriculture/Farming.” Standard statist response to anything that counters their closely held beliefs and exposes those beliefs as the pile of horse manure that it is.
Now they must re-evaluate both the virtues of high-yield systems and the value of organic farming. Says study co-author Jennifer Burney of Stanford:
==============
When pigs fly.
Anyone who has spent any time in rural southern Asia has seen the benefit of high yielding varieties of rice or “Wonder Rice” as they call it in Sri Lanka. More food from less land, what is so hard to understand?
only a nihilist would complain about that and that is what the left is today.
Maybe the “Greens” don’t want high-yeild farming because of over-population. They want people (except themselves)to starve to death.
Penn and Tell did an episode on this exact issue years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4hx6ZjB8Jo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jvqIY2NCV4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JplHJJodjb4&feature=related
Penn and Teller did an episode on this exact topic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4hx6ZjB8Jo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jvqIY2NCV4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JplHJJodjb4&feature=related
So good, it’s worth seeing twice.
I was an organic farmer for a few decades. The land had an organic history for 100 years before I bought it. I giggle when I think that the eco wackos claim virtue and superiority in being vegetarian. The animal manoo is the primo fertilizer. Our meat consumption is the source of nourishment for their soils. Actually with no manure for fertilization, the soil can diminish and even more with erosion. The green movement has some unintended detrimental consequences.
How about the fact that obesity now is in greater numbers than starvation? Much starvation is caused by political strife and evil warlords.
You would think they would get tired of being wrong. But then maybe that will never occur to them.
Studies have also shown that organic foods are much more likely to carry unhealthy bacteria than their counterparts. The only thing that I can see as an advantage to eating organic food is we can boast about how much more money we spend for our food. Wasting your money on organic food is just another bad joke being perpetrated on the unwitting. Suckers are born everyday.
Vegetarians should look in the mirror and discover that their teeth are similar to every other omnivorous animal on the planet. Nature has designed humans to be able to survive by eating just about anything we can chew up. This is a survival advantage for any species, not a moral problem for humans to wring their hands about.
That is a very unlibertarian thing to write. Who are you exactly to tell people what they should and should not do. First, people are vegetarians for a number of different reasons, and you are ignorant to clump them together. Second, if someones is morally opposed to eating meat it is not your place to tell them they are wrong. Libertarians do not tell other people how to live their lives. I suggest the omnivorous dilemma as a comprehensive book on the matter. Personally I am for everything in moderation, but I would not tell you to eat less meat.
I expressed my opinion of organic farming and vegetarianism. While you may not agree with my opinion, you are deciding on your own that I am trying to tell you what to eat. If you don’t eat meat, that is better for me because that helps keep the cost of my meat down. If you want to spend more money than I do for the same food, go right ahead, I will have more money left to spend on other things that I want. If you buy into the organic food story, be my guest, but I am sick to death of hearing from the vegan crowd about the moral superiority of their position, when there is absolutely nothing moral about eating vegetables and nothing immoral about eating meat. Conversely, there is nothing moral about eating meat and nothing immoral about eating vegetables. We eat what we eat because we need food and we chose to eat what tastes best to us. Before you assert that I am ignorant, why don’t you try refuting the few facts from my earlier post.
After reading your original post I believe I agree with you. I found articles that pointed to both practices leading to an increase in pathogens. None of the studies I saw seemed particularly unbiased. My guess is that the infection rate is similar. I also agree that organic is pretty stupid. If you have to giant farms, and one is labeled organic, they are both pretty horrible for the environment for the reasons I list later. Yes vegetarians and vegans who claim moral superiority are obnoxious, and I have been tempted to punch one or two in the past. However, I think they have a right to decide their own morals as long as they do no push them on other people. I feel this way about most decisions. Individual liberty and choice are important. So I apologize for my attack.
From whence do you get the notion that Libertarians aren’t permitted to have and express opinions?
Libertarians believe that govt does not have the authority to force lifestyle choices on others. Individual libertarians still have the right to tell people they are acting stupidly, when they act stupidly.
Facts and studies are not relevant to the Greenies. One, this is a religious pursuit and two this is not an environmental movement, it is a socialism movement. Green is just one way to get there.
Watermelons.
Can we now use the Environmental Whackos as compost?
They have never been right.
I don’t believe it would be a good idea, to much toxic waste. They would permanently pollute any vegetable patch they were used on.
Dennis Avery continues to use logic to hack at fanciful claims by organic farming interests. But they have emotion on their side: to protect the health of their dear ones and to preserve our sacred land. Never mind that it’s nonsense. Gullible, educated (?), high-income greenies continue to pay premium prices for organic foods at the supermarket. So the marketers are only too happy to provide for their wants, not needs. Greenies become dangerous when they force needy foreign countries to stay in the agricultural dark ages, further decimating starving populations. They probably don’t lose any sleep over that, but smugly proclaim their environmentally superior motives. Such lack of intelligent charity makes you sick, doesn’t it?
Actually people are moving away from Organic toward local. First you cannot really clump all people who care about a sustainable environment, and just call them green. Those of us who are big into agriculture issues do not have an issue with big farms because of carbon issue, but many other issues. The author clearly does not really understand the debate going on or chooses to frame the argument in a strange way. First, the amount of fertilizer used by giant industrial agro is killing the water ways. IF anyone doubts that look up the “dead zone” Second, the pesticides are toxic and get into the water system. Let us not forget that the large farms are striping away the A class soil leaving the future generations with shitty soil. Next, I am not a big supporter of organic but medium sized local farms. There might be more product from large farms but look at the nutrient levels of the produce from big compared to medium-small farms. Homogeneous crops that cut out the genetic diversity will end badly. We need genetic diversity in the crops. I am all for feeding people and believe that high yield has its place, but that does not mean I support its use here.
The only problem is that every single claim you make regarding large farms has been disproven over and over and over again.
Then again, you don’t care. This is about feeling good about yourself. Nothing more, nothing less.
Thank you Mark for once again making blanket statements with no facts to back up your proposition. This time you have just attacked everything I said without probably understanding most of what I am talking about. I do not think anyone has ever disputed the dead zone. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080715114149.htm. Some of us actually read things and then make our decisions based on what we call Facts. This is clearly a strange concept for you. If you had even an inkling of Biology or knew anything about farming, you would know that the only possible outcome of having homogeneous crops is that they will be genetically susceptible to disease.(I also know of no research that would contradict my position. I studied biology.) It is putting all the eggs in one basket. There is a recent example that illustrates my point.http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jhIU9-B0h4pfKJVJDadwRUYkY_wgD9GFT01G0. If you only have one strain of corn which you have genetically created and you plant the same exact strain every year and disease then evolve to that corn you are screwed. There are some big words in this next article about pesticide issues but I bet you can try and read it http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1078&context=usgsstaffpub. Here is a 32 year experiment on soil quality http://www.jdb.se/sbfi/publ/boston/boston7.html. Do not just take my word go out and see for yourself. Go to the farmers market and buy a couple of pieces of produce, and then buy the same items at a big grocery store. You will notice the differences in taste smell and color. If you can see no difference in the tomatoes from your local farmer vs. those flown in from Mexico I will apologize. However, if you find yourself wrong I expect an apology.
Organic is a selfish luxury – it requires more fuel, water and land to produce an equivalent crop yield. “Big agro” only accounts for 10% of total crop production (whether or not one respects their business model is another matter). Furthermore, small family farms and organic farms account for the vast majority of soil damage, water pollution and food-born illness propagation (between 80 and 90% of all accounts). Organic farms are permitted to used copper and petroleum based chems to replace synthetic chems.In fact, many of the chems used by organic farms are far more toxic by volume than synthetic chemicals, many of which are now biodegradable
Comparing a tomato from Mexico to a tomato from a local organic farmer is logical fallacy, as both products can be considered inferior, and are not the only options – The best tomatoes I have ever eaten consistently come from a non-organic hydroponic greenhouse.
Tyler,
Where do you think that Hydroponic tomato was grown. Anyway, if you read my posts, you will notice I am not really pushing organic. I am pointing out the true environmental issues with large farms in general. My main point is that I think the Carbon issue is pretty meaningless in terms of the true environmental arguments against large scale farms. Organic is just a label you pay for, that is at this point pretty meaningless. The real question is the individual farming practices.
BrianN, once again you have made absurd blanket statements and backed them up by refering to discredited propaganda sites.
You are so full of S**t. No one has discredited the random sweedish web site I posted. Nor do I think anyone has discredited any of the web links I posted. I also do not think you read anything I posted. If you did you might learn something. Arguing with you is like having a conversation with a 5th grader. You do not present any counter facts you just nah say. If you are right prove it. You are just as bad as any far lefter out there. You disagree with me because you do not like my political views not because there is any truth to what you are saying. Do you think gravity is a farce as well? There are repercussions to large farming, it is better to understand them and deal with them than ignore the problems. That is how we as humans get into trouble.
In your opinion, nothing ever discredits the things you desperately want to believe.
When you become reacquainted with reality, let me know.
Um, brian, I’m from Kansas. You know, one of the largest ag producing states in the nation?
I got some bad news for you buddy, no farmer I know uses the same strain of seed for anything for more than a few years. See, Kansas State University and Monsanto and many of the other large companies are always bringing out new strains. K-State plants test plots of these new varieties every year and lets the farmers know which ones yield best under what conditions.
Moreover, there might be two farmers in the world who agree on what variety of soy bean they should plan or corn for that matter. There couldn’t possibly be three. So there is far more than one variety of any crop being planted. There’s this little thing called crop rotation too. Oh, and the CRP program, you might want to check into that too. So why don’t you come check out reality in a farm state. Talk to the farmers.
Or I guess you could just continue to live in your delusion. That’s fun too. I bet they have cookies in your world.
Patrick
Don’t bother with Brian, he has an allergic reaction to reality.
So, you recommend farming where the people are, even if they don’t live near good farmland and if they do not live where there is enough water for the crops? Or do you recommend that people should leave where they are now and move to an area with good soil and cover the cropland with asphalt and housing developments?
Localvores are kind of the new ‘organic’, and a lot of them believe that somehow, local farming reduces all around environmental impacts, etc. I tend to think that concentrated farming (as shown above) probably comes out ahead in terms of fuel consumption (less overall) and CO2 emissions (if you care about such things, I don’t). Basically, it’s terms of economies of scale and more structured production. However, if you can do it safely and well in a local area, then go for it if it makes you happy and pays your bills (I’m a fan of intensely managed ‘grass’ farms, even though I do realize they aren’t adaptable to large populations, but I do like the taste of the beef from them over conventional grain fed or organic, and if done correctly, it seems they pretty much recycle everything into the soil)
However, I think Brian is bringing up issues that are actually of concern in terms of a lot of large and mid-scale farming. The main one in my mind being the potential overuse of nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizers (he covered the genetic diversity in his reply). You can get a lot of run off into local waterways, and nutrients that make plants grow also make a lot of algae and other things grow, which can prematurely age a waterway (the algae bloom, and start sucking up oxygen and kill off or diminish the fish population, etc). This isn’t alarmism (ie, not a rallying cry to do away with them, etc), just one of the balance issues with large farms. Civil/Chemical/Environmental/Agricultural engineers have been working quietly on this for a long time (I’ve done some grad research into it in both Chem E and Civ/Env. E programs in terms of water treatment methods and needs).
As an example, where I grew up in Arkansas, a big problem with mid scale farms was the over-application of liquified chicken, pig and turkey manure. Besides smelling bad (cleared the sinuses though…the joys of amonia), there were really no controls and local creeks and streams were really hard hit. The manure was a cheap byproduct and it was easier/cheaper to spray it on a field – more than was needed- than to build out a full treatment/composting or disposal system. One of my advisors was working on a project testing soil and the streams around the farms, and found phosphate saturation in the soils, and a high concentration in the run-off.
The farmers hadn’t even thought about it, they just sprayed when the local pig/fowl houses had manure to get rid of, so pretty often. I believe a set of controls and monitoring methods was developed to minimize the phosphate/nitrate pollution (I graduated before the project finished, but that was the direction it was going). Do they do this now in large farms too? Or is fertilizer cheap enough that they keep a constant application in the mindset of ‘more can’t hurt’? It’s a real issue, and one that even supporters of large scale farming (me) need to consider. The same questions could be asked about pesticide application.
I’m all for more efficient farming, and using economies of scale (although, the best tomatos I’ve ever had were garden grown, period- sorry Tyler), but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to turn a blind eye to potential problems or things that do need to be considered.
It’s in a farmers interest not to use more fertilizer, weed control, or insecticide than necessary. Those things cost money.
Things cost money, how very astute of you. However, it is cheaper to have a general formula for application then to take the time and money to make sure you are not over using those substances. I am going to agree with the christopher who clearly studied the issue over you who clearly has no idea what you are talking about.
In the world of Brian, an expert is someone who agrees with him, and no expert is ever wrong.
personally, I think people living in places without enough water to feed themselves is a horrible. If they choose to live there that is there right, but I do not think the federal government should be responsible with providing them with money to divert large sums of water. I would assume that others would agree that it is not the federal governments job. There is the ability for buildings to go up and they do not have to sprawl. Just for your personal information there is a new trend of designing communities around farms. This makes a tremendous amount of sense to me. In short I hate urban sprawl. You are wrong to think those are the only two options.
I covered this in Misplaced Compassion, my hit-piece on the animal rights nutbars, published in 2001.
Cass Sunstien and his Animal Rights nutbars were not incharge of Government Regulation back then. It is time to revisit.
Some are still hungry some are sick.
Some would like others to apologize.
Where is the piece on people who ate, are well and do not want others apologies, because it´s a waste of time comparede to other possibly more important issues?
Next thing you’ll be saying is that Casteneda made up Don Juan or that we can’t all chant together and stop the rain. Gimme an F!
Organic is a selfish luxury – it requires more fuel, water and land to produce an equivalent crop yield. Due to the use of natural (manure-based) fertilizer, organic greatly increases the odds of food-born illnesses, such as E-coli and Salmonella.
They attack “Big Agro,” yet fail to realize that “big agro” only accounts for 10% of total crop production (whether or not one respects their business model is another matter). Furthermore, small family farms and organic farms account for the vast majority of soil damage, water pollution and food-born illness propagation because of their inferior practices. In fact, many of the chems used by organic farms are far more toxic by volume than synthetic chemicals, many of which are now biodegradable.
ALL food crops have been genetically modified to serve peoples’ needs – they would never exist in a ‘natural’ state. Regardless to what propagandists insist, there is no link to contemporary GM crops and any health issues; farmers have lower disease and cancer rates per capita than the general public.
As for the vegetarian and vegan argument, vegetarians have a 40% weaker bone structure, on average, and vegans have a 350% higher chance of giving birth to mentally handicapped babies due to the significant reduction of various B vitamins that can ONLY be gained via the consumption of meats, and is essential for brain development. It has been confirmed that meat was a crucial dietary ingredient for our ancestors’ advanced development, of which we never would have evolved to our current level of intellect without meat; some analyses of dung show that 80% of their diet consisted of meat.
I’m a diabetic. I’ve replaced all the high-carbohydrate snacks I used to eat with raw vegetables. I’ve checked out organic and factory-farm produce pretty closely. One thing I’ve found is that the large-(factory-)farm produce usually has 5%-10% of non-edible waste that needs to be trimmed. The Organic stuff has more than twice that – almost three times. Also, the high-yield, bio-engineered or genetically manipulated produce is a greater carbon sink, since it produces MORE per acre of land. That production requires more CO2, nitrogen, and trace minerals to create that additional vegetation. Being “green” is about feelings, not facts.
I do tell “vegetarians” that they are wrong, and that their children will suffer from lack of animal protein. Human beings are basically carnivores, and can live on a purely animal diet. The moral argument vegetarians use, that it is wrong to kill animals, is ridiculous. No animal is immortal, all animals die. The only issue is how they live. Domesticated animals, like cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, poultry, live longer and healthier lives, and have more offspring, than their wild ancestors. Vegetarianism will simply cause these animals to go extinct.
Back in the 80′s there was a rash of young children who died from malnutrition. Seems their vegan parents started them on a pure vegan diet from the moment of birth.
The human brain needs fat to develop properly, as do many of our organs.
Full blown vegetarian or vegan diets should not be started until the kids are finished with most of their growth.
Why are so many commenters going on about Vegitarianism? Where does the article talk about this? You guys are as stuck up as the “Greens” you’re trying to defile.
It got started when a couple of acolytes brought it up.
The greens should also grab a text on Medieval history and have a look at the 14th century: back then they used only all natural methods, just like what they’d have the world do if they had their way and what happened?
Fields expanded to the detriment of woods and forests (and whoever worked with them, not to mention the fauna), major problems of soil erosions and flooding plus soil fatigue in the more productive (and therefor exploited) lands.
Add a series of bad winters and you got yourself a starving population.
Some historians think part of the reason for the plague’s high body count is that the European population of the time was already weakened by famine.
In other words: nothing new under the sun.
Somebody ought to send a copy of the report to Barbara Kingsolver, prize-winner fiction author and leading sophist in the “grow your own” movement. Yes, you can grow your food if you dragoon your family into helping for zero wages and live on a large tract of land purchased with earnings from your writing craft. Nice work if you can get it. It reminds me of a similar airhead state legislator in Minnesota who put up a windmill on an old farm she bought as a vacation home and was able to power the place plus get paid above market rates for surplus electricity by the electric utility (which had no choice but to pay her)who then lectured the rest of us on the purity of wind power.
This is just confirmation of the known. I remember the great Science fiction author Robert Heinlien talking about how in the thirty’s and forty’s he had expected the world to get hungryer and how he had misssed the green revelution and the benifits to farm land that went with it. Robert Hienlien died in 1982. If the greens haven’t taken a step back and apologized for be wrong in the last 28 years they never will.
Good points, one quibble, Mr. Heinlein died in 1988.
Once again we go down the rabbit hole of the radical environmental movement, and as usual, their academic theories fall apart in the face of non-academic reality.
And, again as usual, they simply ignore what ever doesn’t match up to their carefully constructed worldview.
I begin to agree with Michael Savage (and I usually think he’s a complete nut) liberalism IS a mental disorder.
These people are delusional. If someone in therapy showed this continual refusal to acknowledge reality in the face of overwhelming evidence they were wrong they’d end up in an institution as a paranoid psychotic.
Patrick
All this logic will be lost on the ‘green’ left, of course. They would not even accept the initial given, that feeding more people is a good thing. Few will clearly state it, but all of their responses to the idea of feeding more people will imply that the earth would be much better off if millions of these pesky humans died.
ALL leftist issues are, at their heart, anti-life.
We use corn for kitty litter. There is no shortage of food. There is maldistribution.
Bioengineering isn’t designed to feed the world, it is designed to enrich Monsanto, who Avery works for, with the intrepid tobacco funded Singer sidekick.
There is misinformation campaign by people paid by Monsanto, ie Mr. Avery himself.
You Big Ag, Chemical/ Fossil Fuel Dinasaurs wouldn’t know science if you were drowning in it, because Science shows all your comments to be nothing but bull feces.
The green revolution polluted the planet, degraded the soil, and made a few people rich.
You are feeding at the same big stinking pig trough, while playing God with genetics, ecology and human health.
The trouble with this site, is that they give trash underwritten by a nitwit called Fred Singer similar weight as scientific literature. You people don’t read Science.
This entire ‘article” is nothing but pop music for Petro/ Agro/ Chemical/ Bioengineering/ Planet Polluting Industries.
Any scientist can take it all apart, showing it for the garbage that it really is, but that would lose you all in the SCIENCE. A subject you are all allergic to.
Bull feces in scientific jargon.
As far as appologizing to you Denis T. Avery–
You are not worth of slime growing under the Monsanto lab bench.
I loved the Supreme Court Decision, but the way/
I am praying that organic and conventional farmers Sue you for all you are worth for contaiminating alfalfa seed with your worthless chemically dependant franken-seeds.
Shit head.
Are you an “organic” farmer? Please tell me how a high-yield farmer is producing something that is inorganic? The very word organic is a misnomer and the propaganda only starts at that point. How else could we get a bunch of useful idiots to eat food that costs twice as much on a regular basis? Times are tough out there for all the victims, eh dogctor? So, your objection to the big corporation feeding the world AND making a huge profit? Why, because the profit they make makes high-yield food cost more? Sheesh.