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Against organic farming
Perhaps the most eminent critic of organic farming is Norman Borlaug, the father of the “green revolution”, winner of the Nobel peace prize and an outspoken advocate of the use of synthetic fertilisers to increase crop yields. He claims the idea that organic farming is better for the environment is “ridiculous” because organic farming produces lower yields and therefore requires more land under cultivation to produce the same amount of food. Thanks to synthetic fertilisers, Mr Borlaug points out, global cereal production tripled between 1950 and 2000, but the amount of land used increased by only 10%. Using traditional techniques such as crop rotation, compost and manure to supply the soil with nitrogen and other minerals would have required a tripling of the area under cultivation. The more intensively you farm, Mr Borlaug contends, the more room you have left for rainforest.
Read more here.
Addendum: Speaking of The Economist, here are their book recommendations for the year.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on December 11, 2006 at 12:48 PM in Food and Drink | Permalink
Comments
Of course, we have the relevant question here: Is the market in organi and ostesibly "moral" food defined by consumers who really want to help the rest of the world, or by consumers who just want to feel good about themselves?
Here's a paper idea: Do the "stupid feel good" consumers impose a negative externality on the "really wanna help out" consumers by attracting products that don't really help out, thus raising the search costs for consumers who really want to make the world a better place?
Posted by: Keith at Dec 11, 2006 1:09:08 PM
T-shirt and bumber sticker nominee - "Save the rainforests! Boycott organic!"
Posted by: cb at Dec 11, 2006 2:52:02 PM
THIS is why I come to Marginal Revolution.
Keith, is it really necessary to call these people stupid? I'd guess that the majority of your "stupid feel good" consumers really want to help out and see organic farming as a way of doing so. Your paper idea is clever, more so if you remove the falsely attributed motives.
Posted by: eriks at Dec 11, 2006 2:55:28 PM
Rising organic food purchases have nothing to do with what's good for the planet. The public has a increasing belief that the food produced by agri-business, and the chemical approach to farming, are dangerous to their health. Can we say there's no truth in that idea? Where the population is in a position to pay for lower yields and higher spoilage, they will do so, efficiency be damned. For most of the world, this doesn't apply, of course, so it's hard to see how important the impact of organic production will be. The Economist would do better trying to improve the corporate farms image than crying about inefficiency.
Posted by: Weldon at Dec 11, 2006 3:00:47 PM
That leads to a few questions, though:
1. What happens when the raw materials for the fertilisers run dry?
2. If the chemical farming practices lead to more humans than the earth can comfortably support, what happens to those extra people?
As I understand it, the main criticisms of the Green Revolution are two-fold:
1. Long-term unsustainability. The fertilizers become scarce, and expensive, and the billions born on cheap calories are suddenly fucked.
2. Extra chemical pollution. While the Green Revolution may make land more useful, it also leads to increased chemical pollution, negating the positive effects of using land more efficiently.
I don't see where this excerpt answers either concern.
- Josh
Posted by: Wild Pegasus at Dec 11, 2006 3:00:48 PM
I'd be interested to see calculations of the amount of crude oil required to farm a given number of calories organically as opposed to chemically.
In favor of chemical farming: Reduced area required for farms. Reduced total mass of fertilizer required (presumably chemical fertilizers are more concentrated than mulch, manure and the like).
In (possible) favor of organic farming: Less petroleum input for fertilizers (True or False?). Organic farming methods may be more adaptable to smaller farms that could be located closer to the end consumers, reducing transportation costs and energy consumption.
Personally, I'm agnostic about the value of organic farming, but I do tend to favor, whenever possible, food that is grown or raised locally rather than shipped long distances. But maybe the actual environmental impact of shipping is less than I naively suppose...
Posted by: Alex R at Dec 11, 2006 3:22:09 PM
Weldon,
I agree that most people who prefer organic food do so because they think it is healthier for them, despite a lack of evidence. The real question these people need to answer is: Why are manmade toxins worse than natural toxins? In other words, the issue is toxicity, not natural vs manmade.
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at Dec 11, 2006 3:22:17 PM
Regarding "Fair Trade" coffee (see TC's linked article), I strongly suspect that most people don't realize that Fair Trade= No employees.
By buying "Fair Trade coffee, you are thus radically misdirecting resources from their best possible use. If you are a coffee farmer who has a way to grow great coffee (in my mind this means shade grown, but no doubt there is more to it than that, such as quality beans to begin with), you can only expand your business to the limits of how many beans you can plant, nurture, and pick yourself. Employing people who are in dire poverty is strictly verboten!!! So you can have a fabulous coffee patch of your own, and be surrounded by fabulous soil going fallow, and have the financial means to buy the land and intelligently use it, but the "geniuses" at FairTrade won't let you.
I suggest boycotting FairTrade coffee for the sake of the world's poorest citizen's.
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at Dec 11, 2006 3:30:28 PM
Interview and background info with Norman Borlaug
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at Dec 11, 2006 3:41:22 PM
There are "smell test" issues, as pointed out on: US Food Policy blog.
Posted by: Joe Grossberg at Dec 11, 2006 4:00:48 PM
Thanks, Joe. It's true. I didn't read that Economist article nearly as favorably. The statistic about agricultural productivity growth from 1950 to 2000 is misleading in its context, because organic agriculture today is very different from a luddite return to 1950 technology. The discussion of farming "intensively" is confused, failing to distinguish between intensity with respect to all production factors versus intensity with respect to land in particular. And most importantly, one can't honestly discuss the environmental consequences of choosing food whose production makes inefficient use of land without mentioning modern animal agriculture first. My conclusion: "A typical contemporary post-hippy suburbanite's granola diet -- organic food and smaller amounts, if any, of animal products -- is not the cause of deforestation."
Posted by: Parke at Dec 11, 2006 4:22:24 PM
The biggest problem with chemical fertilizer intensive farming is non-point run-off of nitrogen fertilizers which cause severe algal growth and thus fish kills in bodies of water.
At the same time, it is better than starving to death, and modern farming techniques (such as GPS use on tractors) allow more more precise fertilizer delivery and less waste running off.
Posted by: Mr. Econotarian at Dec 11, 2006 4:38:57 PM
Eriks, sure I let my Id run wild, but isn't that what the internet is for?:)
While we're on the general topic, I do prefer freshness, I don't care about organic, but I'll definitely take advantage of modern industrial food production and shipping technology and everything else. I mean how else am I going to get blueberries in December?
Posted by: Keith at Dec 11, 2006 5:42:46 PM
I'm struggling to choose between two compelling stories:
1.) The story of brilliant economist who initiated one of the most successful trends in neo-colonial development, OR
2.) The story of a farmer like Professor Fred Kirschenmann of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture.
When I want to know what's happening with top soil conditions and the future of industrial farming techniques, I trust people like Kirschemann. When I want to know about historic models that assume limitless natural resources and productive capacity of soils, I refer to Borlaug.
When I want to laugh at liberals I go to little green footballs.
Posted by: Jeff Osborne at Dec 11, 2006 6:02:46 PM
I'm sure Borlaug's arguments are more sophisticated than they appear in this short little blurb, but it seems to have a lot of holes.... Land usage isn't the only facet of organic farming.
In un-grammatic brief:
1. Fertilizers are bad for water ways. Synthetic fertilizers are the chief culprits in algal blooms in down-stream areas, and can contaminate ground water.
2. Heavy pesticide usage is bad for multiple reasons. For one, it is a vicious cycle. Oftentimes, predators of the species that is trying to be killed off are killed as well, and that perpetuates more pesticide use and can drastically affect the food chain. Also, many pesticides are thought to mimic endocrine hormones, and may be harmful even at low doses. Besides consumers, organic farming is much heathlier for consumers
3. Monoculture (almost always practiced in non-organic farming b/c you can uniformly treat a feild, and only have to think about the needs of one plant at the time of spraying) depletes soil, and makes growing conditions less efficient. It also diminished fauna biodiversity, which affects local food chains.
4. Synthetic fertilizers must be prodcued by burning fuel, and often by mining, both very environmentally destructive practices.
5. Really, the culprit isn't organic farming, but meat eating. Meat eating is far more inefficient than 10%. If all of the space devoted to animal ranching was used to produce organic food, even at 10% lower yeilds than normal crops, you would still be producing enough to to feed everyone in the world.
Granted, a "conventional" local apple is probably better than organic apples from chile, because of all of the fuel burned to bring the apple here.
Posted by: BCL at Dec 11, 2006 6:39:40 PM
I am from Turkey and in my personal experience organic food, fruits and vegetables taste much better than non-organic food.
The point about "having more food thanks to green revolution" is misleading. Today hunger is not due to scarcity of food. We have an abundance of food but we do not distribute it to everyone.
If we have more food, Americans will get even fatter and Africans will continue to starve.
Posted by: Kerim Can at Dec 11, 2006 6:55:07 PM
every argument here is anti-industrialization, and anti the human progress that came with it. Meat eating allowed us to do more than spend all day eating to have enough energy to think. That hunger is no longer a problem of scarcity os in not a natural state of the pre indystrial world. In large part it is due singlehandedly to Boralaug. speculation on pesticides aside, the remaining part of hunger caused by scarcity was wiped out by pesticides, as pests destroy crops and shut down markets. unwillingness to use synthetic fertilizers increases the liklihood of e. coli and other biological organisms kiling those who eat fresh fruits and vegetables.
organic farming is a bad use of available resources. it undermines comparative advantage.
Posted by: anonymous at Dec 11, 2006 7:06:12 PM
Meat could be raised with nearly arbitrary amounts of land use efficiency. Just put the cows in high-rises. Or catacombs, depending on whether it's cheaper to build up or dig down.
Of course, it's more expensive to build a cow condo than to buy them a park. But if land use ever became an issue, then the price of land would rise until vertical ranches eventually became cost-effective. It might happen faster if vat-grown meat technology takes off.
Posted by: eddie at Dec 11, 2006 10:12:48 PM
I buy organic foods for two reasons, neither of which has anything to do with caring about the environment.
1) They mostly taste better. Especially meat, fruit, and veg. When I was a kid I literally laughed at my neighbor for shopping at at Whole Foods predecessor. Then I tasted the organic milk and realized the error of my ways.
2) I have a strong family history of cancer and I believe that among the many things that we don't know for sure if they increase cancer or not but probably do, all the shit that they put into food is a big one. Especially but not limited to those bastard nitrates.
Posted by: BillWallace at Dec 12, 2006 1:17:45 AM
I agree with the blog. It only makes since. Then again, the runoff containing all the fertilizer chemicals is poisonous to algae and macroinvertebrates in streams and waterways. Either way, whether using more land to farm or polluting the earth, the world's population is growing causing more farming, and either to use even more land, or pollute even more. It's a lose-lose situation. There's no getting out of it.
Posted by: Nick at Dec 12, 2006 1:31:17 AM
Eddie,
It's not the land the animal occupies that makes meat land use inefficient. It's the amount of land needed to grow the food that the animal eats. A person might live on one pound of grain a day but you would have to feed a cow 10 pounds to get enough meat for a person to live on for one day.
Posted by: bertram at Dec 12, 2006 1:41:06 AM
Seems like a silly debate to me. Whether or not your convinced that organic farming is beneficial, there's nothing wrong with maintaining a stock of alternative methods (technologies?) that could be used if the current dominant technology are higher than currently believed (or currently dealt with).
I think of organic farming like an electric car hobbyist ... perhaps a bit overstated in importance, but the hobby might help provide some outs (alternative avenues) to avoid inefficient technological lock-in.
Posted by: Henry Mein at Dec 12, 2006 3:08:53 AM
[So you can have a fabulous coffee patch of your own, and be surrounded by fabulous soil going fallow, and have the financial means to buy the land and intelligently use it, but the "geniuses" at FairTrade won't let you]
No, it just means that you can't sell your coffee through the Fairtrade scheme, because the Fairtrade scheme is meant to be a means of assisting small family-farm producers, not larger producers with hired labour. This is rather like saying "you can be a fantastic bond trader capable of pulling down seven figure bonuses, but the "geniuses" at the unemployment benefit office won't let you. Or saying that a dog which licks its ass and chases mice ought to be able to enter a cat show.
Posted by: dsquared at Dec 12, 2006 6:15:04 AM
Great post BCL.
Regarding meat-eating a FAO report on that subject was published maybe 3 weeks ago and I remember reading in a summary that a balanced vegetarian or mostly vegetarian diet leads to 10 times less land use than an omnivorous diet with meat consumption in Western-style proportions. Plus about 70 percent of Amazonian forests have been turned into grazing land (same source, checked just now). To that you must add the area cleared for the soya that is used to feed livestock elsewhere in the world...
Posted by: rdavout at Dec 12, 2006 10:49:06 AM
Sudden insight: is the efficiency argument behind the Green Revolution as clear as Borlaug says? Of course adding fertilizers is an immediate and easy solution to boost crop production **by analphabet peasants** but can't experienced farmers can get very high yields through organic farming? I find Cuba's experience quite enlightning on that regard.
The example is far from being perfect, the unefficiencies of the Cuban economic system being what they are, but the background is roughly as follows:
----
1.Pre-1959 20th century
Basic crop farming by uneducated farmers & corporate farming for export crops (sugarcane).
2.1960s-1990
Green Revolution under a communist regime. Up to 90% of the Cuban farmland is owned by the state and managed through big units. Boost in crop yields but at the price of a strong dependency on agricultural inputs from the Soviet Union.
3.Early 1990s
"Special Period in Times of Peace". Cuba ceases to receive fertilizers from the Comecon and is forced to switch to low-input agriculture, mostly organic. This is highly efficient compared to what was done before, but part of the effect comes from changes in land management, organization and tenure in agriculture (development of collective farming groups and private enterprise in agriculture for 2/3 of total land use in agriculture).
4.Late 1990s+
Urban Agriculture (UA) stays mostly organic (and is by law 100% organic in Havana for instance) whereas certain sectors of Rural Agriculture partially switch back to the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and the concept of Green Revolution, particularly so for export crops (citrus).
----
I wish I had figures and facts to really analyse the efficiency of Cuban UA by international standards and compared to classic high-input agriculture. Unfortunately, as all things Cuban, figures are hard to find.
The Cuban government implemented a nationwide UA program in the early 1990s, supporting individual producers with the expertise of State agronomers among other things. As a result, the yields have increased dramatically. The first unsupported family UA units produced 1.5kg/sqm of vegetables, compared to more than 25kg/sqm in the present-day agropónicos. The notion of "vegetables" is quite vague and all UA producers are lumped together despite the high differences of yield between producers (the most efficient being the military UA units cultivated by the EJT). If you could remove the family producers from these figures, the yields of UA would be even higher. Nonetheless one fact appears clearly: educated organic producers are more efficient than uneducated ones. What is more, organic high-yield microfarms managed by professional agronomers seem to be extremely efficient, at least as far as production is concerned.
Plus, the plots of land used in UA were unused land in urban zones (in some rare instances on the rooftops of big buildings), not cleared forests, and the irrigation systems and compost systems are often placed above the crops, leading a slight decrease in land use.
In the absence of figures my argument may seem a bit empty but after 3 months living in Cuba I'm starting to think that UA is the only thing positive that has happened to the country in the past decade.
Posted by: rdavout at Dec 12, 2006 11:01:44 AM
