Sustainability and Hunger
Published June 16, 2009 @ 01:06PM PT
There are things people need to understand about hunger, courtesy of Food First:
... Abundance, not scarcity, best describes the world's food supply. Enough wheat, rice and other grains are produced to provide every human being with 3,200 calories a day. That doesn't even count many other commonly eaten foods - vegetables, beans, nuts, root crops, fruits, grass-fed meats, and fish. Enough food is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person a day worldwide: two and half pounds of grain, beans and nuts, about a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk and eggs - enough to make most people fat! The problem is that many people are too poor to buy readily available food. Even most "hungry countries" have enough food for all their people right now. Many are net exporters of food and other agricultural products. ...
So remember this: we have enough food in the world to make everyone fat. Everyone.
This is a distribution problem, a social justice problem, a profit-sharing problem, an employment security problem, a land access problem ... but there's an abundance of food in the world. The people flogging scarcity and crop yields as our biggest obstacles to feeding the world are at best misinformed, at worst, deliberately lying for personal or political gain.
In the case of politicians, those of them who are generally progressive, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt that they've been misled by hyper-slick lobbyists who make a convincing case that their corporations are doing good and really care about the public interest. The large food corporations have even bought out much of the anti-hunger lobby in the US, donating to their causes and sponsoring their DC publicity events, all for the sake of preventing anyone from looking too closely at how their management of food distribution channels actively promotes hunger.
It works really well.
Consider Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent call for support to 'sustainable agriculture'. She outlines seven principles, elaborated here, likely without realizing that the implications of the first, as commonly implemented, can readily undermine the third:
1. We will seek to increase agricultural productivity, by expanding access to quality seeds, fertilizers, irrigation tools, and the credit to purchase them and training to use them. ...
3. We are committed to maintaining natural resources, so the land can be farmed well into the future. That includes helping developing communities adapt to climate change, which has had a major effect on the world's farms. ...
The first item there is a direct call to push agriculture in the developing world towards the current model of mainstream US farming. It flat out won't work.
The whole industrialized approach to agriculture relies on being able to successfully maintain access to credit over a long period of time, being able to produce high yields over that same period of time, having steady access to an abundant surface or underground water source, and hoping that so many people aren't getting higher yields of the same crop you're growing that prices become too depressed for any of you to make a living.
In short, it's a dodgy proposition for people in desertifying areas, particularly when faced with political instability or living in regions where armed conflict may be an issue.
One bad crop year can mean not only hunger, but an insurmountable burden of debt and poor credit.
I know that Secretary Clinton has spent an unfortunate amount of time in the company of Monsanto representatives, but I hope she'll also consider what this development model means for people not living on top of the equivalent of the Ogallala aquifer. Indeed, what it's meant for the people who are living and farming over the Ogallala now - it's going to run out, and then what?
If a farmer can't access a steady source of irrigation water, do we give up on them and their neighbors? Even in water deprived Burkina Faso, farmers can set up simple lines of stone on the contours of their property? A stone line on the ground can create immediate improvement in land quality in just a year, foster the survival of protective hedges, and make better use of that land's natural water 'budget' even without irrigation.
Before markets are opened, before infrastructure is improved, and whether you're talking hybrid crops or GMOs, farmers who have poor economic and trade infrastructure access need to be supplied with seeds that can be saved and used again the following year. They need access to animals who can produce fertilizer on an ongoing basis, as opposed to having always to buy industrial soil amendments.
Farmers in all regions of the world need to be trained to use not just technology that works in the Midwestern breadbasket region of the United States, but in appropriate technology for their region, economy and climate situation. In many cases, that means the 'technology' transfer, the intellectual property and understanding, that they need is one that relies on the independent capacity of plants and animals to reproduce themselves and sustain the life-giving properties of their local environs.
As long as there isn't a sufficiency of living wage, non-farm jobs, nor the educational infrastructure to make that viable, subsistence and small-scale farming must not be undermined as it has been in India, where early adopters of Green Revolution techniques and export-oriented farming are now killing themselves in droves as they fall prey to unsustainable burdens of debt.
[Update: Jill Richardson highlights some of these same issues with Clinton's comments on LaVidaLocavore, as well as related comments by a member of her staff, noting that many 'high-yield' varieties could more accurately be called high-input varieties.]
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Comments (40)
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Author
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Natasha is an amateur eater with severe snarkolepsy and a c. 2002 blogging habit. She had a fabulous time studying ecological agriculture and policy at The Evergreen State College, and even did her homework while writing at various times for pacificviews.org, boomantribune.com, and mydd.com.
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Um it would seem the author seems to have forgotten that approximately 40% of all food grown spoils or is destroyed/eaten by pests/insects/bacteria/fungus before it can be consumed by humans. Until someone has a realistic answer to the lack of infrastructure in most parts of the developing world we are stuck with local food production to feed local populations. Therefore the use of biotech crops that thwart insect destruction of the crop are needed. There are now approxiamtely 150 varieties of Bt cotton seed available in India today. Many locally successful varieties have the Bt gene engineered in. Fully 70% of all cotton grown in India is Bt now. A huge success story. The demand is also still growing for more.
The Philippines has seen Bt corn very successful as well. PRSV resistant papaya research is on-going around the world.
Drought tolerant crops are needed, and nutritionally enhanced crops are needed. To fight against the development of GE solutions (developed by developing nations) either directly or indirectly with high regulatory costs and then claim to want to help the developing world is the height of hypocracy.
Posted by Robert Wager on 06/16/2009 @ 05:31PM PT
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If you think I'm advocating for a wholesale globalization approach to food production, you're really off your game here. I do actually know that subsistence farming needs to be protected, as I said right there in the post.
Would you also like to explain how, if Bt cotton, which isn't edible, is so great, it's driving thousands of Indian farmers to suicide every year?
And as to drought tolerant and nutritionally enhanced crops being needed - genetic engineering has to date had nothing to offer in this regard. Traditional diets are nutritious as they are, particularly if grown in soil not stripped bare of nutrients by synthetic agriculture.
Posted by Natasha Chart on 06/16/2009 @ 09:25PM PT
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That myth about suicides going up has been demonstrated false. Yes there are far too many suicides in India but that has always been the case and Bt cotton has not changed it.
Um it is just the opposite, when poor farmers can not afford to grow cover crops instead of food, when they can not afford to replace the nutrients in the soil with synthetic fertilizer that is taken out by their food crops the soil becomes mined of nutrients. Just like 75% of the African soil is today.
Drought tolerance is around the corner as the field trials have been ongoing for a few years now.
Golden rice (GRII) will soon be given free to subsistance farmers.
Posted by Robert Wager on 06/16/2009 @ 09:49PM PT
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From the 2008 OFPRA report:
IFPRI Discussion Paper 00808
October 2008
Bt Cotton and Farmer Suicides in India
Reviewing the Evidence
In this paper, we review the evidence on the alleged resurgence of farmer suicides in India and
the potential relationship between the adoption of Bt cotton and suicides among Indian farmers. Using
secondary data from multiple sources, we evaluate two sets of contradicting hypotheses on the
phenomenon of farmer suicides and Bt cotton in India. The first supports the existence of a visible
increase in farmer suicides concurrent with the adoption of Bt cotton and affirms that this technology
contributed to the rise in farmer suicides. The second set rejects both the presence of a surge in farmer
suicides in recent years and any direct or reciprocal role of Bt cotton introduction in farmer suicides,
while noting that Bt cotton may have played a role in specific cases and seasons. These cases were mainly
the result of institutional, climatic, and economic constraints, among many other factors. By compiling
and synthesizing available data from official sources, research reports, and economic and policy analyses
we are able to clearly reject the first set of hypotheses and support the second.
We first show that despite the recent media hype around farmer suicides, fueled by civil society
organizations and reaching the highest political spheres in India and elsewhere, there is no evidence in
available data of a "resurgence" of farmer suicide in India in the last five years. Yes, farmer suicide is an
important and tragic phenomenon, but it still only represents three-quarters of the total number of suicides
due to pesticide ingestion in India and less than a fifth of total suicides in India. Moreover, even if there
has been an increasing trend in total suicides, the reported share of farmer suicides has in fact been
decreasing. Of course, all these conclusions are based on available estimates, which may be
underestimated, but without better data, one cannot deny that claim.
Posted by Robert Wager on 06/18/2009 @ 01:52PM PT
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So Bt seed varieties are the miraculous creation of Western science, and are able to save lots of poor Indians from going shirtless...what about the nasty mix of pesticides that are dumped indiscriminately on cotton crops? I wrote about this last Fall (for a course "Global Perspectives on Gender), and examined the Green Revolution more closely. An unsustainable business model is being followed that disreguards the needs of local populations.
Drought resistant crop varieties were developed by Indian farmers (rice in particular) and were abandoned for monocultures that are heavily reliant on irrigation, fossil fuel fertilizers, and pesticides. The burden for this business model falls most heavily on rural women in India whose jobs as farm laborers in a strict patriarchal society were eliminated, leading to the widespread practice of female feticide, and for those who kept their jobs, large doses of organochlorine pesticides that collect their fatty tissues, i.e., breasts, leading to higher incidence of cancers and leukemia. Farmers in Punjab who threw themselves wholeheartedly into industrialized monocultural agriculture in the 70's are now reaping the results: heavy pollution; the need to drill wells down to 200' below the surface, dried up / polluted wells that used to supply villages, higher losses due to pests who devour easy monoculture targets...etc. This reminds me of the title of Edward Morrow's 1960 film: Harvest of Shame.
And yet, the solution is a new round of technology? GE is NOT the whole solution, and we must face up to the problems already wrought by an overly simplistic reliance on technology. Farmers of so-called "developing" countries have developed seed varieties well-adapted to their micro-climates, but they have been driven to suicide or into poverty in urban areas.
Read both sides of the "data".
See Vandana Shiva: Monoculture of the Mind; Earth Democracy
Val Plumwood. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature.
Neil Postman. Technopoly
Posted by Cybele Seeds on 06/22/2009 @ 01:12PM PT
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Bt is becoming redundant insects are resistant and now they are chasing moth genomes to try another stop gap "cure" never mind what else they kill accidentally.
and BT cotton and corn stubble killed animals grazing it, now they advise against feeding it, so? how good is that? another food source unuseable, and liable to create a residual soil source of chem and Bt contamiantion..or is burning it a boon for the air??
GM Papaya screwed up Hawaiis export markets big time, and ruined the land, they are getting it banned or reduced as much as they can.
Cold and salt and drought tolerant wheat exists! and has for centuries, its what the bio mob STEAL to muck around with, and then call theirs!
The modifications are NOT stable!
strangely enough...local food feeding local populations is exactly how food does not get eaten by bugs or spoil, its what mankind did for centuries! and smoking salting or drying or preserving, are just dandy to keep in longer storage.
Posted by amicus curiae on 06/24/2009 @ 09:17AM PT
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The poor subsistance farmer has always been subservient to politics of the area. If the political leader of a given area direct funding to their own bank accounts instead of irrigation projects , fertilizer plants, roads, refrigeration storage facilities, better yielding seeds etc then the poor farmer will remain poor. A global effort to get the best seeds into the hands of the poor would go a long way to help these people. Sometimes its a GE variety and sometimse not. Using locally adapted varieties and engineering in the trait needed (whether it is drought tolerance, salt tolerance, insect resistance, or nutritional enhancement) is definitely a good start.
Posted by Robert Wager on 06/16/2009 @ 06:05PM PT
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"Using locally adapted varieties and engineering in the trait needed ..."
By which you mean contaminating the entire local crop genome with patentable, expensive traits that will have to be purchased year after year? Oh, that sounds like a brilliant idea to help poor farmers. Just brilliant.
Are they going to "get" into the hands of poor farmers via permanent charity, or would it be more like a 'first one's always free' approach to get them hooked? If the local economy and political situation is so bad, how's the necessary financing supposed to work to keep it a business venture as opposed to permanent welfare? I don't actually have a problem with low income assistance programs, but the genetic engineering of food is a for-profit industry, not a modified Food Stamp dispensary.
And are you actually proposing a fully government-funded, free, public infrastructure approach to farming, where political leaders are required to purchase everything but the land and the labor of the farmers themselves? Because that's, well, that's just not gonna happen. That's batsh*t.
Shorter Robert Wager: If poor countries' governments don't adopt a Maoist farming infrastructure, we must give them GM seeds out of charity.
Seriously, who the bleep writes this stuff for you? I can't tell if I'm talking to a deluded technophile who's bombed out of his freakin' mind, or a corporate drone who's way off his talking points.
And hey, you know what makes for a good fertilizer plant? A flock of chickens, a herd of cows, and a cover crop of scarlet runner beans - all of which can independently reproduce themselves at very little cost to the farmer.
Posted by Natasha Chart on 06/16/2009 @ 09:42PM PT
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No I do not mean patented traits that will be purchased year after year. This has been one of my main points since I came to this forum. When false fears generate unrealistic regulation and the resulting high costs then only large corporations can produce GE crops. When realistic regulations based on the real risks associated with GE crops are the norm then countries and many more public funded GE crops will be available. the longer the non-science based regulations persist the longer the transition to more public sponsored GE crops will take.
May I suggest you go the the Africa Harvest website. They have some good information on how all types of agriculture can be used to help the poor farmers of Africa.
A flock of chickens or a herd of cows. These are often far beyond the financial means of far too many of the worlds poor. Telling the poor farmers of the world, who use mainly organic means to survive, that their salvation from poverty is thru organic agriculture is well (fill in the blank) and hardly a way forward for them.
Better seed, better fertilizer schemes(both organic and synthetic), better education in agriculture, better infrastructure, better health care (vaccines), better water are the way forward.
Posted by Robert Wager on 06/16/2009 @ 10:07PM PT
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The water is largely gone and health has been diminished by the western technological solutions that you propose.
Posted by Cybele Seeds on 06/22/2009 @ 01:21PM PT
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It is estimated that 75% of the soil in africa has been 'mined of nutrients' and therefore poor yields are guarenteed. Since planting green manure to enhance the soil means no yield (it is ploughed under) how would you propose to feed the millions while the soil is replensihed by organic means?
To use manure to replenish the soil just moves the question over a tad. What will you feed the cows to generate the manure?
When Dr. Norman Borlaug (Nobel Laureate for agriculture) states organic production can only possibly feed four billion, and there are six billion already, people should listen.
What the world needs is a mixture of every type of agriculture not ideologies that prohibit one type or another.
Sometimes organic solutions will be best, sometimes GE options and sometimes agriforestry and sometimes a mix of all of the above.
I have finished reading "Tomorrows Table" and encourage to read it.
Posted by Robert Wager on 06/16/2009 @ 09:42PM PT
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Thanks for this post, Natasha. I agree with you that the U.S. anti-hunger movement is paralyzed by their ties to Big Ag, and this has put them on the wrong side of history in regards to sustainable ag and the externalized costs of Big AG to the environment, family farms and our expanding waistlines. I'm not sure I'd use the term "bought out," as I think the relationship is more passive / not quid pro quo, but I get your meaning.
I'm curious though, what do you mean by saying that "their management of food distribution channels actively promotes hunger"? You can certainly make this argument (and do) in regards to international hunger, and you can easily argue domestically that these companies' actions encourage malnourishment (obesity at the cost of real nutrition), but hunger? Like it or not, Big Ag has made food more affordable for most Americans.
Posted by JC Dwyer on 06/17/2009 @ 06:48AM PT
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We have the most malnourished obese people in the world, as you allude to.
There are food deserts in rural and urban communities all over the US where you can't get anything but processed food products and soda in what passes for a 'grocery' store. This is the result of a deliberate policy of subsidizing lousy growing techniques and even worse food products. Before they made the government bow to their demands, almost everything on the shelves of the local Kwik-e-Mart type place would have to be labeled an imitation food, as Michael Pollan noted.
The obesity epidemic in lower income groups has effectively masked the hunger among the under- and unemployed, but it's real enough. Soup kitchens all over the country are dealing with record turnout, often from sectors that had never previously shown up for food assistance.
Posted by Natasha Chart on 06/17/2009 @ 02:27PM PT
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I agree that obesity is on the rise, especially in low-income communities where real food is rare. Hunger is also growing in these communities. But while hunger and obesity are linked by geography and class, you haven't demonstrated to us how the industry practices that result in imitation food also "actively promote hunger." What I'm saying is that while these practices, gov't subsidies etc. have made the wrong kinds of calories cheap, they *have* made calories cheaper overall. We spend less on food as a % of our total budgets than at any time in American history. Whether those cheaper calories have reduced hunger is debatable, as hunger is a political condition - but it's also a real stretch to claim that they have made it worse. Maybe I'm nitpicking your language here, but it's important that we don't make blanket statements if we are going to affect policy change on such a complex topic.
Posted by JC Dwyer on 06/17/2009 @ 02:59PM PT
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JC, there are two ways that we pay for food. One being the upfront cost of the food, and the other the cost we shoulder (or don't) on the positive or negative health impacts of our dietary choices.
You're right that Americans currently spend less than we ever have in history on feeding ourselves. But this has led the rise of dietary diseases such as diabetes that in the end cost more to treat medically than most poor people (whose diets consist of the cheap calories you cite) can afford.
While BigAg has made food cheaper, it's also possible they've made hunger more rampant by forcing people to spend more on health care and prescriptions to combat diseases caused by the very cheap food they peddle. In return, these people have less money to spend on food and thus, in a way, cheap food in the long run is actually causing an increase in hunger.
Does this make sense?
Posted by Greg Plotkin on 06/18/2009 @ 02:40PM PT
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That makes perfect sense, thanks Greg. That was the explanation I was missing.
Is there a way to prove this theory? I.e., does anyone know of a geographic or longitudinal study that correlates diet-related health care costs to food insecurity? It makes perfect sense, but I've never seen such research. One good study proving that link could turn a lot of heads in the food banking industry.
Posted by JC Dwyer on 06/22/2009 @ 08:10AM PT
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As I said last night the suicide myth is just that a myth wrt GMO's being the cause.
Whose numbers count?: Probing discrepant evidence on transgenic cotton in the Warangal district of India
Ronald J Herring
Professor of Government; Director, Einaudi Center for International Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca NY, United States of America
PP: 145 - 159
The relationship between poverty and transgenic agricultural crops has created a global rift in development studies. Some, but not all, questions in this debate should be amenable to empirical treatment.
Field studies have generated divergent numbers on yields and other agronomic outcomes. Studies from India come to diametrically opposed findings about Bt cotton: either the technology is scale-neutral and profitable for farmers of all size classes, or produces rural catastrophe - reaching the characterization ‘genocidal' in one prominent critique.
This essay suggests a method learned from field investigation of data volatility across studies in the most controversial district in India. The method involves a multi-disciplinary team concentrating on plausible mechanisms for data distortion at the field level.
Interpolating among studies and field results, this essay concludes that widespread reports of ‘the failure of Bt cotton in India' - on agronomic, economic and environmental grounds - are not sustainable scientifically but do have plausible motivations connected to the contentious politics around ‘GMOs' globally.
http://mra.e-contentmanagement.com/archives/vol/2/issue/2/article/2364/whose-numbers-count
I have quite a few other reports that also come to the same conclusion if people are interested. I leave readers with one thing to ponder. If Bt cotton is such a bad thing in India can anyone explain why the acreage of Bt varieties has gone from near zero in 2003 to nearly 80% of ALL cotton grown in India today. Either the products do work as advertised or the farmers in India do not understand farming. They see the results of real life experiences of those who plant Bt cotton and decide what to plant. Hmmm, what to think?
Posted by Robert Wager on 06/17/2009 @ 10:22AM PT
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The thing about sustanable is that its always being challenged by future events .....
The world is Producing a Population every 4 years , the size of the USA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Economic Stimulus needs to include this Long term Explosion of the population , so we can have a chance to create supply of Vital resources for this demand thats coming at the speed of LIFE !!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/popclockworld.html
Monthly World population figures: 07/01/08 6,710,926,117 07/01/09 6,790,062,216
The future of global farming and food supply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug
The limited potential for land expansion for cultivation—only 17% of cultivable land produces 90% of the world's food crops[34]—worries Borlaug, who, in March 2005, stated that, "we will have to double the world food supply by 2050." With 85% of future growth in food production having to come from lands already in use, he recommends a multidisciplinary research focus to further increase yields, mainly through increased crop immunity to large-scale diseases, such as the rust fungus, which affects all cereals but rice. His dream is to "transfer rice immunity to cereals such as wheat, maize, sorghum and barley, and transfer bread-wheat proteins (gliadin and glutenin) to other cereals, especially rice and maize".[34]
According to Borlaug, "Africa, the former Soviet republics, and the cerrado are the last frontiers. After they are in use, the world will have no additional sizable blocks of arable land left to put into production, unless you are willing to level whole forests, which you should not do. So, future food-production increases will have to come from higher yields. And though I have no doubt yields will keep going up, whether they can go up enough to feed the population monster is another matter. Unless progress with agricultural yields remains very strong, the next century will experience sheer human misery that, on a numerical scale, will exceed the worst of everything that has come before".[20]
Besides increasing the worldwide food supply, Borlaug has repeatedly stated that taking steps to decrease the rate of population growth will also be necessary to prevent food shortages. In his Nobel Lecture of 1970, Borlaug stated, "Most people still fail to comprehend the magnitude and menace of the 'Population Monster'...If it continues to increase at the estimated present rate of two percent a year, the world population will reach 6.5 billion by the year 2000. Currently, with each second, or tick of the clock, about 2.2 additional people are added to the world population. The rhythm of increase will accelerate to 2.7, 3.3, and 4.0 for each tick of the clock by 1980, 1990, and 2000, respectively, unless man becomes more realistic and preoccupied about this impending doom. The tick-tock of the clock will continually grow louder and more menacing each decade. Where will it all end?"[21]
Posted by Tony Newbill on 06/21/2009 @ 11:49AM PT
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For what it's worth, in about the last 15 years or so the UN's estimates on world population growth have gone down. Some time back they were estimating a peak of about 12 billion in 2060. That's down to about 10.5 billion in 2050 or sooner. (All those figures are from my memory, but I'm sure the trend is to a lower, sooner peak.)
It seems most countries go through a phase of rapid population growth as they go from being poor to affluent; then the population tends to level off. I think that phase of rapid growth is one generation long. People who grew up in an era of high infant mortality will want to have lots of children so some will survive. Then you have one generation in which all the children survive, and grow up standing in a line a dozen family members long to get to the one bathroom each morning. When they grow up, they make sure they have at least one bathroom for every two family members.
I think China and India now have large middle classes in the 'stand in line for the bathroom' phase. In another 20 years, I wouldn't be surprised to see both those countries importing labor.
Posted by David Grant on 06/21/2009 @ 02:13PM PT
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Empower women (through education, through micro-loans --> political economic empowerment) in Africa, India and Asia, and you kill the population monster.
Posted by Cybele Seeds on 06/22/2009 @ 01:32PM PT
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I wish Robert Wager and Natasha Chart would debate a tad more politely. They both sound well informed, and both sound like they have a prime goal in common -- that nobody goes hungry.
Ms. Chart, an "amateur eater" starts out reviewing some good news of biblical proportions -- that there's enough grain out there to make us all not just satisfied but downright fat, and enough meat, milk, and eggs to feed each us nearly a pound of high quality protein a day. And you can see the result: Remember when we thought of Chinese people as short? Now the Houston Rockets have a 7 foot tall center named Yao Ming.
I don't get paid to eat, but otherwise I think I qualify as a "professional eater" -- I'm good at it and I enjoy it a lot. I enjoy it more now that I can think my eating well doesn't deplete the supply of food and cause someone else to go hungry. I think it's a sin that distribution problems still make some people go hungry, but I think we should celebrate the fact that it's now ONLY a distribution problem that anyone goes hungry.
Posted by David Grant on 06/21/2009 @ 02:01PM PT
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david, its natashas blog, and R Wager makes a hobby of sticking his PRO GM chem and pesticide views on any and every web page he can find. he ties up useful and constuctive comment threads with his cut and pastes to HIS GM Oriented site, we get enough proGM media releases and lies on a daily basis elsewhere, We however rarely get a comment posted/appro'd on a GM site. we do not bother!
There is an admitted campaign underway to push the GM World view and to that end RW and Brad Mitchell PR man for Monsanto and their staff, are trolling to sh*tstir on any site they can find.
I am sick of him, and I guess Natasha also feels a bit like that too!
He is a "nusiance blogger" so being polite is getting harder with every post!
Real care for the starving would see the MASSIVE pr and ad budgets let alone the wasted lab costs, and lifetimes spent on World destroying GM , used to feed and grow Organic and susatinable crops!
No till is not good, lower pesticide and herbicide use is a downright lie too.
safety testing in human trials has never been done. Animals can't talk to say they feel ill from their food! substantial equivalence is pure Farce.
FDA and USDA are industry patsies. go do some reading. try naturalnews.com for a start. then go the Union of Concerned Scientists and read there too. than see just why! we are a tad short with the fellow:-)
Posted by amicus curiae on 06/24/2009 @ 09:07AM PT
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I don't know much about this subject so this is more of a question rather than an informed bit of criticism, but here goes:
The original post began by citing the overabundance of food in the world, to the effect that we have enough food in the world to make everybody fat.
Then Natasha goes on to criticize industrialized food production throughout the rest of the piece. So here's my question: is the fact that we have such an overabundance of food in our world at all related to the prevalence of industrial food production? In other words, if today's current world population of 6 to 7 billion existed in a world where there was no industrial agriculture, would there still be such a large supply of food?
Again, this is not a rhetorical question as I really don't know the answer, but simply want to know if this thought has been addressed anywhere. Thanks.
Posted by Sean Kellem on 06/21/2009 @ 04:26PM PT
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"If today's current world population of 6 to 7 billion existed in a world where there was no industrial agriculture, would there still be such a large supply of food?"
Good question. My guess is that we'd have less food without industrial agriculture. That guess is worth about what you paid for it.
It would be nice if somebody would find an answer to your question that we could bank on, but I'd bet anyone who did it would be trashed by at least one side, maybe both/all sides of the argument.
Posted by David Grant on 06/21/2009 @ 05:41PM PT
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I guess if we were to go back to a food production that was done by hand , we would not have a Unemployment rate , because we would all have to be in the Fields hoeing weeds , and hand cutting and binding hay for dairy cows for dairy food products , hand planting crops hand threshing these crops , plus all the mechanization in processing would be changed to hand production , so if we were to be able to produce the tons and process the tons all by the sweat and muscle of humanity , we would for sure be fit .
Posted by Tony Newbill on 06/21/2009 @ 06:39PM PT
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Last summer I met a family in Chicago who fed themselves out of a 20' X 40' garden. All summer they canned the fruits and veggies, put up soups and stews, and ate them during the winter. They both had regular jobs, too. All organic, no chemicals, each year the soil got better with composting.
Sure, they bought some stuff to add variety, like flour for baked goods, but no meat or dairy. they averaged about 2 hours between them each day in the growing season to provide year around nutrition.
It can be done.
Posted by nancy Sindelar on 06/21/2009 @ 09:54PM PT
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Organic crops provide more return per acre than commercial or GM chem. Mixed organic more so, yes more labour is required, thats a good thing, more employment, healthier people and less fossil fuel usage.
I have lived in dryland, and now a slightly wetter area. I see ruined land growing nothing, not even bracken! due to chemicals used and mineral depletion.
If you want to owe a bank forever, and risk loosing it all, then big industry is perfect for you!
tractor for large areas 300k, plus attachments in the many large thousands, add maintenance of the onboards etc and the bill is enormous. a fan belt can cost 400$ ea and some of the big stuff has 10+ per unit.
chemicals 1,100per ton last year in Aus per acre, plus the weedicide and pesticide add around 500+
best price on Canola was 580 a ton, and the average is 1.5 tonne per acre, 2 is great, 1 is more common in dry years.
now add a few drought years while paying the bank loans and see just why! a lot of people have walked off the land!
without huge chem and machinery debt, those people would stand a chance to survive.
to Tony above...Cows eat pasture, thats what their systems evolved to do, the E coli issue goes away when they are fed natural diets.
ok in US they need winter shedding and feed, a small baler can harvest enough on farm to get by, IF the farm is NOT overstocked. here we feed out in summer when all feed dries off. same story- you grow enough to cover the lean times if you are smart. ONE sheep per acre is the norm in a lot of Aus arid lands.
Go see Polyface Farms web pages and ACRES USA too.
a small community like mine used to have full employment, now we have 50% unemployed, and we truck in goods like dairy that were made locally just 30 years or less ago., until recently a farmer could NOT sell off farm, he had to go via a marketing board, pay fees and transport that was so stupid when the buyer may be 5 miles away.
My 2 acres should be able to feed 10+families with veg and fruit, and if put to grain organically grown i expect 2 tons per acre. that would also supply a massive amount for breads and pastas etc.
It is the media inculcated dumbing down story. dont learn to cook, you can buy it, dont learn to sew spin or knit, you can buy it, well one day very soon you will NOT be able to buy it, what? will you all do then??
Hard work keep us fit and healthy, more people need to be doing real work, not sitting on their butts indoors!
Sunshine and fresh air is a cure for depression. A lab is not the place to be feeding the world, a farm is.
and robert, human poop works just as well, for those who cannot afford a cow. heat it to 50C in a black plastic bag for a couple of days and it is safer than Cafo output anyday. compost as usual and save the urine in a bucket and water it on, bingo free phosphorus and ammonia. Don't give me crap about they need chemicals, they DO NOT! they also do NOT need GM -no one does.
and I am off to go dig and plant on that note:-)
Posted by amicus curiae on 06/21/2009 @ 08:32PM PT
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Please explain further the line of stones on the property. Is this to slow runoff and erosion? Or something else?
It seems to me that the African people were able to feed themselves for thousands of years before they ever met a chemical fertilizer, so why do they suddenly need them now? Could it be that chemicals affect soil depletion?
Posted by nancy Sindelar on 06/21/2009 @ 09:47PM PT
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Nancy, yes the stones slow run off , they also help keep moisture in the soil ,accrue silt, which hold minerals, and help keep biota alive, and keep the soil under them cooler in Savage heat areas. see Bill Mollisons Permaculture one and two for great diagrams showing gardens in the Arid Sandy soils in outback australia.
Rocks can be a very effective mulch:-)
African areas always had drought and floods, the new hi tech wars assisted by supposed civilised countries has created a lot of the land destruction and poverty and killed animals etc, as well as the people. Add idiots from Monsanto Dow etc, to try and farm the soils as if they had topsoil...like Aus they have Little, and the soils are fragile and NOT suited to chem agri rape. oh and the white Boer and pommy invaders nicked the good land and take the water. add mining and countries buying leasing cheap land to pillage and strip further and its a disaster indeed.
Posted by amicus curiae on 06/22/2009 @ 08:10AM PT
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Loved the discussion, and look forward to more.
Thanks to all who participated.
Remember: es wird nicht so heiss gegessen, wie es gekocht wird. (German proverb)
Translation: You don't eat the food at the same temperature as that at which you cook it. Meaning: heated debate is essential before you can arrive at ideas worth digesting.
Posted by Cybele Seeds on 06/22/2009 @ 01:47PM PT
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Hi,
I'd like for your to consider this blog message by Angel Flinn and rethink your position about grass fed meats being sustainable:
http://www.care2.com/causes/environment/blog/free-range-is-not-the-answer/
joseph
======================
Joseph Puentes
NoMeat@h2opodcast.com
http://h2opodcast.com/vsse.html (Vegan Environmental Solutions Podcast)
Posted by Joseph Puentes on 06/23/2009 @ 03:37PM PT
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joseph, i read it. i agree that in the ridiculous volumes of animals now bred and mistreated there is no way that free range would be any better.
however, as part of small well managed farms the methane can be controlled effectively with bentonite in some chaff as a treat if you felt the need. cow pats feed earthworms and dung beetles that till and aerate the soil in a healthy environment.,
you can, and many oldtime farmers did and do? make a homemade biofuel digester and use the methane to power pumps lighting and heating. win win!
I eat meat, maybe once a week, sometimes 2x. I can raise a sheep or a cow along with feed for it, and fruit and veg and grains for one person very well on 2 acres of land, I can also grow a small woodlot and recycle bloody everything. All up a well balanced permaculture based system, creates less impact than a massive monocropped Plant based farm does.good pasture maintains soil viability, any fool that overgrazes gets trashed soil and sick animals. Go see www.polyfacefarm.com they are proof of sustainability. You grow pasture the cows both eat and fertilize it as nature intended, all waste is returned to the land , and man takes a small part, the waste from which, should also be returned.
It is called "the law of return" break it at your peril.
Posted by amicus curiae on 06/24/2009 @ 08:54AM PT
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It is attributed to Hurbert Hoover saying in 1928 the phrase about having a "Chicken in every pot. . ." The point was that meat was not the every day food it is now. Stepping back several generations we find that we lived like a lot of the world lives today in that very little meat was (is) eaten and was more something used for holidays. I do not advocate eating meat at all but yes I agree that a massive reduction (thats massive spelled with a capital M) in the amount of meat the developed world eats could supply and possibly fit into the description of your "small well managed farms." Another benefit would be that billions fewer animals would suffer the horrific conditions they endure from the moment they are born until their last breath.
I think rather than speak in terms of grass fed meat being an answer one should think in terms of a plant based diet (and no not farms made up of monocropped vegetables) being the answer AND for those that simply refuse to do their part in working toward a Sustainable Food Supply For The World then let them receive their meats from the grass fed meat producers.
We need to think in terms of doing something quickly rather than gradually. The world finds itself in the ridiculous circumstances we have created for ourselves and the only way for there to be hope of ever achieving a sustainable food supply is to start reaching for the fruit that is significantly higher since the low hanging fruit will not be enough to satisfy a hungry world.
joseph
======================
Joseph Puentes
NoMeat@h2opodcast.com
http://h2opodcast.com/vsse.html (Vegan Environmental Solutions Podcast)
http://h2opodcast.com (Environmental Podcast)
http://h2opodcast.blogspot.com (Blog for above)
http://PleaseListenToYourMom.com (Women's Peace Podcast)
http://NuestraFamiliaUnida.com (Latin American History Podcast)
http://NuestrosRanchos.com (Jalisco, Zacatecas, and Aguascalientes Genealogy)
Posted by Joseph Puentes on 06/24/2009 @ 11:28AM PT
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So you think there is enough food in the world to make everyone fat. Evidently you didn't see the report I did today that said there are over a billion people starving on this planet!!! A distribution problem???!!!!??? Why don't you come to california and see what is really going on!!! Nearly ALL our veggei ground crops have failed here, and we supply those crops to people all over this nation and the world!!! You want to see fed and fat people??? Well, you won't find them here!!!!!!! This state is dying!!!!! You must be out of your mind to say that there is plenty of food! You need to check ALL the states and see just how fat everyone is!!!!!! Millions of families have lost their jobs, their cars, their homes, their everything!! They have NOTHING left. How are THEY supposed to eat, when they have no money to buy food, - - - and all the help for poor people is being shut down all over this country!!!! Why don't you come to California, open your freaking eyes and really SEE how we are homeless and fat!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by Suni Ibarra on 06/24/2009 @ 09:31PM PT
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Ms. Chart, the professional eater, when did you study all this in college? Was it within the last year or so? If not, you have a LOT more to study about before you go spewing your formal idealistic education at we folks who are starving all over this world. Maybe you shouldn't elucidate so strongly and self assuredly till you visit some of the over billion people starving in their environments. What good is your rhetoric if you can't just up and help DO something for the starving ones in this nation, who have lost their jobs and everything else. Tell me how YOU personally are going to help feed the people who live up under the overpasses, in the struts and under-structures - - - who have nowhere else to go, and who HAVE NO FOOD TO EAT BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO MONEY TO BUY IT WITH, AND ALL THE FOOD BANKS ARE EMPTY, AND ALL THE ORGANIZATIONS AND OTHER HELP IS ALL CLOSING DOWN DUE TO LACK OF DONATIONS AND OTHER FUNDS!!!!!!!! COME HERE TO CALIFORNIA AND EAT ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WITH THOSE OF US MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WITH OUT FOOD OR ANYTHING ELSE HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by Suni Ibarra on 06/24/2009 @ 09:43PM PT
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Ms. Chart!!! i DARE you to come to California and solve all our problems for us. I'd love to see you stop the starvation here!!! You have no idea just how much it hurts us poor folks to hear you say those things. Come here and help us if you think you are so smart and good!! YOU come here and give us the food you say is out there!!! I DARE YOU TO COME HERE TO CALIFORNIA AND HELP. I KNOW YOU WON'T, BECAUSE YOU THINK YOU POOP ROSE PETALS. WELL, QUIT POOPING FLOWERS, AND COME HERE AND DO SOMETHING TO HELP US ON AN IMMEDIATE BASIS, IF YOU THINK YOU ARE SO GOOD, MISS WONDERFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by Suni Ibarra on 06/24/2009 @ 09:52PM PT
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suni, I do understand your rage at Natasha, however, what she says IS true. At the present moment dairy farmers in the US are pouring milk away, as they cannot sell it. and they are unable to make even COST price , back. YOUR Federal government has , "arranged"/ facilitated massive stores of dried milk they are HOLDING!! to keep prices high for the Retailers. Ditto grains and other storeable foods.
Ask the Retailers and Middlemen why?? food prices did NOT drop, when ingredients and fuel did! and they WERE TOLD to drop them, by your toothless price control watchdogs.
The writing re Californias crash has been on the wall for close to a year, if not longer. The more clued in folks started small gardens and bought beans and dried foods, to subsist on.
I don,t know how you personally ended up without a home and food, but I do suggest that you take the Rage and Justifiable anger to where it needs to be directed, Federal Government.Vote and protest for universal health care. so at least you can be assisted with illnesses.
You must all help yourselves to survive this, yelling at Natasha may make you feel better , but it,s futile. Libraries have FREE knowledge, go read about survival skills the last generations had, and realise that , like the Katrina folks, you are NOT a priority to those in Power, you are expendable, as long as they are doing ok in the polls and riots don,t break out.
Then, Discover just how you and a whole pile of other disenfranchised poor will be labelled as terrorists, and thats why! they have those nice new FEMA camps..
Posted by amicus curiae on 06/25/2009 @ 02:23AM PT
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Suni.
Go read Grapes Of Wrath.
see the amazing similarities.
after WW1 they had a whole pile of new chemicals to find a use for, chemical faming began then, so did larger "more effective" modern farm machinery.
Bingo! more people without a means to feed themselves and out of work and home...living rough or travelling for unavailable jobs...No health care ,nothing but soup lines if lucky.
Big(for their day) monocrops with toxic chemicals, in drought and on unsuitable land, drought and injured soils.
ringing any bells?
Took a while to figure how bad the chemicals were, Silent Spring, Rachael Carson!
But, they kept the same stupid big acres theme for growing, (The Farm folks were now either dead, or in cities, and didnt see the land, just the food in the stores.)
Their kids, had world war 2, to create the same, more excess, chemicals and manufactories, and a new use was needed, hell..ooo famer!
Now we have the continuation of that sad and sorry story, the soils screwed, the waters been carelessly and stupidly wasted, and mother naure sends drought.
whoops!
TA Da...GM Chemical dependant crops will save us all
( No, but it keeps people quiet and hoping, and makes heaps for the chem cos that have all those chemicals spare now, seeing as the wars aren,t using enough ammunition lately...)
where? do you think the fertilizers come from anyway.Chemical waste!!! the Fluoride in your water..ditto!
The new light concrete, yup Radioactive fly ash mixed into it to fluff it up! Triclosan mouth wash toothpastes, yup its a registered Pesticide! yummy huh!
The government( a large corrupted group of lobbied bribed and deluded puppets, run by business, and for business! In Charge of social and physical departments that a whole lot have no experience in, in real life. Ie a lawyer/accountant in charge of Agriculture? A peanut Farmer in charge of an army, navy and airforce??
also read Alvin Toffler, Power shift, see how society gets these upheavals, see how it is "Managed"
? Greene ,The Jungle tells how food was, as well as a very enlightening look at early suburban work life in America,
USDA and FDA were supposed to keep it clean.... ROFLMAO!
New Food Laws and Codex, managed by pharma and Pharmers, Gm And Chem Illnesses and plenty of drugs to "treat" the diseases...
America you are in the Doo Doo!
Posted by amicus curiae on 06/25/2009 @ 03:45AM PT
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What farming has become is all about making money - not food. The decline of the human physical form began with the advent of planting crops and manipulation of the food supply for political ends.
Those who hunted or herded animals and/or harvested fish from nearby waters were the healthiest peoples. Check out "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price, DDS.
And what about that post of the IFPRI Discussion Paper 00808,
"Yes, farmer suicide is an important and tragic phenomenon, but it still only represents three-quarters of the total number of suicides due to pesticide ingestion in India and less than a fifth of total suicides in India."
ONLY, "Only three-quarters of suicides, ..."
Posted by Paul Lovgren on 06/25/2009 @ 10:41PM PT
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Americans throw away enough food to feed an army.
Posted by Otto VonAuchvetter on 06/29/2009 @ 08:42PM PT
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