reason 4,789,253 to grow organically

If you have visited this site occasionally, you know that we have strong feelings about corn and its use as a commodity crop.  Well, new data released today has not done much to change our feelings.

Research indicates that heavy rainfall expected because of climate change will exacerbate the effects of increased fertilizer use for corn-based ethanol production, causing a significant increase in nitrogen levels in rivers, according to Environmental Science and Technology.

Roughly 25% of the fertilizer used to grow crops makes it into our water supply. But that percentage changes depending on the type of land use, because the more fertilizer-dependent the agriculture is, the higher the concentrations of nitrogen entering water bodies. Corn is one of the most dependent crops on fertilizers and pesticides due to its constant manipulation to produce more and more as a commodity.  As a result of the fertilizers being released into our water systems, dead zones are created in many of our rivers, lakes and oceans.  

Currently, we know what to expect in terms of nitrogen quantities because of current levels of rainfall.  But what happens when rainfall gets heavier due to climate change?

The authors also found that a 7-fold increase in nitrogen input from humans caused river nitrogen levels to increase 8-fold, but when the rainfall increases by 7-fold, nitrogen levels double in the rivers. This suggests that human impact is greater than that of climate on the nitrogen levels, especially in agricultural areas.

However, the good news is that if farmers move towards organic means and decrease their pesticide and fertilizer use, the impact is seen immediately in our water supply.

water woes

Produce in California may see a price increase related to water issues in the state, according to the Associate Press.  In fact, farmer’s in Central California are abandoning their fields, leaving them to turn to dust, because of the plight caused by water shortages.

The most interesting finding in the report is that the limits in produce will not all be caused by the drought, but subsequent legislation that was put in place in anticipation of the drought.  Most prominently, the decision that ordered state water managers to expedite requests to move water so high-value crops like wine grapes, almonds and pistachio trees would stand a chance of surviving.

Federal water reserves are at their lowest since 1992, and unless California gets more rain, reserves will get slashed to nothing.

Obviously, in an already suffering economy, this is not good news.  It means that Californians will have to spend more money to get healthful food and their will be less jobs up and down the coast and central valley.

this is not low-carb

This sounds like it is out of a science fiction movie, but if it is being recommended, it must be accomplishable.

Researchers are suggesting that  we could replace current crops, with a strain that is identical except for one thing: it reflects more light thereby helping to cool the planet. The scientists behind this claim that it could possibly cool the planet, in summers, by 1 degree Celsius, according to a report in The New Scientist.

It is called the albedo effect and it is when there is a reflection of short wave energy back into space.  It has been a benefit of the snow present in the poles, all these years.  It is thought that plants could create the same effect.  Light surfaces reflect light and heat, while dark surfaces absorb light and heat.  This is why the Arctic melting is such a concern.  As the ice melts, what remains is a darker surface: water.

That is why these scientists are encouraging farmers to buy seeds with a high-albedo component.  Sadly, they may have to be encouraged with a monetary incentive.  But the study shows that crop yield will not be altered, and in some cases crop yield will increase.

Seems like a win win situation.

food imports

Unapproved genetically modified (GMO) food may find its way into the country due to a weak import control policy, finds the USDA in an internal audit, according to Reuters UK.

The audit found that the USDA needs to develop screening measures to weed out undeclared GMO crops and livestock. The department currently has no measures in place to identify a shipment of unapproved GMO imports unknown to the U.S. regulatory system, the report said.

Sadly, the USDA is more concerned with how it will affect commerce than how it will affect consumers. This has not been a concern in the past, as the U.S. has been the leader in GMO food, until now. However, countries have decided to invest millions into their own development programs. For example, China just dedicated $500 million to its GMO program, and has already developed a new form of rice.

The USDA has given itself until November 30th to finalize a policy for approval of imported GMO agriculture and meat.

soil problems in africa

 

Soil in Africa is being damaged at a rate that may plunge them into chaos, due to farming and climate change, according to a report from Bloomberg News.

“The situation is very severe and soil fertility is declining rapidly,” Jeroen Huising, a scientist who studies soils at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, or CIAT, said today in an interview. “Many countries like Kenya already don’t have enough food to feed their population and soil degradation is worsening an already critical situation.”

In a place where one in three people are ‘chronically’ hungry, any more damage to the weakened agriculture will be deadly.

As a result, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding a project, the African Soil Information Service will use mapping techniques and geographical information systems to help farmers and government officials choose the best options to improve agricultural land and slow the degradation of farmland.  The project will also address climate change issues.

As a result of the already depleted food supply, civil unrest has started.  Food supply workers and food aid convoys have been attacked and people have been killed.  This is why many feel there is an immediate need to fix this problem before it is irreparable.

news in food

Here are a handful of interesting links in food news for this week

Growing More Corn for Ethanol Makes Pest Control Harder, via the NY Times

Critics say turning more acreage over to corn to make fuel can lead to higher prices for other crops, increased soil erosion and other negative effects.

In a report in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Douglas A. Landis of Michigan State University and colleagues show that increasing the corn acreage can reduce the abundance of insect predators that control aphids, the most significant soybean pest in the United States.

Let’s Ask Marion Nestle: Are The USDA’s Organic Standards A Sham?, via Huffington Post

Cheating is the Achilles’ heel of organics. The entire organic certification system is based on trust. If trust goes, the organic industry collapses like a house of cards. Organics means two quite different things. To people who care about the food system, organics is about growing crops and raising animals using methods that are good (for the health of people and animals), clean (for the environment), fair (to the people who produce the food), and sustainable (meaning renewing–not wasting or destroying–the earth’s natural resources).

To everyone involved in raising and selling organic foods, organics is a business. This business commands higher prices if–and only if–buyers believe that the food is produced according to those criteria and is better for their health and that of the planet.

(edit. note: really good article)

Will Obama Integrate Food, Farming & Health Policies?, via ENN

Diet-related diseases continue to escalate – specifically in our children. Researchers predict that as a result of the continued rise in overweight, the children of today will have a shorter lifespan than their parents. Overweight and obesity alone have translated into skyrocketing health care costs which are bankrupting families and the health care system.

Likewise, the number of family farms and acres used for growing food is falling, while the cost of farm inputs are increasing. Subsidized crops such as corn, soybeans and wheat have flooded supermarkets with more processed, packaged “food-like” substances. Often, these foods are of low nutritional value and high in sugar, fat and salt.

A dichotomy exists between agriculture policies and Dietary Guidelines for Americans – yet, ironically, both are overseen by the USDA. Current food and farm policies stand in the way of making healthy food the easiest choice.

so you want to eat organic?

There is an inherent trust between the consumer and the provider, especially when it comes to food. I trust that my water is clean. I trust that when I go to a vegan restaurant, it is just that, meatless. I trust that when I go to Whole Foods to get organic produce, that it is truly organic.

Unfortunately, however, the last one, just doesn’t seem to be the case.

The Sacramento Bee has revealed that the largest producer of organic fertilizer was spiking its product with ammonium sulfate, therefore making it non-organic. This fertilizer was used in California organic farms through out most of 2006 and into 2007. Companies as large as Earthbound, the main lettuce supplier to Whole Foods, were affected by this deceit, unknowingly. One of the saddest things is that state officials were aware of the discrepancy, but kept it a secret from the farms until their investigation was complete.

Organic farming started with small operations that rejected modern agriculture’s huge, chemical-dependent fields in favor of diversified plots fertilized with old-fashioned compost, manure and cover crops. Today, organic farms still do without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. But much else is radically different.

Sales of organic products have soared from $5 billion nationwide a decade ago to $24 billion today, according to the Organic Trade Association. California accounts for nearly 60 percent of the U.S. harvest of organic produce.

The biggest organic operations now cultivate thousands of acres and sell to mainstream buyers like grocery chains.

Many critics of big chains, like Whole Foods, is that they have turned organic produce into just as much an industrial process and regular agriculture. In fact, in many organic farms, the environmental footprint is equal to the footprint created in industrial agriculture; the biggest emission coming from the transportation of the compost. Just like in most other industries, the desire to remain competitive and keep prices low, out weighs the desire to be ethical and grow high quality produce.

You can avoid this whole dilemma by purchasing your produce from a Farmer’s Market. In these cases, you meet the farmers, one on one, and can ask what they are using for growth supplements, if anything. Most of the time these people also have smaller farms to grow just what is required for their weekly trips to the market, instead of having to supply a mass demand to huge chains.

Unfortunately, this fertilizer situation is a rude awakening to reevaluate where we get our food. As consumers, we must demand that our food meets the quality we desire. And, if you cannot ensure that in a larger chain, than the best solution is using a smaller purveyor.

The article, via the Sacramento Bee, can be found HERE.

weekend roundup

A listing of interesting articles, then I did not give expanded coverage.

GMO, article 1:
GMO Job: Will the Obama administration be the first to seriously regulate genetically modified food?, via Grist.org

On the heels of a report out of Germany, emphatically concludes that awidely used strain of GM corn appears to decrease both birthrates and the size of offspring in mice — and the problems seem to grow with each generation, Grist investigates if Obama will stop the GMO legacy. Given whom he just appointed to Secretary of Agriculture, and the fact that he has the hands of some Monsanto executives in his pockets, I am going to say: probably not.

GMO article #2:
Seeds of doubt: Rules for bioengineered crops need close monitoring

To create genetically modified crops, scientists swap the genes from one microorganism or plant to another plant, in combinations that could never occur naturally. The result might be corn immune to weedkillers; cotton that automatically fends off pests; even “pharma-plants” that are tiny, green laboratories for cultivating powerful medicines.

It’s easy to see how genetically modified crops might solve a range of ancient problems.

 

The problem is not that genetically modified crops are in some way “unnatural” — few plants are as unnatural as domesticated corn or wheat, which require intensive human effort to grow at all.

GMO article #3:
Monsanto Funds Groups to Improve Mississippi River Water

With a $5 million contribution from the St. Louis-based Monsanto corporation, The Nature Conservancy, the Iowa Soybean Association and Delta Wildlife will work with farmers to remove nutrients and sediment from agricultural runoff in the Mississippi River Basin.

“Our goal is to use science – research and data – to systematically develop and implement a suite of management techniques that help production agriculture measurably improve stewardship while maintaining or increasing profitability,” Wolf said.

another food one:
Multitasking canola: A California miracle crop?

Farmers, water managers and agriculture researchers are closely watching an experiment using canola plants to absorb the salt from soil and water. The seeds are then crushed to extract oil for blending into environmentally friendly biodiesel.

“It’s all part of what we have to try to do here to turn a profit,” said Diener, who also grows almonds, tomatoes, grapes and corn on 5,000 acres.

someone has been spreading rumors

 

There are some myths out there about climate change, global warming, and “green” stuff, in general. TreeHugger has a great article dispelling some of those myths. HERE is the article. Below I have some summaries.

 

Myth #1: Genetically Modified Crops Have Higher Crop Yields and Help Reduce Poverty

Don’t believe the hype.

“The majority of GM crops are not destined for hungry people in developing countries, but are used to feed animals, generate biofuels, and produce highly processed food products–-mainly for consumption in rich countries. GM crops have not increased food security for the world’s poor. None of the GM crops on the market are modified for increased yield potential and research continues to focus on new pesticide-promoting varieties that tolerate application of one or more herbicides.”

Myth #2: Clean Coal Technology Will Solve the Coal Pollution Problem

“Historically, coal combustion wastes rarely exhibit the characteristics of hazardous waste. However, if coal burning utilities and the so-called “clean coal plants” were required to meet air emissions standards protective of human health, fly ash produced by them could be regulated as hazardous waste due to the elevated levels of mercury that would result. We might suppose that any fly ash with hazardous characteristics due to heavy metal content would have to be sent to special and expensive waste fills or be treated at great cost.”

Myth #3: Developing Nations Need to Stop Having Babies

“…for those of us living in conditions of comparative material luxury, it’s all too easy to point the finger elsewhere and mutter something like ‘why can’t they just stop having babies.’ However, when you consider per capita natural resource consumption and environmental impact the problem is more complicated. Just consider this one statistic: Over the course of a lifetime, a baby born in the UK will produce 160 times the carbon emissions of an Ethiopian baby. Then this one: According to data gathered by Global Footprint Network the 972 million people living in high income countries have double the total ecological footprint of the 5.4 billion people living in middle and low income countries.”

Myth #4: Wind Turbines Are a Serious Threat to Birds

more birds are killed annually by colliding with moving vehicles, flying into windows or by cats kept as house pets than by modern wind turbines. There are genuine environmental, visual, and social issues regarding where wind farms get built but it is patently false that wind turbines are a serious threat to flying birds.

Myth #5: Small Green Steps Won’t Make a Big Difference

This is probably the most important one, because this is the one that you and I will do on a daily basis.

More than (the genuine) positive environmental changes they can bring, advocating small changes is about this: Getting people to start thinking more acutely about the ecological impact of their actions, their consumer purchases and what they put into their bodies. Once this increased awareness has been ingrained then people will more easily and naturally move on to greater changes in the way they live their lives–and have an even greater impact on creating an ecologically sustainable society.

food, glorious food

There have been quite a few articles in recent weeks about our food supply. It is hard to write about each one and not have you feel bombarded with information, so I thought what would be best was to post links to each with blurbs about the importance of this information.

Lula’s Green Light for Monsanto Has Flooded Brazil with GMO Soya & Increased Amazon Deforestation, via Environmental News Network

Lula’s government promotes genetically-modified organisms despite social opposition.

Brazil is home to one of the world’s largest areas of genetically-modified seed cultivations with 15 million hectares in 2007. The greatest increase of these crops occurred under the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, despite growing opposition from Brazilian farmers and environmentalists.

Most of the concern centers around the reorganization of the National Biosafety Technical Commission or CTNBio, under Lula’s Administration. The group used to be a heavy critic of genetically modified agriculture, but has moved towards a favorable voice under new appointments. For example, the approval for use of MON810. Critics argued that the approval of MON810 for commercial use in Spain, Argentina and the United States, and other countries, had caused the contamination of conventional corn varieties with genetically-modified corn and led to social and economic problems. “The lack of segregation, identification and effective procedures led to the contamination of conventional varieties with transgenic varieties,” they said. These warnings were ignored by the committee.

In this same article, is the information that deforestation of the Amazon has increased by 4% due to encroaching farm exploitation. Many of the suspecting farms produce GMO soy.

All in all, Brazil has two factions; one that is strongly fighting global warming and the deforestation of the Amazon and the other that is enacting policy that encourages farming using GMO seeds. We have seen in the United States that farmers need to grow mass acreage of GMO seeds to not only counter the cost of the seeds, but also because these crops are commodity crops, which require larger volume.

It will be interesting to see how this progresses.

Food crunch opens doors to bioengineered crops, via wibw.com

Surging costs, population growth, and drought and other setbacks linked to global climate change are pressuring world food supplies, while soaring prices on the street have triggered riots and raised the number of people going hungry to more than 923 million, according to U.N. estimates.

With food demand forecast to increase by half by 2030, the incentive to use genetic engineering to boost harvests and protect precious crops from insects and other damage has never been greater.

The article goes on to discuss all the various areas where GM food is being embraced as a fix to the food crisis caused by global warming. What the article does not address is the criticism of using GM seeds for crops; primarily the affect on human health (due to the overuse of antibiotics) and the possibility of plant extinction (due to a bacteria wiping out the entire plant population). There are many other reasons why GMO is seen, by many food educators and policy makers, as a bad answer to the growing food concern. You can flip through this site to find many links, or do a simple google search.

EU approves genetically modified soybean for import, via ENN.

The European Union has authorized imports of a genetically modified (GM) soybean type for sale across its 27 national markets for the next 10 years, the European Commission said on Thursday.

Developed and marketed by Monsanto, the soybean is destined for use in food and animal feed, not for growing. It is a second-generation GM product known by its code number MON 89788 and commercially as Roundup RReady2Yield.

The reason this article is worthy of attention is because of how the soy is going to be used: animal feed. It is important to understand that animals evolved eating grasses. Like humans, they are designed to digest food that they are genetically built to eat. As an example, cows became ruminants because they are supposed to digest grass and by eating grain they become sick and require more antibiotics than necessary. In other words, when animals eat grains like corn and soy they are sick and that sickness is transferred to you when you eat them.

The EU has long fought the dominance of GM food in their society. I am curious as to what changed.

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