Almost any farmer or consumer could agree on the following ideals for
our agricultural system:
"Farming in ways that are best for us, best for the environment,
and best for providing an adequate food supply."
I believe that these are the goals and ideals of organic customers and
organic farmers, and I share them. If organic could deliver on these “triple
best” goals, I would be among its strongest supporters, but I don't believe
that it can. The organic rules are based on the assumption that “natural”
is always best. That assumption originated in a pre-scientific era, and
it does not hold up to what we have learned over the last century. The
"natural" definition is great for marketing purposes, but often not
the optimal criterion to guide farming practices.
The Original Contribution of the Organic Movement
The important contribution of organic early in the last century was its
focus on improving soil health/quality. The pioneers of the organic
movement worked out certain farming methods using “natural fertilizers” to
mitigate the nutrient-depleting and soil-degrading effects of the
plow-intensive farming of the late 19th and early 20th century. The organic focus on natural also meant that
it eschewed some of the early pesticides, which were later found to be
problematic for health and the environment. For a period of time,
organic may have been, in fact, the best farming option for us and for the
environment.
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Since then we have learned more and more about environmental systems, genetics, microbiology and human health. Based on that, increasingly rigorous regulatory processes were put in place and farming practices have changed dramatically. Sometimes organic growers were in the lead in making those changes. But increasingly, the “natural” constraints of organic are making it difficult or even impossible for organic farmers to implement what we now know to be best for us, best for the environment, or best for the food supply. I'd like to describe six specific examples of those limitations.
1. Nitrogen Fertilization
One of the greatest challenges of farming is providing a growing crop
with the necessary mineral nutrients when it needs them. When nutrients are
free in the soil and not being actively absorbed by the growing crop, they have
the potential to move into ground water, or to wash off into surface water.
If they do, they can become health issues and/or foster algal blooms that cause
“dead zones” in bodies of water. Excess nitrogen in soils can lead to the
generation of the potent greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide. There are specific
conditions under which natural fertilizers like manures or compost can reduce these problems,
but there are also conditions under which the uncontrolled, nutrient release
pattern from natural fertilizers can be quite problematic. Depending on how and
when they are delivered, “synthetic” fertilizers can be deployed in ways that
do a better job of providing the crop’s need without as much risk of these
forms of pollution. For example, drip irrigation systems are very efficient
ways to deliver fertilizers but cannot be used for most forms of organic
fertilizers. Triple-best farming requires the ability to use both natural
and synthetic fertilizers in the right settings and with the right delivery
methods. There is even the possibility of making synthetic nitrogen using renewable energy.
2. Low Risk Pesticide Use
What makes a pesticide safe for us or for the environment is not related to whether it is “natural." Some of the most toxic chemicals known are produced in nature. The reason that the American consumer can have confidence in the safety of crop pesticide use is that the EPA demands a great deal of data for its multi-dimensional risk assessment for any chemical, natural or not, that is going to be used for pest control. These tests involve multiple dimensions of human toxicity as well as assessments of environmental fate and environmental impact. Some, but not all “natural products” meet those standards. Some, but not all, synthetic products meet those standards. The details of how synthetic or natural pesticides can be used are then dictated in “label requirements” specific to the properties of that chemical (e.g. how long before the crop is harvested, what worker protection standards are needed, what considerations are needed relative to sensitive environmental settings…). It is this regulatory process, not naturalness, which ensures environmental safety and residue levels that are safe even by very conservative standards. In many cases the "synthetic" options are the very best choice among the approved options.
(Note: the graph of California use data shown earlier has been removed. Sulfur classified in that figure as Category II is actually Category IV for oral acute toxicity, Category III for dermal toxicity)
(Note: the graph of California use data shown earlier has been removed. Sulfur classified in that figure as Category II is actually Category IV for oral acute toxicity, Category III for dermal toxicity)
3. Fully Integrated Pest Control
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Organic farmers have been early adopters of many pest control options
other than classical, chemical pesticides (genetic resistance, biological
controls, crop rotations, natural pest enemies, and pheromone-confusion…), but
at least since the 1970s, this has also been a growing component in “conventional
agriculture” called Integrated Pest Management(IPM). In many
crop systems, modern synthetic pesticides are one important component in these
mixed approaches. For example, there is a problem in the current,
California spinach crop, which has around 50% organic production. There
is a disease of that crop called downy mildew and it is transmitted from season
to season via survival in the seed. Through conventional breeding, it has
been possible to develop spinach that is resistant to that fungus. The
conventional growers also use a relatively benign synthetic fungicide as a seed
treatment against the disease - thus they are using an integrated program of
genetics and a fungicide. For the organic production, the seed treatment
is not allowed. Without the multiple control strategy, the fungus has
rapidly mutated to get around the genetic resistance, and six good sources of
resistance have been lost within a few years. Each time, the newly
virulent strains have emerged first in the organic fields. This gap in the
IPM program is now putting the entire California spinach industry at risk.
There are similarly precarious situations in other crops.
4. Biorationals
It takes a lot of money to do the testing needed to commercially develop and insure the
safety of any new agricultural pesticide - more than $200MM.
That level of spending is appropriate to meet our modern safety standards, but
it means that the commercial development of any new synthetic pesticide can
only be justified for a very large market within the agricultural realm.
For problems that only affect a small part of the food supply, it is not possible
to justify the investment in a new option. Fortunately, the EPA has a
special, lower cost registration process for low toxicity chemicals that
already occur within the food supply.
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A good example of this is a new product for preventing sprouting in stored potatoes.
The compound 3-decen-2-one already
occurs in at low levels in potatoes as well as in mushrooms, tuna fish, yogurt
and soy. An identical, synthetic version of the chemical can now be used
with stored potatoes and it is a better, safer option than the old sprout
inhibitor, CIPC. Because of a purist interpretation of the organic rules,
the new sprout inhibitor cannot be used for organic potatoes. Instead
they are treated repeatedly with clove oil – a more costly and less effective
option with no other “triple best” advantages.
5. Soil Building
Starting in 1960, farmers have been working out farming systems that do
not require physical tillage of the soil. When these are combined with
the use of cover crops and GPS guided equipment use, it is possible to raise
the important row crops (wheat, barley, canola, soybeans, corn, cotton…) in no-till or minimum-tillage systems that improve soil
health and quality. It is also an important “best” system to
prevent soil erosion, reduce water pollution risk, and sequester carbon to
mitigate climate risk.
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This system is much more like the way soils are built in natural prairie
habitats and is not dependent on outside inputs of organic matter as is the
case in the typical organic systems. In order for these new options to be
pursued efficiently on a large scale, herbicides are necessary as are controls
for certain pests which are favored in a non-tillage system. Organic
growers don’t have many of the practical tools to manage these issues, and so
they are ironically unable to fully or cost-effectively pursue these best,
reduced tillage protocols.
6. Genetic Improvements
Genetic modification of crop plants has always been an important means
of making farming better able to meet our food supply goals. In recent
history it has become possible to make more precise genetic modifications using
the tools of genetic engineering – tools which were in fact drawn from nature.
For example, restriction endonuclease enzymes occur naturally and cut DNA
at specific target sites, and the Ti plasmid of Agrobacterium which inserts
DNA into chromosomes of plants. In the last few years, even
more precise and efficient tools for genetic modification have been discovered
within a group of ancient microbes we call the Archaea (e.g. the CRISPR-Cas9system).
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As deployed within the unprecedented and rigorous regulatory framework for "GMO
Crops", these tools have become an important means through which
triple-best crop improvements can be made. In her book “Tomorrow’s Table,” UC Davis molecular
biologist Pamela Ronald has made an articulate argument for why these tools
should be embraced for organic farming. But such suggestions are not even
considered by the fierce defenders of the organic rules. Even when
genetic engineering is used to transfer something like a gene from wild
potatoes into commercially relevant potatoes, the resulting triple-best crop
will not be available to organic farmers (as in the case of the new, Innate 2 potato from Simplot)
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A Missed Opportunity to Embrace Best Practices by Organic
There was a window of opportunity in 1990 when the organic rules could
have been updated to use science-based criteria rather than the restrictive
obligation of natural. In that year, the US Congress tasked the USDA with
formulating a national organic standard, and that research-oriented agency was
inclined to bring modern knowledge into their rule-making process. Such
an approach was vigorously opposed by key elements of the existing organic
advocacy community. When the national standard emerged in final form in
2000, at had only enshrined the "natural requirement" which
continues to limit the ability of farmers to pursue many triple-best strategies
such as those I’ve described above.
You are welcome to comment here and/or to write me at savage.sd@gmail.com
