Applied Mythology

A Toxic Potential of Climate Change: How The Risk Differs Around The World

2012-01-24T08:51:00.000-08:00

(This post originally appeared on Sustainablog on 1/24/12)

One of the most toxic and carcinogenic threats in the human food supply is a natural chemical called "aflatoxin" that is produced by a fungus called Aspergillus. This opportunistic plant pathogen has the capacity to grow on a wide range of foods and feeds (corn, peanuts, cotton seed, tree nuts, dried spices and chiles...). The chance that it will contaminate a crop is enhanced by drought and/or insect damage - unfortunately both conditions expected to be more common with the onset of climate change. We didn't even know about this nasty chemical until 1960 when it was identified as the cause of death for more than 100,000 turkey poults in the UK that ate contaminated feed. Since that time we have come a long way in learning how to protect crops from contamination where possible, or to detect the toxin and thus keep it out of the food supply. The problem is that the degree to which people are protected from this threat varies widely around the world. The need to solve that disparity will only become more urgent.
I maintain a Google Alert for "aflatoxin" so that I can keep track of what is happening with this risk around the world. I'll describe some recent news coming from regions with a very different status in terms of managing this threat: the US, China and Kenya.

USA: Avoided Threats To Corn-Eating Dogs

In rich countries like the US, the food and feed industry generally does an excellent job of preventing aflatoxin contamination. Most of the news items about aflatoxin from these countries involve things like ever more sensitive testing methods or advances in Aspergillus control. However, late last year there was a rash of dog food recallsbecause of Aflatoxin. Details have been hard to find, but the most likely explanation is that severe drought conditions in areas like Texas and Oklahoma increased the incidence of aflatoxin contamination this season. One does not normally think about dogs eating corn, but corn-derived ingredients (corn gluten, DDG from ethanol production...) are plant-based alternatives to meat as a way to give dogs protein. That these incidents were caught before any reports of dog injury is good news as opposed to an event in 2006 where 76 dogs died. The fact that the issue wasn't caught before the products were shipped suggests that someone wasn't being as watchful as they should have been in a drought year. We have the awareness and the testing methods to prevent problems. We just have to use them rigorously.

China: A New Watchdog Agency Is Finding Many Problems

In a rapidly advancing society like that of China, aflatoxin management has become a new area of focus. After the major scandal about melamine contaminated milk in 2008, the Chinese government stepped up safety monitoring for the food supply. Not surprisingly, several issues are being found. Milk contaminated with aflatoxin was recently discovered. Aflatoxin was subsequently found in peanuts and cooking oil in Guangdong Province. Unfortunately, with a highly fragmented and rapidly changing food system, it is likely that it will take some time to fully protect the Chinese population from this toxin.

Africa: Sometimes Even The Food Aid Is Contaminated

My Google Alert sent me a link to a particularly sad, but not uncommon article about an event in Africa. This is from the text of An editorial in the Daily Nation from Kenya posted last Sunday:

At the weekend, Kenyans were treated to an unedifying spectacle of tonnes of relief food being destroyed due to aflatoxin contamination. Hard evidence has been presented indicating the presence of dangerous levels of toxins in cereals sold in open markets as well as in urban food distribution chains. After the contamination of maize in 2010, the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation promised to mop up and destroy the stock. At the same time, the Ministry of Agriculture promised to help farmers with better food drying technologies that would reduce contamination at the farm level. But the increasing cases during distribution indicate these agencies have not lived up to their promise or are not up to the task. It is unfortunate that a country which suffers perennial food shortages cannot protect the little that has been produced.

The food aid mention was Unimix that was to be distributed by the Kenyan Red Cross but which found to be contaminated with unacceptable levels of Aflatoxin. In many poorer nations, Corn, peanuts, peppers, spices and other foods are commonly contaminated because of a combination of drought, insects, poor storage conditions and the like. A more encouraging item that came up on my Google alert was the fact that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding work to make extremely cheap and easy to use tests for aflatoxin. I also saw an article about amobile maize dryer for use in Africa to reduce the risk. All these things could help, but there is a very long way to go.
The Daily Nation editorial concludes by saying:
"So far, the issue of food contamination has been handled casually and we feel it is time this was brought to the fore as a major food security concern because we cannot afford this kind of waste."
I couldn't agree more.
Please feel free to comment here or to email me at sdsavage@gmail.com.
Contaminated corn image by Pat Lipps, Ohio State University

Updated Listing of Posts by Steve Savage

2012-01-23T19:05:00.000-08:00

I began blogging about agriculture and related issues in July of 2009. Since that time I have posted 173 times: 84 on Sustainablog, 37 on Red Green and Blue, 22 on Eat Drink Better, 3 on News Blaze, 6 on Biofortified and 9 on Applied Mythology only. I've also posted 15 larger documents on SCRIBD. I've classified these posts by topic below and provided links. If the post is on this Applied Mythology site you can go to that copy using the "AM" link. I appreciate any and all feedback! (savage.sd@gmail.com or on this site)

Attempting to counter the anti-science and anti-technology narratives that are so widespread today

The Bizarre, Modern Coalition of Anti-Science Forces

Last Europe-oriented Ag Biotech Effort Ends (AM)

A Survey of the Graphics for the GMO Labeling Campaign

The Cost of Precaution

A Sad Day For Wine. A Sad Day for Science

The Greenpeace Australia GMO wheat action: A sad day for bread, a sad day for science (AM)

Some Thoughts About Cred and Don Huber

Creating Satans: Collective Myth Building About Monsanto, Obama etc

Raising an Ethical Issue in the Farming Technology Debate

Would You Eat Cloned Fruit

Scientists Behaving Badly

The Other Party of No

Debate Over Genetically Modified Grapes in France

Monsantophobia: Sustainability Concern or Wealthy Convenience?

CBS Television: Exploiting Fear for Profit and “Entertainment”

When it Comes to Food, Concern is Good – But Action is Better

Countering the widespread disinformation about biotechnology, GMOs etc

24 Long-Term Feeding Studies Reviewed by European Scientists Support GMO Safety

Genetic contamination may not mean what you think it means (AM)

Way too much angst about GMO crops (AM)

GMO food is already labeled if you know a few rules (AM)

Messing With Gene Expression in Corn

Some New Hope For The Future of Chocolate

The Genetics of Climate Change: Part 1

The Genetics of Climate Change: Part 2

McDonald’s “Pesticide Conundrum” and the Solution it Will Probably Not Pursue (Part 1)

McDonald’s “Pesticide Conundrum” and the Solution it Will Probably Not Pursue (Part II)

Posts about the "Carbon Footprint of Agriculture" and its often non-intuitive status

Carbon Footprint of Organic Fertilizer

An Inconveient Truth About Composting

Putting the carbon footprint of farming into perspective

An Inconvenient Truth About Composting Revisited (AM)

Earthworms: do they help or hurt in terms of climate change?

Follow-up to an Inconvenient Truth About Compost

Posts about Climate Change - how it will effect agriculture and how agriculture can mitigate the changes

Should "Charismatic Megafauna" be the "Face" of Climate Change?

Disturbing Trends in What Americans Believe About Climate Change

Problems with Claims That Organic Farming can mitigate climate change

Why Conversion to Organic is Not A Solution to Climate Change

Food supply worries of an agricultural scientist part 3: Climate change

Some observations about demographic trends with important ramifications for humanity in the future

Looking Beyond 2050 – Some Interesting and Disturbing Trends (AM)

The Looming Immigration Battle. Not That One! The More Important One

Thinking about the unfortunate nature of the debates over food and technology

Could We Please Restore Sanity In the Discussion of Food/Farming

Remembering A Time Of Less Polarized Environmental Politics

Imitating Erasmus

We Also Need To “Restore Sanity” In Food Politics

Countering the extremely misleading interpretation of USDA pesticide residue data which appears in the Environmental Working Groups, "Dirty Dozen List"

Two Radically Different Views of Celery

When Fear Wins: Fallout From the “Dirty Dozen” List

A Rational Analysis of USDA Pesticide Data (AM)

Apple Crop for 2009: Safest On Record

Don't Let The EWG Diminsh Your Quality of Life (AM)

Give Peach A Chance

Discussions of aspects of the food supply that are frequently misunderstood

Bacteria Made Your Lunch (AM)

Sugar Wars

Monoculture may not mean what you think it means (AM)

Who Let The Cows Out? (AM)

Why We Ever Ate Transfats In The First Place (AM)

How to Feed the World and Get a Nobel Prize: Invent an Efficient Small Scale Haber/Bosch Process

Bacteria Made Your Lunch, revisited

In Defense of Orange Juice (AM)

Discussions of the challenge ahead to continue to feed a growing global population and analysis of the on-going phenomenon of unusually large swings in global food prices

The Local Food That Matters The Most

Rising Global Food Prices: Why You Should Care (AM)

Celebrating the Life of a Scientist that "Fed the World"

Global Food Price Spike Persisting (AM)

Global Food Prices Continue to Rise (AM)

FAO Food Price Index Update

Update on Global Food Prices based on the FAO Indices

Anatomy of a Food Price Spike

Are High Global Food Prices a New Norm? (AM)

Concern and Encouragement in the News About Climate Change and Food (AM)

Food Price Spike Continues But Slows (AM)

The World Food Price Spike Continues: 4th Installment

Third Update on Rising Food Prices for 2010/11 (AM)

Update on Rising Global Food Prices

Right And Left Agree: OK To Risk Starvation Of The Poor (AM)

Talking about the little-known fact that much of our farmland is leased, and an analysis of what that means for the implementation of optimal sustainability practices

A Surprising Reason We Don't Farm As Sustainably As We Could (AM)

Who Owns America's Farmland (AM)

Systemic Barriers to Sustainable Farming

Do Non-Farmers Have A Key Role In Sustainable Agriculture?

Is The Opportunity To Reduce The Risk Of Climate Change Beneath Us As Americans?

Do Non-farmers Have a Key Role In Agricultural Sustainability?

My perspectives on what form of agriculture is actually the most sustainable?

A vision for sustainable row crop farming

A 700 Year-old Example of Technological Innovation in Agriculture

Who will do the hard work to enable sustainable agriculture?

50 years of truly sustainable agriculture to be celebrated next year

Exciting Sustainability activity in the produce industry

A Vision for Truly Sustainable Fruit and Vegetable Production (AM)

What I Hope Will Be The Future Of Sustainable Farming

A Virtual Tour of Tomorrow's Super-Sustainable Farm (Part 1)

A Virtual Tour of Tomorrow's Super-Sustainable Farm (Part 2)

How To Make Fresh Produce More Sustainable? Actually Eat It! (AM)

Sustainable Wheat Production Through Intensification (AM)

Helping a Farmer Tell His Sustainability Story To His Customers (AM)

Sustainable Fruit Production: Eliminating Shrink (AM)

The Sweet Taste of Sustainability (AM)

Providing some perspective on toxicity, pesticide safety progress, and the fact that toxic materials are common in nature

Aflatoxin is More Common With Climate Change (AM)

If There’s A Toxin in the Food Supply But No Corporation to Blame, Is it Still A Problem?

Where Have All The Nasty Pesticides Gone?

Two Examples Of Safety Improvement: Automobile Travel And Agricultural Pest Control (AM)

Toxics: The Long Term, Low Dose Question (AM)

What Are Your Favorite Toxins? (AM)

An Agricultural Scientist’s Food Supply Worries Part 2: Vomitoxin

Food Supply Worries of an Agricultural Scientist Part 4: Aflatoxin

Pesticides That Buy Time

The “Pesticide From Hell” (oh, by the the way, its “Organic”)

Why Pesticides Are Actually Important for Agricultural Sustainability

World’s Largest Producer of Toxic Chemicals, MNI, Continues to Contaminate the Entire Food Supply

Problems with linking ADHD and Organophosphate Insecticides

Lawsuit Against EPA Could Have Major Downside

The Nature of Natural

The Pesticides I Wish I Could Buy

Looking at historical and current trends in farming and related issues

The Year That Everything Changed for US Row Crop Farming

10 Existential Threats To Global Agriculture (AM)

What Asparagus Tells Us About Our Food Future (AM)

What's happening with the US fruit and vegetable supply? AM

1996: The Year That Everything Changed In US Row Crop Agriculture (AM)

Interesting Produce Trends

Where Have All The Flowers Gone? (AM)

Struggling To Think Glass Half Full After Supreme Court Decision (AM)

Modern Agriculture: What's Next & Why?

The Uncertain future of good coffee

Farms Around the World Have More Trees Than Expected

Why an extensively "local" food supply is not practical or fully desirable

Why Most Food Could Never Be “Local”

Five good reasons to eat non-local food (part 1 of 2)

Five good reasons to eat non-local food (part 2 of 2)

Confronting the widespread myths about what Organic is and what ultimate contribution it could ever make to the food supply

USDA Organic: 20 years later

An Unlikely Pair: “Heavy Metal” and “Organic Produce”

A Detailed Analysis of US Organic Crops (AM)

Eight Major Myths About Organic

Five Key Limitations of Organic Farming (AM)

Small Farms: A Drop In The Organic Bucket (AM)

The Five Best Things About Organic Farming (AM)

US Organic: Digging Into The Numbers

Why Does Organic Seem Larger Than It Is (AM)

B.S. And Organic Marketing – Figuratively and Literally

Todays Organic, Yesterdays yield

Can Someone Explain “Organic Tobacco” to Me?

Organic Food Sales in the UK Drop 13%. Why?

Reasons The Tiny Scale Of US Organic Could Be A Good Thing (AM)

Rethinking Public Dollars To Promote Organic Adoption (AM)

Yet Another Organic Fertilizer Fraud: Should You Care? (AM)

A Comparison of 2008 Organic Row Crop Yields to Historical Yield Trends

Organic Historical Comparison 2-5-11

The Seven Most Dangerous Myths About Organic

Organic crops alone can't feed the world: a new study shows why

Organic Farming Would Be Better In Terms of Climate Change Impact. Right?

Whistle Blower Casts Doubt on the Integrety of Organic Certification (AM)

Why Organic Fertilizers are not the Solution to the Gulf Dead Zone

Collected Blog Posts of an Agricultural Scientist

Providing some perspective on the field of biofuels

New Technology Will Enhance Biofuel Potential (AM)

Biofuels for Transportation. Been There, Done That (AM)

Rehabilitating The Concept of Bio-fuels: Part Two

Rehabilitating The Concepts of Bio-fuels: Part One

Discussions of businesses involved in farming and why they serve a necessary purpose:

“You Talk About ‘Industrial Farming’ Like It’s A Bad Thing!”

Are Large, For-Profit Corporations Intrinsically Less Ethical?

The Ethics of selling crop seed: Part 1

The Ethics of Selling Crop Seed: Part 2 – GMO Seed

Four Great Reasons to Garden, Beyond the Food

Measuring Monsanto

Some general posts of food politics and posts in defense of farmers

Senator Jon Tester of Montana Insults US Farmers

Why I wish More People Could Meet Farmers (AM)

Farm Subsidies Don’t Make Us Fat (AM)

Food Folly in Washington

Food Politics: A new book well worth reading

Fraud At The Farmers Market

General discussions about how things work in the food supply

Why Wheat is an “Orphan Crop:” Conclusion

A New Look At The American “Food Dollar” (AM)

My Dirty Dozen List (AM)

Fresh Produce Quality Success Stories

How Robotic Farming Could Enhance Agricultural Sustainability

What does an agricultural scientist worry about in the food supply (Part 1)

Wheat Breeders: A quiet Pillar of Sustainable Agriculture

Why Wheat has been an orphan crop and why it matters

Other random topics

Two Questions for Vegans

News Flash: French Scientists Discover that Cigarettes can be Dangerous

An Applied Mythologist's Garden

About My Blogging Adventure

Last Europe-oriented Ag Biotech Effort Ends

2012-01-16T16:42:00.000-08:00

In the early to mid 1990s, European research institutions and start-up companies were at the forefront of the new science of plant biotechnology. Nearly 20 years later, BASF, the last European company trying to commercialize GM crops for use by European farmers, has decided to give up and shift its resources to the Americas and to Asia. Even though extensive reviews by European scientists have concluded that the technology is safe, the social and political climate in Europe has proven to be too hostile to justify continued investment for that continent. I have known and worked with many European plant scientists over the years, and most of them find this all very frustrating.

This move is almost certainly rational from a business point of view, but it stands in stark contrast to the enthusiastic "Green Biotechnology" strategy that BASF was talking about as recently as 2005. The last slide in that presentation has the obligatory, and ultimately prophetic disclaimer: "This presentation contains forward-looking statements under the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995....Many factors could cause the actual results, performance or achievements of BASF to be materially different from those that may be expressed or implied by such statements."

What Are The Ramifications of this Move?

What does this mean for the future of plant biotechnology? It probably changes little except that BASF now joins the other major European agricultural science companies (Bayer, Syngenta) in focusing their efforts in the parts of the world that have widely adopted GM technology for the major grain and fiber crops. It probably means that European farmers will never get to grow a potato that is resistant to one of its most serious diseases - Late Blight, the famous cause of the Irish Potato Famine.

Europe will continue to benefit from biotechnology advances in terms of the food and feed that it imports. Recently a number of additional crops with biotech traits were approved for all but growth in Europe. Indeed, Europe will probably continue in its trend toward becoming increasingly dependent on imports to feed itself. We in the US are also becoming more import dependent for our fruit and vegetable supplies, but not also for the major cereals and feed crops as with Europe. As I wrote recently, there are some disturbing trends in the price of foodstuffs in international trade. Europeans can afford higher food costs far better than many poorer countries with whom they compete. Biotechnology might have reduced that demand, but BASF's move simply punctuates what has been a long-term issue in that regard.

The other thing this will mean is that the suspicions of GM crops in African countries will continue to be reinforced. As Robert Paarlberg has so clearly documented in his book, "Starved For Science," the hesitation to accept the technology in Europe translates into delays or bans for potentially life saving technology for a part of the world that could use it the most.

You are welcome to comment here, or to email me at savage.sd@gmail.com

Europe map image from Photocapy

Are We Still Seeing A Food Price Spike Or Something Else?

2012-01-13T08:39:00.000-08:00

When I started posting about the most recent spike in global food prices (January 2011), I never expected to still be talking about high prices 12 months later (see graph above). A "spike" is supposed to go up and then down. The current "spike" isn't doing that very well. Yesterday, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization posted their monthly update (FAO Food Price Index). This index reflects the prices that buyers experience in international trade. Consumers in import-dependent countries experience these sorts of prices, while consumers in "bread basket" countries like the US see much more modest price swings. Those who are most effected by this phenomenon are not getting much of a break.

What Is Different About This Price "Spike"?

The food price spike of 2007-9 (peak 2008) was unprecedented at the time as prices had been rising moderately with minor swings for decades. That spike came to an abrupt end by 2009, but then returned in mid 2010. This new spike is different from the first in many ways, but by looking at three-year windows (see graph below), the difference becomes more apparent.

The "baseline" index has been climbing slowly, and until this last three year cycle, the gain was on the order of 20 index points. Unless there is a dramatic change in trend, the "down side" of the most recent spike appears to represent something more like a 40-60 index point gain.

The Cereal Index Is A Little More Encouraging

Spurred by high commodity prices, farmers around the world have been increasing plantings of some crops and intensifying their production of others. When not frustrated by extreme weather events, they have been able to increase overall supplies. In the graph below we see that although the cereal price index has not declined as rapidly as it did in 2008/9, it may return to a level not too far above the previous low. The other indices for milk, sugar, oils, dairy and particularly for meat still show very limited retreats (all these graphs on SCRIBD)

What Is Next?

If the previous pattern holds, we might expect to see the beginnings of another spike around June of this year. There are some reasons to think that may not occur. The continued struggles in the EU economy may dampen prices as that region is a major importer of many commodities. The end of subsidies and tariffs for corn-based ethanol in the US might reduce overall grain demand. The gridlock of US governance will probably only intensify as the election approaches, and that could keep the economic recovery anemic. That would in turn have a negative effect on commodity prices.

The Climate Change Wild-Card

On the other hand, we can't predict what weather will do to global food production this year. This brings me back to the topic of my original post in this series. At that time I expressed concern about the evidence of a second major spike in food prices. I was also encouraged by the news that long-awaited drought tolerance traits were finally becoming commercially available, particularly for corn. Two companies introduced drought tolerant corn hybrids in 2011 which were developed through conventional breeding methods speeded up with biotechnology testing capabilities (Marker Assisted Selection). These included Pioneer Hi-Bred (part of DuPont), and Syngenta. Monsanto and BASF cooperated to develop a GMO drought tolerant corn. It will be in large scale field tests in the 2012 season. It will probably take several years before farmers can sort out when and where these traits will make the most difference. Fortunately, there is also a major project underway to develop drought tolerant corn (maize) for Africa.

We are really in uncharted territory when it comes to the future of the global food supply. Fortunately, there continues to be a major private/public effort to make the advances - small and large - that will increase our chances of keeping up with the challenge.

Graphs by Steve Savage based on the FAO data. Additional graphs available for the other elements of the food index. Please feel free to comment here or to email me at savage.sd@gmail.com.

What's Happening With The US Fruit And Vegetable Supply?

2012-01-02T15:10:00.001-08:00

(This post appeared on Sustainablog on 1/3/12)
At first glance there has been an unsettling trend in the supply of fruit and vegetables in the US (see graph above). We seem to be reversing some of the consumption gains that public health experts would see as important - even critical. The USDA Economic Research Service tracks the farm-level supply of many commodities and expresses it relative to the population of the country. Overall, this data set appears to indicate a decline in per capita fruit and vegetable supplies from a peak in the late 1990s ( Note: these numbers are not a direct measure of how much fruit and vegetables a typical American consumes because there is some loss along the commercial chain and also in the consumer's home). Most public health and nutrition experts would say that it would be better if Americans ate even more fruit and vegetables because of their value in addressing obesity, cancer and other health concerns. How does that goal reconcile with these recent supply statistics? Fortunately, a closer look at the details reveals a more nuanced situation in which our US produce supply is getting:

slightly smaller
fresher
more diverse, and
increasingly imported.

Getting Fresher

From the graph below we see that most of the decline in the produce supply has been in processed categories. There has been a decrease of about 25 pounds per person in processed vegetables (canned and frozen). However, since the middle of the last decade there has also been a drop of more than 10 pounds per person in the supply of fresh vegetables. The 30 pound per person drop in processed fruit consumption is mainly due to a 15 pound per person drop in orange juice along with declines in canned and dried fruit.

Vegetable Options Are Becoming More Diverse

Of the fresh vegetables that USDA-ERS tracks (see table below), there have been "winners" and "losers" comparing the period 1997-1999 with the period 2007-2009. Traditional high consumption vegetables like carrots, head lettuce, and potatoes saw the largest decline in terms of pounds and on a percentage basis. Eighteen tracked vegetables had an increasing supply over the same time period with romaine lettuce, onions and peppers being the largest on a weight basis and spinach, okra and asparagus showing the largest gains on a percentage basis.

Fruit Options Are Becoming More Diverse

Looking at the same time period, the fruit supply has also shifted towards greater diversity (see table below). On a weight basis, the big winners have been avocados, pineapples and strawberries, but 10 fruits have seen more than a 25% increase and 5 fruits have increased more than 100%. The biggest supply declines are for oranges, bananas, grapefruit and apples - again, traditional "main stays." The gains are for more exotic options.

Overall, the fruit and vegetable supply is growing in crops that supply a diverse collection of desirable phytochemicals with positive health associations. This is probably the most encouraging trend in recent years. Not surprisingly, most of the big "winners" have been crops that are delivered with reliable taste quality.

Fruits and Vegetables Are Increasingly Imported

In 1960, very few vegetables were imported to the US; but since that time there has been a slow but steady increase in imports so that by 2009 they represented ~21% of the total (see chart below). Per capita domestic production of vegetables had risen significantly in the 1980s, but leveled off during the 1990s. Since around 2004, domestic vegetable production has declined ~30 lbs per person. The most significant growth in vegetable imports since 1990 has been for artichokes, asparagus, brussels sprouts, garlic, cucumbers, peppers, eggplants, squash and tomatoes. By 2009, more than 40% of all these crops were imported. Even crops which were not often imported in 1990 (carrots, mushrooms, broccoli), now have more than 10% imports. (Crop-by-crop trend lines can be found on SCRIBD)

In the early 1970s, only about 25% of all US fruit was imported. Since then, there has been a steadily increasing trend in imports. Nearly 50% of US fruit was imported by 2009. Since 1990, pineapples and limes have gone from ~55% US grown to 100% imported. Papaya imports have increased from 25% to 95%. Kiwifruit imports have grown from 55% to 80%. Avocados have risen from 10% to 70% imports and grapes from 35% to 50%. Smaller increases have also been seen for tangerines, cantaloupe, and lemons. Even strawberries are approaching 10% imports. (Crop-by-Crop trend lines can be found on SCRIBD)

Why The Rise In Imports?

There are probably several reasons for the increasing role of imports in the US fresh fruit and vegetable supply which vary by crop. First, many popular fruits can only be grown in tropical or semi-tropical climates. Such environments are limited in the US and those that exist are often under urbanization pressure (CA, FL, HI). Secondly, many produce crops are labor intensive to produce. Since the US does not currently have a workable guest worker system, it is more practical to import crops from regions with a more adequate or predictable source of labor. Thirdly, there is an on-going trend towards "protected culture" for high value crops (greenhouses, shade houses, rain shields...). Canada and Mexico have been major innovators in that area and their highly productive systems have become important for many crops. Fourth, American consumers have come to expect year around supplies of popular produce items, and this requires sourcing from different regions at different times of year. Finally, as US population has grown and fruit and vegetable consumption has increased, it is increasingly difficult to find enough suitable farmlandin terms of climate and water availability.

Can We Pursue Both Sustainability and Healthy Eating?

Most health professionals would favor substantially higher per capita produce consumption than we see today. Imports are a major means by which such goals are likely to be achieved. Some observers will be concerned that the increasing import trend is problematic because of "food miles." Whether the energy or greenhouse gas "footprint" of imported crops is high depends a great deal on the basic productivity by region and also depends on the means of shipping. In any case, it is impractical to locally produce the quantity and diversity of fruits and vegetables that Americans have proven willing to consume, let alone a higher goal. If we wish to harmonize our national goals for both "sustainability" and "public health," the best strategies will include components such as:

A rational, agricultural guest worker system to preserve our domestic production
Continued development of "protected culture" for land, water and labor efficiency
The local and/or multi-regional production of crops where that is practical (e.g. blueberries, sweet corn...)
The use of preservation methods such as freezing for crops where taste and nutritional profiles are positive in that form
Continued improvements in waste reduction in the production and distribution system
Finding purchasing/contracting regimes to make "in season" economics mutually beneficial for growers, the value chain, and the consumer
Continued improvement of the consumption experience at the consumer level to avoid "disappointment shrink"
Use of highly efficient, long-distance shipping methods (e.g. ocean freight) where possible

Graphs by Steve Savage based on USDA-ERS data. A more extensive set of graphs is available for download on SCRIBD. My email is savage.sd@gmail.com.

24 Long-Term Feeding Studies Reviewed By European Scientists Support GMO Safety

2011-12-15T11:43:00.000-08:00

An argument frequently made by the opponents of plant genetic engineering is that there have been no long-term, independent studies about the safety of GMO (genetically modified organisms) crops. Actually, there has been quite a lot of research on that question and it supports the safety of the technology. A major new review on the question of long-term feeding effects of GMO crops is about to be published. It was written by a group of seven European scientists from the public sector, and will appear in the Journal: Food and Chemical Toxicology. The authors examined a large body of peer reviewed, scientific studies on the topic and identified 12 long-term feeding studies (longer than the typical 90 days and up to two years) and 12 multigenerational studies (2 to 5 generations). They reviewed all of these papers in detail and came to the following conclusion:

"Results from all the 24 studies do not suggest any health hazards and, in general, there were no statistically significant differences within parameters observed. However, some small differences were observed, though these fell within the normal variation range of the considered parameter and thus had no biological or toxicological significance."

OK, this is "science-speak" for "we really didn't find anything to be concerned about."

Reasons To Take This Paper Seriously

The authors are independent academic and public sector scientists
The studies they reviewed are all by independent, publicly funded, academic groups
The studies looked at many different crops (maize, rice, soybeans, triticale, potato)
The studies included both commercial and purely academic GMO examples (insect resistance, herbicide tolerance, pollen protein expression - a non-commercial example)
Many different animal models were included (rodents, cows, goats, salmon, macaques, chickens, quails, sheep)
The various researchers examined scores of biological parameters looking for any negative effects
This review has been conducted by highly qualified scientists and their paper was also peer reviewed
The paper addresses an important question, but in doing so it adds to many other European-based findings supporting the safety of GMO crops and foods

So even though one can never "prove a negative," this sort of extensive scholarship must be taken seriously. What has NOT been found means quite a bit.

The authors also provided a useful critique of these independent studies. In many cases the GMO and non-GMO feeds were not from near isogenic lines, sometimes the event was unspecified, and in some cases the crops were grown under different conditions. All of this can lead to differences that cannot be clearly attributed to whether the crop was GMO or not. The downside of independent testing of this type is that potentially misleading results can emerge and cloud the discussion.

Why Does This Matter?

It matters because 16 years into the commercialization of GMO crops, controversy persists. To date, most of the commercial GMO crops are ones that are either used for animal feed or are the source of refined ingredients in human foods. They have not, for the most part, been crops that people eat "whole." That barrier may need to be broken as one component of efforts to feed humanity over the next several decades. There are three immensely important food crops which are not now GMO on a commercial scale: wheat, rice, and potatoes. That may change in the next several years.

Potatoes were actually one of the very first commercial GMO crops but were unofficially sidelined by companies worried about consumer backlash. GMO potatoes may be getting a new look because scientists are working on a GMO trait for resistance to "late blight," the most serious disease and one which costs grows a great deal to control. European farmers would benefit from such a trait even more than those in North America.
GMO wheat was blocked in North America early this century by European and Japanese wheat customers. The wheat growers in the US, Canada, and Australia have agreed to pursue a simultaneous commercialization of GMO wheat so that they cannot be frustrated by a non-scientific barrier again.

Recently, China has begun pre-commercialization trials with an insect-protected GMO rice. GMO wheat, rice and potatoes will not feed the world - but they could contribute significantly to that effort. The question of whether to commercialize these GMO versions of these crops is going to be on the table in the not too distant future. Regulators, food companies and consumers are going to have to wrestle with the issue. Careful studies like this one will help to make that a better informed discussion.

Wheat image by Dag Endresen
You are invited to comment here and/or to email me at savage.sd@gmail.com.

Food Price Spike Persisting

2011-12-09T13:49:00.000-08:00

(This post originally appeared on Sustainablog on 12/9/11)
Yesterday the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released it's monthly index of global food prices. When the current price spike is compared with the one that occurred in 2007/8, the striking difference is the persistence of relatively high prices. Rather than falling rapidly as in 2008, this "spike" is only showing a modest decline 23 months into the cycle (see chart above). One UN economist is quoted as saying that prices are "stabilizing at high levels." Back in October I thought it would take until January to know if this spike was actually different. Now it seems clear that it is.

Cereal prices were down marginally (see chart above) and following a record harvest there is hope that they will ease further in coming months. Meat prices, which have risen far further in this spike than in the last, show no real sign of decline (see chart below)

The dairy index dropped slightly, but the index for fats and oils actually increased.
These prices are most relevant for nations which are largely dependent on food imports. Unfortunately this month's report is not encouraging for the world's poor.

My email is savage.sd@gmail.com.

Who Owns America's Farmland?

2011-11-29T08:24:00.000-08:00

(This post was originally posted on Sustainablog on 11/29/11)

Nationwide, farmers only own 60% of the land they farm. In many of the most productive row cropping areas of the Midwest, the percent of farmer-owned land is significantly lower (see Map above from the USDA, 2007 Census of Agriculture). Much of our farmland resource is owned by non-farmers and rented to those who actually farm. Some of that rented land is owned by investors or real estate speculators, but most of it is actually still owned by the descendants of the families who used to farm it, often several generations back. These are the families who have been part of the steady trend of urban migration for more than a century.

Why Does Farm Ownership Matter?

This ownership question is important for several reasons. US agriculture not only supplies our domestic needs for many crops, we are also among the major grain exporters. Our farmers, and our farmland owners, play an important role in determining whether we will be able to supply the increasing, global demand for food. Land ownership is also a key issue for agricultural sustainability. The most sustainable row crop farming practices can actually "pay their own way," but they do so over time by building soil quality. Those soil changes are at the heart of the environmental benefits, but they also increase the productive potential and yield stability of the land. Land rental rates are closely related to yield potential. Thus, the economic benefits of soil building are realized by the owner of the land. If growers don't own the land that they farm, or if they can't predict how long they will be the ones farming each given field, they can't rationally make the optimal, long-term investments in soil improvement.

Fading Connections

Earlier in the history of rural-to-urban migration, there were often were personal relationships between land owners and renters. That allowed for more stable "land tenure" (the same grower might rent a field for many years). But those connection have faded over generations. In many cases today, the ownership is through a family trust for inheritance purposes. The leasing arrangements are often handled by a farm management company that provides the service of making the connection and negotiating the lease terms. Land rental has become much more of a year-to-year arrangement.

Is Rental of Farmland A Good Or Bad Thing?

Rental is actually a practical arrangement for both sides. The city-dwelling families get a steady stream of income. The farmers are able to expand their operations without incurring the sort of debt risk that bankrupted many of them in the 1980s. The problem is that most lease arrangements don't provide the mechanisms to favor a long-term, soil-building protocol. Addressing this issue will be challenging, but first it is useful to look at what we know about the "farmland rental business" as a whole.

Farmland Rental Is A Significant Economic Activity

Every 5 years (2007, 2002, 1997...), the USDA conducts and publishes the "Census of Agriculture." This includes dozens of interesting statistics, including the number of farmland acres in each county that are rented. Since 2008/9, the USDA-NASS has been tracking average land rents at the county level (before that such data was only available for certain states). Combining these two data sets (see graph above), we see that farmland rental is a very substantial industry representing 217 million acres of land and combined rent payments of $14.7 billion/year. Much of the land area (green bars, millions of acres) is rented for low prices, while there is another subset of the land in the $150 or more range (13% of the total area). The value of the rented land (red line, millions of dollars) is concentrated in the higher rent land, representing 1/3 of the total value, or $4.9 billion/year. Not surprisingly, much of this high value land is in the heart of the "corn belt."

Land Rents Reflect Productive Potential

Land rents are actually a very good measure of the productive potential of a parcel of land. In the graph above, the X axis gives the average per acre value of the major crops grown in each county in Illinois. The Y axis is the county average rent, and there is obviously a strong relationship between the two. The graph below plots the same sort of data for all the corn belt counties where corn, soybeans, wheat, and sorghum are the dominant crops.

Land Rent Is A Major Farming Expense

In the histogram below we see that average farm rents for the same "corn belt counties" generally represent 25-30% of the total gross crop income of that county. Thus land rental is one of the largest single, year-to-year costs that a grower must pay.

Farmers effectively compete with each other for the better land, and so when crop commodity prices rise, rents rise as well. The graph below shows how land rents have been rising in recent years as agricultural commodity prices have been increasing.

Sustainable Farming Could Increase Land Rent Potential If...

As I mentioned earlier, a several year investment in soil building practices can increase the yield on a given piece of land. Beyond that, improved soils capture and store moisture more effectively so that the yield is better insulated from year-to-year variation in rainfall. That issue is likely to become increasingly important with climate change. The owners of farmland have the long-term financial incentive to find farmers who are willing and able to execute a soil-building strategy. What this would take, however, would be a mechanism for the farmer to share in the "upside potential" of land improvement, and a mechanism for the landowner to help to carry the near term investment costs and risks associated with that farming change. All of this is certainly possible, but it entails major challenges in terms of communications and legal/financial arrangements. Land lease practices are only one of several structural barriers to more sustainable farming. Normal crop financing and crop insurance are also designed around year-to-year economics and a year-to-year mindset.
By definition, sustainable farming must involve a long-term perspective. Many of the people who are in the key role of farmland ownership don't know much of anything about farming of any kind, let alone what constitutes the cutting edge of sustainability. Therein lies both the challenge and the opportunity.

A more detailed analysis of this issue is posted on SCRIBD

A Survey Of The Graphics For The GMO Labeling Campaign

2011-10-20T09:23:00.000-07:00

It is interesting to explore the pictures or graphics that accompany blogs, web pages and articles supporting the campaign for labeling of foods containing GMOs. A great many of these images are seriously misleading. This is ironic for a campaign that is spearheaded by a group called the "Truth In Labeling Coalition"

The Hypodermic Needle Theme

The most frequent theme in these graphics is that of a large hypodermic needle injecting a piece of fruit, a tomato, or some other produce item. In an article about GMOs in "natural" cereals, TG daily features an image with no less than 11 needles in five tomatoes. Treehugger uses the same photo which is from Getty Images. Organic life style magazine.com also has a drawing of a tomato being injected. Eat Local Guide.com has the image of someone in a lab coat injecting an apple. Grist features an "infographic" with a cluster of grapes being injected. Fastcompany.com uses the same image.

Why The Images Are Misleading

While clearly these images are effectively emotive, they are misleading in at least three ways. First, The process of genetic engineering of plants does not involve a hypodermic needle in any way. Second, the the process occurs at a single cell level, not with some massive amount of material being injected into a ready-to-eat food item. (A site called Ask Roger Drummer.com that sells herbal remedies sets the record here with an image of a huge hypodermic of purple liquid being injected into an orange). Finally, the foods most often pictured are not currently GMO crops, and most are unlikely ever to be genetically engineered for commercial production.

Non-GMO Crops Usually Pictured

The picturing of non-GMO crop examples is widespread. Even the website for the Truth in Labeling Coalition itself has a side banner of food images which pictures several non-GMO crops. The image on NatualNews.com has a DNA gel in the background which is more relevant, but also pictures tomatoes. There has not been a GMO tomato on the market for more than a decade. The foods pictured on a site called Organic Its Worth It.org pictures the non-GMO crops, radishes and lettuce. Some sites actually picture crops that are actually genetically engineered on a commercial scale, but this is not that common.

Other Misleading Themes

The hypodermic is not the only example of a misleading graphic. An "info-graphic" on Treehugger is typical of another common theme straight out of the old "what do you get if you cross a ... and a ..." jokes of childhood. It pictures strawberry + fish = a sort of half strawberry fish. That goes back to a long since abandoned effort to make a frost tolerant strawberry using an anti-freezing protein from a fish. It was never commercial and in fact animal genes are not used in any current GMO crops. Even if they were, they would not result in some strange chimera. In an article titled, "Just Label It", Alibi.com actually leads with a picture of an actual GMO crop (field corn), but then follows with a depiction of some strange orange squash with eyes and fangs. The Groundswell Project.org has an image of ears of corn, but one is a grenade. A site interestingly called disinfo.com goes with the classic Frankenstein picture. Pccfarmlandtrust.org goes with an image of a mock "Hungry Man Frozen Dinner" combining the Frankenstein combined with no less than three chimeras (a potato with eyes, a tomato with a fish tail and a broccoli/snail hybrid). A link titled "Picture related to GMO" on nowpublic.com features a bowl of strawberries, one of which is bright blue.

How Does Disinformation Fit With A Campaign About "Truth?"

The genre of emotive and largely misleading images to depict biotechnology is certainly not new, but it is problematic that it is being so widely used by those that support manditory labeling. The labeling campaign is being positioned as a common sense argument about the need to give of consumers accurate information from which to make rational decisions. If that is the goal, why do so many promoters of the idea employ misleading and emotional imagery?

GMO labeling may well need to be discussed, even 15 years into large scale use. But such a discussion will only be helpful for consumers if it could be based on accurate information - and graphics.

p.s. It is interesting that although these images are easily found by searching Google Images or Flickr, virtually none are available for free commercial use through something like Creative Commons. Most of sites that use them make no reference to source with the one exception of Getty Images listed above.

You are invited to comment here or to email me at savage.sd@gmail.com. My website is Applied Mythology.

Food Price Spike Retreating Slowly

2011-10-07T10:04:00.000-07:00

(This post originally appeared on Sustainablog on 10/7/11)
I have been posting updates on the most recent, global food price spike since February 2011 - most recently inJune. Today the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) released its most recent data on the prices of food in international trade. As seen in the graph above, the overall index and its various components have declined slightly, but remain at very high levels.

People living in the developed world have seen some food price increases, but because we grow so much of our own food and spend a small part of our income on feeding ourselves, the impact is minor. This has the greatest effect on the lives of poor people in import-dependent countries.

What is actually most unsettling about this phenomenon is that nothing like it has occurred for decades, and yet we are in a second such spike. The first was in 2007/8, and the current spike has been in 2010/11. In this post I want to compare these two spikes.

The graph above compares the two spikes on a month-by-month basis beginning in January of the starting year. What we see is a later and/or slower decline in prices. The earlier spike showed a steep decline after 19 months, while in 2010 the decline is just beginning at 21 months. That is for the aggregate "food index," but a similar broadening of the spike appears to be occurring for the cereals-specific index (see below). Similar trends are seen with the dairy and oils indices.

The most dramatic difference between the 2007-8 and 2010-11 spikes is the path of the meat price index (see graph below). Meat prices in international trade showed only a minor bump in the first spike, but were the most changed category in the current round. The index did drop 3% from August to September which may represent an earlier reversal than in 2008.

It would be best not to over-interpret these trends, but also unwise to ignore them completely. We know that basic food demand is rising between population growth and an increased standard of living in many populous regions of the world. We know that energy prices are high. It will take the benefit of years of hindsight to know whether climate change has been contributing to these unusual price patterns. If the current spike is like the last one, it should be largely corrected by the end of 2011. For now, I plan to update this series in January of 2011 with three more months of data.

Data from FAO, graphs by Steve Savage

You are welcome to comment here or to email me at savage.sd@gmail.com

Why Does Organic Seem Larger Than It Is?

2011-08-22T09:10:00.000-07:00

(This post originally appeared on Sustainablog on 8/22/11)

For a long time we have been hearing that "Organic is the fastest growing segment of the food industry." Organic advocates make the claim that Organic could "feed the world" or that it could be "the solution to global warming." There is definitely enough buzz about Organic to make all of this seem plausible. The popular image of Organic is that it is finally becoming a significant part of the food supply. The actual statistics paint a very different picture.

Why Does Organic Seem Bigger? Failure to Do The Math.

In 2008, a USDA survey of US Organic growers got responses from over 90% of the growers, so we know a great deal about the US Organic industry. In that year there were nearly 2.5 million acres of certified Organic cropland. That follows growth since 1995 at the rate of 144,000 acres/year (see graph below). That sounds like a lot of land to most people (an acre is roughly the size of a football field).

In fact, all those Organic acres put together still only represent 0.71% of the 370 million acres of US cropland. The amount of that cropland that was actually harvested in 2008 represented only 0.52% of the total. Organic cropland areahas been growing, but only at 0.0385% per year on an absolute basis (see chart below). At that rate of growth, US Organic cropland will still represent less than 2.5% of the total in the year 2050. The math suggests that Organic will remain as a small niche market.

Why Does Organic Seem Bigger? Marketing.

Organic has been heavily marketed as a "super brand" so that the advertising dollars spent on everything from yogurt to spinach to baby clothes contributes to a unified consumer image. Organic also receives a great deal of free promotion by certain environmental groups, University programs, and certain corporations wanting to present a "green" image. Positive messages about Organic and negative message about conventional food are abundant in the world of food and sustainability blogging, and in the media in general. All of this gives the impression that Organic must be a sizable industry.

Why Does Organic Seem Bigger? The Price Premium.

When you hear a statistic about rapidly growing Organic sales, there are several things to remember. The Organic farmer gets a premium price which is needed to cover higher production costs. The "Organic Premium" does not end there. Instead, each player in the value chain (shipper, broker, distributor, retailer) charges a premium over their normal margin for Organic products. Also, most of the statistics are about grocery retail, which don't include food service, which is about half of US food consumption. So a lot of Organic spending does not mean a great deal of Organic farming.

Why Does Organic Seem Bigger? Contact With Organic Farms.

Organic also seems bigger to many consumers because they have some direct contact with a small, local Organic farm through a CSA, a farm stand, or a farmer's market. Many people know a student who has gone to work on an Organic farm because that has been a major trend in recent years. All of this gives the impression that Organic is a major movement in the food industry. Indeed there are a great many small Organic farms. By 2008 there were >9,600 relatively small Organic farms in the US (having less than $100,000 in total sales - net income would be lower). Those farms represented 70% of all the Organic farms. Having a lot of people involved in farming is a great thing; however, all of those farmers combined only produced 6.6% of total Organic sales (see graph below) and thus an even smaller percent of all food sales. People enjoy being able to buy from small, local, Organic farms, but they represent a miniscule proportion of our food supply. A highly visible Organic farming industry does not mean that Organic is large.

Why Does Organic Seem Bigger? Imports.

In recent years, much of actual growth in the Organic sales at the consumer level has come from imports of mainly non-perishables from outside of North America (frozen fruit and vegetables, grains, dried fruit, fruit juice concentrate, milk products etc). This last point is of concern to many different observers (Tree Hugger, Cornucopia Institute, Public Radio International, USDA, Business Week, various bloggers) Because the Organic certification process relies mainly on paperwork and does not include random or even scheduled product testing, the possibility of fraud is substantial. Many US Organic farmers are also concerned about being undercut on price, particularly if the certification system in other countries has less integrity. Organic consumers are often surprised about the imports. In a famous case, a frozen vegetable mix called "California Blend" was sold at Whole Foods. In small font on the back of the package were the words, "produced in China." It is even more difficult to get statistics on the extent of Organic imports or to know which food products contain imported ingredients. There are widespread concerns about this major source of growth in the US Organic sector.

So, in spite of seeming otherwise, Organic farming is a very small part of US crop agriculture. It seems destined to remain small. Organic is a solid niche and a good business for some players, but when we hear Organic being promoted as "the solution" to our food supply and environmental issues, we need to be skeptical.

Graphs by Steve Savage based on USDA-NASS and USDA-ERS data.

My website is Applied Mythology. Please comment here and/or by emailing me at savage.sd@gmail.com

Some Thoughts About "Cred" and Don Huber

2011-08-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

I'll get back to the Don Huber part, I promise, but first I need to talk about belief.

The term "cred" has become a common slang term. The origins of the term are far older. In Latin, "cred" simply means "believe." Cred is a root in words like credibility ("I believe what you say"), credit ("I believe that you are good for the money") or credentials (I believe that you have the training/experience to do/know something).

Terminology related to cred has been the news a good deal lately. The rating agency Standard and Poors downgraded the credit rating of the United States. That was interesting because the credibility of that very organization is in doubt because it gave high ratings to the mortgage-backed securities that contributed to the recent economic collapse.

Just this week there was an announcement that pop singer Jason Mraz and other celebrities are endorsing a new movie called "Freedom." This film supports the idea that bio-ethanol can be a means by which we can achieve "energy independence" from oil. Even corn-based ethanol (a much discredited option of late) is portrayed in a positive light in this new campaign. Many highly qualified economists and scientists have made similar arguments about ethanol. Even though those experts have far better credentials to make such claims, in modern society, the voice of a famous celebrity has greater, or at least broader credibility. I happen to agree with what these particular celebrities who have chosen to promote, but there are also many cases where celebrity endorsements are less desirable (at least from my perspective).

Back to Don Huber

However; what really got me thinking about the question of cred (belief in general) was an experience I had this Saturday (8/20). Donald Huber, a retired scientist from the Plant Pathology faculty of Purdue University, was being interviewed on a radio show called Food Chain Radio by commentator Michael Olson. I decided to call-in to see if I could ask Dr. Huber a few key questions.

Huber has been promoting the idea that there is a completely new-to-science pathogen which is somehow associated with glyphosate tolerant crops. He says that it not only causes plant disease but also causes spontaneous abortions at the rate of 20-50% in animals fed the "Roundup Ready" crops. He describes the organism as fungal but with a size in the range of a plant virus. These are pretty outrageous claims, but Huber has not done the things that would enhance their credibility in the scientific community. He has not published results in a peer reviewed journal or even made data available to support what he is saying. When I asked him about this on the talk show, he said that the animal data was by others and they did not want their names mentioned until genetic sequencing was completed. He claims that a letter he wrote to Agricultural Secretary Vilsack was leaked and that is why all of this has come to public attention.

Anastasia Bodnar has published an excellent critique of Huber's claims on the site Biofortified. In her post she provides links to various academic departments that have published skeptical assessments of Huber's claims. Suffice it to say that Dr. Huber has little "cred" among agricultural scientists. However, because he is saying that something terrible is happening that can be blamed on Monsanto and GMO technology, he has automatic credibility with certain constituencies.

I wish I had a good term for this particular class of cred that comes from telling a particular audience what it wants to believe about some entity that it has elevated to an evil status of mythic proportions. The best term I could find applies to the audience more than to the speaker:

Credulous: ready to believe, especially on slight or uncertain evidence

Don Huber's allegations about a mysterious new super-bug are being widely repeated even though they lack scientific or even practical confirmation. There are credulous audiences in many "green" or "food movement" circles that are more than "ready to believe" Huber. The more extraordinary the claims, the more credibility they seem to carry for those groups.

At the risk of offending my readers, this phenomenon is not limited to those with Monsantophobia. There are audiences that are credulous when it comes to the statements of a minority of scientists who doubt Climate Change or Evolution. There are audiences that are credulous when it comes to "revelations" about Obama's birthplace or religion. There are audiences that are credulous when it comes to "death panels," "great Right Wing Conspiracies," "Dirty Dozen Lists" or links between vaccines and autism.

Before getting judgmental, perhaps we should all consider whether we might be credulous on certain topics. If we listen to an argument because it comes from a famous person, that is one thing. If we accept it uncritically, we are being credulous. If we suspend our critical thinking skills when we hear things that happen to fit our worldview, we are in danger of being credulous.

In time, it is likely that Dr. Huber's claims will be fully debunked. Unfortunately, the credulous audiences who believe him now will probably never accept the findings of more traditionally credible sources.

In Defense of Orange Juice

2011-08-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

(This post originally appeared on Sustainablog on 8/10/11)

(8/11 edits in italics below based on feedback from citrus industry scientists). A recent blog post on a site called "Food Renegade"is apparently getting quite a bit of attention on the internet. It was critical of not-from-concentrate (NFC) orange juice because it involves the use of flavor additives and because oxygen is removed from the top of juice tanks during the process. The post is titled, "Secret Ingredient in Your Orange Juice?" The title is more than a bit misleading since everything it talks about is quite transparently discussed on this Tropicana Website. It came to my attention because it was alarming enough to make a friend of ours question whether she should be drinking this juice. If many people are being frightened away from drinking this healthy and tasty juice, it is a sad thing. I'd like to try to set the record straight. (By the way, I've never worked for the citrus industry in any capacity, but I have done consulting projects which allowed me to learn many details about NFC juice).

Not-From-Concentrate Juice and the Survival of the US Citrus Juice Industry

The citrus industry in Florida and Texas depends mainly on sales into the juice market. Because of urbanization pressures, rising labor costs, exotic pests, and periodic freezes - that industry is no longer competitive with Brazil for the frozen concentrate market. Several years ago, a new process was developed for citrus juice which produces a product with a much fresher taste. It is highly preferred by most consumers. Instead of concentrating the juice with a great deal of energy and then freezing it, NFC juice is "flash pasteurized" with limited heat and time so that most of the flavor elements are maintained. The last I heard, it was not possible to routinely ship tank loads of this kind of juice from Brazil without spoilage. Thus, the American producers have an advantage in this part of the market. NFC juice has probably saved this part of the US farming sector for now.

What About The Flavor Additives?

As the Food Renegade article actually acknowledges, the additives in this case are derived from the peels of oranges. They are completely natural and normal citrus flavors, and this is quite openly discussed on the Tropicana website (Again, exactly how is that a "secret?") The reason the flavors are needed is to maintain a more consistent tasting product throughout the year. Because this product is only minimally processed and sold relatively quickly, it requires changing sources of fruit over time. This is accomplished by using different varieties of trees that mature at different times, and by using the a somewhat unique feature of citrus. For most fruit, there is a very narrow window between when it is under-ripe and over-ripe, but citrus will "store on the tree" for weeks and still have good taste quality. Together the varieties and storage allow the industry to generate juice almost all year. However, because the varieties and the weather change, there are times when the flavor of the plain juice is not consistent. The use of the fully natural extracts for "flavor balancing" gets around that issue.

Why Remove the Oxygen?

The Food Renegade article implied that because the oxygen was removed from the juice, it had no flavor. The oxygen point came from another transparent discussion on the Tropicana site about how some of the juice has to be held for periods of time in cold tank storage to cover parts of the year when it is hard to get enough oranges. The reason for protecting the juice from oxygen in these tanks is actually to protect the flavor and nutritional content. Oxygen can lead to the break down of key flavor components and also breakdown of vitamin C. Removing the oxygen from the top of the tank minimizes this problem (usually this means just purging the head space with nitrogen gas - the gas that makes up 80% of the atmosphere). Again, there is nothing negative about this step at all, and it is only a positive thing for flavor.

What Is Done With Citrus Juice Is Just An Improvement On A Very Old Process

Using pasteurization and returning captured flavor components like this is far from new. The first, stable, year-round, juice product was developed in the late 1800s by the founder of Welch's. He was an avid prohibitionist and wanted to develop an alternative to wine for communion in churches. His pasteurized grape juice did not taste very good, so he captured the flavor components that were being lost during heating and added it back later. The result was "Welch's Grape Juice." There is nothing new or negative about this sort of add-back process, but I'd much rather drink the orange or grapefruit juices than the Concord grape type (I've had a glass of the NFC grapefruit juice every morning for years).

Conclusion

I hope this post will prevent at least a few people from being unnecessarily alarmed so that they stop drinking NFC juice. Sadly, most readers of the Renegade post and it's copies will never hear the other side of this story. Some will heed the author's closing recommendation that the only safe option is to "opt out of the industrial food system as much as possible," and to grow, harvest or make one's own food. That scenario, or the second best option she offers - various local sources - would mean a low diversity diet for people in most geographies. What a sad, pseudo-ascetic, unhealthy lifestyle for this "wellness coach" to recommend!

The irony is that the author of that blog got all her "secret" information from a perfectly transparent and reasonable website posted by the very company that she denigrated.

Juice image from Mervi Eskelinen's Photostream
My website is Applied Mythology

You are invited to comment here and/or email me at savage.sd@gmail.com

Genetic Contamination May Not Mean What You Think It Means

2011-08-01T09:51:00.000-07:00

(This post originally appeared on Sustainablog on 8/1/11)

In the debate about GMO crops, the "threat of genetic contamination" is often raised as a reason to reject the technology. Is this threat real? Does it justify acts of vandalism? Could it lead to the "End of Organics"? Is it actually an over-blown issue? To answer these questions it is necessary to put this issue in the context of basic plant biology.

What We Are Talking About Is Really Just "Plant Sex"

"Genetic Contamination" is an emotional term which obscures the fact that the underlying biological process in question is quite normal, natural and highly necessary. All living species, need to be able to reproduce. They also need to generate the genetic diversity that will allow the species to adapt and evolve as needed to survive. Plants can't move, so to "mate" with other plants of their species they have to find ways to spread the male sexual cells (pollen) to the female reproductive cells (the ovaries in the female parts of flowers). Some plant do this with the help of pollinators - the bees, flies, butterflies, birds, etc. These helpful agents incidentally move pollen around. Other plants simply rely on wind to move their pollen to other flowers. This is the case with most "grain crops" like wheat, barley, oats, corn etc.

"Cross pollination" is the accurate, unemotional, term for this process. GMO crops participate in cross pollination in exactly the same way that non-GMO plants do and always have.

What Do You Get If You Cross A ... With A ...

Perhaps we have heard too many such jokes, because many people believe that the genes from GMO plants have the potential to "contaminate" all manner of natural species or "Organic" crops The fact is that if you "crossed a chicken with an octopus" you wouldn't get "drumsticks for everybody." You would get nothing. The same is true for plant species. They do not cross pollinate (or contaminate) other anything except extremely closely related plants.

There are some cases where a very closely related, "weedy" sub-species can cross with a crop (e.g. cultivated sunflowers with wild sunflowers), but those issues were anticipated long before GMO crops were introduced. For that very reason, no GMO sunflowers have been introduced in the US.

GMO crops have no greater or lesser ability to move genes to other species. Those sorts of fears are groundless.

Crops Where Cross Pollination is A Management Issue

Long before the advent of GMO crops, farmers of certain crops have had to manage "genetic contamination" issues involving normal cross pollination. Wheat is wind pollinated and farmers commonly save part of their crop each year to serve as seed for the next ("saved seed"). Wheat is also a crop with very specific quality characteristics for its various uses (raised breads, flat breads, crackers, pastries, noodles...). New wheat varieties are bred for those specific uses. There is a network of dedicated wheat seed growers who produce "certified seed" with enough isolation from other wheat so that the seed they produce is >95% the desired variety. If a farmer plants that certified seed (usually at a small cost above current grain price), the crop he/she produces will be what is desired for the end use. If the farmer saves some of that crop and plants it a second year, it will be less pure because of cross pollination from neighboring fields. After a few years, it is necessary for the farmer to buy new certified seed because his/her own supply is "contaminated." There are many more examples like this for "saved seed" crops.

Hybrid seeds are grown by dedicated seed growers and purchased by the farmers every year. This system insures both genetic purity for specific needs and the extra vigor and yield potential that hybridization enables.

Whether it is a "saved seed" crop or a hybrid crop, GMO versions create no new issues beyond what farmers have always been managing. It only becomes an issue when someone wants to set a zero tolerance unlike the rational tolerances that have made all of these crops work for a very long time.

Crops Where Cross Pollination is Irrelevant

A few years ago there was a ballot initiative in Mendocino, California to ban GMO crops from that county. It was driven by concerns about "genetic contamination" of the Organic farms (many supporters didn't understand the paragraph above). The fact that there were not even GMO crops that were likely to ever be planted in this particular county was seemingly irrelevant to the debate. I was talking with a PhD level scientist that worked for one of the wineries there, and asked why that company was supporting the ban. She said it was because of concerns about how the genetic contamination risk could hurt their sales. I was stunned because, as a scientist, she certainly knew that grapes are never grown from seed but rather "vegetatively propagated." If you take a seed from a Cabernet grape and plant it, you will not grow a Cabernet. It will be some new variety, just as when humans have children, they are each a unique new combination of their mother's and father's genes. For thousands of years farmers have known how to take cuttings of desirable fruits and get them to root, or how to take buds of the desired fruit variety and graft it onto a rootstock. The grapes in Mendocino county had been propagated that way for centuries. A block of Cabernet planted next to a block of Chardonnay is not a "genetic contamination" issue, because the seed is never planted. This same principle applies to almost all fruit and to other vegetatively reproduced crops like potatoes, cassava, sweet potatoes, sugarcane and many others. GMO versions of these crops would not represent any "genetic contamination risk" at all. That is why it is so sad and absurd that activists in France destroyed a GMO grapevine trial because of needless "contamination" fears.

Genetic Contamination: An Intentionally Overplayed Issue?

On several occasions I have written directly to individual, anti-GMO scientists, at Greenpeace and elsewhere, asking specific questions about how they imagine that a particular crop could represent a "genetic contamination risk." I have never received an answer with any scientific justification or even a plausible "what if" scenario. Presuming that these individuals understand basic plant biology, they apparently choose not to acknowledge it in their public campaigns.

What is really going on ("cross pollination") is a vital, natural process. Farmers and the plant breeders who serve them have long been able to harness the positive potential of this genetic exchange to breed for improved varieties. They have also been able to fully manage the cases where cross pollination could cause a genetic purity problem for the crop. GMO crops have not changed this in any fundamental way that cannot be dealt with by rational decision making and regulation.

You are welcome to comment here or to email me at savage.sd@gmail.com. For links to my posts on various sites, see my website: Applied Mythology

Pollinator fly (bee mimic) image from Savvey's Photography Photostream

Toxics: The Long Term, Low Dose Question

2011-07-26T13:20:00.000-07:00

(This post first appeared on Sustainablog on 7/26/11)

Each year, the USDA generates an extensive set of data which demonstrates that modern American consumers face no real threat from toxic pesticide residues on their food. This is particularly true in terms of "acute toxicity," or short-term poisoning. Someone would have to eat thousands to millions times their own body weight to kill themselves with produce.

To many people, that still leaves a troubling question: "what about long term exposure to low doses of toxic chemicals and combinations of those chemicals?" This question is more difficult to answer.

What We Can't Know about Toxins and Our Health

When my son was small, he would often answer questions by saying, "I can't know." In a way, that is where we sit on the "long-term, low-dose question." Based on the testing that we can practically afford, wee "can't know" all the long term outcomes where the rates of cancer or other chronic diseases might be in the range of 1 per million people or less. We can do a good job of predicting which chemicals are reasonably potent carcinogens and the like, because such toxicity can be detected in a relatively short term feeding study at fairly high rates of the chemical. Those tests give us a good deal of protection from truly dangerous substances, but it is not really possible to answer the "low-dose, long-exposure" question with this sort of test. Does that mean that we have to live in fear of the trace levels of man-made chemicals that are in our water and in our food? No. Here is why.

What We Can Know

Just because we can't answer this question using rats in a laboratory does not mean we are without encouraging "data." This comes in the form of common life experience, and from what we know about protective chemicals in nature.

Want to Avoid All Toxics? Good Luck With That

I have often seen people write that they are trying to "avoid all toxics" in their life. That is actually impossible. Almost all the foods we eat contain naturally toxic chemicals that are made as defense mechanisms by the plants or animals in question. These toxins are present at levels which are too low to cause us any problem in the short term. But what about the fact that we are consuming low, mixed doses of dozens of natural toxins every day? Few of these chemicals have ever been evaluated for any kind of chronic toxicity. What if we ask the "long-term, low-dose" question about these chemicals?

The calm response is to realize that our bodies are well equipped for living in a moderately toxic world. The cells of our skin and in the lining of our digestive track only live a few days before they are replaced. That minimizes the potential to become cancerous because of exposure to toxins. We also have powerful liver enzymes that chew up toxins of all kinds. On the whole our bodies do a great job of dealing with the wide variety of toxins that we eat at low rates. The same is true for both natural and man-made toxins.

Don't Forget About The Good Chemicals

The other encouraging bit of information is that we are far from helpless when it comes to maintaining our health while eating small doses of toxic substances. It turns out that fruits and vegetable are excellent sources of other special chemicals which help us to fight cancer and a host of other ills. Many people turn to the poorly regulated "supplements market" to get these chemicals, but that is not necessary. The much more natural option is simply to enjoy the diverse and relatively low cost produce which is available to us today. The bonus is that these products taste great and also provide basic minerals, vitamins, and fiber in our diet. I will list just five examples of the foods which help to protect us against a wide variety of chronic diseases:

Tomatoes: the largest dietary source of lycopene - a chemical that reduces risk of cancer, osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease
Grapes: resveratrol in red grapes and wine enhances cardiac health
Berries: berries have extremely high levels of various antioxidants that reduce the risk of cancer, improve urinary tract health, and help with memory and healthy aging
Asparagus: rutin in asparagus can ameliorate the effects of diabetes and lower blood pressure among other benefits after the body converts it to quercetin-3-glycoside
Broccoli: contains lots of vitamins A and C, but also isothiocyanates which stimulate the enzymes in the body that neutralize many potential cancer causing substances

There has probably never been a human society with such ready access to the foods that can protect health and counteract the effects of toxins - natural and man made. That is why it is tragic when something like the "Dirty Dozen List" discourages significant numbers of people from buying fruits and vegetables. These consumers then fail to get the very phytochemicals which could protect them - both from the trace chemicals they fear, and from the fearsome chemicals they may not even appreciate (e.g. aflatoxin).

Putting This In Perspective

I am not just saying: "Don't Worry, Be Happy." There are very real toxic threats in the world - both man-made and natural. We need to pay attention to what the toxicologists and public health experts tell us. What we don't need to do is to worry inordinately about trace levels of pesticides or about low levels of most natural compounds. What we do need to do is to eat our fruits and vegetables!

Vegetable market image from a trip I took to Switzerland a few years ago

You are invited to comment here or to email me at savage.sd@gmail.com

A Sad Day For Bread. A Sad Day For Science

2011-07-15T14:19:00.000-07:00

(This post originally appeared on Sustainablog on 7/15/11)

On July, 14, three Greenpeace activists dressed in hazmat suits scaled a fence, and used weed whips to destroyed a GMO wheat experiment in Canberra, Australia. The experiment was being conducted by CSIRO (the USDA equivalent for Australia). The activists posted video of the attack on You Tube. They also posted "explanations" by activists who could be easily identified. Although this is technically a criminal activity, it was more likely about publicity. Greenpeace has been at the forefront of the anti-GMO movement since the late 1990s, and it has claimed victory for stopping the development of GMO wheat varieties. It accomplished this by threatening miller/baker brands in Europe so that they put pressure on their suppliers. Those heady days are fading for Greenpeace. 15 years and billions of acres into the GMO revolution, Greenpeace may just be attempting to defend conquered ground.

The Future of GMO Wheat

There is now a farmer agreement to simulataneously commercialize GMO wheat in Australia, Canada and the US. That would prevent more trade black-mail 10 to 15 years from now when the renewed GMO research might yield commercial products. The wheat that Greenpeace destroyed was a largely academic trial of a nutritional modification, but much work continues with drought tolerant and disease resistant wheats. It is those lines that are potentially important for keeping up with ever-rising wheat demand in the developing world. At a time when an unprecedented new food price regime is punishing the world's poor, Greenpeace may be feeling pressure from the questions, "What is the statute-of-limitations on saying that the sky is falling?" or "is it ethical to slow advances in food production when poor people are hurting because of it?"

Why Does This Matter?

Wheat matters because of its nutritional, historical, cultural, and philosophical importance to humanity.

Wheat Has a Significant Role in Human Nutrition

Wheat is not just any crop. It is a major source of energy and protein for populations, both where it is grown, and in highly-dependent, importing countries (e.g. Subsaharan Africa, Northern Africa, increasingly in Asia). Wheat is one of the most heavily traded of all crops, and has been since Roman times. High wheat prices effect a huge proportion of the world's population. In its various ethnic forms, bread is truly "the staff of life." It is also strategically important. Nobel prize winner and Green Revolution leader, Norm Borlaug, put it well: "If you desire peace, cultivate justice, but at the same time cultivate the fields to produce more bread; otherwise there will be no peace."

Wheat Has Tremendous Historical Significance

In his ground-breaking book, "Guns Germs and Steel," Jared Diamond chronicles how some of the earliest human societies moved from a hunter-gatherer existence to a farm-based society in the Fertile Crescent or present day, Middle East. Local, large-seeded, grain crops, and animals that could be domesticated for draft work were key to that transition. Through simple selection for large seeds that stayed on the head for harvest, these ancient farmers (~10,000 years ago) created the first hybrid crop between wild spelt, emmer, and possibly other grains, to produce a new species - wheat. As Diamond documents, the wheat and animals were able to help feed this version of Western Civilization as it spread East and West, eventually jumping oceans to North America, and later to the temperate zone of the Southern Hemisphere. Wheat and Cows could not deal with the heat, diseases and insects of the tropics, and so people groups in those regions were not soon touched by the advances of Western civilization (good and bad).

Wheat Embodies Important Cultural Symbolism

In this regard, wheat shares a co-joined symbolic significance with grapes - which have also been the target of anti-GMO vandalism. One of the earlier parings of wheat and wine (the natural storage form of grapes) is found in the story of Abraham - a figure claimed as the Father of both the Jews and the Moslems (~4,000 BCE). After Abraham conquers five kings of Sodom to rescue his relatives, he is met by the mysterious figure, Melchizedek, who is described in the text as the priest and king of Salem (trans. Shalom, trans. Peace). Melchizedek brings bread and wine for the victory ceremony. Bread (unleavened) and wine are also important elements of the Passover meal with which the Jews commemorate their liberation from slavery in Egypt. Bread and wine symbolism is also central to Christian Communion (or Eucharist) as Jesus self-identified the bread and wine of the Last Supper as representative of his body and blood. When it comes to religious symbolism, it does not get more intense than these two targets of GMO modification and anti-GMO attacks

The Battle Over Wheat Is Representative of A Broader Philosophical Struggle In Post-Modern Society

In the early 15th century, the printing press enhanced the communication-potential of society, and accelerated the already developing, rational and pre-scientific, trends of preceeding centuries (Islamic Renaissance, European Renaissance, The Enlightenment). One might have thought that the mega-communication potential of the internet age would have further enhanced the "Age of Reason." Not so. The term, "Renaissance Man," referred to the real possibility that one smart and educated individual could grasp most of human knowledge and esthetics several hundred years ago. Today, one is lucky to be able to keep pace with whatever sub-field one chooses to pursue.

The Light of Knowledge drove out the darkness of Fear and Superstition that so characterized the "Dark Ages." Today, Fear and Superstition are back with a vengeance. Knowledge is often impotent because it has become too vast to access and stave off Fear, or to help most people separate real information from disinformation. We no longer have a clear way of knowing what is true (epistemology). Until the internet age we had a workable balance between logic (rational epistemology), experience and experiment (empirical epistemology), and accepting truth from recognized experts (authoritarian epistemology). Now we seem to be moving towards simply choosing an authoritarian source of truth that is comfortable for our world view. It is a sort of "don't tell me what I don't want to know" epistemology. We pick the "news" channels, blogs, gurus or even comedians who tell us self-reinforcing information. To open up our minds to all the different voices is just too overwhelming.

In the particular case of GMO crops, there are many people who only listen to the complete anti-GMO voices (e.g. greenpeace, agro-ecology advocates...). I wrote a blog post titled, "Way Too Much Angst About GMO Crops," which was intended to calm some people by explaining why very few crops will ever be GMO for a variety of reasons. The post didn't have that effect at all, as one can see in the 500+ comment stream on the Biofortified re-post of the blog.

This is Just One Front of A Much More Important Battle

But this argument about GMO wheat is a mere sub-set of something bigger than even agriculture. It is really about the choice between risk management based on sound science or risk avoidancebased on the "Precautionary Principle." The same is true of the Climate Change and Vaccine/Autism debates, as well as many more. For me, as an agricultural scientist, I'm only going to try to reach open-minded people on agricultural issues. This latest Greenpeace stunt was only a disaster for the scientists who lost a year of work. The real stakes are about the broader struggle between science and precaution.

Wheat Field Image from Dag Endresen. Please comment here and/or write me at applied.mythology@gmail.com

Are High Global Food Prices A New Norm?

2011-07-08T14:38:00.000-07:00

This post first appeared on Sustainablog of 7/7/11)

FAO (The food and agriculture organization of the United Nations) released their June estimate of global food price indices yesterday. The new numbers were mixed, but not encouraging overall. Sugar was up 15% over the month. All the other indices were nearly flat: Dairy up 0.2%, Oils down 0.6%, Meat down 1.5%, Cereals down 1.3%. The net change was a miniscule +0.6%. This is bad news for poor people who spend much of their income on food for their family.

Farmers Are Trying To Reverse This Situation

Farmers have been doing all they can to boost production and get reserves back up. The American row crop farmers have been frustrated by flooding or fields that were too wet to plant in the Midwest. Along the Mississippi river, farmers watched helplessly as 40-50,000 acres of prime land was flooded. Away from the rivers, drought and heat had already hurt yield potential. For wheat growers in France, Kansas, the US and Russia, rains were late for the winter wheat crops. The French crop could be 15 percent down - the lowest in four years.

Double Whammy

Then to make matters worse, the rains were too early for planting the spring wheat, corn and soybean crops (34% of normal vs a typical 85%.) In May, Reuters reported that Ker Chung Yangan investment analyst for Phillip Futures in Singapore, a "double whammy." By June 5, only 79% of the US spring wheat crop had been sown vs an average of 98% for the past five years. This makes millers nervous because so many baked products depend on the high protein, hard red spring wheat crop from North Dakota, Montana and Minnesota.

A Brief Moment of Optimism in June

FAO distributed high quality wheat seed to flood-affected farmers in Pakistan - $54 million worth. That lead to a bumper crop worth nearly $190 million - a 4x return on investment. Wheat yields in that country are often limited by the fact that there is no viable "farm credit" system to allow farmers to buy good seed, fertilizers and chemicals. Then, in early June, Russia announced that they would lift their export ban on wheat. That caused a round of selling of wheat - something that is regretted now.

This Food Price "Spike" May Not Be a "Spike" Afterall

The previous food price spike started in April of 2007 and ended in January of 2009 (21 months). This spike began in January of 2010 and it still going strong 16 months later. With poor harvests this fall, we can't expect to see prices drop until well into next year

A Hard Question That Needs Much Thought and Discussion

This may not be a "spike" at all. This may be the new food price paradigm which has major ramifications for global security and international policy. During future shortages, do we sell these limited supplies to the rich customers (Japan, Western Europe, Oil Rich Middle Easterners) or to the world's poor (sub-Saharan Africans, oil-poor Northern Africans, Eastern Europeans, Central Americans? ). These are very important questions that deserve a serious dialog. You can join that discussion here.

If you would like a copy of the graph or the underlying data, email me at applied.mythology@gmail.com.

Food price index data from the UN, Food and Agriculture Organization

Aerial View of Levee Breach in Illinois from Wikipedia

Where Have All the Flowers Gone

2011-07-03T16:44:00.000-07:00

(This post first appeared on Sustainablog on 7/4/11)

Today, to be patriotic, I bought my wife some red, white and blue carnations. I got them at Franco’s Flowers on Leucadia Boulevard just off the I5 in Encinitas. If you live in North County, this is definitely the place to get flowers. I’m no professional flower arranger, but I think they came out nicely.

I asked the clerk who was trimming and wrapping the flowers where they came from, and he said, “Columbia.” I felt better about that because how could you be patriotic and buy flowers from a country like Venezuela? I would rather have purchased them from a domestic grower, but I couldn’t.

The Irony of This Purchase

These greenhouses lie between a golf course and my home. It was all once flowers

It is ironic, because I live in Northern San Diego County, in the city of Encinitas, which was once the capital of cut flower production for the US. One of the few remaining greenhouses, Dramm and Echter, borders my neighborhood.

The Ecke Ranch with a small mother-block of Poinsettias

Much of the hill-top land with views to the Pacific was once owned by the Ecke family. They once controlled 90+% of the wholesale Poinsettia business selling to the greenhouses around the country to local greenhouses that prepared them to be America’s traditional Christmas decoration. Over the years they have sold off land for housing, for shopping centers and for a beautiful golf course where I frequently run. When my family moved to Encinitas in 1990, we bought in a neighborhood that was once in flowers, but which was converted in 1974.

Why The Flower Growers Left

There are several inexorable trends that have since driven the flower business largely out of my town. Some has gone to California’s Central Valley. Some has gone to Mexico. Most has gone to Venezuela (roses), and Columbia (carnations). The drivers were:

The very high cost of land
The very high taxes that were indexed on land price, and
Diminishing labor pools

Basically, it was “Urbanization,” or really “Suburbanization.” It has also greatly diminished our strawberry and avocado industries. This really isn’t such a big issue outside of California, but it certainly is in a place like San Diego.

Can I Be Patriotic and Green While Buying Flowers?

These trends are not limited to flowers. It is true of any labor intensive crop, with asparagus being the poster child. Americans are rapidly increasing their consumption of this tasty, cancer-fighting vegetable, but our own production is declining rapidly. The logic is simple – asparagus is a 12-15 year crop with a short, labor intensive harvest season for 2-4 weeks in the spring. We once had thriving asparagus industries all over the US. It was a common, local vegetable. As doubts developed about the future labor supply ,and as land prices soared, farmers abandoned the crop. Now we buy asparagus from Peru and transport it by air. The roses, carnations and asparagus were all US-sponsored projects to give small farmers an alternative to growing cocaine. In every case they have become industries dominated by large companies. The small farmer still grow the cocaine by the way.

Some Hope for Ocean Transport in the Future

Fortunately, there are several technologies in place and in development that may make it possible to deliver these commodities by ocean transport – an extremely efficient system. Soon we may be able to enjoy flowers, asparagus, and off-season fruits while being both patriotic and green.

So can I feel patriotic buying those flowers for my wife? Yes we can.

You can email me at feedback.sdsavage@gmail.com.

My website is Applied Mythology

Source: Red Green & Blue (http://s.tt/12M1b)

10 Existential Threats To The Global Food Supply

2011-06-28T11:32:00.000-07:00

(Originally posted on sustainablog on 6/27/11)

I tend to be a "glass half full" sort of person, particularly about the prospects of successfully feeding the 9-10 billion people we expect by 2050. My optimism is based on daily contact with the innovative public and private entities who develop technology for agriculture. It is also based on the track record of small and large farmers who integrate these new options into their production systems. Farming has the largest physical "footprint" of any human enterprise, so it will never be without consequences. I believe that feeding 10 billion people well while preserving the environment in within the realm of possibility. Even so, I have some concerns about how we are going to pull this off. My list of existential threats includes:

Rising energy costs
Peak Phosphorus
An aging workforce
Our lack of a viable and humane guest worker program
The low level of land ownership by farmers
Climate change
Competition for water
Pest resistance to chemicals and genetic traits
A failure to invest public funds in agricultural research
The growing influence of anti-science forces
Rising uncertainty about private investment in agricultural research

Rising energy costs

After labor , land, and often water, the next largest cost of most farming operations is energy. It takes fuel to drive tractors and combines. It takes energy to manufacture and transport fertilizers. It takes energy to heat, light or cool greenhouses, and it takes energy to chill, store and transport food. As we move into an era of "peak oil," it becomes difficult to simply pass along these rising costs to consumers - particularly to the poor. The solutions are the use of waste heat and the use of LED lighting at only the wavelengths needed for plant growth.

Peak Phosphorus

Phosphorus is the second most important element for plant growth. It has been mined from deposits of "phosphorus rock" and released with acid to make commercial fertilizer. Those mines are running out and soon the only major source will be in North Africa. That is not a good scenario. Phosphorus is soluble in water, so some of it moves into ground water and into streams and rivers. It is as much a driver of the Gulf "dead zone" as is nitrogen. We can reclaim phosphorus in rivers and particularly in from municipal waste, but the process is expensive. We need to drive down that cost and start re-using all this fertilizer we are currently wasting.

An Aging Workforce

Farmers are far older, on average, than the general population. Not that many young people desire to become farmers and those that do tend to believe that working on a small, Organic farm is actually a meaningful contribution to the food supply. Our best hope in this respect is increasing mechanization and robotic farming. The success of the game, Farmville, suggests a latent interest which could lead to a generation of farmers who may move from the virtual farm world to the physical with no change of user-interface.

Our Lack of a Viable and Humane Guest Worker Program

The drive to force all employers to use E-verify for their employees has the looming consequence of creating severe agricultural labor shortages. Any crop that requires hand labor to plant, tend or harvest is at risk. Hopefully the early adopting states like Arizona and Georgia will demonstrate the folly of our dysfunctional system. There is a huge opportunity to rationalize this labor pool, removing the inefficiency of connecting workers and employers, providing mobile housing and safety training. There is no reason to defy gravity and pretend that there is not a market for guest workers on farms. We may never be able to be reasonable about immigration in a comprehensive fashion, but we could address farm labor separately.

The Low Level of Land Ownership By Farmers

Truly sustainable farming is a wise, long-term investment, but since most farmers rent the majority of their land on an annual, cost-basis, they cannot actually afford to farm in the best possible way (no-till, cover crops, controlled wheel traffic, variable-rate fertilization...). It is not feasible for most farmers to buy more land, but the structure of leases could be modified so that both the farmer and the absentee land owner share in the increased stability and quantity of yield on soils which are improved in terms of rain capture and retention

Climate Change

Climate change is real to farmers. Temperatures are generally higher. Rainfallis more variable with both more dry and wet spells that lower productivity. The range of pests is expanding as temperature or the timing of rains enables them. The improvement of soil properties is the main possible response to this threat. The second is the expansion of "protected culture" like high tunnels, rain- shields, screen houses or even full-blown greenhouses.

Competition for water

When city dwellers and farmers compete for the same water supply, the farmers are clearly going to lose. Even where there is not competition farmers face rapidly depleting aquifers, rivers that never reach the sea, salinity problems and the maze of water law and environmental regulation. The main solution is highly efficient irrigation systems which are capital intensive and require steady maintenance.

Pest Resistance to Chemicals and Genetic Resistance

New families of insecticides and fungicides are being discovered on a regular basis, but new families of herbicides are rarely found. Several modes of resistance to glyphosate (Roundup) have emerged in recent years - actually much more slowly than for many other classes of herbicides. This threatens not only Monsanto's trait dominance, but also the feasibility of no-till and strip-till systems which are at the core of sustainable practices. Re-doubled discovery efforts are needed as are new herbicide tolerance traits for different herbicide classes. The global wheat crop is now threatened by a new strain of stem rust,UG99 that first appeared in Uganda. A coordinated, global breeding effort is underway and it is a race against time to get new sources of resistance back-crossed into locally adapted and quality checked lines. Our dysfunctional congress just voted to reduce funding for this effort.

A Failure to Invest Public Funds in Agricultural Research

Concerns about some of the negative features of the "Green Revolution" and complacency developed over years of relative abundance, have induced many governments to cut back on investment in agricultural research even though statistics indicate this to be one of the highest return rate public investments that can be made. There is a widespread delusion that "agro-ecology" and traditional wisdom will feed the world which it has clearly failed to do. If it were not for the generosity of foundations like Gates and Buffet, the situation would be even more dire.

The Growing Influence of Anti-Science Forces

A host of voices are terrifying the public with disinformation about GMOs, pesticides, and other key elements of agricultural productivity. This fear infects both the Right and the Left and is well funded by shadowy benefactors. Environmentalism that sees humanity as the source of solutions is a good thing, but the environmentalism that sees humans as the main problem is a real threat to the future. The Environmental Working Group is promoting cancer in humans by reducing their intake of cancer-fighting fruits and vegetables and by frightening them away from using sunscreens.

Rising Uncertainly About Private Investment in Agricultural Research

It costs a lot of money to maintain a pesticide screening effort. Because of the fear industry, the uncritical press and the under-qualified political leadership, the companies that invest billions in R&D cannot count on a reliable reward for their efforts. Uncertainties on the regulatory and market front have a chilling effect on investment at the same time that generics are cutting into their profitability. This will not only effect farmers. This discovery engine is also what finds all the actives for public health-oriented pest control (mosquitoes, roaches, bedbugs...).

Each of these issues can be addressed with sufficient time, funding and creativity, but global agriculture is facing them all, simultaneously. It is an enormous challenge.

You can email me at savage.sd@gmail.com. My website is Applied Mythology.

GMO Crops Are Already Effectively Labeled If You Know A Few Rules

2011-06-23T13:02:00.000-07:00

Back in 1995, I was party to some discussions about whether about-to-be-released GMO crops should be labeled at the consumer level. It was clear that a failure to do so would look to some like a conspiracy, but we also realized that it would be far too expensive to track the great rivers of grain well enough to be able to label everything accurately. Practicality won the day and GMO foods were never labeled. 15 years later this decision is still being debated.

Why You Can't Really Track All Grain

It does not normally make sense for a farmer to have his/her own harvesting equipment. There are "custom, contract harvesters" who move from South to North during the harvest season. There are always some grains left in the harvester as it moves from field to field. The grain is then hauled to local "elevators" which are used to store grain. They only have a few silos which end up containing grain from dozens to hundreds of fields. Segregating the GMO portion of the crop is not possible at this stage. To ask this system to segregate and track GMO is absurd. It is much more practical to "identity preserve" the small amount of non-GMO crop. That also usually involves paying a price premium.

A "May Contain" Label Might Have Been A Better Choice

I actually supported the idea of a "may contain GMO" label, recognizing that things like corn and soybeans are turned into ingredients that are in just about any processed food (corn starch, HFCS, soy protein, soybean oil...). Both the biotech industry and the food industry thought that a "may contain" label would just frighten consumers. I think it would have inoculated them against alarm. In the Information Age, only the absence of information stands out.

Fruits and Vegetables

As I have written elsewhere, almost no fruit or vegetable crops will ever be GMO - not because of consumer wishes, but because of economics, brand protectionism, and alternative ways of achieving the same goals. If GMO ever did move to fruit and vegetable crops, it would probably be intentionally labeled and farmers would then segregate the GMO from the non-GMO. For instance, if there was a line of coffee with a trait that allowed intentional timing of flowering (and thus timing of harvest), it would be much cheaper because it could be mechanically harvested (this is actually needed, or coffee is going to become extremely expensive in the future). A label could explain this. If there was a new variety of potato with higher starch content, it would absorb less fat during cooking. It could be proudly advertised as a "low fat" option at a fast food chain (there was such a potato in the works beforeMcDonald's killed the program).

The "Biotech By Choice" Brand Concept

There is the concept of an umbrella brand for these sorts of GMO innovations - "Biotech By Choice" (I even once reserved the domain name for that). The GMO, Bt sweet corn, that already exists (quietly) should be the first product under that brand - if there ever was a grocery retailer with the guts to promote it. Instead, they quietly tell their suppliers not to bring them any GMO corn. The second product under the brand could be the GMO virus resistant papaya (which saved the Hawaiian papaya industry a few years ago). Instead it is being sold on a "don't ask, don't tell" basis.

Biotech Wine

A third product under the Biotech By Choice brand could be premium wine grown on virus and nematode resistant rootstock. I once advised the folks in Chile, that own this Cornell-developed technology, to buy some previously ideal vineyard sites in Napa and France that are now worthless because they are contaminated with the nematode and virus which kill any grape you plant there. They could buy that land cheaply, grow some really good grapes, and make a premium wine. There are plenty of people who would subscribe ahead of time to be able to buy a case a year at a wholesale price. Did that happen? No. People with fears of genetic contamination (which shows that they know nothing about grapes) ripped the French version of that experiment out of the ground. The US experiment still exists, but only because its location is secret. Still, this technology will probably never reach the market (do you have a couple million spare bucks to help finish the work?).

A Biotech Crop to Feed the World

A fourth Biotech by Choice crop could be wheat. It might be drought tolerant or efficient in its use of nitrogen. It might be resistant to a herbicide so that specific varieties can be grown purely under a no-till system. It might be resistant to Fusarium, a fungus, and thus free of the mycotoxin, DON or vomitoxin. I'd like to be able to choose a loaf like that. Wheat actually could be segregated into GMO and non-GMO. Most wheat farmers have their own, on-farm grain storage facilities. Wheat quality is variable by variety, geography and year, so there is a lot of testing and movement of small lots. If there were reasonable rules about "adventitious presence," (e.g. a few kernals of GMO in the non-GMO because they were harvested with the same harvester). Then Biotech By Choice wheat products could be sold. Will that happen? Its hard to know. The wheat farmers certainly hope so.

All Food Is Effectively Labeled if You Know A Few Rules

Most people would like GMO products to be labeled. I get that. But, if you know a few rules, they already are in a de-facto mode. For the grain crops, other than wheat, it just isn't practical to segregate, and it makes far more sense to label only what is non-GMO. We do that and should. Just assume the rest contains GMOs. It is like buying eggs: they all contain cholesterol, but there is no need to say so on the label except for the "whites only" variety and no one would mistake the little boxes for eggs.
For fruits and vegetables it would make sense to proudly label the improved, GMO versions. If they are not promoted that way, just assume they are non-GMO because that is the norm. This is comparable to the reason you don't have to label lettuce or water that is "fat free." If you don't want GMO, don't buy papaya's from Hawaii. You could also avoid squash, but I don't think it is GMO anymore.
For wheat products, actual labeling will be feasible as long as people accept reasonable thresholds for adventitious presence. For now, just know that there is no GMO wheat being grown commercially, so there is no need to label anything (although most wheat products will have some soy or corn ingredients as well).

Conclusion

In my world, this all makes perfect sense. I hope this helps. If you don't worry about GMOs, there is no need for labels. If you have worries, it is easy to avoid GMO. However, I'm under no delusion that activists will adopt such a view. There is way too much money to be made in the fear business.
My email is savage.sd@gmail.com. My website is Applied Mythology. GMO label Image fromFood Freedom website

A Rational Analysis of the USDA Pesticide Residue Data

2011-06-16T08:38:00.000-07:00

When the Environmental Working Group (EWG) makes its annual "Dirty Dozen List" of fruits and vegetables with pesticide residues, it does so without paying any attention to which chemicals were found or what level was detected. This is why it is so misleading. To do the analysis properly does take a lot more "work" - it took me much of the last two days to do it.

First I had to download the raw datawhich comes as a 5.5 MB ZIP File that expands to a 83 MB text file. My son wrote a little Ruby On Rails script that sifts through the millions of rows of data to find the 30,000 actual "detections" of pesticide residues that the USDA found for 2009. That list has the identity of the pesticide and its concentration in parts per million, billion or sometimes trillion. Next, I searched for an MSDS for each of the 300 or so different chemicals to get the specific acute toxicity (this is usually in section eleven of each document). The acute toxicity is expressed as an LD50 - the milligrams of chemical it would take per kilogram of body weight to kill 1/2 of the rats in a feeding study (Oral LD50). These are publicly available documents which are usually easy to find except for old, discontinued pesticides and some of the metabolites. Dividing the LD50 by the detected amount gives you the multiple of its own body weight that the rat would have to eat to reach a toxic dose.

An Example You Can Blame on McDonald's
As an example, an old, extremely toxic pesticide, aldicarb (Temik) has an LD50 of 1 mg/kg. This is exactly what you imagine when you hear the word, "pesticide." In one sample of fresh potatoes, the USDA scientists detected 0.01 mg/kg of aldicarb sulfoxide - a metabolite which is just as toxic as the aldicarb. For the rats to die from eating such potatoes would require that they rapidly consume 90 times their own weight of those particular potatoes. The most toxic potato sample had 1.5mg/kg of the aldicarb sulfoxide which means that the rates could die by eating just one times their own body weight. A rat might be able to do that.

The EWG essentially treats every one of the 30,000 detections as equal in risk to these worst-case potato values. Because most pesticides are far, far less toxic than aldicarb, the average residue found by the USDA on potatoes has a safety margin of 595,163. The only reason that aldicarb is still used on potatoes (and it will be phased out soon), is that for purely brand protection reasons, MacDonald's asked it's fry suppliers not to give them any more GMO potatoes (they had been using them for several years, and they still cook them in GMO soybean oil and serve up GMO sodas with corn sweetener). Still, McDonalds killed the Bt-potato. That is why potato growers plant their potatoes into a furrow with granular aldicarb so that the roots pick up the insecticide for ~60 days, protecting them from the Colorado Potato Beetle. Still, potatoes are in about the middle of the pack in terms of average safety margin. Oranges have a safety factor of nearly 1.5 million.

Sweet corn, which makes the "Clean Fifteen" list for EWG is actually the crop with the lowest average safety margin (8,909). This demonstrates the meaninglessness of the Dirty Dozen list.
Beyond Averages
Of course, averages can be misleading. It is more instructive to look at the full distribution of results. The graph below summarizes all the sample results for fruit crops. For this graph, values on the right side of the graph represent extremely low risk while those to the left represent relatively higher risk. As you can see, even though these crops had many pesticide residues, they almost all were present at vanishingly levels meaning extremely minor risk. People just don't eat one hundred, one thousand or several million times their body weight of one food in a sitting!

The same is true for vegetables. The few residues detected on lettuce have safety margins in the million-fold range and the non-Organic lettuce was actually a little better than the Organic lettuce. By this methodology potatoes and spinach come out the worst with some safety margins in the thousand range. Still, the message from the real data is completely different than what one gets from the EWG's "analysis."

When the EWG list is reported by the unsophisticated media, they say things about it which are completely false. For instance thirdage.com said, "The “dirty dozen” list of the twelve fruits and vegetables with the highest amount of pesticide residue was released Monday by the Environmental Working Group (EWG)." That would be impossible because the EWG did not access the raw data which would be necessary to identify how "high" the residues actually were. They say that cherries "dropped off the list" without mentioning that cherries were not even one of the crops tested in 2009.

So, what does the USDA data actually tell us? That we should feel confident that the fruits and vegetables available in our markets are perfectly safe, and we should be consuming them in ever greater quantities to take advantage of all the cancer- and other disease-fighting chemicals they naturally contain. It also tells us that the EWG should be ashamed of their list, print a full retraction, and refund their ill-gotten financial gains.
If anyone would like a copy of the processed data or graphs I would be happy to email it from savage.sd@gmail.com. Also if anyone would like to improve on my collection of LD50 values that would be much appreciated. My website is Applied Mythology.

Crop dusting image from wikimedia

Don't Let The Environmental Working Group Diminish Your Family's Quality of Life

2011-06-13T14:17:00.000-07:00

(Posed 6/13/11 on Sustainablog. For links to my posts on various sites click here)
One of the best things about living in a developed country in the modern world is that we have year-around access to delicious and health enhancing fruits and vegetables a remarkably affordable prices. Just in my 56 years there has been a dramatic increase in the availability and diversity of produce, and many examples of dramatic improvement in taste. But sadly, there are far too many people who are not taking nearly as much advantage of all this progress as they could be. One reason is that food companies have become so skilled at making tempting snack food and fast food options, but the other major reason is that criminal groups like the Environmental Working Group (EWG) manage to scare people away from buying fresh produce by publishing their annual "Dirty Dozen" list. Apples topped the list. I won't even provide a link to this bit of rubbish. The best advice is to completely ignore it!

The Source of the Real Data Behind This

The data on which the EWG's list depends is produced by the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Each year the USDA scientists gather thousands of fresh and frozen produce items from stores and other commercial outlets. They take them into labs, wash them like you would at home, and then grind them up to test them for residues of chemical pesticides (including natural products and synthetic products). They also test for important, known, break-down products (metabolites) of the chemicals of greatest potential concern. The technology for doing this is extremely advanced and can detect chemicals at levels that are so low, they might be a million times below a dose that would matter.
Each year USDA releases this database to the public. It contains more than millions of rows of data, because it came from thousands of samples tested for hundreds of individual pesticides. Most of the rows of data say, "no detection." Not surprisingly, most people in the press and elsewhere only read the written summary which the USDA also provides. The EWG also obviously only considers the written summary as they intentionally ignore the valuable information which is in the raw data. They really don't do much "work" at all.
Here is the kind of information that EWG should be considering when making their list - if they were interested in having any credibility with scientists:

1. Which specific pesticides were detected?

To understand risk it is necessary to know two things: "what is the hazard?" and "what is the exposure?" Different chemicals differ dramatically in their properties and in whether they are hazardous in various ways. Pesticides themselves differ in acute toxicity by as much as 5,000-fold from a classic, old, organophophate to the dozens of modern pesticides whose toxicity is so low that labs can't feed enough to a rat to kill it. But the EWG treats every "residue detection" the same as if what it is and what we know about it does not matter. These omission is extremely irresponsible. It would be like telling someone that our country is infested with snakes but not saying which ones.

2. What quantity of each pesticide was detected?

The second bit of information needed to quantify "risk" is to know how much "exposure" is involved. Electricity is an extremely hazardous thing, but we do a great job of preventing exposure and so only a handful of people are killed or injured each year even though we surround ourselves with electrically powered devices (like the one you are using right now). The USDA provides this critical bit of information and also how the parts per million or parts per trillion detected compares to a very conservative "tolerance" that the EPA bases on detail analysis of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of safety testing effort. In the 2009 data that was just released, there were only 0.3% of samples where the detection was higher than the tolerance (and the tolerance is set 100 times lower than the actual level that would have an effect). The report effectively says, "America's farmers are doing a remarkably responsible job of getting our food grown without putting us at any risk from pesticides."

Motives

It is always chancy to assign motives to someone you don't even know, but in this case I think it is pretty obvious. This is about fundraising for an organization that has no product to sell except fear. It would be completely legitimate for a group of States Attorneys General to file a class action lawsuit on behalf of all the people who have needlessly died from cancer and other diseases - deaths that could have been prevented if people were not scared away from eating fruits and vegetables that contain so many disease-fighting components.
On-the-whole, the press has failed to do it's homework on this issue. Bottom line, ignore the report and its endless regurgitation from other sources. Then do your friends and family a favor by explaining why the EWG's "analysis" is so deeply flawed. The length and quality of their lives are at stake.
Apple image from Muffet. My Website is Applied Mythology. My email is savage.sd@gmail.com. You can find more detailed information at the links below:
When Fear Wins: Fallout From the Dirty Dozen List
Two Radically Different Views of Celery
Two Examples of Safety Improvement: Automobile Travel and Agricultural Pest Control
My Dirty Dozen List

My Dirty Dozen List

2011-06-10T12:52:00.000-07:00

(This post originally appeared on Sustainablog on 6/10/11)
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) puts out a "dirty dozen" list each year based on a criminally misleading interpretation of the USDA-Agricultural Marketing Service, PDP pesticide residue data. The data actually demonstrates that the pesticide residues on foods are virtually all lower than the strict tolerances that have been set by the EPA. What the EWG completely ignores is the information on what chemicals the pesticide residues represents, what level was detected, and what is known about the toxicity or ecological effects of that chemical (kind of a large omission). They also fail to mention that each year only 18 or so commodities are tested, so whether a certain fruit or vegetable ends up on the "Dirty" list is really mostly a function of having been included in the PDP study in the first place. To make matters worse, EWG treats every "detection" the same, even though the risk associated with different residues can easily vary by a factor of 10 million or more. The press generally covers this nonsense in a completely uncritical fashion, and the net effect is that Americans consume less fresh produce and that only exacerbates our obesity-promoting diet.

I thought it would be good to post my personal list of dangerous foods based on more than 30 years of experience with food and agriculture. I am generally very confident in the safety and quality of the global food system, particularly the American food industry, but there are foods that I definitely avoid! Here is the list:

1. Bean sprouts or any other kind of sprouts
2. Organic corn chips
3. Foods sweetened with "fruit juice concentrate" from China
4. Nutmeg from India
5. Foods containing transfats
6. Peanuts from Africa
7. Organic, "ready to cook" meals
8. Raw milk
9. Agave nectar
10. Artisan breads with whole wheat "berries"
11. Brazil nuts
12. Raw peanuts in the shell

Here is my logic for each of these commodities.

1. Bean sprouts

It is no surprise that the source of the recent, disasterous German E. coli outbreak was bean sprouts. The growing conditions for making bean sprouts (and other sprouts) are perfect for growing human pathogens like E. coli or Salmonella, and the presence of manure and/or compost on Organic farms simply increases the chance of contamination. Remember that it was a farm in transition to Organic that caused the spinach-based outbreak in the US a few years ago. I would only eat sprouts if they were well irradiated.

2. Nutmeg from India
Because of moist conditions and poor storage, nutmeg produced in India is often contaminated with the fungus, Aspergillus flavus. This fungus produces one the the most toxic substances known to man - Aflatoxin. It is this toxin that I am trying to avoid for several items on this list.

3. Organic corn chips

Corn damaged by insects is often infected by the fungus Fusarium moniliforme which makes the mycotoxin, Fumonisin. Consumption of Fumonisin by pregnant women has been linked to higher rates of neural tube defects in their children. Conventional corn is now much less likely to be contaminated because it is protected by the GMO, Bt trait. Organic growers cannot use this trait, so their corn is much more likely to be contaminated.

4. Foods sweetened with "fruit juice concentrate" from China

Many people trying to avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup and processed sugar believe that products with "fruit sweeteners" are better. These now mostly come from China with no adequate system to check for old, nasty organophosphate insecticides that are widely used on crops like apples and pears in China. This is a source of pesticide residues that even I am concerned about.

5. Foods containing transfats

When the press and food manufacturing industry over-reacted to a linkage between "saturated fats" and heart disease, there was widespread use of "partially hydrogenated soybean oil" which turns out to be far, far worse for our hearts because it is a form of fat that never occurs in nature. I have been avoiding this fat for at least 25 years before it was widely recognized as dangerous.

6. Peanuts from Africa or Asia

Fortunately there are few exports of peanuts from Africa or Asia. These crops are frequently contaminated with Aflatoxin. Liver cancer is a leading cause of death in those regions because of this mycotoxin. Fortunately, the Gates Foundation is funding the development of a fast and cheap test so that people can detect the contamination and avoid it.

7. Organic, ready to heat meals

Conventional herbs and spices can be irradiated so that they don't carry pathogenic bacteria into the recipes where they are used (these are dried outside with no protection from bacterial or fungal contamination). For well cooked foods this is not an issue, but in the fast-growing, "ready-to-cook" segment, these ingredients are mixed in long before heating by the consumer, giving the bacteria time to grow. That is an excellent recipe for food poisoning.

8. Raw milk

Drinking raw milk is like playing Russian Roulette. Sooner or later the drinker will get severely ill. It is particularly dangerous for children. Louis Pasteur figured this out in the 1880s and there is no good reason to stop "pasteurizing" milk.

9. Agave nectar

A major Foodie fad is to eat foods sweetened with "Blue Agave Nectar." It makes a nice story because it has a lower glycemic index and that makes it easier for a diabetic to control their blood sugar. It turns out that you get more than the sweetener, you get carcinogenic compounds which, as a leading toxicologist puts it, "light up the rat bladder cancer screen." I think I'll stick with sugar.

10. Artisan breads with whole wheat "berries"

Wheat can be infected with Fusarium head blight and that fungus often makes the mycotoxin called vomitoxin or DON. The US and Canadian grain elevators do a good job of diverting most of the bad grain to alternative uses or to an incinerator, but grinding the wheat to make flower also does a good job of diluting what gets through that filter and getting DON down to levels that don't effect anyone. The practice of using whole "berries" in artisan breads means that you can get enough vomitoxin in one piece of bread to make you sick.

11. Brazil nuts

Brazil nuts are a wild crop which grows in the rain forest. The local indigenous people collect nuts that have fallen to the ground. The problem is that you don't know how long the nut was laying in the mud before it was collected. One Brazil nut can easily contain enough aflatoxin to kill you.

12. Raw peanuts in the shell

Peanuts can also be infected with Aspergillus flavus and contain aflatoxin. In the US peanut industry, the peanuts are shelled and then the exposed nuts are sent down a line through a beam of ultraviolet light. If they fluoresce, a puff of air removes them from the line and they are discarded. The same is done with Almonds and pistachios. With peanuts "in the shell" there is no such screening step. It is not worth the risk to eat them.

You probably noticed how many of these dangerous crops involved aflatoxin. For people in the US and Europe, there isn't much risk, but fortunately, there is a way you can reduce the risk even further. When eating something that might have traces of aflatoxin (e.g. nuts, peanut butter), be sure to include a green vegetable with the meal. The chlorophyll that makes it green binds with aflatoxin so that you don't absorb it in your digestive system and it is just peed out. So, one of the best ways to reduce a REAL risk is to eat the very vegetables that the EWG wants to scare you away from eating.

Skull image from Simon Strandgaard. My website is Applied Mythology. My email is savage.sd@gmail.com.

Way Too Much Angst About GMO Crops

2011-06-08T10:18:00.000-07:00

(This post also appeared on Sustainablog on 6/7/11. For links to my other posts click here).
From what I read on various blogs and comment streams, there is WAY TOO MUCH ANGST OUT THERE about GMO crops. Too much angst because every significant panel of scientists that has reviewed this technology has concluded that it is as safe as any other domesticated food crop. Too much angst because the reality is that only a small number of crop species will ever be genetically engineered for commercial use. There are four main reasons why this is the case:

1. Brand protectionism
2. Unfavorable economics
3. Other ways to achieve the same goals, and
4. Anti-GMO activism

1. Brand Protectionism

For most crops, somewhere along the chain of commerce from the farmer to the consumer, there is a step where there is considerable "concentration." This means that much of the market is in the hands of one or a few players. A classic case is potatoes. In the US, McDonalds corporation is such a dominant buyer of frozen fries, it was able to stop the commercial deployment of biotech potatoes with three phone calls. Unlike standard potatoes, the GMO potatoes in question are not planted into a supply of insecticide sufficient to be picked up by the roots for 60 days because they make their own, super-safe and specific "pesticide" in their leaves (Bt). The GMO potatoes also don't need to be sprayed for aphids close to harvest because they are resistant to the virus those aphids spread. The potato growers were extremely excited about the technology, but purely for the sake of brand protection, McDonalds was able to deprivethe entire industry of this advance. Potatoes are still a perfectly safe food. It could just be easier on the growers.

There are other cases of this sort of brand-protection power. The major frozen food companies and grocery retailers have been able to block most use of "Bt Sweet Corn" which could save farmers 8-10 insecticide sprays/season. Frito-Lay blocked the use of GMO, Bt white corn for corn chips even though that technology greatly reduces the risk of contamination with the mycotoxin, Fumonisin, which has been linked to neural tube defects in humans.

Brands are very valuable things and are protected fiercely. Activists like GreenPeace know this well, and they are able to use the threat of protest to turn that business instinct into decisions that are counter-productive for farmers and consumers alike.

2. Unfavorable Economics

Genetically engineering a crop is not that costly, but doing all the work necessary for the regulators is very expensive. Unless the crop in question is very large, very valuable or both, it will just never "pencil" to make the R&D investment, particularly if there is any marketing risk. I was once on a team that helped a major banana company and a biotech company think-through whether they should spend the money to develop a disease resistant banana. In Central America, it is necessary to spray this crop from the air almost every week to control a disease called Black Sigatoka. Bananas are a large, global crop so I was certain that the "business case" would be attractive. To everyone's surprise, when we did the math, it came out as a poor investment! The problem is that banana plantations only get re-planted about every 20 years, so even if the new technology was available, only a small area would be planted each year. Saving >50 aerial sprays wasn't enough to cover registration costs once the time-value-of-money is factored in.
So no minor crop and almost no perennial crop is ever going to become GMO unless the growers band together to make the investment. A coffee expert explained this to the global Specialty Coffee Association last year and suggested that they contemplate what it means that coffee will never be GMO. With the issues of climate change and declining labor availability, that entire industry is at risk.

3. Other Ways to Achieve the Same Goals

There has been a tremendous, public/private, global investment in biotechnology, far beyond that for the few crops that have been modified. That has led to the development of many new methods to alter the genes of plants etc. that don't involve the introduction of any "foreign DNA." Most of the crops that fit category 2 above will likely be improved using these alternatives (Marker Assisted Selection, Directed Mutagenesis, Induced Polyploidy...). These improvements will not involve expensive regulatory barriers, and so far, don't draw the ire of activists.

4. Anti-GMO Activism

Plant genetic engineering has been the most carefully thought-through new technology introduction in history. I remember attending major scientific conferences on the safety and environmental questions at least 10 years before the first commercial seeds were planted. We talked through everything with ecologists, botanists, sociologists, economists, molecular geneticists, food industry experts. But none of this influences the "environmental" groups who have seized on this issue to raise funds and draw attention. The activist's task is made easier because molecular genetics is a fast-moving science that few consumers understand. The press has also been unwilling to take the time to understand this to the extent that journalistic standards would require and so many have not helped to counteract the fear-mongering. This is the only way I can explain some activist-driven rejections.

My all-time-most-read blog post was titled, "A Sad Day For Wine. A Sad Day For Science." There is a virus called Grapevine Fanleaf Virus that is spread by a nematode(Xiphenema index). If the two ever infest a given vineyard site, good quality wine can never be produced there again because the vines will soon decline and die. That means that there are many wonderful vineyards around the world that have the an excellent "terrior" (something the French appreciate so much), but that site can no longer produce good wine. Grapes are grown on "rootstocks" and Cornell University had modified a rootstock to be resistant to the virus. This was an elegant solution to the Grape Fanleaf Virus problem because the top part of the vine is unchanged and only one kind of rootstock has to be developed. Last fall an experimental block of this new technology was ripped out of the ground by activists who believed they were saving the French wine industry from "genetic contamination." That fear is 100% irrational - it is a rootstock under the ground that never flowers. Besides, grapes are not grown from seeds anyway. Different varieties of wine grapes are planted side-by-side all the time with NO ILL EFFECTS!

Is This Good Or Bad - Consider the Case of Wheat

So for a variety of reasons (some economic, some logical, some irrational, some selfish), very few additional crops will ever be GMO. This is not at all to diminish the importance of GM crops in our food supply. Corn, Soybeans, Cotton, Canola, Sugarbeets and Alfalfa are all GMO and are planted to hundreds of millions of acres each year. The are hugely important in meat and milk production and as ingredients in many processed foods. Still, I will continue to argue that planting more GMO crops would be beneficial. The world will survive without a bit more excellent wine (very few vineyards in California, Chile, Argentina or Australia are contaminated!), but the other crop where activist-generated-fear has "won" by eliciting Brand Protectionism is - wheat, the second largest food crop on earth. By 2004, GreenPeace was able to generate enough fear in Europe to get major millers and bakers to threaten not to purchase North American wheat if any became GMO. The Canadian Wheat Boardblinked, and two, nearly commercial wheat traits, were stopped in their tracks. One kind of GMO wheat would have been easier to farm with no-till methods and easier to keep pure for specialty uses. The other GMO wheat would have reduced disease-related yield losses as well as mycotoxin contamination.
It is far easier to stir up fear than it is to educate the public. There was an excellent article by Justin Gillis in the New York Times on 6/4/11 titled, "A Warming Planet Struggles to Feed Itself." Much of the article is about how wheat production is failing to increase sufficiently to meet rising global demand. GM technology is not the full answer to this challenge by any means, but the fact that we are not including GM in the wheat improvement toolbox is a clear-cut "bad thing" in my book.

You are welcome to comment here or to email me at applied.mythology@gmail.com. Image of Edvard Munch’s 1893 painting, ”The Scream” from oddsock. French Fry image by Sun Dazed. Alsatian vineyard image near Colmar, France from Andreea.

Food Price Spike Continues But Slows

2011-06-07T12:05:00.000-07:00

(This post first appeared on Sustainablog on 6/7/11)

Today, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released it's food price indices for May 2011. It was a mixture of somewhat encouraging news and not so encouraging news. There are indications that we may have reached the peak of the spike at levels comparable to the last spike in 2008, but there is no sign of relief for those nations which are heavily dependent on international trade for their food purchases.
Cereal prices are slightly down, but that is mainly driven by solid rice supplies and far better Russian and Ukrainian wheat harvests. It is doubtful that the supplies of corn and spring wheat will recover this year because of rain-driven delays in planting in most of North America while Winter Wheat harvests in the US are being severely hurt by drought. The milling and baking industry is very nervous about hard red spring wheat prices this fall.

Meat and dairy prices continued to rise with the meat index now 37.4% higher than ever before. Together these increases and decreases produce an overall food index value that is only 0.1% higher than April but still 9% higher than the last peak. Sugar prices (not shown) are on a very different cycle and are more than 10% down last month.

Unless the 2011 growing season in North America turns out far better than expected, there is every reason to believe that this price spike will continue or worsen. The next update will appear on 7/7/11.
You can email me for a higher resolution copy of this graph at savage.sd@gmail.com. My website is Applied Mythology.

Bacteria Made Your Lunch

2011-06-06T09:37:00.000-07:00

(This post originally appeared on Sustainablog on 6/4/11. Links to all my posts on various sites can be found Here)
Bacteria are one of the few reasons that I can remain optimistic about future prospects for feeding humanity. We who are involved in feeding the world face many challenges in addition to population growth (climate change, peak oil, growing Asian middle classes..). Still, we might just pull it off because we have microscopic friends that allow us to tap into two almost limitless supplies of two key nutrients - nitrogen and cellulose. I wrote a post about this when I first started blogging, but I want to revisit the topic.

Image via Wikipedia
Nitrogen

The earth's atmosphere contains ~80% nitrogen gas (N2). Nitrogen is a key element for making proteins and nucleic acids that all living things need to grow. But this super-abundant form of N cannot be used by plants. There are only three ways that nitrogen gas can become usable. Lightening turns some of into nitrate, but the main, natural way it happens is through Biological Nitrogen Fixation (BNF). Certain specific bacteria have the ability to convert N2 into usable forms (NH4 - ammonia, or NO3 - nitrate). Bacteria like Bradyrhizobium associate with the roots of "legume" plants (alfalfa, peas, beans, soybeans...). They trade plant-converted solar energy for nitrogen in the form of nitrate. They can usually supply all that these plants need, and the residue of that crop provides a good share of what is needed by the next crop that does not "fix nitrogen." There are also some bacteria like Azospirillum that associate with the leaves of grasses (e.g. sugarcane, Miscanthus, switch grass...) and make at least some usable nitrogen.

In the chart above you can see the significant, but still relatively small "legumes" sector in blue. When people say that we should depend more on vegetable protein they probably don't understand how limited that is. Bacteria could only make enough usable nitrogen for a fraction of our global "lunch." Fortunately, we can make our own.

Getting Enough Nitrogen

Historically the biggest limitation to crop productivity has been the supply of nitrogen. The growing world population was fed by "mining" the nutrients on more and more new, "virgin land" and by using the small amount of nitrogen available in manures - essentially harvesting the inefficiency of those animal systems. In many societies around the world (particularly Asia and Africa), people were being stunted in their physical and mental development because of a lack of protein due to nitrogen limitation (wheat, the key calorie source of the West is higher in protein than rice, the key calorie source of the Orient).

"Synthetic Nitrogen"

: Image via Wikipedia"Synthetic Nitrogen"

In the early 20th century, German scientists, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch developed a process (now called Haber-Bosch) which uses a hydrogen source (natural gas) to convert atmospheric N2 into NH4 with the aid of a catalyst. They were awarded the Nobel Prize for this because it completely changed the world of agriculture. When Haber later lead the gas warfare effort for Germany in WWI, it certainly compromised his legacy, but the Germans chemist's contribution to the food supply remains an important reality.
Abundant Nitrogen Is Not Without It's Downsides
As is so often the case, very good things also have very negative potential. Once nitrogen gas has been converted to ammonia (NH4), it can volatilize and leave the field where you tried to use it as a fertilizer. When soils are saturated with rain, certain bacteria "nitrify" the ammonia into the nitrate ion, NO3-. Both ammonia and nitrate can be absorbed by the plant, but nitrate is soluble in water. That can be good in the case where that allows it to move down to where the roots are growing. That can be very bad when it moves all the way to ground water or with runoff or drains into streams and rivers and eventually the Gulf of Mexico to create a "Dead Zone." There are very good practices to minimize the water pollution issues for nitrogen fertilizers, but there are also economic drivers that prevent all farmers from using them.

Nitrogen Fertilizer and Climate Change

Soil "de-nitrifying" bacteria convert some nitrate back to N2 gas to complete the "nitrogen cycle," but in the process they tend to leak some nitrous oxide (N2O). This form of nitrogen is, unfortunately, an extremely potent greenhouse gas that is >300 times as potent as CO2 at driving warming. The nitrifying bacteria (NH4 to NO3) also do some of this. Typically, only 1-2% of farmer-applied fertilizer turns into N2O, but it is still one of the largest components of the Carbon Footprint of farming. Legume crops and natural systems also have this issue, but it is just worse with intentional fertilization. There are many practices that can greatly limit the production of nitrous oxide and usually save on fertilizer cost in the process.
So we see that the challenge is to harness the capabilities of the good bacteria and limit those of the bad.

Cellulose

In much the same way that there is a huge abundance of N2 gas, there is a huge abundance of cellulose because it surrounds every cell of every plant on earth. The problem is that we can't digest cellulose. Human societies have been tapping into the cellulose resource for millennia through the agency of grazing "ruminant" animals. The complex digestive systems of these animals (cows, sheep, goats, camels, yaks...) house another set of beneficial bacteria that are among the few things on the planet that can digest cellulose. Thus, through these animals and bacteria, hundreds of millions of acres of grassland can be turned into sources of human food (meat and milk).

Grain-fed Beef etc

In recent decades there has been a trend towards non-ruminant meat sources (chickens, turkeys, pork...) and towards "grain finishing" of beef. This is possible because of the huge increases in the productivity of the crops used for those purposes (maize, soybeans, sorghum). But even in the US, the majority of cattle spend most of their lives outside of CAFOs living off of grass and hay and the cellulose they contain. The same is true of the huge global dairy industry. The burgeoning middle class of Asia wants to eat more meat and dairy, and so there will be strains on the supply of feed grains. To supply this demand will require the contributions of both the nitrogen fixing bacteria and the cellulose digesting bacteria.
So, you can see that a very large proportion of the world food supply is being made possible by bacteria. They make our lunch. No, its not free, but it is lunch.

Please comment here or email me a savage.sd@gmail.com.
Roast beef sandwitch image from Pen Waggener's photostream. Food production data from FAO.

An Applied Mythologist's Garden

2011-05-28T19:45:00.000-07:00

The Applied Mythologist With Brussels Sprouts

(This post is only on Applied Mythology)

I estimate that I have been gardening for fifty years, ever since I started helping my grandfather in his Denver, Colorado "Victory Garden." I've gardened in Denver; in Palo Alto, California; Davis, California; Grand Junction, Colorado; in Newark, Delaware; in San Marcos, Calfornia; and now in Encinitas, California near San Diego.

Of all those places, Encinitas has been the most challenging in terms of gardening. We have an amazingly moderate climate with temperatures rarely above or below the 60-80F range. That makes it a very pleasant place to live, but it is also a very "bug friendly" environment. There are no frosts or cold spells to break the pest cycles, so all the pests flourish all year. This includes the whiteflies, aphids, caterpillars, and flea beetles from the insect side. There are always slugs and snails. Diseases like Botrytis and Alternaria wreak havoc on my basil and tomatoes because of our foggy mornings. Powdery mildew attacks the squashes and cucumbers. Mucor attacks the blooms of the Kubosha squash. Some root rot has caused two of my strawberry plants to die this week.

Dying Strawberries

I suppose this is good for reminding me why it is so important that the industry for which I consult is developing newer and safer pest control tools. It is just frustrating because we homeowners don't have the chance to buy the best new options. A regular dose of reality is probably good to counteract my basic optimism.

Garlic I Harvested Yesterday

We have an large population of gophers which has forced me to grow everything either in puts in in raised beds with wire mesh underneath. One of the few crops I planted in the ground this year, an artichoke, disappeared just the other day with a tell-tale mound of soil that is the calling card of the gopher. I've given up trying to kill them. Instead I use the loose, relatively weed-free soil they bring up to mix with my composted produce scraps.

This year I greatly expanded my greenhouse and set it up to be mostly screen surface for the warmer parts of the year like August and also January when we get hot Santa Ana winds from the desert. It is mostly made from re-purposed windows, screens etc. I filled the new beds partially with 'Coir' which is finely ground coconut husk. It probably originated in Sri Lanka, went to the Netherlands and then was shipped here with Oriental lilly bulbs. The local greenhouse sells it for $5/trash barrel so its a great deal.

I know it is trendy to call what I am doing "Urban Farming," but I could not in good conscience elevate my hobby to the status of actual "farming". It does not carry the sort of financial risk that makes it so amazing that there are still people left who are willing to feed us by growing crops. If I get some tasty, fresh produce it is purely a treat for me and maybe my friends and neighbors.

I have a much more ambitious garden this year. It includes or included the following vegetables.

Squash (Zucchini, Kubosha, Butternut)
Cucumbers
Brussels Sprouts (already harvested)
Tomatoes (8 different varieties including three "heirloom types," Juliet plum tomatoes and Sweet 100 cherry types)
Tomatillos to make green sauce
Cayenne pepper to spice that sauce
Romaine lettuce, chard, carrots
Basil for pesto etc, parsley, dill, oregano, rosemary, thyme, and Thai basil
One ex-artichoke
Fingerling potatoes and volunteer Russet potatoes in the "compost" bin
Green beans and snow peas
Onions, garlic and shallots

For fruit I have 1 apricot tree that is currently providing delicious fruit in a rare year where there was enough chilling to set a crop. I have two avocado trees which are producing a total of one avocado! Two lemon trees, two mandarin trees and one Mexican lime. I have two fig trees which annually feed 4-6 fig lovers. I still have 10 living strawberry plants and have recently started two pineapples (in the greenhouse). I have one Flame Seedless table grape vine which usually does not have ripe fruit until November.

The largest, and most labor intensive part of my garden is my little, terraced vineyard of 25 Sarah wine grapes (Shiraz to my Australian readers). If I am very careful to get my net up and well anchored, I can get 20-30 gallons of decent wine a year, but the raccoons and birds have dropped that to 5 gallons for some vintages.

My Vineyard. Three Rows

The newest addition this year is thirty five baby coffee trees that I am growing for a friend. I will keep three of them and maybe someday produce about one pound of coffee per year - reducing my dependence on imports by about 0.5%!

John's Coffee Trees About 4 Inches High Now

So that is a description of one agricultural blogger's garden. I know my Grandfather would have approved. I hope to pass along a passion for gardening to my grand daughter!

Botany Lesson

You are invited to tell me about your garden by comment here or to email me at savage.sd@gmail.com. For links to all my blogs on various sites click here.

Struggling To Think Glass Half Full In Face Of Supreme Court Ruling

2011-05-27T10:39:00.000-07:00

(This post originally appeared on Red Green and Blue on 5/27/11. Links to all my posts on various sites)
I usually try to be an optimistic, "glass half full" kind of person, but yesterday when I read that the Supreme Court had upheld an Arizona law that allows fines and business license revocation for companies that knowingly hire "illegal aliens," it took some serious effort to come up with optimistic scenarios for the future of the fruit and vegetable industries in our nation.
United Fresh, a major produce industry organization, quickly posted a response saying that while farmers want to respect the law, they need a rational "guest worker" system if they are going to continue to supply us with healthy food.
Many logical people will adopt the "glass half empty" perspective. For the US to institute a rational, humane, and practical guest-worker system would require an unprecedented outbreak of reason and practicality in our political system. Remember, this is a system which is currently dominated by hyper-partisans who fit two of the other personality types relative to the status of the "glass": the liberal, "Is the glass half empty or half full, I can't be sure...?" camp or the conservative, "Hey! I ordered a cheeseburger" camp that was identified by cartoonist, Gary Larson (Far Side).
So I'm going to try to brainstorm some ways that we could continue to eat fruits and vegetables in the future in spite of the ramifications of this legal ruling. They will appear below in declining order of desirability:

A Rational Guest Worker System

Seriously, civilized societies all around the world have "guest worker" systems that both protect the rights of the workers and the immigration sensitivities of the host nation. We could do that, but extremists on both the "Right" (anti-immigrant...) and the "Left" (no permanent underclass...) make sure that there is never a reasonable discussion of this issue.

Professionalization of the Job of "Farm Worker"

There are huge inefficiencies in our farm labor system which uses an ad-hoc and "under the radar" approach to connecting workers and employers. Farm workers should be highly trained in everything from pesticide safety to botany, transported in vehicles which provide their decent housing, efficiently deployed to the places where their efforts are needed through the season, and safely and cheaply transported back across borders for the off-season. Who knows, this sort of system might actually attract some Americans to pursue this highly important and respectable career.

Even More "Protected Culture"

There is a whole range of technological intensity from completely controlled greenhouses to shade cloth or hoop houses that protect crops from the potentially devastating effects of weather. This approach both broadens the geographical options for growing crops (not limited to the desert West) and makes the limited labor options more viable by having such high productivity and pleasant working conditions that more people are willing to take the job. A great proportion of our tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers already come from these super-efficient farms. That segment could definitely expand.

The Euro-option

We could do more of what Northern Europeans and Scandinavians have done. They have simply "outsourced" a tremendous amount of their food production to parts of the world with bigger labor pools, more sunshine, and sometimes irrigation resources. The US and Canada have also done this to a great extent to Mexico, Central America, and, in the off-season to South America. This works until birth rates fall sufficiently in those nations to make it irrational for them to feed us.

Engineering

Gary Larson's epic cartoon on this topic didn't include the fifth "glass perspective" category of engineers who say, "The glass is over-engineered." Crops that can be tended and harvested with mechanical and/or robotic equipment can be viable even in the face of our irrationality about guest workers. That qualifies as "factory farming" which many people think they hate, but who is it that longs to spin thread as opposed to the machines that do it in what were first characterized as "England's Dark Satanic Mills?" Some crops, like asparagus have frustrated the efforts of agricultural engineers to come up with mechanical harvest options. Others like Romaine Lettuce or Almonds have been more cooperative and so they are likely to continue to be in your stores even after the impact of this court decision.

"Victory Gardening"

After returning from WWI my grandfather took up the challenge of a "Victory Garden" and supplied his neighbors and family with wonderful vegetables for 60 years. Many of us could benefit from the exercise and the super-fresh food we could grow if we used our yards, balconies and roofs. There are many limitations to this approach, but it cannot be ignored.

You-Pick Local

Finally, everyone loves the idea of "local" food production, but if "illegal alien labor" is increasingly limited, it will only be a bigger issue outside of the West and East coast corridors of seasonal agriculture. One option is to have consumers come out and do the picking (often the most expensive component of farming). But this approach is not without issues. Inexperienced "pickers" often damage the crop, and after the original excitement wears off, they may not like the effort or the expense. Still, it can work for some systems.

So, we will probably continue to have access to good food, but almost certainly at higher cost. Most of us could offset this by simply reducing the number of meals we eat out.

I still believe that the glass is half full, but that does not justify either complacency or continued hypocrisy.
Farmworker's child image from National Farm Worker Ministry

Biofuels For Transportation: Been There, Done That

2011-05-27T09:05:00.000-07:00

(This post originally appeared on Sustainablog 5/27/11. For links to all my posts on various sites click here)

There is a great deal of controversy about the wisdom of diverting a significant percentage of the US corn crop into the production of ethanol to fuel cars. Something like 25-30% of the crop will probably be used this way in 2011 which sounds alarming in the face of global food supply issues that have driven commodity prices to record levels. Its not really quite that extreme because the fermentation to make ethanol only uses 60-65% of the corn and the remainder is used as a high protein animal feed called DDGS. That means that at most 18% of the crop is going to this subsidized use.

As is often the case, it is useful to put this into historical perspective. Consider the purple line on the graph below which shows that until the middle of the last century, US farmers devoted more than 40 million acres to growing a biofuel crop - oats for horses. Yes, we powered much of our personal and public transportation, as well as the transport of goods, with the energy released by the bacteria in the digestive system of horses. It certainly wasn't a perfect system between flies and methane emissions from the horses stomachs and from the manure they deposited all over the roads. Thus when the "horseless carriage" became available along with cheap fossil fuels, only romantics missed the good old days.

So, since the 1950s we have returned more than 40 million acres back to food/feed crops - more than twice the effective area going to ethanol today. But that is only part of the story. In the same sixty years we have quadrupled the total production of corn making the amount going to ethanol seem small by historical standards (see graph below).

So, although the issues of food vs fuel, indirect land use, transition to next generation biofuels and the proper role of subsidies and tariffs are all important to consider, how we grow the corn is more important from a water pollution, energy, and greenhouse gas perspective (See "What I Hope Will Be The Future Of Sustainable Farming," and "The Surprising Reason We Don't Farm As Sustainably As We Could").

Graphs based on 5 year running averages of historical data from USDA-NASS Quickstats1. Horses image from leunix