Diet for a Big Planet?
Can man live by organics alone? Sure he can. But the real question is, can all six billion of us? Writing in the New Yorker, Harvard history of science professor Steven Shapin says the answer is no. 
... if synthetic fertilizers suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth, about two billion people would perish. ... the fact remains that, to unwind conventional agriculture, you would have to unwind some highly valued features of the modern world order. Given the way the world now is, sustainably grown and locally produced organic food is expensive. Genetically modified, industrially produced monocultural corn is what feeds the victims of an African famine, not the gorgeous organic technicolor Swiss chard from your local farmers’ market. Food for a “small planet” will, for the foreseeable future, require a much smaller human population on the planet.
4 Comments:
Grist's recent "Ask Umbra" article does a good job of explaining why organic food is so expensive. I can't help but wonder if organic farmers were given more government support and organic food was then more affordable if feeding all six billion of us (or at least a few more million) might be possible.
Thanks for the link.
Umbra says: "Organic food is more expensive because it costs more to produce, has less support from the government, supply is less than demand, and in general we pay the true cost of food when we buy organic. When we buy conventional, we pay the fake cost of food."
I'm always intrigued by the whole hidden cost/true cost aspect of these arguments. Any economists/agronomists care to weigh in here? Beyond the economics, I'm also curious about the yield question. Can organic produce the same amount of food on a per-acre basis as conventional?
And then there's the other question: If conventional agriculture is cheap, but not sustainable, well, where does that leave us in the future, when the population is approaching 9 0r 10 billion?
We can start by going vegan. All that land used for those cheap, subsidized monoculture crops going to fatten up animals for human consumption can be converted to use for organic, or even biodynamic farming that is better for the environment and for the health of the people who eat the crops.
If we rely too much on pesticides and GMOs to grow our crops for the next several decades, the land will be so polluted that the argument won't be about organic or not... It will about how we feed ourselves without growing all our food in labs or factories.
Starting by going vegan seems like a non-starter for most of us. Maybe start by removing meat from one or two meals a week. seems more realistic. and besides, even a vegan diet may be dependant on GMOs and monoculture. just look at soy... the most gmo'd crop on earth
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