… will not save us
Organic food
“Perhaps the most eminent critic of organic farming is Norman Borlaug, the father of the “green revolution”, winner of the Nobel peace prize and an outspoken advocate of the use of synthetic fertilisers to increase crop yields. He claims the idea that organic farming is better for the environment is “ridiculous” because organic farming produces lower yields and therefore requires more land under cultivation to produce the same amount of food. Thanks to synthetic fertilisers, Mr Borlaug points out, global cereal production tripled between 1950 and 2000, but the amount of land used increased by only 10%. Using traditional techniques such as crop rotation, compost and manure to supply the soil with nitrogen and other minerals would have required a tripling of the area under cultivation. The more intensively you farm, Mr Borlaug contends, the more room you have left for rainforest.” — The Economist, December 2006
Biofuels
“The global rush to switch from oil to energy derived from plants will drive deforestation, push small farmers off the land and lead to serious food shortages and increased poverty unless carefully managed, says the most comprehensive survey yet completed of energy crops.” The Guardian, May 2007
May 26th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
The father of an invention has every motive to defend his invention, don’t you think? It doesn’t mean it is right. Lower yield is not necessary a bad thing if it means it is more environmentally sustainable and the produce has better quality. We surely need to have innovative ways for solving the food and agriculture crisis in our near future. However, I hardly think messing up with a few genes in the crops and giving growth hormones and antibiotics to animals and spraying every inch of this one earth we have with all sort of manmade toxins is a way out. We need to see many comprehensive long term studies that follow the effect of say genetic engineered crops and seeds on the health of their consumers before they are released to mass population. There have been many reports of allergies to conventionally grown and genetically engineered crops (I have experienced this personally too). Is anyone going to follow up on those? What we have now in nature is the result of thousands and thousands of years of evolution. Is there any proof that the alterations we introduce are not going to have a catastrophic consequence in the long run? To clarify myself, I do not mean to say that all of these alterations are unnecessary or catastrophic. I simply find the method by which they are pronounced safe for public use, without any scientific backing. Famine of the people of the undeveloped parts of this earth is not because our agriculture system here cannot produce the triple amount of what we can. They will continue to die because no matter how much we have in our affluent societies, we are going to eat because we think it is our given rights and because the majority of us simply don’t care enough to do anything about things that happen so far from us in time or place. That’s the simple truth as far as I see things.