A balanced view on farming

Farming has become a very interesting political subject through the last decade. Here in the northern countries, and I guess also the rest of the western world, organic food has become mainstream, even the most profiled low-price stores here i Denmark is now selling a good deal of organic food. But there are some people who are arguing against organic food, saying that it’s not sustainable mainly because of its’ ineffective use of crop land compared to industrial farming using synthetic fertilizers.

But who’s right, the organics or the industrialists? I’ve tried to read a bit about the subject lately, and I’ve reached the conclusion that none of them are. They are really discussing the wrong problem, neither of them are right, and they should start to exchange experiences rather then anything else. The real problem we have is that we are to many people, and either way we know, we cannot see how we will be able to produce enough food for all people in the future without destroying our planet completely… which by the way does not solve the problem at all. So if we where to melt the best from industrial farming and organic farming, how would it look?

As the industrialists say; organic farming would triple the land use. Already is 40% or more of the planet is covered with farm land (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1206-01.htm ), if we triple that, we’re up to 120% land use. Unless we find a way to make potatoes grow on in space, it will probably not be possible to go 100% organic. But there are problems with industrial farming as well, although using land much more effectively, and leaving more land for rainforests and cities, they will eventually run out of some important substances used in synthetic fertilizers. And the use of pesticides is nothing but bad as I can see, although they give some short term advantages because less insects attack crops, they also has a tendency to be bad for humans and getting into water supplies. Less insects also mean less food for birds and other animals eating insects. Pesticides are poisoning the soil, water supplies, and destroying bird life, not exactly what I call sustainable. And there’s where the organics stand strong - taking care of animals, both on the farm, and those around it. A better life for animals means in reality fewer animals on the farm. I heard about a Danish farmer who could not take care of his pigs anymore because he started to study part time… hundreds of pigs died, and in total he owned two thousand pigs! No wonder industrial farmers are unable to treat their animals properly, nobody can take care of 2000 animals alone!

The closest we can get to sustainable farming is as follows:

• Combination of organic and careful use of synthetic fertilizers to ensure that the soil stays healthy and that we do not run out of synthetic fertilizers before we find a new way to produce it. Keep the soil healthy and use it every season as we cannot afford to use much more land for farming.
• No more pesticides unless absolutely needed in third world countries during extremely rough times. (If we quit the use of pesticides totally, it will only lead to famine, but the use must be reduced to an absolute minimum, and only where there is danger of famine).
• Animal welfare is important, we do not want people who abuse animals to produce our food! And as better animal welfare means less animals, it also means less Co2 emissions from the animals themselves, and it means more food to people as less animals eat less. But they do not have to eat completely organic food, only from sustainable farming that is good for their health.
• Meat prices will rise, but that’s OK! We eat too much meat anyway, so it’s really just a good thing, eating animals should be a luxury.

I was also planning to write something about gene modification (GM) as well, but honestly, I do not understand it well enough to have an opinion. At this point GM seems to me as messing with something we don’t understand, and that it is very dangerous, but then again, we may be forced to use GM as it looks capable of solving some well known problems, but I’m really not sure what to mean about GM. Another subject I’m thinking about, is organic cosmetics, is it really smart to use valuable farm land to produce shampoo and moisturisers? Probably not, but I will have to study that one a bit closer before I make up my mind.

I may be wrong about some of the things I bring up, mabye pesticides are really good, and mabye we should all become vegetarians, but the main point is to stop arguing who is right and wrong, and start finding a sustainable way to run all farms!

Some interesting links on the topics:

Food Crisis Feared as Fertile Land Runs Out
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1206-01.htm

Voting with your trolley
Can you really change the world just by buying certain foods?

http://www.economist.com/world/international/displayStory.cfm?story_id=8380592

And search for “organic farming”, “Norman Borlaug” and “fertilizers” at wikipedia for even more information.