Organics Conference
Guest post by Nandor Tanczos.
I attended the inaugural conference of Organics Aotearoa New Zealand this weekend. OANZ is the peak body for the organics sector, and its board comprises reps from all the major sector groups including Soil and Health, Te Waka Kai Ora, Biogro etc as well as organic producer groups such as the pipfruit growers.
As a result there was an incredibly wide range of people there, from corporate suits to tree huggers. It made for an interesting mix.
The theme was “Cottage or Corporate� and addressed the issue of where participants see the future of organics. Unsurprisingly, the answer was ‘both’. As time goes on, and the benefits of organics become increasingly obvious, more and more people will be drawn into it for a variety of reasons.
Those who pioneered organic production methods because of their philosophical or ethical commitment will be joined by others who see better profits to be made, or better environmental performance, or better animal health, or a healthier working environment or better produce. Whatever the reason, it all brings us closer to the tipping point.
When discussing this issue one speaker pointed out that the corporate sector had more to gain from the organics movement than the movement from corporates. It certainly is true that the mainstreaming of organics will bring its own challenges.
In particular, it will be important to hold on to what is at the heart of organic production methods. It is not about substituting chemical inputs for bio-grow certified ones. Organics is a fundamentally different approach that relies on building healthy soil, healthy animal nutrition and an integrated approach to farm management.
This is a challenge that organic apple growers are facing at the moment, in particular because of their dependence on copper and lime sulphate spray to control disease. Freshco in the Hawkes Bay is one example of a distribution company partnering with research organisations and growers to demonstrate how integrated organic management techniques can reduce use of such sprays by up to 90%. The UK Soil Association is saying that lime sulphate will not be allowed within their certification system within the next ten years, so such research is crucial.
The other thing I found particularly interesting was the research presented suggesting that growing healthy living soil may be more effective at absorbing atmospheric carbon than planting trees, in the long term. Organic production methods rely on building healthy soils, unlike conventional farming which treats soils as simply a medium to hold nutrient inputs.
While the Kyoto agreement does not recognise sequestration in soils, as that information was not available when it was negotiated, it may prove to be a factor in the next round. If so, the case for conversion to organic production methods becomes even more compelling.
August 23rd, 2007 at 4:13 pm
To me, the value of organic agriculture is that it is (or should be) sustainable.
Some people might prefer it because of perceived (real or otherwise) health and taste benefits, but this is a controversial and often subjective area.
It may be that “non-organic” agriculture is more productive (again people can argue over this point), but what will happen when the oil required to produce many of the pesticides, fertilisers etc becomes too expensive? What will happen when the places where rock phosphate (for example) is mined are exhausted (look at recent photos of Nauru to see how this is a real concern)?
Now is the time when we need to shift agricultural production back to a more sustainable basis. It won’t happen overnight, with 6+ billion hungry mouths to feed, but if it doesn’t happen now, we are in for a lot of trouble later.
Incidentally, sustainable agriculture is not a new issue. The first civilisations in the Near East are believed to have collapsed because of soil degradation. Lets hope we can do better than they did … surely we can learn from history?
August 23rd, 2007 at 5:52 pm
do you have opinion fwwog on the actual meaning of organic, i can’t see why we can not grow improved genetically crops organically, that is once them cow things are gone,
August 24th, 2007 at 5:50 am
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10459599 Cow beats odds of one in two million - a good advertisement for organic agriculture.
August 27th, 2007 at 10:20 am
The sooner NZ becomes organic with properly defined, standardised, independent certification and clear labelling the better!
Better for the people - improved nutrition, minimised chemical pollutants in the bloodstream = healthier bodies, less medical expenses, improved functionality and a happier population
Better for the land - less chemical pollution in the soil = more productive and nutritious growth without harmful side effects, reliance on natural fertilisers and pest control, improved bio-diversity and a return to a more natural way of life
Better for animal welfare (veganism aside) - organically reared animals are treated far better than non-organic. With proper certification and standards = all animal products would be free-range, and there would be a decrease in the amount of cattle reared - this is a good thing as the amount of meat eaten globally needs to be cut down drastically to help control the effects of climate change, regardless of the potential loss of export income (see below)
Better for the economy - as the world turns increasingly towards organics, NZ should take advantage by supplying other countries less set up to produce their own organic products
For me, it’s a no-brainer
August 27th, 2007 at 10:39 am
And the birds will sing, and the grass will smell of roses, and the sun will always shine. A brotherhood of man….
Meanwhile, back in reality, long-term field tests by a Swiss organic farming institute, as reported in Science, confirm that organic crops yield little more than half as much per acre as conventional farmers’ fields.
So, food prices go through the roof.
Organic will not be better for the New Zealand economy. It will decrease revenue. The world is not moving towards organics. If anything, more people are consuming GE.
Unlike synthetic pesticides , “natural” organic pesticides remain in the soil forever, and are needed in greater quantities. This poses a higher risk of bacterial infection.
ohn Kent, Lecturer in Agricultural Protection, from the School of Agriculture at Charles Sturt University in Australia supports the idea that organically grown food is not as sustainable, arguing that while organically grown food certainly has its place in today’s free market, the world population could not be fed with pesticide-free agriculture
August 27th, 2007 at 11:33 am
PEL
That is actually one of the arguments that leads ME to conclude that the planet has entirely too many peaple on it already. Cause you are definitely correct… and even on good days those “organics” are going to get no better than 75% of the overall yield that the pesticide-using farmer can achieve, and that’s the most optimistic future result I can imagine.
Maybe we’ll come up with something less chemical intensive… microbots that chew up bugs?… but I don’t expect that to happen anytime soon cause nobody at all is working on it.
I am not clear however, on what you mean by “natural” organic pesticides. In chemistry we think of organic as carbon based, but I suspect you mean something else here and I didn’t know of anything that hangs around that long except minerals and ddt. Could you explain/link this in more detail?
respectfully
BJ
August 27th, 2007 at 11:48 am
From Wikipedia, however I note the source isn’t quoted: http://tinyurl.com/2532aq
I’m not sure why toxins that come from a lab are less desirable than toxins that occur naturally. Either food is safe and tasty, or it isn’t.
August 27th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
this is my first post in a long time, so i shall keep it neat and short…
http://www.verticalfarm.com
organic, productive, clean and it is even economical
Sapient
August 27th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
PEL, I think you are confusing the capability to feed the world population in the short term with sustainability. There is no doubt that modern agricultural methods have increased crop productivity (the so called “green revolution”), but whether these methods can continue to provide increased food production in the future is another issue.
In fact, sustainable agriculture and organic agriculture need not mean the same thing, but it is likely that organic agriculture is sustainable. On the other hand, in the last fifty years, modern agriculture has become dependent on unsustainable practices, such as synthetic pesticides, and fertilisers derived from non-renewable (or only slowly renewing) resources. Furthermore, soil degradation is a major issue in many places. Soil is a bit like oil, it takes a long time to create fertile soil, and it can be “used up” (by erosion, becoming too salty etc) very quickly.
While organic agriculture may have lower productivity than modern “non-organic” methods, this may be the price we have to pay to ensure we have sustainable food production into the future (not just the next few years while oil is cheap and there is still enough fertile soil left).
August 27th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Neat link sapient… very nice.
BJ
August 27th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
This is New Zealand we’re talking about - lots (ant lots) of fertile land, few people. Please tell me in how many thousands of years it will take to “run out”?
A lot of “imported” Green thinking simply does apply here.
August 27th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
I think NZ is in a good position to “feed the world”, due to its high potential for sustainable agricultural productivity, well in excess of current population. In the years ahead, agricultural exports will fetch good prices (as long as the world avoids catastrophic economic collapse and associated “die-off” of poorer populations). The “sustainable” aspect will be key, because if all the profits go on importing increasingly expensive and rare hydrocarbons, then it becomes a mug’s game.
Even organics are not sustainable, as long as it’s dependent on fossil-fuel tractors, trucks etc… However, when faced with price shocks on petrochemicals and fossil fuels, organics will have a competitive advantage, because in general it is more labour-intensive and less machine-intensive. There is no doubt that going organic is the best preparation for that sustainable future, as long as it’s accompanied by energy independence too.
Perhaps one of you clever numbers people could post a graph relating to pasture productivity before and after the exhaustion of cheap fossil phosphate ? That is an important example of the sort of shock that non-sustainable agriculture will face in the coming years.
August 28th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Cough. I meant “doesn’t”.
Eventually resources get used up, but what time frame are we talking about? If it is thousands of years, then so what?
August 28th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
PEL,
well looking at the canterbury plains, not long. same goes for all those dust pans where there used to be agriculture, those areas where the water table is becoming depleted, where fertiliser becomes a neccsity because intensive farming and plowing has exhaused the land, etc, etc.
Sapient
August 28th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
How long?
August 28th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
PEL
Measured usually in decades, not centuries. Australian salinification took about 4-6 decades IIRC once the farmers abandoned the older methods.
If agriculture is done “sustainably” meaning grass fed livestock and a reasonable process of grass and crop rotation it simply doesn’t happen unless/untill the climate rug is yanked from under the farmer. Such farming is more robust with respect to drought and other calamity so it does tend to persist.
Note that I am not discussing pesticides here, just sustainability. The grass-fed nature of our livestock has some built in advantages that are showing up already in the price of milk, which in every other country I know of, is rising because the corn meal fed to the livestock is being set aside to power SUVs and the price is going up parabolic.
How long exactly I can’t say, would depend on the intensity of the farming and the nature of the land to start with.
respectfully
BJ
August 28th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
PEL,
The time frame for New Zealand would be longer than Australia. Australia has exceptionally poor soils. You can read a good account of this in Tim Flannery’s book, “The Future Eaters” (which has a section devoted to New Zealand as well).
bjchip: European farming of Australia has never been sustainable. The Aborigines were not farmers, but it took them tens of thousands of years to develop a sustainable hunting and gathering society (and in the process, most of the megafauna became extinct).
Aside from soil issues, modern agriculture is heavily dependent on imported fertlisers, fuel etc. More than twenty years ago, I went on a high school chemistry field trip to the super-phosphate factory in Christchurch. This was the first time I realised how modern agriculture is so unsustainable. Super-phosphate is manufactured from rock phosphate, which is dug up from several islands in the Pacific Ocean, and the United States, amongst other places. In the factory, there was a big shed containing rock phosphate mined in various places. The highest quality phosphate came (from memory) from Christmas Island, but because of its limited supply, only a certain proportion of this raw material was allowed to be used in the manufacture of the super-phosphate. In a matter of decades, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom (followed by the Nauru government) removed almost all the centre of Nauru in phosphate mining operations. Clearly this does not lead to sustainable agriculture.
Additionally, modern agriculture is dependent on fossil fuels … this is not sustainable either.
September 5th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
PEL.
Modern agricultural methods wouldn’t even be economically feasible let alone sustainable without generous grants from US and European governments to large transnational agricultural corporations. The energy i
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html
Such high yields aren’t even necessary, considering the US department of agriculture estimates that Americans waste one quarter of all food produced. Food is too cheap for people to really appreciate it. At least for people who can afford to purchase it. Did you know during the Ethopian famine in the 1980s, the country was a net food EXPORTER. There is no problem with food production, just food distribution.
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that one-quarter of all food produced in the United States is wasted.”
http://wrrc.p2pays.org/p2rx/subsection_text.cfm?hub=448&subsec=3&nav=3