Mr. Kuljis, your response causes me considerable
pain for several different reasons.
First, where did you come up with data
indicating that 40% of green house gas emissions
result from agriculture? I find that figure very
difficult to believe, although I am not an expert
on greenhouse gasses. However, very quick search
on google led me to the EPA report available at
http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/downloads10/US-GHG-Inventory-2010_Report.pdf,
which, on page ES-11 provides data indicating
that agriculture in 2008 accounted for 6.1% of
greenhouse gas emissions whereas 86% of
greenhouse gas comes from energy usage. I'm not
certain how EPA came up with their numbers, but
even if their numbers for ag do not include any
of the energy burned on farms or used for making
fertilizers, I'd be surprised if adding those
items would bring the total to 40%.
And then how does one "charge" for the
emissions costs involved in transporting food?
Is that a charge to agriculture? Shouldn't that
be charged to all of the east coast elites who
have chosen to live far away from where their
food is produced? Perhaps we could reduce
greenhouse gas emissions considerably just by
forcing people to relocate across the country so
that population distribution across the US would
be more closely aligned with the food production
capabilities of the surrounding country side.
That would also reduce the numbers of people who
commute an hour or more each day to work in
cities where they cannot afford to live.
Obviously, relocating the US population is not a
realistic suggestion, but it is no more of a
stretch than the suggestion that we could feed
our population using organic methods and
biocontrols if we only tried a bit harder.
I agree with you that our current ag
system (for that matter, our entire society) has
become dependent on systems that are NOT
sustainable in the long term. However, as a
scientist who has spent most of my career working
with agrichemicals, I am pained by the naïveté
that comes through when you imply that we could
make organic methods and biocontrols work
effectively to feed the world if we just put more
money into the appropriate kinds of research.
For most of our major crops and their major
pests, we already have a pretty good
understanding of pest biology, life cycles, crop
susceptibility, etc. And we know that
biocontrols work best in situations where some
crop loss can be tolerated because, unlike
agricultural pesticides, biocontrols are almost
never 100% effective. Biocontrols work by
creating balances that usually allow at least a
low survival rate for the pest being controlled.
Unfortunately, American and European
consumers demand food that is 100% free of pests,
blemishes, and contaminants (e.g., fungal
mycotoxins) that might cause illness or death.
Microscopic levels of insect parts are regulated
even in our canned foods where they would cause
no harm. Thus, by definition, consumers are
demanding food that, at least in terms of
horticultural crops, cannot be produced in
sufficient quantities using organic methods and
biological controls. More ag research will NOT
change that fact. Agriculture will be able to
change only as the whole of American society
changes their views on what is important in life.
Agriculture, ag universities, research
scientists, and agrichemical companies should not
be blamed for the evolution of a non-sustainable
ag system that is largely by-product of American
society as a whole. Change will only occur after
someone succeeds in getting the attention of the
majority of self-centered gas-guzzling SUV-owners
who live in MacMansions and who can't be bothered
to think beyond the latest diatribes and
half-truths that they have heard on fact-free
radio and TV programs.
Most proponents of organic still have an
idealized air-brushed image of organic production
in the US. Organic does not mean "without
pesticides," although some short-season organic
vegetables may not require any pesticides. For
the most part, large-scale organic production in
the US still functions by replacing pesticides
with irrigation in the dry land areas in the west
and southwest. Even in these areas, organic
growers who encounter persistent problems with
weeds or insect pests may rotate their land back
to conventional production periodically so that
they can get pest problems under control before
they go back through the 3-yr recertification
process for organic. Thus, farms that produce
the majority of organic fruits and vegetables for
supermarket chains do not fit the idyllic image
of the small family-owned farm where perfect
produce pops out of the naturally fertile soil
with almost no work at all. In fact, I suspect
that organic farms must use more energy for
tillage and pest control than conventional farms.
Therefore I doubt that organic production will
ultimately provide any reduction in greenhouse
gas emissions.
I'm sorry, but reducing greenhouse gasses
will not be easy, and the major reductions are
unlikely to come from agriculture unless we first
agree that large-scale human starvation should be
part of the solution. We need to continue doing
our best to reduce energy inputs in agriculture,
but we also need to convince consumers that not
all food looks perfect and that none of life is
risk-free.
Finally, this is a personal bias, but I
suspect that one might have greater success in
finding options for rapid decreases in energy use
and greenhouse gas emissions if one targeted the
military-industrial complex rather than
agriculture, but that might attract the ire of
the fact-free media crowd!
I think that is a good point about the kaolin,,, I know the non ag
formulations for pottery have all kinds of warnings for cancer,
inhalation threat, etc.. A simple particle mask would probably take
care of most of it. Not that it is that much fun to wear a mask all
the time while working in the trees. Of course there are lots of
unknowns with chemicals as well. The problem we have is that the
chemicals are extremely lucrative for giant companies who control
much of the university funding, so much less research and development
goes into non chemical methods. These methods could be much much
cheaper.
Considering that conventional ag is responsible for at least 40% of
greenhouse gas emissions, mostly due to petroleum based fertilizer,
conversion to an ecological organic ag system seems to be not only
healthier, but a prerequisite for survival at this stage..
Some things that can help with the application of either organic or
chem materials would be monitoring, understanding the disease/pest
life cycle,, implementing and enhancing biological controls. These
have come a long way, but the scale of the efforts is much higher on
the end of the paradigm that wants growers to keep putting out
chemicals whose ultimate cost is much more then the $ amount paid.
Robert Kuljis
Thomas Paine Farms
--
**************************************************************
Dave Rosenberger
Professor of Plant Pathology Office: 845-691-7231
Cornell University's Hudson Valley Lab Fax: 845-691-2719
P.O. Box 727, Highland, NY 12528 Cell: 845-594-3060
http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/pp/faculty/rosenberger/
