Two (or more) Visions

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http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/citizen/citizen080399.html

GLOBAL CITIZEN  Two Mindsets, Two Visions of Sustainable Agriculture 

A weekly rumination on sustainable living
by Donella H. Meadows  08.03.99 

"I guess you must be in favor of pesticides," concluded a Monsanto public 
relations guy, after I objected to his company's genetically engineered 
potato.

"I guess it's okay with you if people starve," said a botanist I deeply 
respect, with whom I have carried out a fervent argument about genetic 
engineering.

Accusations like these astonish me. I'm an organic farmer; I'm not in favor 
of pesticides. I've spent decades working to end hunger; it is not okay with 
me that anyone starves. I believe that my two accusers and I are working 
toward exactly the same goal -- feeding everyone without wrecking the 
environment. We would all label that goal "sustainable agriculture." But we 
must be making radically different assumptions about what that goal looks 
like and how to get there from here.

The idea that if I oppose genetic engineering, I must favor pesticides, 
arises from an assumption that those are the only two choices. If they were, 
I would probably agree that it's better to fool with genomes than to spray 
poisons over the countryside. But I see other choices. Plant many kinds of 
crops and rotate them, instead of one or two crops year after year, which 
make a perfect breeding ground for pests. Build up ecosystems above ground 
and in the soil so natural enemies rise and fall with the pests, searching 
and destroying with a specificity and safety and elegance that neither 
chemicals nor engineering can match.

These are pest control methods based not on chemistry or genetics, but on 
ecology. They work. I know. I use them. I know dozens of organic farmers who 
use them. Small scale and large. Northeast, South, Midwest, West. Apples, 
lettuce, potatoes, strawberries, broccoli, rice, soybeans, wheat, corn.

The claim that we need genetic engineering to feed the hungry must be based 
on two assumptions: first that more food will actually go to hungry people, 
second that genetic engineering is the only way to raise more food. I assume, 
to the contrary, that more food will not help those who can't afford to buy 
or grow it, especially if it comes from expensive, patented, designer seed. 

Furthermore, more food is not needed. We already grow enough to nourish 
everyone. If just one-third of the grain fed to animals went to humans 
instead, we would not have 24,000 deaths per day due to hunger. Or if 40 
percent post-harvest loss rates in poor countries were reduced. Or if we 
shared the embarrassing crop surpluses of North America and Europe. Or if we 
created an economy where everyone had money to buy food or land to grow it -- 
which would solve a lot of other problems too.

Where, when, or if more food is needed, there are ways to produce it that 
don't require biotech or chemicals. Folks with an industrial ag mindset 
assume that organic agriculture would cut yields. Not only is there no 
evidence for that assumption, there are numerous studies to the contrary. One 
of the latest appeared in Nature last year; its summary opens like this: "In 
comparison with conventional, high-intensity agricultural methods, 'organic' 
alternatives can improve soil fertility and have fewer detrimental effects on 
the environment. These alternatives can also produce equivalent crop yields 
to conventional methods."

Imagine what yields could be if even one-tenth as much research effort were 
put into organic farming as has been put into chemicals or genetics.

When I show this evidence to proponents of high-tech farming, when I offer to 
take them to see organic farms, when I point out that hunger could be ended 
by sharing food or technologies that raise output without poisoning the earth 
or invading the genome, I don't think my argument even reaches their auditory 
nerves, much less their brains. That kind of extreme failure even to hear an 
argument, much less process it, alerts me that this is not a rational 
discussion. It is a worldview difference, a paradigm gap, a disagreement 
about morals and values and identities and fundamental assumptions about the 
way the world works.

I assume the world works by the laws of ecology and economics and human 
nature. Ecology says that monocultures breed pests; that chemicals upset soil 
ecosystems and kill off natural predators; that crops with pesticide in every 
cell will induce pest resistance; that animals and plants should be grown in 
close proximity so manure can go back to the soil; and that we haven't the 
slightest idea what the ecological or evolutionary consequences of genetic 
engineering will be.

Economics says you can never have a sustainable market if you produce 
something consumers fear and you hide critical information about how it was 
produced and what it contains. Because industrial agriculture has violated 
that law and lost the trust of consumers, the market for organic produce is 
growing in American and Europe by 20 to 30 percent per year, even with a 
price premium; it now totals over $9 billion.

Human nature says the more actual producers can own and shape and control 
land and inputs and seeds and knowledge, the more inventive, adaptive, and 
equitable agriculture will be.

Acceptance of those laws shapes my vision of sustainable agriculture. I 
picture healthy ecosystems and healthy human beings working together in 
thriving, close-knit communities. Farms are small, owner-operated, with what 
Wes Jackson calls a "high eyes-to-acres ratio," which means they are well 
managed and high-yielding. Farmers make more use of knowledge and people than 
of chemicals and seeds they can't breed for themselves. Animals are raised on 
all farms; there are good reasons why ecosystems don't concentrate all the 
plants in one place and all the animals in another. 

Food is grown everywhere, in cities, in suburbs. The distance from producer 
to consumer is short, there are fewer supermarkets, more farmers markets, 
less packaging, more freshness. The principle of one of my favorite organic 
farmers permeates the system: "I'm not growing food, I'm growing health."

To those who do not believe such a vision is possible, I can only say: It 
exists, it's alive and well and growing, it's even more profitable than the 
industrial vision, the food tastes better, the work is more pleasurable. I 
live in this vision. I have friends all over the world who live in it. Come 
see.

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Donella H. Meadows is director of the Sustainability Institute and an adjunct 
professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College. 

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Copyright© 1999, Earth Day Network. All rights reserved.