We knew it couldn't be so.
The NY Times today editorializes against the farm bill that passed the House and Senate yesterday. Bush has pledged to veto it, and for good reason.
So has the insular editorial staff of the Times finally exited its echo chamber and entered reality?
No.
The best objection to the current farm bill, indeed to farm subsidies generally, is that they perpetuate inefficiency in domestic agriculture while stifling the development of agriculture in the developing world, thereby making the whole world poorer and hungrier than it would be otherwise.
But no! The Times objects because the farm bill rewards rich farmers when agricultural prices are high. The issue for the Times has nothing to do with getting more food at cheaper prices for the world's humans. It is redistributing government largess from rich farmers to poor folk.
We find ourselves alternately indignant and exhausted by the elite public media's insanely sanctimonious posturing on such issues. The facts are so clear that our so-called Newspaper of Record seems able to look straight past them to the zero-sum myth that the primary problem is distribution of current production, not the development and distribution of means of production.
We say this to the left with a bit of SWNIDish anger: we are sick unto death of the self-righteous accusation that conservatives love the rich and hate the poor. Whether the left realizes it or not, their policies enshrine a contempt for the poor that traps them forever in a client-patron relationship that demeans their human spirit at the same time that it deprives their material existence. And the real beneficiary of all this noblesse oblige is the self-esteem of those who believe that by taking a few ducats from others and passing them out to the needy, they have saved people who are perpetually helpless.
And now a bit of SWNIDish advice: we urge thoughtful people to stop decrying the unequal distribution of wealth and start working on the unequal distribution of opportunity. Shut up about how awful it is that 0.001% of the world's population enjoys 99.99999% of the world's caviar, or whatever it is this week. Instead, get busy encouraging microfinance, supporting education, agricultural and industrial development, promoting property rights and the rule of law, and doing other things that are already lifting millions of people out of poverty worldwide.
Oh, yeah: the Times also wants better support for organic farming. Yes, ma'am! Let's feed the world by eliminating agricultural efficiency for an outcome that has no demonstrable effect on human health, devoting more acres to grow less food that produces not one smidgeon of improved nutrition. How cute!
For a thoughtful alternative to the Times's criminal ignorance, we recommend US News and Book of Lists for this week's feature article, "8 Ways to Fix the Global Food Crisis." We are less convinced than they that overcrowding of the planet is the problem, not least because rising prosperity tends to curb population growth. But most of the suggestions here expose the Times agenda in all its foolishness.
8 comments:
If we want other countries to like us, cutting farm subsidies would do more than ending "The War on Terror."
I keep hearing how "Bush's War" is hurting our international image, but the truth is that crazy subsidies are hurting it far worse.
This is absolutely right on, a rant worth reading. It is one, even, I might consider quoting from or referring to the next time somebody refers to me as a cold-hearted conservative.
Farm subsidies are evil. I agree with much of what you said. Even your screed against "liberals" has much that is true.
Just wanted to note though that industrialized agriculture is not necessarily more productive than organic farming even if you compare them on actual bushels per acre production, and even much less so if you consider the larger environmental repercussions of industrial agriculture.
Industrial agriculture is cheaper to the end purchaser. Cheap food is nice, don't get me wrong, but modern industrial agriculture may sell us cheap food and yet still pass the cost of production onto us in other ways. I am talking about dollars here, not nutritional metaphors.
I'll leave it to you do the extra research about the hidden actual dollar costs of industrialized farming. Waste water run off, and modern fertilizers relationship to oil are good places to start.
We are quite familiar with the unquantified allegations that so-called industrial farming damages the environment more than so-called organic farming. And we know the rejoinders, which are considerable and impressive. Besides the fact that per-acre yields are much higher for non-organic methods (only the scantest of exceptional cases can be cited to suggest that organic farming rivals non-organic for yield), one must also reckon with the impressive reduction in the use of petroleum-derived chemical fertilizers made possible by recent agricultural developments. We include in this litany of advances the use of Roundup-ready, genetically engineered crops, seed drilling in place of plowing, and other impressive methods invented by bright agricultural engineers working for oft-derided agribusiness corporations and land-grant universities.
We insist that so-called organic farming (like so-called alternative energy, by the way) has environmental impact that goes underreported, including the need for additional cultivated acreage and runoff from organic fertilizers, which are more complex blends of hydrocarbons plus microbiotic pests.
The acreage equation is itself probably decisive. Nothing affects the environment more than simply clearing the land and cultivating it. Organic farming essentially ends the advances made over the last several centuries in raising per-acre yield, the very advances that have taken land out of cultivation in the United States even as the total harvest has increased.
Again, by the way, the same problem bedevils alternative energy, which requires an enormously higher use of land per unit of energy than does oil-drilling or coal mining. We wish that folks would think about the environmental impact of windmills and solar cells spread over thousands of square miles of deserts or oceans versus the rare oil derrick that interrupts the landscape on select acreage.
Every generation in the United States has had its agricultral Luddites calling for the restoration of the agricultural practices of the past. We grew up with the scare that large-scale use of tractors and steel plows was going to erode the soil to uselessness. Yet a generation later, American agriculture continues to thrive, with yields breaking records almost annually. Engineers have managed to reduce erosion with improved methods, and what threat there was to the soil's future, probably exaggerated at the time, is reduced to insignificance.
The generalization remains that countries like the United States which have historically embraced scientific advances in raising food have had more good food, pure water and clean air than those countries that have not. Romantic notions aside, it is this future of informed technological development that promises to feed the world's billions.
As always, thanks for your response. I take it as the sincerest compliment.
We'll take this point by point then. I know that your response will be more of the same , but this is a situation where the debate is for the readers not the debaters. I doubt that either of us are going to change out minds.
At least we can agree that farm subsidies are bad and that barely concealed schemes of gross wealth redistribution are misplaced.
Your points are numbered and in quotations. My responses will be brief and contain hyperlinked pointers. This conversation is far to broad for blog comments, but I'll do what I can.
1. "We are quite familiar with the unquantified allegations that so-called industrial farming damages the environment more than so-called organic farming."
In 2006 the National Academy of Sciences published in its peer reviewed journal, PNAS, the following study on nitrogen based fertilizer: Reduced nitrate leaching and enhanced denitrifier activity and efficiency in organically fertilized soils
The highlight is this, "This study demonstrates that organic and integrated fertilization practices support more active and efficient denitrifier communities, shift the balance of N2 emissions and nitrate losses, and reduce environmentally damaging nitrate losses. Although this study specifically examines a perennial orchard system, the ecological and biogeochemical processes we evaluated are present in all agroecosystems, and the reductions in nitrate loss in this study could also be achievable in other cropping systems."
There's a lot of gems in the article, but the point is that yields are the same, but pollution is lessened by using organic fertilizer.
2. "Besides the fact that per-acre yields are much higher for non-organic methods (only the scantest of exceptional cases can be cited to suggest that organic farming rivals non-organic for yield), "
If by scantest you mean that there isn't a sufficient body of studies showing that per acre yields of organic and non-organic yields aren't similar and at times greater then you're wrong:
An article detailing the 22 year long Rodale Institute's study of farming techniques
From OSU, (a derided(?) land grant university, you won't find me deriding land grant universities by the way, these people figured out how to feed the world.) OSU concludes study of corn yields between organic and non-organic farms
From the article: "Given the right conditions, organic farming can produce, on average, as much corn per acre in Ohio as conventional farming can, according to an Ohio State University study. Corn hybrids grown in last year's Ohio State Organic Corn Performance Test produced 13 percent more corn per acre than the statewide average yield - most of that conventional corn - and topped the record-high state average yield by four bushels per acre."
As you can see in this case organic farming techniques produced more corn per bushel than non-organic.
3. "...[O]ne must also reckon with the impressive reduction in the use of petroleum-derived chemical fertilizers made possible by recent agricultural developments. We include in this litany of advances the use of Roundup-ready, genetically engineered crops, seed drilling in place of plowing, and other impressive methods invented by bright agricultural engineers working for oft-derided agribusiness corporations and land-grant universities."
I'm not aware of any "impressive reductions." My uncle farms 1000 acres of corn and beans and is buying just as much fertilizer as he always has, and he is as up to date in his farming techniques as anyone else in that region.
Seed drilling by the way isn't non-organic. Organic farming doesn't mean that you can't use modern machinery or even some modern techniques. You seem to be trying to imply that organic farming is a family out in a garden plowing with a singletree plow behind a mule team. Not true.
4. "We insist that so-called organic farming (like so-called alternative energy, by the way) has environmental impact that goes underreported, including the need for additional cultivated acreage and runoff from organic fertilizers, which are more complex blends of hydrocarbons plus microbiotic pests."
Refer to the above articles debunking the need for more cultivated acreage as well as comparisons on runoff water.
5. "The acreage equation is itself probably decisive. Nothing affects the environment more than simply clearing the land and cultivating it. Organic farming essentially ends the advances made over the last several centuries in raising per-acre yield, the very advances that have taken land out of cultivation in the United States even as the total harvest has increased."
Again organic farming does not require more land usage. If anything by taking the lessons both bad and good learned from 50 years of industrial agriculture and combining it with new research into the advantages of organic farming practices and indigenous traditional farming practices we can advance farming into greater and safer yields. What's not to love here?
6. "Every generation in the United States has had its agricultural Luddites calling for the restoration of the agricultural practices of the past. We grew up with the scare that large-scale use of tractors and steel plows was going to erode the soil to uselessness. Yet a generation later, American agriculture continues to thrive, with yields breaking records almost annually. Engineers have managed to reduce erosion with improved methods, and what threat there was to the soil's future, probably exaggerated at the time, is reduced to insignificance."
You've got to separate hype from reality. Land grant colleges and other institutions will continue to show the viability of organic and "semi-organic" farming. They will continue to prove what we've actually known anecdotally for a generation that monoculture farming can only be sustained by greater and greater and costlier and costlier technological solutions that are really band aids to a farming practice that is known to be ultimately flawed.
Organic farming (outside of the Mother Jones/Wendell Berry crowd) isn't a Luddite fueled appeal to move backwards. Its a way forward that addresses problems inherent in modern industrial agriculture. Organic farming is not an either/or proposition, its a range of techniques that can be applied as needed.
You may be surprised, Pat, that we are happy to concede that you seem to cite valid evidence that some "organic" methods can approach yields on nonorganic farms. What we decry is the doctrinaire devotion to an organic ideal promoted by folks who are rich enough to buy food whatever it costs, with no concern for those whose health depends on affordable food grown by the most efficient means possible. Those are the folks who insist on organic products at their local Wild Oats, spending a substantially higher price for no better nutrition. "Organic" in that regard is a luxury, a designer label on food.
We suspect, however, that the future of farming will not be organic or nonorganic but scientifically informed. "Semi-organic" is a bit of an oxymoron, is it not? Essentially you mean "improved," avoiding the excesses and inefficiencies of current methods. No arguments with that! But DuPont and Monsanto will still sell their products, probably newer and better ones, and the world will be better fed as a result.
We are, by the way, well aware that seed drilling and other mechanical methods are consistent with "organic." What troubles us, however, is the whole label, which stands for an ill-defined negative that competes for public support with the more worthy goal of feeding humans.
If more people can be fed with less negative impact on the environment, then we will be the first to applaud. What we won't applaud is thousands of acres being put under cultivation to support a system of farming that doesn't bring more food to the table or significantly lessen a serious environmental problem (if present so-called industrial agriculture actually causes a serious problem).
But back to subsidies. Would you not agree that in this country it is agricultural subsidies themselves that drive monoculture farming?
I'm not sure if its clear or not but this is the commenter also known as Pat Rock. You probably already figured that out. When I'm signed into blogger I get tagged as just Pat.
Yes, we agree that agricultural subsidies drive dangerous agricultural practices.
That's why I continue to put my hope in Land Grant colleges. They aren't w/out problems but at least perform research, test hypothesis scientifically, and feed this research back into their farming communities.
And yes, to me organic farming is synomous with improved farming. I don't pay much attention to the bourgeois posturing of the Wild Oats set.
Organic farming has a concrete definition that is far from the lobbyists and marketers who have co-opted it.
Semi-organic, btw, is a term used in those links I pointed too. Its not my term. It seems silly.
From the beginning we meant the opposite of disparagement of agricultural research at land grant universities, which has done more to feed people globally than all the charitable concerns combined. We completely affirm your affirmation of their work.
But we continue to think that the term "organic" is problematic. As we said, in common usage it mostly defines a negative that is ill defined and misleading. "Organic" in marketing means not using manufactured chemicals, though the boundaries of manufacturing have never been clearly defined (hence, the dispute about what can properly be labeled "organic" for consumers). Further, people more blithely assume that "organic" = "healthy" than they assume that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. Like it or not, Wild Oats and Trader Jack have defined the term.
Using "organic," with or without "semi-," to refer essentially to the informed reduction, as opposed to "principled" elimination, of petroleum-based fertilizers and environmentally persistent pesticides is at best misleading. One might as well label the attempt to reduce the use of unnecessary prescription drugs "homeopathy."
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