THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 56, April 20, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
LOSING THE ORGANIC DEBATE
By Dennis T. Avery
A DEBATE ON WHETHER THE ORGANIC FOOD MOVEMENT IS A SCAM: ORGANIC FARMERS HAVE NEVER
DOCUMENTED ANY CLAIMS OF BENEFITS IN THE FORM OF GREATER FOOD SAFETY OR BETTER NUTRITION DERIVED FROM
CONSUMPTION OF ORGANICALLY GROWN FOODS. THE ADVANTAGES OF HIGH-YIELD CONVENTIONAL AGRICULTURE
OVER LOW-YIELD ORGANIC FARMING HAVE BEEN DOCUMENTED.
FULL STORY:
I lost a debate on organic food last week — to the City of New York.
Intelligence Squared, a philanthropic foundation, which brings Oxford-style debating to American issues, invited me to be
part of a debate on whether the organic food movement is a scam. The invitation was a big deal, with the audio carried
nationwide by National Public Radio and the TV shown repeatedly on Bloomberg TV.
Each of us six debaters got seven minutes to present our best arguments.
Lord Krebs was formerly head of Britain’s Food Standards Authority. He quietly pointed out that the United Kingdom bars
its organic farmers from making any claims of greater food safety or better nutrition — because, in 80 years, they’ve never
documented any such benefits.
The elite New York audience yawned.
Blake Hurst, a farmer from Missouri, noted that most of America’s organic food is produced on giant farms in California,
where they avoid using pesticides by having Mexican immigrants pull the weeds by hand. With the subtraction from
organic of every “unnatural” additive, the fungi, molds and bugs increase, Hurst said. His biggest environmental sin had
been letting too much nitrogen run off his fields and down the Mississippi River — until he adopted no-till, the soil-safest
farming system ever. With no-till, there is virtually no runoff from the fields. Organic farmers still commit “bare earth
farming,” he warned, because they refuse to use herbicides. Their plowing and mechanical cultivation encourage erosion.
The New Yorkers didn’t care.
I pointed out that high-yield farming has saved millions of acres of wildlands from being plowed for low-yield organic
crops. We’re farming 37 percent of the land area now, and we’ll need twice as much food when human populations peak
about 2050. To prevent mass starvation and wildlands destruction, we’ll need to double yields again — with nitrogen
fertilizer, pesticides, and biotechnology.
The New Yorkers barely restrained themselves from booing.
On the other side were Jeff Steingarten, the Vogue food critic; a cheerful frequent traveler on the organic talk
circuit named Chuck Benbrook; and Urvashi Rangan of Consumer Reports.
Benbrook professed to be puzzled why nobody cares about the tiny and intermittent differences in nutrient levels
between organic and conventional foods.
Ms. Rangan starred, drawing cheers and applause as she complained about “pools of pig poo the size of the Great
Lakes” and “chickens that didn’t have room to turn around in their cages.” Apparently animal welfare arguments are
resonating louder than pesticide scares in New York this season.
On our side, Hust remembered when the mother pig rolled over and crushed his 4-H piglets; gestation crates prevent
that. His neighbor’s free-range turkeys often got their throats slit by weasels.
I said the best argument for confinement of livestock was human disease risks. I quoted physiologist Jared Diamond,
best-selling author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, that most of humanity’s epidemic diseases came from microbes
shuttling between humans and their domestic critters. They mutated into cholera, yellow fever, and smallpox, among
other deadly risks. Today, Asian flu mutates every year in Asia’s outdoor village poultry flocks, and wild birds spread
it worldwide.
Urvashi said she’d never heard of such a thing. But then, she didn’t really want to concede another valid, scientifically
documented reality.
When the debate opened, 21 percent of the audience had agreed organic was “marketing hype,” 45 percent said no, with
34 percent undecided. At the end, our side still had 21 percent for “marketing hype” — but all the “un-decideds” had
swung against us.
New York may be hopeless. Will the rest of the country continue to back organic food if it takes 80 percent of the earth’s
land area to produce our basic food supplies organically?
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Agriculture, the Economy, & Human Health & Welfare:
Policy Issues Relating to Food Production & Consumption
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Dennis T. Avery is a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. He is an environmental economist and
was formerly a senior analyst for the U.S. Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable
Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years.
Readers may write Avery at P.O. Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421 or send email to cgfi@hughes.net
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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