In May 2004, Catherine Badgley, an evolutionary biology
professor at the University of Michigan, took her students on a
research trip to an organic farm near their campus. Standing on
the acre-and-a-half farm, Badgley asked the farmer, Rob
MacKercher, how much food he produces annually. "Twenty-seven
tons," he said. Badgley did the quick math: That's enough to
provide 150 families one pound of produce every single day of
the year.
"If he can grow that quantity on this tiny parcel," Badgley
wondered, "why can't organic agriculture feed the world?" That
question was the genesis of a multi-year, multidisciplinary
study to explore whether we could, indeed, feed the world with
organic, sustainable methods of farming. The results? A
resounding yes.
Unfortunately, you don't hear about this study, or others with
similar findings, in "Attention Whole Foods Shoppers," Robert
Paarlberg's defense of industrial agriculture in the new issue
of Foreign Policy. Instead, organic agriculture, according to
Paarlberg, is an "elite preoccupation," a "trendy cause" for
"purist circles." Sure, sidling up to a Whole Foods in your
Lexus SUV and spending $24.99 on artisan fromage may be the
trappings of a privileged foodie, but there's an SUV-sized
difference between obsessing about the texture of your goat
cheese and arguing for a more sustainable food system. Despite
Paarlberg's pronouncements, Badgley's research, along with much
more evidence, helps us see that what's best for the planet and
for people -- especially small-scale farmers who are the
hungriest among us -- is a food system based on agroecological
practices. What's more, Paarlberg's impressive-sounding
statistics veil the true human and ecological cost we are paying
with industrial agriculture.
For More An Ode to Farming: images from around the world.
Since most of us aren't well-versed in the minutia of this
debate, we can't be blamed for falling for Paarlberg's
scaremongering, which suggests that by rejecting biotech and
industrial agriculture, we are keeping developing countries
underdeveloped and undernourished. Paarlberg suggests that we
could eliminate starvation across the continent of Africa were
it not that "efforts to deliver such essentials have been
undercut by deeply misguided ... advocacy against agricultural
modernization."
It's a compelling argument, and one industry defenders make all
the time. For who among us would want to think we're starving
the poor by pushing for sustainability? (At a Biotechnology
Industry Organization conference I attended in 2005, a workshop
participant even suggested pro-organic advocates should be
"tried for crimes against humanity.")
But the argument for industrial agriculture and biotechnology is
built on a misleading depiction of what organic agriculture is,
bolstered with shaky statistics, and constructed by ignoring the
on-the-ground lessons of success stories across the globe.