h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I figured that conversation title would get your attention. Personally, I'm rather sceptical of the whole organic/natural food movement. Though I do recognise that there is some good there, and most people involved have good intentions, it seems to be based to a certain extent not on making better food but on a postmodern rejection of science in general.

Let's look at genetically modified foods. A lot of people are scared of these for some reason; however, whenever I try to find out *why* GM foods are so scary, I tend to get dogmatic replies such as "Nature knows best" or "We shouldn't play God by messing with nature." The word 'frankenfoods' will generally crop up as well (no pun intended).

Case in point: tomatoes. Most tomatoe plants have been genetically engineered to contain a gene found in the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. This gene makes a toxin which kills caterpillars and other pests, but is harmless to humans. (It works by destroying a particular enzyme which caterpillars have but humans do not). This is perfectly safe, and prevents the need for pesticides, yet people will refuse to buy such an improved plant because it's not 'natural.' Indeed, some British supermarket chain (Sainsbury's, I think) actually boasted in an ad campaign that they rejected all GM food. This was based not on any evidence as to inherent dangers, but was rather pandering to misplaced fears in order to make more money.

This leads on to issues of pesticides and crop growth. I'll start with growth. A common claim of the organic food movement is that organic growth is better because it is more natural. However, the food we eat is far from natural; it has all been created by millenia of selective breeding. Once again taking the example of tomatoes, at some point in the disant past, early farmers noticed that some of their tomato plants tasted a little better than others. They also noticed that the plants required bees for pollination. Then, by clever manipulation, they managed to ensure that the best-tastin tomatoes pollinated each other; the resulting offspring had a slightly better average taste than the previous generation. Many, many, many years of this resulted in the yummy fruits we have today.

The same was done for all fruits and vegetables. A similar process was done to livestock, to the extent that animals such as cows and sheep could probably not survive in the wild.

The organic food movement would like us to believe that the methods they advocate for growing plants and raising livestock are better because they are more natural. They may even talk about 'natural farming' or some such. However, the plants and animals raised on farms are totally unnatural - they could not exist wothout deliberate, targeted human intervention. If they were truy natural, they would be adapted for their own survival, not our palates.

Now on to pesticides. I really don't see why pesticides are such a big deal. After all, they kill the very bugs that prevent us from eating the food we try to grow. However, many organic products proudly boast that they have never been touched by pesticides. Right. So food is better if you take no measures at all to contol nasty food-eating bugs. This is an occasion in which the higher price for organic food is justified - since bugs destroy more of the crop, the overall yield is lower, and the farmer has to charge more in order to make a living.

Now, there are some legitimate fears regarding presticides. A number of them are highly toxic to humans, such as AZM, DDT, and DNOC. However, there are many, many safer artificial pesticides, such as captan, which do not usually cause harm. These pesticides do have a very slight risk of causing troubles, but this risk is far less than the danger that comes from avoiding enough fruit and vegetables.

A fair number of organic farmers refuse to use artificial pesticides, but are perfectly willing to use natural pesticides, on the grounds that they are better because they are natural. Why? When the point is to kill insects, what does it matter as to the source. Why would a natural pesticide be automatically safer for humans than an artificial one?

And finally, the issue of fertiliser. Now, there are some perfectly good reasons to use purely natural fertilisers such as cow manure and grass clippings above any others. For one thing, they are cheaper. If a farmer raises livestock, they can simply spread the dung over their crops, giving them a growth boost for no extra cost. The same is true of grass clippings.

The main issue of contention when it comes to synthetic fertilisers is the presence of nitrates and phosphates. These pose a potent environmental risk, though not in the way people think. For most, the mere presence of nitrates and phosphates produced in a factory is enough to condemn a farm as environmentally unfriendly and its foods not fit for human consumption.

For many plants, the limiting ingredient in soil is either nitrogen or phosphorus; when either of these is depleted, the plant can't grow. Therefore, a farmer might spread some artificial fertiliser to give their crops some extra nitrogen and/or phosphorus in a form that the plant can use.

The danger of nitrates and phosphates is that, if they are applied in excess, some will be washed away by rain and find their way into rivers and lakes. There, they fertilise algae, which grow into a huge mass that prevents oxygen and sunlight from penetrating down to the bottom of the lake. The result of this is that freshwater ecosystems collapse. This does not mean that farmers should stop using nitrates and phosphates altogether, but that they should be much, much, much more careful with them.

So, in closing, I will say that the organic food movement has good intentions, but many of their practices and claims do not, at least to me, stand up to scrutiny. I'm just goping to keep saving money by buying food that has been treated with pesticides and fertiliser to make it possible to get onto my plate.

Good post - well reasoned.

But I don't think it's useful to compare selective breeding with the use of pesticides and other agrochemicals. Selective breeding is essentially a modification of evolution by natural selection - the only difference is that humans decide on the favourable characteristics. 'Natural' is an overused word, but I think there's a distinction between the two.

I agree in that people generalised too much about pesticides and GM food. It's also important to note that the Soil Association actually lists 4 (at the last time I counted) pesticides that organic farmers are allowed to use. And the idea that GM = bad is a vast oversimplification.

For me one of the important things about organic farming is that organic livestock tend to be reared in a more humane way, and that in general many organic practises are more sustainable. Organic farms have moved away from the overintensified farming model which leads to all sorts of problems relating to the exhaustion of the soil and decrease in biodiversity.

Brilliant posts. You basically said what I wanted to but could not find the right words!

Spot on both of you!

Yes, very well put. To take a slightly more extreme view, I thought GM food (whatever that means nowadays) had a lot of potential to feed the hungry, especially now that climate change will mean a lot of traditional non-GM crops can no longer be grown in many of the poorer countries.

I thought it was the height of arrogance when the uneducated first-world middle-classes objected so strongly that they made GM effectively unviable. Those luddites have the blood of the poor on their hands.

The term "organic" means it complies with the organic standards; that is all. It doesn't automatically mean "natural", "healthy" or "sustainable" by any means, but is is intended to promote environmentally-friendly farming practices, sustainability and animal welfare.

For example an "organic" fertiliser is one that is listed in Annex II A of the standard. The list includes mainly fertilisers derived from plants, animals and animal waste, but also includes a number of more traditional "chemical" (though I hate using that word in this context) fertilisers providing they are derived from natural sources. Calcium carbonates and sulphates are permitted providing they are of natural origin, even though they'd be chemically identical to the man-made stuff.

The UK compendium of standards can be found here:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/farm/organic/standards/index.htm

I'm not too fussed about organic veg. I don't lie awake at night worrying about the suffering of carrots, and I'd far rather eat pesticide-treated sprouts than sprouts with pests still in them. But it goes a long way in terms of animal welfare, particularly if you consider the disgusting conditions that normal farm animals have to endure.

Chickens especially have an appalling life: given about one square foot of space each for their entire life, reared in "crops" with a lifespan of only three months, selectively bred (if not actually "GM") to put on weight so fast that they couldn't run around outside even if they were allowed. Chicken can occasionally be bought in supermarkets, by weight, for less than potatoes. Organically-raised chicken may not taste three times better than a normal one, but at least it doesn't come with hock burns from being made to sit in its own faeces.

So I think on balance organic food is a good thing, not a scam. But it is not man-living-in-harmony-with-nature, it is not environementally-friendly (merely less environmentally damaging), and eating food grown using chemical pesticides and fertilisers will not kill you.

I really enjoyed reading your well argued responses.

I'm one of the people who gets a box of veggies delivered every week. I like to think I'm buying local and supporting small farmers (with the minimum of effort, I am fairly lazy!) Although the prices of the fruit and vegetables in the boxes might be slightly more expensive, I think it works out cheaper than going to the supermarket as then I don't then end up buying lots of other food that I don't really need.

I'm vegetarian as well but I'm not totally against eating meat; I can accept it as long as the animal has had a happy life and is killed as humanely and distress free as possible. My boyfriend is a committed carnivore and I will cook him steak and whatever other bits of meat he fancies - as long as I know it's free range. I can't stand going into the supermarket and seeing whole chickens for sale for £1.99, knowing the kinds of conditions that the birds would have had to have endured to be able to be sold for such a derisory sum. Intensive farming for meat devalues life - it denies animals the right to be considered as living beings, instead reducing them solely to products. The Bernard Mathews bird flu outbreak is a tragic yet unsurprising example of what can happen when animals are kept in hellish conditions.

However, I think organic meat doesn't necessarily mean animals have been reared in optimum conditions. If meat is labelled organic, all it has to mean is that it is drug-free, has 'more space' (but isn't necessarily free range) and is fed predominantly on organic feeds, although hens that are labelled organic must be free range, not battery farmed.

Regarding GM foods - I accept it's not a simple case of 'GM Bad, Organic Good'.
What I do think however is GM foods have the potential to put yet more power in the hands of big multinational companies.

I noticed in the news recently that the first batch of GM food containing human genes is close to being approved for commercial production in America...it's rice, but contains proteins found in human saliva and breast milk. The company developing it says it could be a source of nutrition and a diarrhoea treatment for children in developing countries.

GM foods have the potential to help the developing world, but only if the big companies that are developing them will make them patent free and allow them to be grown freely by the poorest countries most in need. I have to admit, I don't see much possibility of that happening.

My gut reaction to organic food is that I think it must be a better, more sustainable way of producing food providing greater benefits to the farmer and the environment. Regarding GM foods, I am much more uncertain.

"However, I think organic meat doesn't necessarily mean animals have been reared in optimum conditions. If meat is labelled organic, all it has to mean is that it is drug-free, has 'more space' (but isn't necessarily free range) and is fed predominantly on organic feeds, although hens that are labelled organic must be free range, not battery farmed."

Definitely. I think the conditions an animal is reared under are more important than whether it is organically reared or not.

Mummit - you are of course absolutely right about the multinationals protecting the patents on their GM products.

I wouldn't worry unduly about human genes being in food, we share the vast majority of our genes with pretty much everything we eat already.

Back to chickens, I extracted this from a post to a previous convo:

The term "free-range" specifies a maximum stocking density of 27.5kg per square metre, plus allowance of 1 m^2 per bird outdoors, on rotation. Importantly, this is enforced. They are more expensive partly because of the extra space required but also because they get exercise, and therefore take longer to reach slaughter weight. However, the same genetically unhealthy breed is often used and the birds may never actually find the exits to use their outdoor run. Stocking density aside, the life of a free-range chicken may not be any better than an intensively farmed one.

There are two additions to free range: "Traditional free-range" (25kg per sq m, plus 2 sq m outdoors) and "free- range - total freedom" (5 sq m outdoors and free access during daylight hours).

There is also the RSPCA Freedom Food label (30 kg / sq m) which has (though not always) add-on standards for free-range.

"Corn fed" means just that, and no more.

The organic standard is the best - it permits 25kg / sq m, plus outdoor runs and a load of other stuff designed to make a chicken's life a happy one.

There are many points in your post Apollyon, that I do not agree with. I won't comment on all of them because I really don't have the time and also I am in this very lazy mood today. One thing though I just can't ignore and that is your statements about the GM food.

Having been involved in life science and research for years I can't say that GM is all bad. I am not that concerned about the health issues attached to consuming GM food - these should be considered and I can't help expecting that some allergies to a "toxin which kills caterpillars and other pests, but is harmless to humans" will come to the attention if such products survive on the market for long enough. Also I agree that modifying an organism for the sake of research, production of medicines, cleaning the environment, etc., etc., is very useful and it will be stupid to ban it just because people shouldn't play God. But! There is a big difference between growing GM bacteria or cells in a dish in the lab and spreading the seeds of gene modified plants out there without applying any proper monitoring and control. There is data of gene transfer from modified plants towards their wild cousins even now, even though they are not that many, simply because in the countries where the majority of GM crops are grown, like India for example, have very poor control over the farming practices.

Improving the breeds through selective breeding is totally different - it does not include adding new genes from other organisms. And I say new, because they are new to this particular plant. It may not affect you, as you eat it, but you simply can't predict the effect it will have on the ecosystem. True, agricultural field is not very "natural" as ecosystems go, but through the years they have reached certain equilibrium, there are established relationships and certain degree of biodiversity. Biological systems, no matter if you talk about one organism or entire ecosystem is very complex thing - you can't simplify things by saying that you are just adding a gene coding for a toxin from a bacteria, which has been in the soil for ages anyway. You should consider all kind of possible outcomes, no matter how unlikely, including the effects on the other bacteria in the soil, the insects that eat these plants or the bacteria, the birds and rodents that feed on the insects, the neighbouring pastures/farms/forests, etc.
Also, frankly, I find the argument "we are trying to help the poor countries" laughable - the actions of the multinationals developing and selling GM crops can hardly be considered very altruistic! If these same companies were really interested in helping they could have done it by other means easily enough. They are not very eager to allow more monitoring or the application of more strict rules for growing the GMs because this will cut their profits. And control is more than needed. For example, scientists have advised for years that certain part of the field is planted with non-GM crop so that biodiversity is not affected. This is seldom done, just because the farmers have no interest in giving away part of the harvest to these food eating bugs you fear so much. As a result, a lot of damage can be done before anyone even notices the possibility.
I don’t want to offend anyone, but I really find the argument that through GM we are going to rid the world from all pollution/climate change/diseases/famine problems a terrible hypocrisy. Saying that the gene we add is "natural" without considering in what organism we put it and what are the relationships with the other genes/organisms is very short-sighted. Think about it – a century ago people were saying that we should not be concerned about the pollution from the cars and the factories– they were saying the CO2 is a natural component of the atmosphere and no harm can be done by adding some more, so why slow the progress! I hope you'll agree that with the GM organisms we have a bit more complicated issue at hand than that…

Ecosystems aren't about balance, they're about change. I would guess that introducing more genetic material (in other words: increasing biodiversity) would be more likely to make them stronger in the long term.

More genetic material in the shape of more organisms yes, it might. Although adding rabbits in Australia didn't turn out that way! You need more examples?
And just adding huge amounts of a single toxin gene? One can NEVER predict the outcome...
And I'd still say that ecosystems are about reaching equilibrium - rabbit example would fit here just fine.

I think you're talking about different things when you say ecosystems are about 'change' and 'equilibrium'.

Biodiversity is important, but as night-eyes says ecosystems are in a state of dynamic equilibrium. it doesn't do to get them out of kilter by introducing foreign species which developed over millennia for a different ecosystem. The equilibrium is the 'optimum' that the ecosystem establishes for itself if it's left alone without human interference.