Comments on: GM crops

By: dsquared

dsquared — Thu, 24 Jul 2003 17:09:03 +0000

We’re net grain exporters, but importers of most other foods. Going by the wartime experience, we can feed the population a nutritious but pretty grim diet if forced onto virtual autarky in food, but paper and textiles become a real problem.

By: back40

back40 — Thu, 24 Jul 2003 16:48:59 +0000

That’s one of the issues that intrigue me. Is the UK actually deficient in food production or is it only deficient in the production of valuable food? If the UK was in some way completely cut off from the rest of the world would it produce sufficient calories with adequate nutrition to avoid starvation and nutritional deficiency health effects? The lack of tea, spices and such would be a cultural tragedy but would it be a health problem? A related issue is fiber since it is a significant amount of agricultural production and competes with food for space. Wool, cotton, leather, fur, lumber and paper production needs to be considered as part of the larger issue. Wool and leather are special cases of dual use agriculture and to a lesser extent so is wood. Perhaps there is a paper in this for someone. Is the UK deficient in total agricultural production including both food and fiber? This seems relevant to policy.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Thu, 24 Jul 2003 15:50:43 +0000

My understanding is that the UK is a substantial exporter of the arable crops it produces, but is a net importer of food because of its taste for fruit and vegetables grown overseas.

By: back40

back40 — Thu, 24 Jul 2003 15:44:50 +0000

Yes, but try their agriculture section for information relevant to agriculture. If the subject is of interest and you find other useful information then perhaps you can share the results of your investigations into UK problems with soil erosion on agricultural land. I suspect the hill farms will be an area of particular interest. “The UK has been ploughing its fields for quite a while without visible adverse effect, and is a significant producer of agricultural surpluses.” The House of Commons thinks that UK is a net food importer. This is a problem for politicians since the CAP causes food prices to be high and so a larger than desired drain on wealth, but also arguably a problem for all since the UK is not self sufficient in food.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Thu, 24 Jul 2003 15:31:37 +0000

Do you mean these guys? What they have on the web seems to be mainly about recovered mining areas, which isn’t really typical of UK agriculture. Or am I looking in the wrong place?

By: back40

back40 — Thu, 24 Jul 2003 15:06:12 +0000

Maybe you would enjoy some study. Try the UK Soil Environment Services which have done some work on farm erosion.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Thu, 24 Jul 2003 14:19:48 +0000

Not wishing to appear obtuse here, but I think this matters. The UK has been ploughing its fields for quite a while without visible adverse effect, and is a significant producer of agricultural surpluses. The risk/reward tradeoff seems particularly slanted against GM foods here. (though this obviously raises the issue of the separate questions of whether GM crops should be planted, and whether GM food products should be allowed to be sold).

By: back40

back40 — Thu, 24 Jul 2003 14:02:35 +0000

hmmm, yes, I suppose there’s no need to be concerned about destructive agronomic practices that may take many decades to become a pressing problem. UK agriculture is in fine shape.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Thu, 24 Jul 2003 06:59:31 +0000

>>Most of the world’s farm land is in ‘fragile’ environments where the climate is harsh, soil is shallow and moisture is scarce. Agreed, but most of the UK’s farmland isn’t, and that’s what we’re talking about here.

By: back40

back40 — Wed, 23 Jul 2003 23:15:00 +0000

[slipped clew’s excellent commentary] “…I’m having a hard time convincing myself that ploughing a field is a horrifically environmentally destructive activity compared to the use of glyphosphates.” This is a common result of lack of archeological, historical, biological and ecological knowledge. Plato reports Critias complaining about this eons ago, and even earlier evidence from archeologists show it to be an immediate and repeated consequence of farming except in the few places, such as the Nile delta, that are continually renewed. It is not new knowledge. More recently the writings of Edward Faulkner such as Plowman’s Folly in 1943 brought the problem to the attention of academics and practitioners. After the ‘dust bowl’ period in the American plains states farmer’s were much more attentive to such issues. The transition from moldboard plows which turned the soil over, to chisel plows which left it spatially undisturbed, to plowing with the contours of the land to minimize erosion, and increasingly the cessation of tilling followed. More recently researchers have come to better understand soil life and soil structure which is destroyed by cultivation. Glomalin, an extremely valuable and durable organic carbon compound produced by Vesicular Arbuscular Mycorrhizal (VAM)fungi, was only discovered in 1996 because it is destroyed in farm fields by tillage and so was never present when farm soil was studied. In pastoral fields that are not plowed it contributes greatly to soil stability, water retention and tilth. VAM fungi play a key role in the transport of phosphorous, an otherwise immobile nutrient, in the soil. It’s interesting to contrast the attitudes of pre-agricultural peoples with those who have long accepted the practices. What they see as an abomination – gouging mother earth’s breasts with steel fingers, creating a desert of bare soil, denying plants their natural diverse communities and forcing them to live in monocultures – is now understood as sound ecological reasoning rather than animist spirituality. We can’t stop farming, it is the foundation of civilization, but it is useful to understand the consequences and seek ways to minimize them. Most of the world’s farm land is in ‘fragile’ environments where the climate is harsh, soil is shallow and moisture is scarce. Unsophisticated agronomic practices have consequences in these places that may take centuries to notice in more benign places where soil is deep. Still, squandering the natural wealth of deep soil is silly even in those fortunate places. Other consequences, such as altering watersheds, are problems even there. The disastrous floods in Europe that some tried to blame on changes in rain fall patterns were more likely changes in runoff patterns that became obvious during a normal but cyclical high rain fall period. When soil loses its ability to retain water and allow slow percolation to the subsoil floods result. Not surprisingly, the more we learn the less we know since some of what we thought we knew was false.

By: clew

clew — Wed, 23 Jul 2003 22:44:13 +0000

>>I’m having a hard time convincing myself that ploughing a field is a horrifically environmentally destructive activity compared to the use of glyphosphates. Depends on how deep & often you plow, and how much glyphosate you waste. And, of course, on the particular soil & weather. Ploughing damp clay with horses might be a net win (horseapples); ploughing dry loess to bring up subsoil water gets lossy. (One of the most annoying things about debating ag technologies at a national or international level is that productive & least-harm farming is very particular to place.) What disappoints me about current “pro-tech” industrial ag is how unimaginative it usually is; just putting more and more effort into the practices of 1950. As an alternative to Roundup-ready crops, for instance, some people are working on developing perennial grain crops – after the first year or two they should outcompete the weeds almost on their own; makes it progressively less important what weed suppression is used for their establishment. Also, there’s some hope that they’ll be less dependent on getting water at the exact right times. That is likely to be increasingly important. AFAIK, the most productive food crop known is still a mature chestnut tree; but it takes so long for them to mature!

By: dsquared

dsquared — Wed, 23 Jul 2003 22:03:38 +0000

>>I don’t know why Daniel presumed that my reference was to a specific Monsanto product. Sorry, unclear; I was attempting to elucidate the point of the bloke you were replying to. Frankly, I don’t want to gainsay anybody, but I’m having a hard time convincing myself that ploughing a field is a horrifically environmentally destructive activity compared to the use of glyphosphates. My position is that it’s silly to be agin a technology on quasi-moral grounds, but that no great harm will come from waiting a few years until there is someone on the pro-GM side with less of a track record of untrustworthiness than Monsanto. For the time being, the pro-GM case is “objectively” pro the planting of Roundup Ready corn and Flavr Savr tomatoes in Europe (as in, that would be the main immediate effect of a change in the EU law), and I’m not at all convinced about either of these products. Too much of the debate is conducted in terms of “now or never” rather than “now or later”. And the habit of certain American GM advocates of dragging the Poor Old Africans into the matter puts me off a great deal.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Wed, 23 Jul 2003 20:41:41 +0000

LOL! The end of tofu would be no great loss, but wine and cheese make up about 85% of my diet. But, yes, I’m afraid I want my potatoes out of the earth and my apples off a tree.

By: back40

back40 — Wed, 23 Jul 2003 20:12:56 +0000

No cheese, no wine, no tofu? Bacteria are our friends.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Wed, 23 Jul 2003 19:58:08 +0000

I don’t know why Daniel presumed that my reference was to a specific Monsanto product. There was no reason for such a presumption. Anyway, as the report to which I pointed makes clear, the “in principle” benefits to be gained from the fact that more biodegradable herbicides might me involved with GM can’t be taken for granted. We do have to look at how farmers actually use the stuff. back40s “One day we will stop farming and grow our food in vats or synthesize it directly” may not have been Swiftian in intent, but he certainly triggered my yuk-reflex. Not that my yuk reflex is a reason for legislation – but I’m not planning to eat the stuff that comes out of vats if I can avoid it.