The Nerd Hole

I read a recent article in the State Press (my school newspaper at ASU) regarding the use of organically grown fibers in the fashion industry and how the increase in their use is due to environmental concerns among consumers and within the industry itself. The article also cites that 7 of the 15 leading pesticides are known human carcinogens and that the use of organic crops is one of the best ways to help the environment. This is wrong. This is wrong for a great many reasons and they have to do with the environment and human health. Let me explain why.

Organic farming uses up more space than non-organic farming. That’s right kids. The crop yields per acre are not the same. Organic farmers suffer higher losses from insects, which necessarily increases the amount of space they must use to get the same crop yield. They use crop rotation to keep the soil fertile for longer and to keep insect populations down. This also increases the amount of space they must use for the same yield. Organic farmers also use animal dung to fertilize their crops. In order to replenish the soil, they need to use a larger amount of dung in terms of biomass than they produced in actual crops. This means that the cows need to be fed more than the farm actually produces because nitrogen fixation in the soil is not at 100% efficiency and also when you feed the cows, there is a lot of waste material that contains previously fixed nitrogen and other nutrients that they do not consume. Those cows also require space. Additionally manure itself is a pollutant as excesses of certain nutrients are damaging to soil health and to replenish one nutrient with it, one would need to increase the concentrations of all nutrients contained within the manure. Moreover, manure is a source of potentially lethal E. coli, as it is contained in the gut of cattle. That is why ground beef is so dangerous if not cooked properly, it comes into contact with the cow's gut contents. That aside, organic farming requires so much space that if we used only organic farming methods we could only feed roughly 2/3rds of the worlds population with existing farmland, according to Nobel Prize winning agricultural scientists Dr. Norman Borlaug. Our current problems with hunger have to do with corrupt governments and distribution, not actual production.

So, what does all this space use have to do with the environment? Habitat destruction. Farming necessitates a large amount of land clearage. You may not think that in the midwest, where most of the biomes consist of grassland anyway, that replacing it with another type of grass (because corn and wheat are all grasses) will do much damage. However, this is incorrect. The ecosystem changes. Nesting sites for birds are destroyed, ponds are drained, the land is flattened. The ecosystem as it once was is now gone. A more efficient crop uses less space, and destroys less habitat per unit of production than a less space-efficient crop (like organics). An ecosystem can deal with an influx of nutrients, or a decrease in insect population from pesticides introduced through runoff. But it cannot survive being uprooted and replaced with corn and cotton. Do modern farming techniques pollute the environment and use carcinogens for pesticides? Sure. This is a necessity of farming in general.But there are ways around that. Using custom fertilizers tailored for the soil and the crops produced in it for example. And more importantly, the use of genetically modified crops to kill off pests and make the crop more efficient. Plants have been protecting themselves from insect pests using alkaline and protein based toxins for millions of years, and there are bacteria that produce species specific or otherwise narrow-range toxins that affect pest insects. To use an example, Bacillus thuringiensis is a bacteria RELATED TO ANTHRAX, which attacks insects, and many plants secrete toxins that cause premature pupation in predatory insects.

The genes that code for these products can be inserted into and expressed in the genomes of crops. They undergo extensive testing and are perfectly safe for humans because they are target specific. Many of them only work on one small group of related insects. And any dangers of cross contamination of native species of plants can be worked on and fixed using further genetic modification, or other controls. There is a risk of insects gaining resistance, but that can be curtailed using a mosaic of insect targeted toxins, or rotating the target specific toxins produced by the crops.

Genetically modified crops can be engineered to use less water than normal crops as well. Drought resistant plants are useful anywhere, even where water is plentiful. This is because most agriculture gains its water from subterranean aquifers. These aquifers are not being replenished as fast as water is being taken from them. They WILL dry up. Already overuse is starting to cause sink holes in some areas where the water pressure is no longer sufficient to hold up the ground. Drought resistant crops use less water. The benefit of this should be obvious. They can also be engineered to use less space per metric ton of food produced. Less habitat destruction per unit of production is an obvious benefit of this. They can also be modified to produce more and better nutrients. Two words. Golden Rice. All of this in addition to making their own natural pesticides with a narrow target range. Genetic Modification, not organic farming, is the sustainable solution to balancing the needs of people and the long-term future of our environment, and the resistance we have seen to it from Europe and environmentalists is absurd. So the next time you guys are at the grocery store, avoid organic crops like the plague. Look for genetically modified foods and remember, if it is not labeled organic, chances are unless it is produce, it has a genetically modified component.

~Comrade Tortoise