
Norman Borlaug on Organic Farming - glymor
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/132479.html
======
mncaudill
Borlaug had no problem with people buying organic (e.g., "Let them buy it. Let
them pay a bit more. It's a free society."). His issue was that first-world
people shouldn't completely abandon the advancement of genetically-modified
food as it doesn't agree with their views of how food should be grown.

Most of us can buy organic food I would imagine, and it usually does taste
better. But we shouldn't force our ideals of what others should and should not
eat when organic is not a viable option, and _any_ food is better than tastier
food. That was Borlaug's message.

~~~
rjurney
Amen. There's nothing wrong with buying organic. Not respecting the
differences between the first and third worlds is what is irritating in the
food debate. Maybe people don't want genetically modified food domestically -
but these innovations are critical to continuing to feed the planet. When you
vilify them, when you start labeling foods as modified to create two classes
of food, you're screaming loud and clear, "I don't give a shit about people
that aren't just like me, and I don't respect the differences between first
and third world realities." Personally - I want to be eating the same wheat as
the guy pushing rickshaws in Old Dheli. I want genetic modifications
rigorously tested so as to be safe for us all.

Acting like first-world boutique farming represents a viable model for the
entire world - despite all the evidence - just because new age idealism says
it should be, is the height of western arrogance.

~~~
antonovka
_Acting like first-world boutique farming represents a viable model for the
entire world - despite all the evidence - just because new age idealism says
it should be, is the height of western arrogance._

I find the belief that mega-agricultural conglomerates are at all interested
in our long term well-being to be the height of technological arrogance. The
market incentives are just not aligned with our interests.

It's not that genetic engineering can't be safely and responsibly leveled, but
simply that given the track record of the foods provided by these
organizations, I don't see why they will behave particularly responsibility
towards our interests in the future.

It's also disturbing that you're attempting to turn the debate into one of
classism or racism:

 _When you start labeling foods as modified to create two classes of food,
you're screaming loud and clear, "I don't give a shit about people that aren't
just like me, and I don't respect the differences between first and third
world realities"_.

Why is my desire to know exactly what I'm purchasing in any way remotely
related to how I feel about people who "aren't just like me" or living in a
third world economy?

~~~
rjurney
You don't have to believe that GMO companies are do-gooders. Just take a look
at the agricultural efficiency charts over the last century, global
population, and rates of starvation. Seriously, the data is on wikipedia.
Check it out. As a planet, we need GMO food. Its not up for debate, if the
data means anything whatsoever.

As to your last comment: Why would labeling GMO foods as such create a food
class system, and why is this wrong? (not something you claimed btw, just part
of my rant :) Because only people rich like you will be able to choose the
non-GMO variety, because you are undermining the development of safe GMO foods
with that label, and because without GMO foods large numbers of poor people
will starve. To me, thats a pretty clear connection. As to why class matters?
Because North America has more food wealth than the rest of the world, maybe
combined? As to racism: you put that in there, I said nothing about race.

~~~
antonovka
_You don't have to believe that GMO companies are do-gooders ..._

They're not. They're corporations.

As a corporation, their primary incentive is, correctly and necessarily,
profit -- not people. If that coincides with "do-good", then they do good. If
it doesn't, then they don't.

There's plenty of historical precedent here -- take, for instance, the
research into genetic use restriction technology as to require re-purchase of
seed stock or a chemical activator every year. The work was shelved due to
widespread outcry from farmers and consumers, which directly leads to my next
point.

 _... Because only people rich like you will be able to choose the non-GMO
variety, because you are undermining the development of safe GMO foods with
that label, and because without GMO foods large numbers of poor people will
starve._

So if I want to know what's in my food and how it was produced, I'm a rich
American undermining the good of the mankind and causing the starvation of
poor people everywhere? That's certainly a bold argument.

Instead, why doesn't the blame lie with GMO organizations that engaged (and
continue to engage) in behavior that does not appear to be in our direct
interests?

~~~
rjurney
'Instead, why doesn't the blame lie with GMO organizations that engaged (and
continue to engage) in behavior that does not appear to be in our direct
interests?'

Because GMO research is absolutely vital to continuing to feed our species.
Monsanto may be a terrible company - but this is mostly related to patents.
Patents bad. Feeding people good.

GMO for the people.

~~~
antonovka
If you want GMO to succeed in the marketplace, then try convincing them to
start serving the market, rather than trying to apply regulation to prevent
the market from making informed decisions.

"GMO for the people" is just sloganeering.

~~~
rjurney
People aren't interested in making informed decisions about this, they're
interested in making a religious decision, which is why the labels must stay
off. Its for the good of the planet, not first-world consumers. We need their
food dollars driving research to feed the rest of the planet.

~~~
easp
Yes, informed consent and other nonsense underpininning freedom and democracy
be damnned.

And please, let's ignore how industrial-scale farming makes it difficult for
agricultural societies to escape poverty. It doesn't apply to everyone, but
there are large numbers of people who can grow a surplus of food without
requiring large amounts of capital. Unfortunately that food is all but
worthless becuase they have to compete with the substantal direct and indirect
subsidies industrial agriculture enjoys. The result is that they can't
generate extra money that could help them through lean years, or that they
could invest in education or equipment that would help them move up.

------
antonovka
I buy organic for three reasons:

1) Despite what Norman Borlaug said, the vegetables taste better. I don't
really care why. Maybe it has nothing to do with the fertilizer used, rather
that they simply don't ripen the tomatoes with ethylene (the other side of the
techno-farming coin).

2) I can afford it.

3) I don't trust Monsanto and their ilk to integrate technology to better feed
me. I expect them to rely on technology to improve their bottom line, very
likely disadvantaging me in the process -- their goals and incentives are
simply not aligned with my own.

~~~
rjurney
There's nothing wrong with you buying first-world, boutique food. Buy
hydroponic vegetables if you want. You are not the problem: there aren't that
many of you.

The problem is that new age extremism has vilified Borlaug, and the very Green
Revolution that makes modern civilization - largely absent from starvation due
to inefficient agriculture - possible. This man saved a billion people from
starvation and resulting war, won the Nobel Prize, and your average North
American has no idea who he is. As a result of the efforts of eco-extremist
organizations like Greenpeace, the debate on agriculture is incredibly
misinformed, and the very innovations in research that are critical for
supporting the increasing global population are vilified by arguments that are
entirely religious, rather than scientific. And people don't know that is what
they are.

As a wealthy westerner, wanting to eat any kind of food - fine by me. Wanting
to end research into genetic improvements in crop yields - absolutely
condemnable.

~~~
antonovka
_There's nothing wrong with you buying first-world, boutique food. Buy
hydroponic vegetables if you want. You are not the problem: there aren't that
many of you._

 _The problem is that new age extremism has vilified Borlaug ..._

Isn't calling organic food "first-world, _boutique_ food" and many of its
proponents "new age extrem[ists]" bit of hyperbolic vilification in of itself?

Commercial farming practices brought both good and bad, and you illustrate
both extremes by railing so strongly against the one of them in multiple
posts.

~~~
rjurney
Have you ever grown a traditional garden, vs. an organic one? Try it on any
kind of scale over 100 square feet, then tell me about the work involved, and
tell me whether 'boutique' fits organic or not :D

~~~
antonovka
Seeing as I can buy organic produce in large grocery stores for a relatively
low price above the baseline, it is, _by definition_ , not a boutique product.

You're clearly using _boutique_ as a backhanded pejorative for the production
model. The argumentative slight-of-hand is ridiculous.

 _Have you ever grown a traditional garden, vs. an organic one? Try it on any
kind of scale over 100 square feet, then tell me about the work involved, and
tell me whether 'boutique' fits organic or not :D_

What were your experiences in attempting this, and where did you find the
organic approach led to significant inefficiencies in production? How does
your experience compare with that of successful larger organic operations?

~~~
rjurney
Relatively low? Organic foods are about 150% of the price of non-organic
foods. Producing them is much more labor intensive. If you don't use roundup,
you have to weed.

Boutique: small scale, upper crust.

------
bk
This is a typical ideologically charged topic - so I will present a few facts
that that I think may put some of the debate in perspective:

1\. There are now more obese people than starving people in the world. The
diseases that are killing those overweight people are largely nutritional in
origin (heart disease, diabetes, at least some cancers).

2\. The EU (and I assume the US/Canada as well) are destroying agricultural
products en masse, due to subsidized overproduction.

3\. Population growth is rapidly decelerating - the largest countries in the
world have or are rapidly approaching "first world" birth rates. Western
Europe is shrinking.

Borlaug did phenomenal work for his historical period, however, looking at it
in a historical timeframe, we should remain aware that the parameters of our
world are constantly changing, and thus it's not that simple.

Personally, I think it requires a careful look at the political and economic
production and distribution systems around the agriculture and food
industries. The whole "granola hippie" versus "libertarian corporatist" debate
is simply a huge distraction that misses the point.

~~~
gjm11
_There are now more obese people than starving people in the world._ : "Obese"
and "starving" are not parallel: you only call someone "starving" if their
lack of food is putting them at considerable risk of imminent death, whereas
being "obese" -- while it does indeed increase your risk of various nasty
things -- isn't nearly so dangerous. (It depends a bit on how you define
"obese". I'll guess that to make it true that "there are more obese people
than starving people" you need to define it quite broadly.)

[Edited about 1m after posting, for clarity only.]

------
hendler
Where Borlaug and organic farming have differences is modeling sustainability.

As a scientist, I think (based on very little knowledge of him) , Borlaug was
interested in sustainability and open to criticism.

The problem of sustainability can be addressed by various forms of science -
Borlaug probably doesn't deserve to be a lightening rod. The politicization of
agriculture (and the sustainability debate) is industrial farming techniques
are sometimes (obviously) in conflict with ecologically "holistic" practices -
that is, the model of the systems are different, and both models get things
wrong.

My two cents: Profit clouds science as much as fear or ignorance.

~~~
rjurney
Borlaug takes the stance that even if having 6 billion people on earth is
'unsustainable,' that we should still feed them all. At the root of all the
'sustainability' counter-arguments is the idea that we shouldn't feed everyone
no matter what it takes, that people SHOULD be starving... just never the
person making the argument. This is why Greenpeace does things like run a
successful campaign to ban nitrogen fertilizer exports from Western Europe to
Africa - its environment over people. Better for the people to starve than the
environment suffer the fertilizer load, and the problem of increased
populations when people stop starving.

Which is what I call environmental extremism - the non-extreme variety has
people first, and seeks sustainability for our entire, well fed population.

~~~
hendler
'''the non-extreme variety has people first, and seeks sustainability for our
entire, well fed population.'''

I agree partly - starving now or later - is the problem.

Isn't humanity just a startup?™ - industrial agriculture has "technological
debt". We either pay the debt now, or face bigger debt later.

Borlaug, I don't think, was trying to define and deal with debt - and I think
sustainability/ecology does.

------
JulianMorrison
The only reason I ever buy "organic" is when I think the regular product is
cheating me by adding in a lot of stuff I wouldn't consider an improvement,
like water in meat, corn starch in sauce, etc. Ironically these are often
things with organic equivalents - but the organic brands are selling to a
demographic who read the ingredient labels.

~~~
azanar
Check the definition of "organic." There is no requirement regarding food
additives, save that the additives themselves must also be organic. Nothing is
stopping the organic farmers from introducing these additives any more than it
compelling the conventional farmers to do so. Whether they do or don't is
entirely a matter of goodwill.

~~~
JulianMorrison
See my last sentence above. The connection of organic and not-messed-about is
indirect - the same buyers demand both characteristics. Adam Smith gave a good
explanation of such "goodwill".

------
martythemaniak
Opponents of organic food never bring one of the main reasons why people buy
organic - it tastes freaking awesome. While it may not be true for all
products, there is a pretty clear difference between a lot of organic and non-
organic products.

~~~
amelim
I would be willing to bet that in a double-blinded study the difference would
be a lot less clear cut then you propose.

~~~
encoderer
To be fair, I think you'd have to distinguish between Industrial Organic and
true farmers-market / moms-backyard organic.

You give somebody a tomato, an apple, a pear from Kroger or Safeway or Publix,
and another from an organic farmers market... I'd be just as willing as you to
bet on that random consumer selecting the organic produce.

~~~
amelim
So you want to compare a piece of produce that has probably traveled for
several days and sat around waiting to be selected against one from a farmers
market where it was probably picked the day or two before? It seems like you
are arguing against distribution methods, not organic/non-organic.

~~~
encoderer
The trouble is that there often isn't a choice of "non-industrial non-
organic." The 2 farmers markets in my area are stocked full of organic
produce. Probably because a farmer can sell it for a few dollars more to
people just like me if he produces organic.

And you can't separate the distribution method from its production method.
They're part and parcel of each other. I would much rather buy locally-grown,
non-organic produce than organic produce grown in an industrial operation a
thousand miles away.

~~~
azanar
_I would much rather buy locally-grown, non-organic produce than organic
produce grown in an industrial operation a thousand miles away._

Why? Outside of the arguments of freshness, which could be dealt with by a
more efficient distribution mechanism, I don't see any net benefit.

I'll admit that the argument toward supporting local farmers carries little
weight with me. Outside of the freshness argument, it strikes me as little
more than small-town sentimentalism. There are a number of other industries
where we did far better when we dispatched that argument; I'm not yet
convinced that food production is any different. I can imagine all sorts of
economies of scale that could be exploited, but we have to let the economy
scale first.

~~~
encoderer
The trouble is that food production is more organism than industry. And most
of our obesity problems in this country, and a great deal of greenhouse gas
effects, derive from ignorance of that fact.

The American industrial food chain consumes more oil than American
automobiles. The industrial food chain enforces a farm mono culture where a
plot of land sees only one crop, year on year, for decades. Or maybe two:
Maybe soybeans get thrown in the mix. Local polyculture farms raise animals
and a number of different crops in a little dance that mimics the natural
cycle of life. Cows eat grass, and they and horses are the only animals that
can. Birds clean up after the cows. What's left when the birds are done grows
more grass. Goto 1.

The industrial farm leaves over-tilled dead soil in desperate need of
artificial fertility, and ridding these farms of animals leaves them all on
gigantic feed lots with manure ponds.

If you don't see the problems with this, you've buried your head in the sand.
And that doesn't even touch the surface of the massive amount of fossil fuel
we use to truck produce and meat 2000+ miles to a supermarket that itself is
filled with thousands up thousands of food-like substances.

Huge agribusiness has proven you can indeed industrialize food. And to anybody
that's ever looked closely at it, it's also proven that you shouldn't.

------
chez17
"That's ridiculous. This shouldn't even be a debate. Even if you could use all
the organic material that you have--the animal manures, the human waste, the
plant residues--and get them back on the soil, you couldn't feed more than 4
billion people."

Quotes like this make me sad. This is so ignorant coming from a brilliant man.
Organic or conventional farming isn't the issue. The way most Americans
consume meat 3 times a day is the issue. It would be like having a debate on
oil consumption in this country and two people were arguing about heating
homes with oil and nobody ever brought up transportation. Eating meat 3 times
a day isn't sustainable. Organic farming is. The way this debate is framed is
just beyond stupid for how intelligent the people having it are. Everyone just
assumes that meat 3 times a day is ok and it's the organic farming that isn't
sustainable. This is laughable.

This isn't an all or nothing thing here. Eating meat in moderation is fine.
This country (American) has a taste for federally subsidized, extremely cheap
and unhealthy meat. That is the issue. Not farming.

~~~
rjurney
Maybe he isn't ignorant. Maybe he realizes that removing meat from our culture
is more difficult than engineering more efficient agriculture. But really -
North America is so agriculturally wealthy that is can afford to eat any way
it likes. Borlaug engineered hybrid crops that made it possible for the rest
of the world to self-sustain. In most of the world people don't eat as much
meat, and that is not changing - and it is there that his innovations were
most helpful. They ended starvation by providing enough wheat and rice for
everyone - nevermind that it isn't always distributed evenly - he ended the
literal shortages.

Anyway, this is changing. Look at meat's prominence in California (feed lots
aside, I mean consumption) - much less than elsewhere. California leads, the
rest of the nation follows.

~~~
encoderer
It's not a lack of agricultural wealth that should limit our meat intake. It's
a lack of fossil fuel wealth. Raising cattle uses an enormous amount of fossil
fuel. And even organically speaking, the only reason we have such cheap meat
is a massive amount of subsidized corn. That's not good for the soil, it's not
good for the environment, and it's certainly not good for the cows.

~~~
wooster
> Raising cattle uses an enormous amount of fossil fuel.

s/Raising cattle/Raising cattle on corn/

------
azanar
Until now, I haven't said much about this, because arguments about organic
farming seem to quickly part with reasonableness and come to rely on blanket
assertions and condescension. It's getting old, and I would argue that we
either need to change the way we approach this topic, or keep it off the front
page; I'd prefer the former, but I think that will be hard.

I worry that it has become to tied up in people's sense of identity. Not in
the sense of an environmentalist lashing themselves to a tree, but in the
sense of two neighbors attempting to win a battle about who loves and cares
for their families safety more by buying expensive items. It might still be
true that one of them loves their family more, but it is irrelevant to the
battle; the real battle is who can buy more of the expensive shit to prove it
to the person they are fighting against. This is a class conflict, above
everything else that is going on.

And hence the problem with organic food; it provides a more expensive option
that is, ostensibly: better for you, better for the environment, better for
the farmers, better for the rest of the population, better for wildlife, and
likely any of a number of other groups of people or things.

Do we know if any of this is true? No. Do we know if any of it is false? _No._

Does any of this really matter? I'd like to believe it does; it does for me.
But I'm not convinced it does for most people.

We can argue that we _know_ the above is true, but the data we have is
relatively limited. Even when we have data, it isn't entirely clear what it is
measuring, because people have such confused definitions of what "organic"
actually means. It has nothing to do with local farmers; it has nothing to do
with the complete elimination of pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers. It
just limits the types of substances used, based on _origin,_ not known health
effects; organic farmers are required to use "natural" farming aids. What we
have to go on is gut feelings that "natural," whatever we define that to mean,
is "better." We also have the gut feeling that "artifical" things, whatever we
define that to be, are "bad." This falls apart the instant someone points to
something artifical that is better than the natural version -- as an example,
please see Canola oil. But it can so fuel the senses that food we consider to
be artificial will taste noticably worse. Does it? Who knows; we need more
double-blind studies on this.

The problem is that the debate is working from an assumption _a priori,_ that
organic food _is_ the better option, at least by the organic proponents. I am
not pro-conventional food; I don't believe that most of the people who still
buy conventional produce _are_ that religious about it. They'd like to see
data on both sides of the debate, and would like to sit down and have a
reasonable pro-con discussion. But that can't happen when one side of the
debate is screaming "YOU'RE KILLING YOURSELF AND THE PLANET!" It's like the
guy who buys the more expensive car seat while screaming at his neighbor
"YOU'RE KILLING YOUR CHILD!" The poor neighbor now has a choice: submit to the
religious fervor of expensive car seats, or deal with the continued
condescention of his neighbor.

We need to start having a rational discussion about this; I'm surprised, given
the level-headedness by which we approach other topics, that we are so
unabashedly biased on this one. Maybe it's just a vocal minority?

~~~
tokenadult
_We need to start having a rational discussion about this; I'm surprised,
given the level-headedness by which we approach other topics, that we are so
unabashedly biased on this one._

Hurrah. I applaud anyone on HN who urges participants to look at evidence and
to examine their preconceptions as we discuss issues thoughtfully.

------
mark_l_watson
I can't agree with him about organic food health benefits. When you eat
industrially raised food (oil based fertilizer) you get a smaller spectrum of
minerals, etc.

And, as my young grandson once said: "why would anyone want to eat food with
bug spray on it?"

That said, it is a matter of free choice - my wife and I gladly pay slightly
higher prices for locally grown organic food. If not organic, we then at least
favor locally grown food.

~~~
rjurney
What you are saying is scientifically false. As in: there is no evidence this
is true, and the opposite has in fact been demonstrated.

It may FEEL like you're getting more nutrients - but you aren't. You are
getting fewer traces of pesticide, which is probably a good thing. But
nutrients - no.

~~~
antonovka
Neither of you have referenced supporting papers or research. Which one of you
is correct?

~~~
rjurney
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/29/organic-
fo...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/29/organic-food-
nutrition-fsa)

~~~
antonovka
"The findings, partly published today in the American Journal of Clinical
Nutrition, contradict previous work that has found organically grown food to
be nutritionally superior."

It doesn't seem as cut and dry as you've made it out to be above, but I'm no
expert.

