Category: Organic agriculture

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Industrial vs Organic, seconds out, round 654

Jeremy’s brief post on Prof. Robert Paarlberg’s love note to industrial agriculture in Foreign Policy has generated quite a heated discussion. That’s what we like to see, so do join in if you haven’t done so already. Foreign Policy has also published something of a rebuttal. And, coincidentally (or maybe not — but Paarlberg is not mentioned) so has mongabay.com. Thesis. Antithesis. Still no sign of that pesky synthesis.

LATER: Marion Nestle has also just published something relevant to this somewhat sterile debate, though in response to the “superweed” story in the NY Times that’s been going viral rather than in direct response to Paarlberg.

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Nibbles: Microlivestock, Urban ag, Ag info, School meals in Peru, Agrobiodiversity indicators, Nature special supplement, Extension, Breeding organic, Forgetting fish in China, Deforestation, Russian potatoes, Fijian traditional knowledge, Megaprogrammes

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What are breeders selecting for?

ResearchBlogging.org One of the arguments in the organic-can-feed-the-world oh-no-it-can’t ding dong is about the total yield of organic versus non-organic. ((For want of a suitably non-judgemental term.)) Organic yields are generally lower. One reason might be that, with a few exceptions, mainstream commercial and public-good breeders do not regard organic agriculture as a market worth serving. The increase in yield of, say, wheat over the past 70-80 years, which has been pretty profound, has seen changes in both agronomic practices — autumn sowing, simple fertilizers, weed control — and a steady stream of new varieties, each of which has to prove itself better to gain acceptance. Organic yields have not increased nearly as much. A new paper by H.E. Jones and colleagues compares cultivars of different ages under organic and non-organic systems, and concludes that modern varieties simply aren’t suited to organic systems. ((JONES, H., CLARKE, S., HAIGH, Z., PEARCE, H., & WOLFE, M. (2010). The effect of the year of wheat variety release on productivity and stability of performance on two organic and two non-organic farms The Journal of Agricultural Science, 148 (03) DOI: 10.1017/s0021859610000146))

The basics of the experiment are reasonably simple. Take a series of wheat varieties released at different dates, from 1934 to 2000. Plant them in trial plots on two organic and two non-organic farms for three successive seasons, measure the bejasus out of everything, and see what emerges. One of the more interesting measures is called the Cultivar superiority (CS), which assesses how good that variety is compared to the best variety over the various seasons. As the authors explain, “A low CS value indicates a cultivar that has high and stable performance”. The expectation is that a modern variety will have a lower CS than an older variety, and for non-organic sites, this is true. At organic sites, the correlation is much weaker.

You can see that in the figure left (click to enlarge). For the open circles (non-organic) more modern varieties have lower CS (higher, more stable yield), while for filled circles (organic) there is no relationship. Why should this be so. Because of those changes in agronomic practices mentioned above.

[M]odern cultivars are selected to benefit from later nitrogen (N) availability which includes the spring nitrogen applications tailored to coincide with peak crop demand. Under organic management, N release is largely based on the breakdown of fertility-building crops incorporated (ploughed-in) in the previous autumn. The release of nutrients from these residues is dependent on the soil conditions, which includes temperature and microbial populations, in addition to the potential leaching effect of high winter rainfall in the UK. In organic cereal crops, early resource capture is a major advantage for maximizing the utilization of nutrients from residue breakdown.

To perform well under organic conditions, varieties need to get a fast start, to outcompete weeds, and they need to be good at getting nitrogen from the soil early on in their growth. Organic farmers tend to use older varieties, in part because they possess those qualities. Concerted selection for the kinds of qualities that benefit plants under organic conditions, which tend to be much more variable from place to place and season to season, could improve the yileds from organic farms.

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Quibbling while the world burns

The Soil Association has an ax to grid, sure. But it seems also to have a point — sort of. In a report out a couple of days ago it notes that people have been saying that people have said that food production needs to double by 2050, because of population increase, westernization of consumption patterns and climate change. It then goes on to suggest that people have not said that at all, and that other people should stop saying they had.

Research into the doubling figure shows it doesn’t actually exist in the stated source — and that it is based on a number of incorrect assumptions. The scientific basis for the claims are based on a report which on close inspection actually says production would need to increase by around 70%, not 100%. As the Government states this is a significant difference. The closest the report comes to the doubling claim is projecting that meat consumption in developing countries, except China, could double. The scientific paper that the 50% by 2030 claim is based on appears to have been withdrawn by the authors.

So, first, is this a straw man? It seems not. People really have been quoting the doubling-by-2050 figure.

Second, is it true that the key document usually cited as the source, FAO’s 2006 publication World Agriculture: Towards 2030/2050, does not make the doubling claim? Well, you can check for yourself, but I did some rapid searching and found no such claim. The only reference to a doubling or 100% increase by 2050 came in the context of meat consumption in developing countries (minus China) on page 5.

Some of this growth potential will materialize as effective demand and their per capita consumption could double by 2050, i.e. faster than in the past. It is unlikely that other major developing countries will replicate the role played by China in the past in boosting the world meat sector.

The Soil Association report says that the “only specific statements [in the FAO document] about large percentage increases in demand are focused on the developing world (where the increases in population will be) and concerned only with meat and cereal production, not all food.” In particular:

The largest projected increases in food demand are for cereals and for meat and dairy products. For cereals, there is a projected increase of 1 billion tonnes annually over the 2 billion tonnes of 2005, a 50% increase in cereals by 2050.

Which seems an accurate enough precis of the statement on page 5 of the FAO document:

…an increase of world production by another 1.1 billion tonnes annually will be required by 2050 over the 1.9 billion tonnes of 1999/01 (or 1 billion tonnes over the 2 billion of 2005).

But. FAO also says that “the absolute increases involved should not be underestimated” and “[a]chieving it should not be taken for granted, as land and water resources are now more stretched than in the past and the potential for continued growth of yield is more limited.”

So, sure, a 50% increase in cereal production in developing countries is not the same as a doubling of food production globally, and we should not use figures for which the evidence is thin at best. But it still represents a significant challenge, in particular to breeders. I hope the Soil Association is going to help the world meet it, and not just snipe from the sidelines.