Our follower and occasional contributor André kindly alerted us to what he calls a European Union mega-conference on biodiversity, going on all this week in Brussels. There may be some agricultural biodiversity in there somewhere. The whole thing is being streamed. And next week Michael Pollan is at the RSA, and you can listen to a feed of that too. I know which one I’ll be following.
Organic farming and climate change: still seeking silver bullets?
There’s a long piece over at the Freakonomics blog examining recent claims about organic agriculture and climate change. Two approaches are contrasted. First, the Rodale Institute’s 2008 report which claimed that organic agriculture could sequester 40% of global carbon emissions. Ah but, carbon dioxide is not the primary greenhouse gas associated with agriculture. Methane and nitrous oxide contribute far more. And organic ag releases far more of those, according to Steve Savage, a plant scientist and blogger, who concludes that “organic farming is not the best option from a climate change point of view”.
At which point everything could descend into the entrenched mud-slinging we’re used to, except that in the Freakonomics piece, it doesn’t. James McWilliams outlines the different ways in which “conventional” and “organic” make their different contributions to climate change, and even goes so far as to suggest that there could be ways in which organic practices could be modified to reduce their contributions (the reverse, not so much).
To me, though, there are a couple of things wrong with the whole approach. One is that the attempt to come up with global estimates of the “productivity” and “carbon footprint” 1 of any single system is bound to run into problems regarding specific elements of the estimate. And then the debate gets bogged down in those elements rather than in trying to move forward. A clear example is that as far as I can tell neither McMillan nor Savage includes the carbon footprint of food transportation. And the model of organic agriculture seems to be one of intensive monoculture, but using manure and organic fertilizers rather than energy-intensive synthetic fertilizers. I’m not saying we need to become geophagous strict locavores, but maybe we do need to look more closely at integrated food and farming systems, on a smaller scale. Climate change may be a global problem, but local efforts can contribute to solutions. I like the idea of just cutting out a couple of meals of factory-farmed red-meat a week myself. Except that I already do. So what’s the next small change I could make?
Nibbles: Nuts, Ug99, Mexican pollinator project, Maize in Africa, Cerrado fruit
- Going nuts in Kyrgyzstan. Ok, sorry, that should read growing. And something similar from Brazil.
- And the bad Ug99 news just keeps on coming. When is wheat gonna catch a break?
- The Campesino a Campesino Pollinator Project. I just love that title.
- Study says “drought tolerant maize will greatly benefit African farmers.” Still no cure for cancer.
- Araticum, Buriti, Pequi, Cagaita, Gueroba, Babassu, Baru: Which one is the next kiwi?
Videos on genebanks set to go viral
Being very Web 2.0-savvy, our friends at the Crop Genebank Knowledge Base project have set up a YouTube channel. So now you can watch a couple of nice little videos on why genebanks are so important. And reflect on what really feeds people. Here’s a clue: it’s not genetic erosion numbers.
Nairobi’s International Day of Biodiversity in pictures
Taz, who describes himself on his blog as a Kenyan science writer, was at the National Museums of Kenya on the occasion of the International Day for Biodiversity, and he kindly left a comment to that effect on our short post on that subject. His own description of the event includes some great photos. Any other reports, from Nairobi and elsewhere?
LATER: Susan MacMillan of ILRI also has some photos from the Nairobi celebrations on her Facebook page.