Organics in the News

The rapid adoption by U.S. farmers of genetically engineered corn, soybeans and cotton has promoted increased use of pesticides, an epidemic of herbicide-resistant weeds and more chemical residues in foods, according to a report issued Tuesday by health and environmental protection groups.

The groups said research showed that herbicide use grew by 383 million pounds from 1996 to 2008, with 46 percent of the total increase occurring in 2007 and 2008.

The report was released by nonprofits The Organic Center (TOC), the Union for Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Center for Food Safety (CFS).

The groups said that while herbicide use has climbed, insecticide use has dropped because of biotech crops. They said adoption of genetically engineered corn and cotton that carry traits resistant to insects has led to a reduction in insecticide use by 64 million pounds since 1996.

Still, that leaves a net overall increase on U.S. farm fields of 318 million pounds of pesticides, which includes insecticides and herbicides, over the first 13 years of commercial use.

In the last three decades, childhood obesity in the United States has become a massive public-health problem. According to the Centers for Disease Control, between 1980 and 2006 the percentage of obese teenagers in the United States grew from 5 to 18, while the percentage of pre-teens suffering from obesity increased from 7 to 17. Such children often become overweight adults, leaving themselves especially susceptible to heart illness, Type 2 diabetes, strokes, and some forms of cancer.

These weight problems do not simply stem from a lack of willpower, according to Dr. Tenley Albright, director of MIT’s Collaborative Initiatives program, which uses systems analysis to study broad social issues. Albright is a Harvard-educated surgeon who, two years ago, helped organize an interdisciplinary group of about 10 researchers, from MIT and Columbia University, specifically to analyze the causes of child obesity. Aided by a grant from the United Health Foundation, the team scoured medical and economic data, and consulted with medical researchers, economists and policy-makers, before releasing an initial October 2008 report.

The group’s conclusion: Obesity is widespread due to our national-scale system of food production and distribution, which surrounds children — especially lower-income children — with high-calorie products. “The problem lies not just in a child, but the whole environment around a child,” says Albright. “To end obesity, we need to produce healthier, more accessible, more affordable food.” As Albright notes, 90 percent of American food is processed — according to the United States Department of Agriculture — meaning it has been mixed with ingredients, often acting as preservatives, that can make food fattening.

France`s highest court has ruled that Monsanto lied about the safety of its weed killing herbicide Roundup. The decision came just days ago and confirms an earlier court judgment in France finding that Monsanto had falsely advertised Roundup as being "biodegradable" and that it "left the soil clean."

The original case was brought to court in 2001 by several French environmental groups alleging that Roundup's main ingredient, glyphosate, has a classification as "dangerous to the environment" by the European Union. That case drug on for years and finally ended in a ruling against Monsanto in 2007.

IS eating a hamburger the global warming equivalent of driving a Hummer? It’s true that food production is an important contributor to climate change. And the claim that meat (especially beef) is closely linked to global warming has received some credible backing.

But that’s an overly simplistic conclusion to draw from the research. To a rancher like me, who raises cattle, goats and turkeys the traditional way (on grass), the studies show only that the prevailing methods of producing meat — that is, crowding animals together in factory farms, storing their waste in giant lagoons and cutting down forests to grow crops to feed them — cause substantial greenhouse gases. It could be, in fact, that a conscientious meat eater may have a more environmentally friendly diet than your average vegetarian.

"What time is it?" her friend Jessica Stanley calls. She's busy looping string from a box at her waist around the stakes to support the tomato plants.

"Ten-thirty, and we're halfway done," Jabbar, 26, replies. They've been working since 7 a.m. and staking for the past two hours. "Sore back?"

Stanley says with a sigh: "There's no way to avoid it. I try to move my hands in a different way -- doesn't matter. Well, I guess I'll pound with you."

Stanley, 26, who's working in a camisole tank top, lives in an uninsulated barn on the farm and spends more than 50 hours a week weeding, mulching, harvesting and selling at farmers markets.

Just a year ago, she was making $110,000 a year at Cisco Systems in Herndon, often telecommuting from the two-bedroom condo she owns in Georgetown. Now, she makes $7 an hour. She and Jabbar, along with Jabbar's fiance, Steve Hirschhorn, work for Chip and Susan Planck on Wheatland Vegetable Farms in Loudoun County.

They're part of a growing pool of young, educated, politically motivated workers drawn to farming. Books such as bestseller "The Omnivore's Dilemma," in which Michael Pollan championed the local food movement, are sparking interest in sustainable agriculture, or small-scale farms that embrace humane and eco-friendly practices. Such operations are getting a boost from Community Supported Agriculture, a system that lets customers pay in advance for a weekly share of a nearby farm's crop; the number of members participating in CSAs grew 50 percent between 2007 and 2009. The number of farmers markets in the United States has jumped by almost 13 percent over the last year. Even the White House now has its own organic garden.

Farming, which many city folk once associated primarily with children's books and distinctive if not entirely flattering tan lines, is suddenly in vogue. Never mind that most of the food we eat comes not from cozy acreages reminiscent of the setting of "Charlotte's Web" but from big corporate operations. Never mind that census data tell us that fewer than half of family-run farms show a positive net income (in other words, most farmers need day jobs). Even though farming no longer quite makes it as "a way of life," it's somehow become the next best thing (or maybe an even better thing): a lifestyle.

Perhaps it started with last year's reality dating show, "Farmer Wants a Wife," which spent eight weeks assaulting viewers with footage of low-rent Carrie Bradshaws chasing chickens in an attempt to win the heart of an improbably chiseled Missouri farmer. That show didn't exactly achieve "Bachelor"-level ratings, but a few weeks ago, when the Huffington Post featured a photo gallery of "hot organic farmers," the response was so overwhelming that it did yet another spread. From a pallid hipster growing organic vegetables on a Brooklyn rooftop to a strapping Californian whose specialty lettuce crops are bathed in golden sunlight, the photos suggest that running a farm -- at least the kind that appears far removed from pesticides, corporate contracts and furtive meth-cooking in abandoned barns -- is very similar to modeling for the Sundance catalog.

Old MacDonald had a farm… but was it organic?

Two young organic farmers representing Organic Valley presented a workshop entitled, “An Introduction to Organic Farming and Gardening,” at the 2009 National FFA Convention. About 300 FFA members and guests attended the first of two workshops presented by Organic Valley, a farmer-owned organic cooperative based in Wisconsin. This marks the fourth year that Organic Valley representatives attended National FFA Convention and the second year Organic Valley has presented a workshop.

Joe Pedretti, Organic Valley Farm Outreach Manager, said the relationship between National FFA and Organic Valley is an important one to garner interest in younger generations. “One of the big misconceptions is that organic is trying to promote itself as better than other types of agriculture. But really what we want to show folks is that’s an alternative… it’s another option,” Pedretti said.

Preston Green and Sarah Holm, both college students in Wisconsin, presented the workshop, citing their farms as examples of organic success stories. “I can honestly say if it weren’t for Organic Valley, my family wouldn’t be farming today,” Green said. “My dad can tell me honestly that he wants me to farm. He knows there’s a future in organic agriculture and he knows there’s a future in agriculture for me.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency are asking farmers to use coal ash to grow their crops, despite a paucity of research on possible risks, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). USDA endorses use of coal combustion wastes by farmers "for crop production" while acknowledging uncertainty on the extent to which "toxic elements" are absorbed into produce entering the market.

This month, USDA enters the final year of a three-year partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency as part of a larger effort by the American Coal Ash Association, the Electric Power Research Institute and others to "promote appropriate increased use of" coal ash in agriculture. The implementing Memorandum of Understanding obliges USDA to generate "documentation of the effectiveness, safety and environmental benefits, including bioavailability of trace elements such as mercury, arsenic and selenium...to satisfy the concerns of producers, generators, regulators and the public."

A report from GRAIN discusses how agriculture can put back much of the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into the soil.

Soils contain enormous amounts of carbon, mostly in the form of organic matter. The report shows that industrial agriculture, and thus the global food system, has spewed large amounts of this carbon into the atmosphere. Policies focused on restoring soil fertility - restoring the organic matter in the soil which has been lost - would make a huge contribution to resolving the rapidly escalating climate crisis.

In 50 years, soils could capture about 450 billion tons of carbon dioxide - more than two thirds of the current excess in the atmosphere.

We need a revolution in our food delivery system because the global $3.2 trillion processed-food industry is undermining our health and significantly contributing to our carbon footprint.

Let’s take a quick look at how produce in Massachusetts makes it to our grocery store shelves. Quite likely it was picked in California’s Central Valley, the mother of all breadbaskets. The produce journeyed across the country from the field to the wholesaler to a retailer and finally to your dinner table. Total travel time, about 12 to 14 days.