The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-intellectuals by Blake Hurst in The American, reminded me of a friend I've known for almost 25 years. She's a physician that specializes in alternative medicine. On more than one occasion she's scolded me for serving my family (gasp) non-organic foods. She is convinced that genetically altered foods, synthetic fertilizers and herbicides are slowly polluting our bodies. It's not clear if this is really true. To be sure, some chemicals - like DDT - have contributed to significant ecological and human damage in the past. But there is science supporting both sides of the argument. For example, worldwide life expectancy has more than doubled and the population has increased by 4 times since 1900 in part because of advances in genetically altered foods, synthetic fertilizers and herbicides.This leads to the real question: would the world be better without industrial agriculture? The answer is: clearly no. The Nobel Laureate and father of the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug, estimates that there is only enough natural nitrogen available on earth to feed 4 billion people (fertilizer is basically nitrogen and it turns out that nitrogen is the most scarce resource for farming). That means that almost 40% of the global population would not be alive today without synthetic sources of nitrogen (i.e. - synthetic fertilizers). Moreover, Hurst, who is a real farmer, argues convincingly that organic farming is more expensive and more harmful to the environment.
We embrace advances in technology in almost every other industry but "expect farmers to use 1930s techniques to raise food." Advanced technology in food production has allowed more people to live and those people to live longer. Insisting on organic foods is asking farmers to produce less at a higher cost, do more damage to the environment, under serve demand and drive worldwide food prices beyond the reach of a third of the world population (clearly the poorest will bear the burden). If we demand more organic foods, farmers will certainly supply them. But should we?
