Boutique farming

An article in the Independent points out that organic farming is in many cases worse for the environment than conventional methods. This is primarily due to the fact that organic methods are much less efficient, and therefore consume more energy and land:

Similar findings were recorded with organic chickens, where the longer growing time means it has a higher impact on all levels, including producing nearly double the amount of potentially polluting by-products and consuming 25 per cent more energy.

Vegetable production was also highlighted as a source of increased use of resources. Organic vine tomatoes require almost 10 times the amount of land needed for conventional tomatoes and nearly double the amount of energy.

It is important to understand that buying organic foods is not a choice of greater morality. Rather, it is a decision to buy a nicer product at a premium price. It is a boutique product for people of means.

Which I think is a fine thing, but it should not be conflated with making a moral decision. I can afford to buy a nice suit. I can drink single malt Scotch. I can buy a tricked out computer. And I can buy organic tomatoes. None of these makes me a better person.

In the rich West, we've moved far enough up Maslow's hierarchy that we can eat not just for sustenance, but for self-esteem.

If we do want to imbue morality into our food choices, we should should be doing everything we can to improve the efficiency of food production to bring down the price. Between 1 and 2 billion people on the planet still do not have enough to eat, which is an economic problem. The problem exists in places where agriculture is difficult and/or where economic systems do not reward production.

Put it this way: to those for whom money is an object, an affordable, conventionally grown green pepper provides a lot more value than an unaffordable, organic one.

Penn & Teller do an excellent job making this point, with a guy named Norman Borlaug:

(h/t Instapundit and Memeorandum)

Comments

[The Gentle Cricket]

along these same lines, combustion of Ethanol produces a greater amount of Carbon Dioxide (the gas allegedly causing global warming) per unit of energy than Gasoline! Thus, while Ethanol may be portrayed as an eco-friendly alternative, it is anything but!

[poptones]

Man, you folks have a fantastic way of oversimplifying basic science.

First, GC, I think you have confused carbon dioxide with carbon monoxide. Both are regulated by the gov, but carbon dioxide production is a natural part of virtually all organic processes - trees rotting, cows farting, people breathing, etc. Carbon monoxide is also a product of incomplete combustion and generally presents a greater hazard, especially in "bowls" like LA and mexico city, because of the particular way it interacts with noxides of nitrogen - another notorious byproduct of internal combustion energy.

The major difference is, however, that when these oxides are produced from biomass fuels (corn, trees, etc) that biomass can be replaced - it's the cycle of life in a car engine. We don't have the landmass, however, to make up for those Billions of BTUs being farmed from deep wells. We're dumping 100,000 years of natural energy processes back into the atmosphere over a couple of centuries.

Now, corporate farming methods rely on the use of fertilizer, which is also produced from that oil. More oil is used in the mechanical production of the fertilizer, the transport of the fertilizer, and the distribution of the fertilizer. For the sake of argument let's call the last two issues a wash... that stil leaves us with the production of the fertilizer. Using organic methods the "energy" used in production comes from biomass and the sun... NOT from a deep well of energy 100,000 years dead and buried.

Raising chickens "organically" may even use five times or fifty times as much energy as raising them in factories - so what? Most of that energy is not coming from oil, it's coming from the sun and from the biosphere, which means it's a neutral balance.

No doubt we would be hard pressed to feed the world using existing organic methods... but oversimplification of the issue while ignoring half the facts do nothing to bolster your argument.

"Carbon footprint" is just another benchmark exploited by the oil companies to make us all feel like good little consumers as we haul off the weekly recyclables; the source of that carbon is every bit as important. Direct conversion of electricity from wind or the sun also provides btus to be measured in that "carbon footprint" (never mind the fact it was helium and hydrogen a billion miles away - not a direct conversion of terrestrial carbon - that provided the source of that energy).

[Jeremayakovka]

I am very glad to have and to exercise the choice to buy organic produce, dairy, "free range" meats, etc. Imho, they're not terribly more expensive than standard, mass-produced foods.

But oh I loathe the reclusive righteousness common among organic devotees.

***

Towards the end of Newt Gingrich's address at last month's NR Conservative Summit, he speaks to conservatives taking the initiative in environmental innovation. (He also says he's writing a book, Contract With the Earth.)

[Tman]

poptones,

Interesting you would use ethanol as an example. You are aware that US ethanol trade has been so dramatically intensified that the lower classes in Mexico are having serious problems affording what used to be there one cheap readily available foodstuff?

[poptones]

I didn't choose ethanol as an example at all - I was simply correcting a bit of misinformation in another post.

If Mexicans are having a hard time buying corn, that means there's greater demand for corn. You can likewise expect a rise in meat prices (especially beef) because that industry also relies heavily on this delicious feedstock.

But... what does this have to do with anything I said? Ehtanol doesnt HAVE to be made from corn - Brazil has been making it from cane (and far more efficiently) for years. They even used to make record albums out of the stuff, back when people still bought turntables. Anyway, the point remains: ehtanol is essentially "neutral" so long as it is employed in the production (to fire the distillers, etc) because the carbon "converted" is not mined from ancient reserves.

I didn't see anything terribly alarming in that article - did you read all of it?

I am shocked by the price quoted for tortillas in mexico, though - I don't pay much more than 15 pesos for the same amount of them here in the middle of the US. That's gotta be rough, but it's surely a transient problem - just as the conversion to ethanol in Brazil spiked sugar prices for a time; ultimately, production of ethanol in Brazil stimulated more and efficient cane production.

[poptones]

"A dramatically simplified tax code that favors savings, entrepreneurship, investment, and constant modernization of equipment and technology."

From what I have seen by the positions espoused on his website, Newt also wants to put out a "contract" on the middle class and the Constitution.

[David Barrie]

I love your title 'Boutique Farming'. For there's a real danger just now of fashion, lifestyle and mercantilism being translated in to an enduring and all-important trend.