Critics of sustainable agriculture ignore the evidence

Sustainable agriculture is under attack by proponents of chemical agriculture. Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute, a US think tank supported by dollars from the US agri-chemical industry, is currently the most vocal critic. His remarks are regularly quoted by the mainstream agricultural media, and by conventional agribusiness and policy analysts.

Avery believes that the biggest danger to the world's natural environment is lowyield agriculture, a moniker he gives sustainable farming practices. He advocates the use of advanced and high technology farming methods, and claims that it is these approaches, not ecological ones, that will protect the world's remaining wildlife. Avery provides usually unsubstantiated evidence that high yield farming and pesticides actually reduce environmental degradation because these practices save land that would otherwise be farmed. He claims that "High yield farming feeds the world on 5.8 million acres of land .... whereas low-yield organic farming would require 15-16 million acres"¹.

The underpinning of Avery's argument is that yields in alternative systems are dramatically lower than what he describes as high yield systems. His figures on land requirements mean he either believes organic yields to be 40% of conventional, or perhaps a bit higher, but even lower than 40% on the additional land area brought into production to compensate for yield losses.

His yield figures are wrong. The latest literature shows that plant yields in organic systems average 10% below those of conventional systems, with animal yields 20% below. Only in cases where conventional production practices are highly intensive (e.g., some production systems in Europe) is organic production at most 40% less than conventional yields². Avery may also be confusing traditional, low-intensity farming systems, which do have substantially lower yields, with organic systems.

The Avery analysis fails to recognize other important data and doesn't hold up to a critical assessment:

He seems unaware of the existing studies on wholesale conversion to organic systems. Midmore and Lampkin³, from their review of these studies, concluded that additional land demands under organic farming systems would be far less than the Avery estimates. Oelhaf⁴ estimated 17% greater land demands in the USA. Several other studies assume that there are no increases in agricultural land, which reduces overall output. However, domestic food needs are met. Exports do decline in some commodities. If one is committed to the belief that Western nations must feed the world, as Avery appears to be, then export reductions are a serious problem. If one believes, however, that Western export agriculture is a significant contributor to the decline of developing world food production capacity, then the loss of exports, if combined with supports for rebuilding local food economies, provides developing nations a new agricultural development opportunity.
High yield systems require enormous investments of energy and agri-chemicals to be sustained, and the inability to sustain that investment for the long-term is one of the primary driving forces for sustainability.
High-yield farming has systematically reduced productivity on millions of hectares of agriculture land⁵, land that would still be in use were it not for destruction of soil and water resources. For example, 550 million hectares of the world's agricultural lands are losing topsoil or undergoing other degradation as a direct result of poor agricultural methods⁶. The vast majority of this degeneration results from unsustainable agricultural practices, directly or indirectly a result of conventional agriculture. In the UK, some 6% of the agricultural land base is at high or very high risk of soil erosion, all associated with high yield agricultural practices⁷. Conventional farming practices in Canada create soil erosion and cost billions of dollars annually in lost incomes and clean-up expenses⁸. Those same practices are major contributors to the depletion of water resources. "Chemical contamination and eutrophication (from runoff of excess nutrients, mainly nitrogen and phosphorous, from cropland) threaten the productivity of the marine and aquatic systems from which a substantial portion of the world's food supply derives"⁹.
Current conventional practices were never the only routes to achieving high yields. Economists have claimed that synthetic nitrogen fertilization provides high levels of economic return per dollar invested. But this analysis assumes that N-fertilization need not be compared fully to other fertilization strategies, taking into account the associated benefits of these strategies. When this kind of analysis is provided, financial returns from N fertilization do not appear to be much more favourable than other strategies such as green manuring, rotations and animal manures¹⁰. In a similar vein, James provides an indication of the overestimation of economic returns from pesticides¹¹. He compared the traditional valuation of returns from carbofuran use in Western Canadian rapeseed production with the insect control losses associated with the carbofuran-induced deaths of insectivorous birds. He concluded that carbofuran is contributing to a net pest control loss. Similar stories are documented for loss of small animal control in Virginia due to bald eagle pesticide kills and loss of brown planthopper control in Indonesian rice production¹². In the Avery analysis, pesticide value is implicitly overestimated and alternative approaches underestimated.
Diversified systems, in addition to sustaining yields at levels close to conventional, also create more diversified habitats. Organic farming is often associated with increases in populations of insects, birds, soil organisms and small animals¹³. As well, such systems help to preserve plant and animal genetic diversity, diversity that is being destroyed by high-yield production systems.
Many so-called marginal lands can be highly valuable for food production, but not necessarily the dominant commodities using the dominant production practices. Conventional beef production provides an example. The digestive tracts of cattle are designed to consume high cellulose and lignin plant material, things humans can not digest. From an ecological perspective, beef is appropriately raised on pasture lands and not fed grains from highly productive soils that can easily produce food for direct human consumption.
Much of the crop produced in high yield agriculture does not contribute directly to the nourishment of people, instead being used for flowers, sugar, corn syrup for soft drinks and cotton. Over 70% of the USA grain crop goes to feed animals. Most of the Western world consumes too much animal protein and animal fat, and excess simple sugars and carbohydrates to comply with healthy eating guidelines. Consequently, much of high yield agriculture is devoted to producing foods that we should be producing much less of if we wish to have a healthy population.

Because high-yield farming is more expensive, then only the world's wealthier farmers will be able to practice it. The food from these systems will only be available to those who have cash. Two-thirds of the planet's people are dependent on what they produce themselves and do not have enough cash to buy their food. How will they benefit from the Avery approach?

There is a willing audience for Avery's work among those looking to justify the status quo. Those willing to look a little deeper will find another story.

Notes

¹ Smith, R. 1993. Analyst warns US agriculture it may miss `greatest, last opportunity'. Feedstuffs Oct.4/93. p.3,29. See also Avery, D. 1995. Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastic. Hudson Institute, Indianapolis.

² See N.H. Lampkin and S. Padel (eds.). 1994. The Economics of Organic Farming: an international perspective. CAB International, Wallingford, Oxon, UK.

³ Midmore, P. and Lampkin, N.H. 1994. Modelling the impact of widespread conversion to organic farming: an overview. N.H. Lampkin and S. Padel (eds.). The Economics of Organic Farming: an international perspective. CAB International, Wallingford, Oxon, UK. Pp. 371-380.

⁴ Oelhaf, R. 1978. Organic Agriculture: economic and ecological comparisons with conventional methods. Allanheld, Osman, Montclair, NJ.

⁵ See, for example, Pingali, P. 1994. Technological prospects for reversing the declining trend in Asia's rice productivity. In: J.R. Anderson (ed.). Agricultural Technology: policy issues for the international community. CAB International, London. Pp. 384-401.

⁶ Oldman, L.R. et al. 1991. The extent of human induced soil degradation. In: L.R. Oldman et al. (eds). World Map of the Status of Human Induced Soil Degradation. UNEP and Int. Soil Ref. and Info. Centre, Wageningen, Netherlands.

⁷ Evans. 1990, cited in Pretty, J.N.. 1995. Regenerating Agriculture. Earthscan, London.

⁸ Science Council of Canada. 1986. A Growing Concern: soil degradation in Canada. Supply and Services, Ottawa.

⁹ Hewitt, T.I. and Smith, K.R. 1995:3. Intensive Agriculture and Environmental Quality: examining the newest agricultural myth. Henry A. Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture, Washington.

¹⁰ See for example, Caldwell, V.B. 1982. Fifty years of Minnesota corn production: sources of yield increase. Agronomy J. 74:984-990.

¹¹ James, P.C. 1995. Internalizing externalities: granular carbofuran use on rapeseed in Canada. Ecological Economics 13:181-184.

¹² Hewitt and Smith. 1995 [see note 9].

¹³ See, for example, Arden-Clarke. 1988 [see note 9]; Robinson, A.Y. 1991. Sustainable agriculture: the wildlife connection. American J. Alternative Agriculture 6:161-166.

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