farming | ukwatch.net

Small Is Bountiful

Tim Holmes — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:40:16 +0000

I suggest you sit down before you read this. Robert Mugabe is right. At last week’s global food summit he was the only leader to speak of “the importance … of land in agricultural production and food security”.(1) Countries should follow Zimbabwe’s lead, he said, in democratising ownership.

Of course the old bastard has done just the opposite. He has evicted his opponents and given land to his supporters. He has failed to support the new settlements with credit or expertise, with the result that farming in Zimbabwe has collapsed. The country was in desperate need of land reform when Mugabe became president. It remains in desperate need of land reform today.

But he is right in theory. Though the rich world’s governments won’t hear it, the issue of whether or not the world will be fed is partly a function of ownership. This reflects an unexpected discovery. It was first made in 1962 by the Nobel economist Amartya Sen(2), and has since been confirmed by dozens of further studies. There is an inverse relationship between the size of farms and the amount of crops they produce per hectare. The smaller they are, the greater the yield.

In some cases, the difference is enormous. A recent study of farming in Turkey, for example, found that farms of less than one hectare are twenty times as productive as farms of over ten hectares(3). Sen’s observation has been tested in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Malaysia, Thailand, Java, the Phillippines, Brazil, Colombia and Paraguay. It appears to hold almost everywhere.

The finding would be surprising in any industry, as we have come to associate efficiency with scale. In farming, it seems particularly odd, because small producers are less likely to own machinery, less likely to have capital or access to credit, and less likely to know about the latest techniques.

There’s a good deal of controversy about why this relationship exists. Some researchers argued that it was the result of a statistical artefact: fertile soils support higher populations than barren lands, so farm size could be a result of productivity, rather than the other way around. But further studies have shown that the inverse relationship holds across an area of fertile land. Moreover, it works even in countries like Brazil, where the biggest farmers have grabbed the best land(4).

The most plausible explanation is that small farmers use more labour per hectare than big farmers(5). Their workforce largely consists of members of their own families, which means that labour costs are lower than on large farms (they don’t have to spend money recruiting or supervising workers), while the quality of the work is higher. With more labour, farmers can cultivate their land more intensively: they spend more time terracing and building irrigation systems; they sow again immediately after the harvest; they might grow several different crops in the same field.

In the early days of the Green Revolution, this relationship seemed to go into reverse: the bigger farms, with access to credit, were able to invest in new varieties and boost their yields. But as the new varieties have spread to smaller farmers, the inverse relationship has reasserted itself(6). If governments are serious about feeding the world, they should be breaking up large landholdings, redistributing them to the poor and concentrating their research and their funding on supporting small farms.

There are plenty of other reasons for defending small farmers in poor countries. The economic miracles in South Korea, Taiwan and Japan arose from their land reform programmes. Peasant farmers used the cash they made to build small businesses. The same thing seems to have happened in China, though it was delayed for 40 years by collectivisation and the Great Leap Backwards: the economic benefits of the redistribution that began in 1949 were not felt until the early 80s(7). Growth based on small farms tends to be more equitable than growth built around capital-intensive industries(8). Though their land is used intensively, the total ecological impact of smallholdings is lower. When small farms are bought up by big ones, the displaced workers move into new land to try to scratch out a living. I once followed evicted peasants from the Brazilian state of Maranhao 2000 miles across the Amazon to the land of the Yanomami Indians, then watched them rip it apart.

But the prejudice against small farmers is unshakeable. It gives rise to the oddest insult in the English language: when you call someone a peasant, you are accusing them of being self-reliant and productive. Peasants are detested by capitalists and communists alike. Both have sought to seize their land, and have a powerful vested interest in demeaning and demonising them. In its profile of Turkey, the country whose small farmers are 20 times more productive than its large ones, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation states that, as a result of small landholdings, “farm output … remains low.”(9) The OECD states that “stopping land fragmentation” in Turkey “and consolidating the highly fragmented land is indispensable for raising agricultural productivity.”(10) Neither body provides any supporting evidence. A rootless, half-starved labouring class suits capital very well.

Like Mugabe, the donor countries and the big international bodies loudly demand that small farmers be supported, while quietly shafting them. Last week’s food summit agreed “to help farmers, particularly small-scale producers, increase production and integrate with local, regional, and international markets.”(11) But when, earlier this year, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge proposed a means of doing just this, the US, Australia and Canada refused to endorse it as it offended big business(12), while the United Kingdom remains the only country that won’t reveal whether or not it supports the study(13).

Big business is killing small farming. By extending intellectual property rights over every aspect of production; by developing plants which either won’t breed true or which don’t reproduce at all(14), it ensures that only those with access to capital can cultivate. As it captures both the wholesale and retail markets, it seeks to reduce its transaction costs by engaging only with major sellers. If you think that supermarkets are giving farmers in the UK a hard time, you should see what they are doing to growers in the poor world. As developing countries sweep away street markets and hawkers’ stalls and replace them with superstores and glossy malls, the most productive farmers lose their customers and are forced to sell up. The rich nations support this process by demanding access for their companies. Their agricultural subsidies still help their own, large farmers to compete unfairly with the small producers of the poor world.

This leads to an interesting conclusion. For many years, well-meaning liberals have supported the fair trade movement because of the benefits it delivers directly to the people it buys from. But the structure of the global food market is changing so rapidly that fair trade is now becoming one of the few means by which small farmers in poor nations might survive. A shift from small to large farms will cause a major decline in global production, just as food supplies become tight. Fair trade might now be necessary not only as a means of redistributing income, but also to feed the world.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/foodclimate/statements/zwe_muga…

2. Amartya Sen, 1962. An Aspect of Indian Agriculture. Economic Weekly, Vol. 14.

3. Fatma Gül Ünal, October 2006. Small Is Beautiful: Evidence Of Inverse Size Yield
Relationship In Rural Turkey. Policy Innovations. http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/policy_library/data/01382

4. Giovanni Cornia, 1985. Farm Size, Land Yields and the Agricultural Production function: an
analysis for fifteen Developing Countries. World Development. Vol. 13, pp. 513-34.

5. Eg Peter Hazell, January 2005. Is there a future for small farms? Agricultural Economics, Vol. 32, pp93-101. doi:10.1111/j.0169-5150.2004.00016.x

6. Rasmus Heltberg, October 1998. Rural market imperfections and the farm size— productivity relationship: Evidence from Pakistan. World Development. Vol 26, pp 1807-1826. doi:10.1016/S0305-750X(98)00084-9

7. See Shenggen Fan and Connie Chan-Kang , 2005. Is Small Beautiful?: Farm Size, Productivity and Poverty in Asian Agriculture. Agricultural Economics, Vol. 32, pp135-146.

8. Peter Hazell, ibid.

9. http://www.new-agri.co.uk/00-3/countryp.html

10. OECD Economic Surveys: Turkey – Volume 2006 Issue 15, p186.
This is available online as a Google book.

I was led to refs 9 and 10 via Fatma Gül Ünal, ibid.

11. http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/foodclimate/HLCdocs/declaration…

12. International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), 2008. Global Summary for Decision Makers. www.agassessment.org

13. IAASTD, viewed 9th June 2008. Frequently Asked Questions. www.agassessment.org

14. Eg Terminator seeds.

10 reasons why organic can feed the world

tim — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:47:12 +0000

1. Yield

Switching to organic farming would have different effects according to where in the world you live and how you currently farm.

Studies show that the less-industrialised world stands to benefit the most. In southern Brazil, maize and wheat yields doubled on farms that changed to green manures and nitrogenfixing leguminous vegetables instead of chemical fertilisers.1 In Mexico, coffee-growers who chose to move to fully organic production methods saw increases of 50 per cent in the weight of beans they harvested. In fact, in an analysis of more than 286 organic conversions in 57 countries, the average yield increase was found to be an impressive 64 per cent.2

The situation is more complex in the industrialised world, where farms are large, intensive facilities, and opinions are divided on how organic yields would compare.

Research by the University of Essex in 1999 found that, although yields on US farms that converted to organic initially dropped by between 10 and 15 per cent, they soon recovered, and the farms became more productive than their all-chemical counterparts.3 In the UK, however, a study by the Elm Farm Research Centre predicted that a national transition to all-organic farming would see cereal, rapeseed and sugar beet yields fall by between 30 and 60 per cent.4 Even the Soil Association admits that, on average in the UK, organic yields are 30 per cent lower than non-organic.

So can we hope to feed ourselves organically in the British Isles and Northern Europe? An analysis by former Ecologist editor Simon Fairlie in The Land journal suggests that we can, but only if we are prepared to rethink our diet and farming practices.5 In Fairlie’s scenario, each of the UK’s 60 million citizens could have organic cereals, potatoes, sugar, vegetables and fruit, fish, pork, chicken and beef, as well as wool and flax for clothes and biomass crops for heating. To achieve this we’d each have to cut down to around 230g of beef (½lb), compared to an average of 630g (1½lb) today, 252g of pork/bacon, 210g of chicken and just under 4kg (9lb) of dairy produce each week – considerably more than the country enjoyed in 1945. We would probably need to supplement our diet with homegrown vegetables, save our food scraps as livestock feed and reform the sewage system to use our waste as an organic fertiliser.

2. Energy

Currently, we use around 10 calories of fossil energy to produce one calorie of food energy. In a fuel-scarce future, which experts think could arrive as early as 2012, such numbers simply won’t stack up. Studies by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs over the past three years have shown that, on average, organically grown crops use 25 per cent less energy than their chemical cousins. Certain crops achieve even better reductions,including organic leeks (58 per cent less energy) and broccoli (49 per cent less energy). When these savings are combined with stringent energy conservation and local distribution and consumption (such as organic box schemes), energy-use dwindles to a fraction of that needed for an intensive, centralised food system. A study by the University of Surrey shows that food from Tolhurst Organic Produce, a smallholding in Berkshire, which supplies 400 households with vegetable boxes, uses 90 per cent less energy than if non-organic produce had been delivered and bought in a supermarket.

Far from being simply ‘energy-lite’, however, organic farms have the potential to become self-sufficient in energy – or even to become energy exporters. The ‘Dream Farm’ model, first proposed by Mauritius-born agroscientist George Chan, sees farms feeding manure and waste from livestock and crops into biodigesters, which convert it into a methane-rich gas to be used for creating heat and electricity. The residue from these biodigesters is a crumbly, nutrient-rich fertiliser, which can be spread on soil to increase crop yields or further digested by algae and used as a fish or animal feed.

3. Greenhouse gas emissions and climate change

Despite organic farming’s low-energy methods, it is not in reducing demand for power that the techniques stand to make the biggest savings in greenhouse gas emissions.

The production of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, which is indispensable to conventional farming, produces vast quantities of nitrous oxide – a greenhouse gas with a global warming potential some 320 times greater than that of CO2. In fact, the production of one tonne of ammonium nitrate creates 6.7 tonnes of greenhouse gases (CO²e), and was responsible for around 10 per cent of all industrial greenhouse gas emissions in Europe in 2003.6

The techniques used in organic agriculture to enhance soil fertility in turn encourage crops to develop deeper roots, which increase the amount of organic matter in the soil, locking up carbon underground and keeping it out of the atmosphere. The opposite happens in conventional farming: high quantities of artificially supplied nutrients encourage quick growth and shallow roots. A study published in 1995 in the journal Ecological Applications found that levels of carbon in the soils of organic farms in California were as much as 28 per cent higher as a result.7 And research by the Rodale Institute shows that if the US were to convert all its corn and soybean fields to organic methods, the amount of carbon that could be stored in the soil would equal 73 per cent of the country’s (would-be) Kyoto targets for CO² reduction.8

Organic farming might also go some way towards salvaging the reputation of the cow, demonised in 2007 as a major source of methane at both ends of its digestive tract. There’s no doubt that this is a problem: estimates put global methane emissions from ruminant livestock at around 80 million tonnes a year,9 equivalent to around two billion tonnes of CO²,10 or close to the annual CO² output of Russia and the UK combined.11 But by changing the pasturage on which animals graze to legumes such as clover or birdsfoot trefoil (often grown anyway by organic farmers to improve soil nitrogen content), scientists at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research believe that methane emissions could be cut dramatically. Because the leguminous foliage is more digestible, bacteria in the cow’s gut are less able to turn the fodder into methane. Cows also seem naturally to prefer eating birdsfoot trefoil to ordinary grass.

4. Water use

Agriculture is officially the most thirsty industry on the planet, consuming a staggering 72 per cent of all global freshwater at a time when the UN says 80 per cent of our water supplies are being overexploited.12,13

This hasn’t always been the case. Traditionally, agricultural crops were restricted to those areas best suited to their physiology, with drought-tolerant species grown in the tropics and water-demanding crops in temperate regions.14 Global trade throughout the second half of the last century led to a worldwide production of grains dominated by a handful of high-yielding cereal crops, notably wheat, maize and rice. These thirsty cereals – the ‘big three’ – now account for more than half of the world’s plant-based calories and 85 per cent of total grain production.15

Organic agriculture is different. Due to its emphasis on healthy soil structure, organic farming avoids many of the problems associated with compaction, erosion, salinisation and soil degradation, which are prevalent in intensive systems.16 Organic manures and green mulches are applied even before the crop is sown, leading to a process known as ‘mineralisation’ – literally the fixing of minerals in the soil. Mineralised organic matter, conspicuously absent from synthetic fertilisers, is one of the essential ingredients required physically and chemically to hold water on the land.

Organic management also uses crop rotations, undersowing and mixed cropping to provide the soil with near-continuous cover. By contrast, conventional farm soils may be left uncovered for extended periods prior to sowing, and again following the harvest, leaving essential organic matter fully exposed to erosion by rain, wind and sunlight. In the US, a 25-year Rodale Institute experiment on climatic extremes found that, due to improved soil structure, organic systems consistently achieve higher yields during periods both of drought and flooding.17

5. Localisation

The globalisation of our food supply, which gives us Peruvian apples in June and Spanish lettuces in February, has seen our food reduced to a commodity in an increasingly volatile global marketplace. Although year-round availability makes for good marketing in the eyes of the biggest retailers, the costs to the environment are immense.

Friends of the Earth estimates that the average meal in the UK travels 1,000 miles from plot to plate.18 In 2005, Defra released a comprehensive report on food miles in the UK, which valued the direct environmental, social and economic costs of food transport in Britain at £9 billion each year. In addition, food transport accounted for more than 30 billion vehicle kilometres, 25 per cent of all HGV journeys and 19 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in 2002 alone.19

The organic movement was born out of a commitment to provide local food for local people, and so it is logical that organic marketing encourages localisation through veg boxes, farm shops and stalls. Between 2005 and 2006, organic sales made through direct marketing outlets such as these increased by 53 per cent, from £95 to £146 million, more than double the sales growth experienced by the major supermarkets.20 As we enter an age of unprecedented food insecurity, it is essential that our consumption reflects not only what is desirable, but also what is ultimately sustainable. While the ‘organic’ label itself may inevitably be hijacked, ‘organic and local’ represents a solution with which the global players can simply never compete.

6. Pesticides

It is a shocking testimony to the power of the agrochemical industry that in the 45 years since Rachel Carson published her pesticide warning Silent Spring, the number of commercially available synthetic pesticides has risen from 22 to more than 450.21

According to the World Health Organization there are an estimated 20,000 accidental deaths worldwide each year from pesticide exposure and poisoning.22 More than 31 million kilograms of pesticide were applied to UK crops alone in 2005, 0.5 kilograms for every person in the country.23 A spiralling dependence on pesticides throughout recent decades has resulted in a catalogue of repercussions, including pest resistance, disease susceptibility, loss of natural biological controls and reduced nutrient-cycling.24

Organic farmers, on the other hand, believe that a healthy plant grown in a healthy soil will ultimately be more resistant to pest damage. Organic systems encourage a variety of natural methods to enhance soil and plant health, in turn reducing incidences of pests, weeds and disease.

First and foremost, because organic plants grow comparatively slower than conventional varieties they have thicker cell walls, which provide a tougher natural barrier to pests. Rotations or ‘break-crops’, which are central to organic production, also provide a physical obstacle to pest and disease lifecycles by removing crops from a given plot for extended periods.25 Organic systems also rely heavily on a rich agro-ecosystem in which many agricultural pests can be controlled by their natural predators.

Inevitably, however, there are times when pestilence attacks are especially prolonged or virulent, and here permitted pesticides may be used. The use of organic pesticides is heavily regulated and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) requires specific criteria to be met before pesticide applications can be justified.26

There are in fact only four active ingredients permitted for use on organic crops: copper fungicides, restricted largely to potatoes and occasionally orchards; sulphur, used to control additional elements of fungal diseases; Retenone, a naturally occurring plant extract, and soft soap, derived from potassium soap and used to control aphids. Herbicides are entirely prohibited.

7. Ecosystem impact

Farmland accounts for 70 per cent of UK land mass, making it the single most influential enterprise affecting our wildlife.27 Incentives offered for intensification under the Common Agricultural Policy are largely responsible for negative ecosystem impacts over recent years. Since 1962, farmland bird numbers have declined by an average of 30 per cent. During the same period more than 192,000 kilometres of hedgerows have been removed, while 45 per cent of our ancient woodland has been converted to cropland.28

By contrast, organic farms actively encourage biodiversity in order to maintain soil fertility and aid natural pest control. Mixed farming systems ensure that a diversity of food and nesting sites are available throughout the year, compared with conventional farms where autumn sow crops leave little winter vegetation available.29

Organic production systems are designed to respect the balance observed in our natural ecosystems. It is widely accepted that controlling or suppressing one element of wildlife, even if it is a pest, will have unpredictable impacts on the rest of the food chain. Instead, organic producers regard a healthy ecosystem as essential to a healthy farm, rather than a barrier to production.

In 2005, a report by English Nature and the RSPB on the impacts of organic farming on biodiversity reviewed more than 70 independent studies of flora, invertebrates, birds and mammals within organic and conventional farming systems. It concluded that biodiversity is enhanced at every level of the food chain under organic management practices, from soil micro-biota right through to farmland birds and the largest mammals.30

8. Nutritional benefits

While an all-organic farming system might mean we’d have to make do with slightly less food than we’re used to, research shows that we can rest assured it would be better for us.

In 2001, a study in the Journal of Complementary Medicine found that organic crops contained higher levels of 21 essential nutrients than their conventionally grown counterparts, including iron, magnesium, phosphorus and vitamin C. The organic crops also contained lower levels of nitrates, which can be toxic to the body.31

Other studies have found significantly higher levels of vitamins – as well as polyphenols and antioxidants – in organic fruit and veg, all of which are thought to play a role in cancer-prevention within the body.32

Scientists have also been able to work out why organic farming produces more nutritious food. Avoiding chemical fertiliser reduces nitrates levels in the food; better quality soil increases the availability of trace minerals, and reduced levels of pesticides mean that the plants’ own immune systems grow stronger, producing higher levels ofantioxidants. Slower rates of growth also mean that organic food frequently contains higher levels of dry mass, meaning that fruit and vegetables are less pumped up with water and so contain more nutrients by weight than intensively grown crops do.33

Milk from organically fed cows has been found to contain higher levels of nutrients in six separate studies, including omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin E, and beta-carotene, all of which can help prevent cancer. One experiment discovered that levels of omega-3 in organic milk were on average 68 per cent higher than in non-organic alternatives.34

But as well as giving us more of what we do need, organic food can help to give us less of what we don’t. In 2000, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that organically produced food had ‘lower levels of pesticide and veterinary drug residues’ than non-organic did.35 Although organic farmers are allowed to use antibiotics when absolutely necessary to treat disease, the routine use of the drugs in animal feed – common on intensive livestock farms – is forbidden. This means a shift to organic livestock farming could help tackle problems such as the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

9. Seed-saving

Seeds are not simply a source of food; they are living testimony to more than 10,000 years of agricultural domestication. Tragically, however, they are a resource that has suffered unprecedented neglect. The UN FAO estimates that 75 per cent of the genetic diversity of agricultural crops has been lost over the past 100 years.36

Traditionally, farming communities have saved seeds year-on-year, both in order to save costs and to trade with their neighbours. As a result, seed varieties evolved in response to local climatic and seasonal conditions, leading to a wide variety of fruiting times, seed size, appearance and flavour. More importantly, this meant a constant updating process for the seed’s genetic resistance to changing climatic conditions, new pests and diseases.

By contrast, modern intensive agriculture depends on relatively few crops – only about 150 species are cultivated on any significant scale worldwide. This is the inheritance of the Green Revolution, which in the late 1950s perfected varieties Filial 1, or F1 seed technology, which produced hybrid seeds with specifically desirable genetic qualities.37 These new high-yield seeds were widely adopted, but because the genetic makeup of hybrid F1 seeds becomes diluted following the first harvest, the manufacturers ensured that farmers return for more seed year on year.

With its emphasis on diversity, organic farming is somewhat cushioned from exploitation on this scale, but even Syngenta, the world’s third-largest biotech company, now offers organic seed lines. Although seedsaving is not a prerequisite for organic production, the holistic nature of organics lends itself well to conserving seed.

In support of this, the Heritage Seed Library, in Warwickshire, is a collection of more than 800 open-pollinated organic varieties, which have been carefully preserved by gardeners across the country. Although their seeds are not yet commercially available, the Library is at the forefront of addressing the alarming erosion of our agricultural diversity.

Seed-saving and the development of local varieties must become a key component of organic farming, giving crops the potential to evolve in response to what could be rapidly changing climatic conditions. This will help agriculture keeps pace with climate change in the field, rather than in the laboratory.

10. Job creation

There is no doubt British farming is currently in crisis. With an average of 37 farmers leaving the land every day, there are now more prisoners behind bars in the UK than there are farmers in the fields.38

Although it has been slow, the decline in the rural labour force is a predictable consequence of the industrialisation of agriculture. A mere one per cent of the UK workforce is now employed in land-related enterprises, compared with 35 per cent at the turn of the last century.39

The implications of this decline are serious. A skilled agricultural workforce will be essential in order to maintain food security in the coming transition towards a new model of post-fossil fuel farming. Many of these skills have already been eroded through mechanisation and a move towards more specialised and intensive production systems.

Organic farming is an exception to these trends. By its nature, organic production relies on labour-intensive management practices. Smaller, more diverse farming systems require a level of husbandry that is simply uneconomical at any other scale. Organic crops and livestock also demand specialist knowledge and regular monitoring in the absence of agrochemical controls.

According to a 2006 report by the University of Essex, organic farming in the UK provides 32 per cent more jobs per farm than comparable non-organic farms. Interestingly, the report also concluded that the higher employment observed could not be replicated in non-organic farming through initiatives such as local marketing. Instead, the majority (81 per cent) of total employment on organic farms was created by the organic production system itself. The report estimates that 93,000 new jobs would be created if all farming in the UK were to convert to organic.

Organic farming also accounts for more younger employees than any other sector in the industry. The average age of conventional UK farmers is now 56, yet organic farms increasingly attract a younger more enthusiastic workforce, people who view organics as the future of food production. It is for this next generation of farmers that Organic Futures, a campaign group set up by the Soil Association in 2007, is striving to provide a platform.

Ed Hamer is a freelance journalist

Mark Anslow is the Ecologist’s senior reporter

References

1 Andre Leu, ‘Organic Agriculture Can Feed the World’ in Organic Farming, Winter 2007, citing Jules Pretty, 2001

2 Pretty, 2006. http://www.rimisp.org/getdoc.php?docid=6440

3 Pretty, 1999, ‘The Living Land’.

4 Cited in Woodward, 2003. http://www.efrc.com/?i=articles.php&art_id=42&highlight=organic

5 Fairlie, 2007, ‘Can Britain Feed Itself?’, The Land, Winter 2007-8.

6 EEA data for EU-15, 2003, for nitric acid production cited by Soil Association

7 Drinkwater LE et al. ‘Fundamental differences between conventional and organic tomato agroecosystems in California’, Ecological Applications 1995, 5(4), 1098-1112.

8 http://www.newfarm.org/depts/NFfield_trials/1003/carbonsequest.shtml

9 US EPA, 1998, ‘Ruminant Livestock and the Global Environment’

10 Using a multiplier factor of 24.5

11 Russia annual CO2 emissions: 1,524,993,000 tonnes; UK annual CO2 emissions: 587,261,000 tonnes.

12 Weis, T. (2007) The global food economy: the battle for the future of farming, Zed Books, London.

13 UNESCO (2006) United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation, World Water Development Report 2006: http://www.unesco.org/water/wwap/wwdr/index.shtml

14 Alteiri, M. (1987) Agroecology: The Scientific Basis of Alternative Agriculture, Westview Press, Boulder.

15 FAO (1997) The State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Food Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, Rome.

16 Lampkin, N. (1990) Organic Farming, Farming Press Books, Ipswich.

17 Lim Li Ching (2005) Organic Outperforms Conventional in Climate Extremes, web accesses: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/OrganicOutperforms.php

18 FOE (2006) http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/green_new_year_resolutions_…

19 Defra (2005) The Validity of Food Miles as an Indicator of Sustainable Development: Final report, Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs.

20 Soil Association (2006) Organic Market Report 2006, Executive Summary, Soil Association, Bristol.

21 Whitehead, R. (1999) UK Pesticide Guide, British Crop Protection Council, CABI Publishing, Cambridge.

22 World Health Organisation (1990) The Public Health Impact of Pesticides Used in Agriculture, WHO, Geneva

23 Pesticide Action Network UK (2007) Pesticides on a Plate, A consumer guide to pesticide issues in the food chain, PAN UK, London

24 Sustain (2003) Myth and Reality, Organic vs. non-organic: the facts, Sustain, London.

25 Francis, C. A. & Clegg, M. D. (1990) Crop Rotations in Sustainable Production Systems, Sustainable Agriculture Systems 107-122

26 International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (1998) Basic Standards for Organic Production and Processing, IFOAM, Germany

27 Soil Association (2006) How does organic farming benefit wildlife? Soil Association 2006.

28 Spencer, J. & Kirby, K. (1992) An inventory of ancient woodland for England and Wales, Biological Conservation 62, 77-93.

29 IFOAM (2003) Organic Agriculture and Biodiversity information sheet, International Federation of Organic Agriculture and Management.

30 Hole, A. G., Perkins, A. J., Wilson, J. D., Alexander, I. H., Grice, P. V., Evans, A. D. (2005) Does Organic Farming Benefit Biodiversity? Biological Conservation, 122, 113-130.

31 Worthington V. Nutritional quality of organic versus conventional fruits, vegetables, and grains. Journal of Complimentary Medicine 2001; 7 No. 2: 161–173

32 Soil Association, 2008: http://tinyurl.com/3aye3g

33 Gundual Azeez, Policy Manager, Soil Association, Personal Communication 01/2008.

34 Soil Association, 2007: http://tinyurl.com/3e3fby

35 Food and Agriculture Organisation, Food Safety & Quality as Affected by Organic Farming, Report of the 22nd regional conference for Europe, Portugal, 24-28 July 2000.

36 FAO (1997) The State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Food Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, Rome.

37 Shiva, V. & Gitanjali, B. (2002) Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security, The Impact of globalisation, Sage Publications, London.

38 Soil Association (2006) Organic Works Report: An investigation into employment on organic farms conducted by University of Essex 2005.

39 ISEC (2002) Bringing the Food Economy Home: Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness, Zed Books, London.

Licensed to Cull

JamieSW — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:20:34 +0000

INTO THE VALLEY OF DEFRA AS BADGERS FACE EXTERMINATION

Flying in the face of all the scientific evidence, the government’s chief scientific advisor David King is urging for war to be declared on Britain’s badger population.

Speaking to a select committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. He contradicted the findings of the ten year and £34 million Independent Scientific Group (ISG) report into the transmission of Bovine TB between badger populations and cattle. The research programme involved extensive extermination of badgers in controlled zones throughout the country and resulted in the trapping and slaughter of 11,000 badgers.

Unsurprisingly it reached the same conclusion that wildlife activists had predicted when they begged the government not to carry out the killing – that transmission of TB in cattle is largely down to cattle. That this no-brainer even warranted such a scheme to prove it is evidence of the intensive farming lobby’s grip on DEFRA (Dept. for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs).

Unfortunately the announcement probably signals another onslaught against wildlife, as the plans outlined by Mr King involve killing all badgers in areas not less than 100 square km, in an obvious attempt to overcome the evidence that shows that culling increases TB spread in neighbouring areas – the larger the area in question, the lower disease collateral damage in percentage terms. Clever eh?

Badger groups nationwide have vowed to take direct action. A spokesman for the the Coalition of Badger Action Groups (CBAG) told SchNEWS, “We took action against the experimental culling in the South West – we were out nine months of the year, chasing MAFF (Ministries for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries – now DEFRA) from their base in Truro. We obstructed them, dismantled traps and freed trapped animals. We were dodging MAFF, dodging farmers and dodging the filth but we destroyed 70% of the traps. Direct action will continue – but we’re going to need numbers if they roll this programme out across the whole country.”

BROCK AND A HARD PLACE

The ISG findings were summarised by John Bourne – the group’s chair: “While badgers are clearly a source of cattle TB, careful evaluation of our own and others’ data indicates that badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain. Indeed, some policies under consideration are likely to make matters worse rather than better… Scientific findings indicate that the rising incidence of disease can be reversed, and geographical spread contained, by the rigid application of cattle-based control measures alone.” – Pretty unequivocal you might think but its not good enough for the farmer-friendly DEFRA. Well what’s a few thousand badgers between friends when there’s all those meat-industry profits to be had?

During the past 28 years, DEFRA (and formerly MAFF) have killed more than 40,000 badgers in a failed effort to halt bovine TB outbreaks. In fact, TB in cattle has been increasing since 1986, including in areas where badgers have been eliminated, or where they have been shown to be free of the disease.

Bovine TB was almost eradicated from the national herd in the 1980s but there has since been a dramatic resurgence, actually neatly mirroring the increased implementation of more intensive animal husbandry techniques. Cases are still currently rising 14% year on year. And the disease cost £80m last year in compensation to farmers who had their animals slaughtered.

But over 80% of the budget for research into Bovine TB is spent on researching the badger link – and not looking into how the increase in TB in cattle goes hand in hand with the increase in all forms of communicable diseases amongst cattle.

TB OR NOT TB

The modern farm animal is a hothouse flower, overbred and pumped full o’ drugs for maximum meat and milk production using all the latest ‘advanced’ veterinary techniques. After a lifetime of overstocking, this animal is then trucked around the country for sale and slaughter.

In human beings, TB flourishes amongst physically and psychologically compromised individuals on poor diets and with inadequate housing. This is a fair description of life in cattle sheds and milking parlours. During winter months, cattle are kept in overcrowded, often badly-designed barns, conditions in which infectious disease spreads.

The persistent focus on badgers distracts from the serious health problems faced by intensively managed cattle in Britain. Many other diseases, such as pneumonia, E. coli, coccidiosis (a fatal diarrhoea), salmonella and mastitis, are also increasing in British cattle herds.

Desperate to defend their highly subsidised agri-business practices, farmers turn time and again to blaming the wildlife.

Responsible for the culling are DEFRA’s Wildlife Unit staff, trained on the use of firearms specifically in relation to killing badgers. When they start to trap, they first lay out the badger traps near known setts and badger runs within the killing area. The traps are camouflaged and baited in a process known as ‘pre-baiting’.

DEFRA will then decide when to start trapping; this can be anything up to ten days from the start of pre-baiting. DEFRA operatives then set the traps, so that badgers can be trapped during the night. DEFRA badger killers then come back in the early morning to check traps in their areas – if a badger is found it will be shot.

Badger traps are about three foot long and eighteen inches square, with a trap door at one end. The traps are made from square weld mesh and are painted black, dark green or brown, (the older traps are unpainted and rusty). They are usually baited with peanuts or sometimes corn and the doors are set with twine. Report any sightings of them to CBAG.

The badger slaughter policy has failed miserably. Bovine TB in cattle has spread to South Wales, Cumbria, Scotland and the Midlands (where next?). Often,TB jumps miles to unaffected areas. Badgers do not travel these great distances. But cattle do. The ISG report analysed culling trials begun in 1998, in which badgers were culled proactively, culled after a TB outbreak on a farm, or not culled at all. The trial, delayed by the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak, was eventually stopped early because reactive culling was clearly counter-productive – in response, the badgers moved around more and spread the disease, resulting in more farm outbreaks.

SchNEWS has learned that despite the ISGs findings, farmers in the Ouse and Cuckmere valleys in Sussex are demanding a badger cull. Local badger groups are already preparing for a robust response. A previous attempt to cull badgers in Saltdean in 2003 (just along the coast from SchNEWS towers) was halted after massive public outcry and the odd bit of scuffling in the street. The government isn’t going to protect our wildlife – are you?

- CBAG website: www.badger-killers.co.uk or call the Badger Hotline: 07896 360927 and for more info on badgers see www.badgertrust.org.uk

EU Farm Subsidies

Steve McGiffen — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 04:29:00 +0000

Farm subsidies are badly spent, but don’t contact DEFRA, don’t write to your MEP...

Ever wondered where all those billions the EU spends on farm subsidies goes? To French farmers, perhaps, who take time out from setting fire to tractors and dumping manure outside public buildings to pick up their fat cheques? Or is much of it spent on the shortly-to-be-abolished system of set-aside, under which farmers are paid to grow nothing at all? Or is it spent to ensure affordable food for people on low incomes?

Actually, small French farmers are being driven off the land in droves, agricultural land in France having fallen in real value by 75% in just over a quarter of a century. Set-aside has been an enormous success in encouraging biodiversity, in part thanks to those same farmers, who believe it or not really do interest themselves in such things. And you know all about the last item on the list.

Subsidies being subject to no effective ceilings, individuals and firms can access huge sums if they know their way around the system. The prince of Monaco, for example, despite not even being resident in the EU, picks up € 300,000 a year, but this is put into the shade by the millions paid out to brewers such as Heineken and the tobacco company Philip Morris. Even the Dutch national airline, KLM stand son the list of recipients.

Things are just as bad in the United States, but there it is quite rightly regarded as a scandal and politicians are being pushed into action. Even the White House has proposed limiting farm subsidies to individuals whose incomes are lower than $200,000 per year.

Why aren’t people similarly up in arms in Europe? Why aren’t they demanding that subsidies go to help farmers who need the money, in return for their fulfilling their role as custodians of the environment and the landscape? Why do they put up with the EU stealing their tax moneys and using them to line the pockets of the already rich?

The implications of what I believe to be the answer to this go beyond the immediate issue. If DEFRA was solely responsible, we would know to whom we should write, where we should demonstrate, and what we should be demanding decision-makers do. Come an election, we could question candidates and read manifestos and vote for those who promised to take action.

So what do you do if the EU is flushing your money down the toilet, or handing it over to fabulously wealthy foreign monarchs?

That wasn’t a rhetorical question, by the way. You can do two things: write to your MEP, or write to the Minister of Agriculture.

The only trouble is, your minister can and will be outvoted, and the European Parliament has no more power over Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy than it does over China’s equivalent.

Of course, only xenophobes and throwbacks oppose the European Reform Treaty, despite the fact that it would represent yet another step away from anything resembling democracy, which I always understood was a system under which the people elected men and women to represent and mediate their various and generally conflicting interests, and that those men and women would then be answerable to them.

So no-one is up in arms about this scandalous waste of money because they know very well that there is nothing whatsoever they can do about it.