It’s agrarian versus industrial
I was quite taken aback by the recently published article, “Debate on method a costly distraction” (Opinion, Aug. 13.)
The article began by arguing, with what I think was limited success, that organic food was no more nutritional than conventionally produced food.
The writers concluded with remarks about how conventional agriculture can feed the world. How the two are related is beyond me.
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First, it should go without saying that if an independent review is sourced, the funders of that review should be mentioned as their input can sway results heavily. It would be interesting to know what 162 scientific papers were used in this review as well as how nutritional was both qualified and quantified.
Which foods from which farms were tested? What were the criteria used for selecting the scientific papers, some of which are now 50 years old?
Who funded the research behind these papers? Without these details, the argument is moot.
Whether organic is nutritionally superior to conventional is trivial, and is truly only a distraction.
I am by no means a blind supporter of organic as it can be produced at an industrial scale similar to conventional.
The true differences between organic and conventional are sustainability and scale. And for that matter, what has been labelled organic should really be understood as agrarian and conventional as industrial.
The back-to-the-land movement, which gave birth to the modern organic movement, started more than 40 years ago and was driven by people who were looking for smaller scale alternatives to the highly industrialized food systems that were, and are, destroying the quality of their rural landscapes.
Forty years ago, a group of conscious and intelligent citizens acknowledged the destruction industrial agriculture was wreaking on soil, air and water quality.
Forty years later, these issues continue to plague our countryside. Industrial food production relies heavily on inputs and gives nothing back to the soil.
Industrialized methods are leaning far too seriously on oil at all levels of their production.
The production of synthetic inputs, epic 800 horsepower combines and the transportation of goods all over the world, all of which are crucial steps in the industrial food system, all depend an enormous amount on an inevitably dwindling oil supply.
Intelligent consumers are looking for sustainable food produced at a human scale, not something merely labelled organic.
As for the absurd remarks about being able to feed the world, I would ask who exactly is feeding the world? And what is qualified as the world?
If conventional was feeding the world, why is there overwhelming starvation? Why are there so many children dying of malnutrition?
I cannot understand why we need to produce six billion tons of food if we are only really sharing it with the rest of developed world, which according to the United Nations is only 1.2 billion out of the 6.7 billion people who make up the world’s population.
The surplus we are left with is poured into select foreign communities at artificially low prices, which is destroying small localized economies.
Is it right that as a result of our industrial production methods, citizens in foreign countries are unable to sustainably exchange goods while the soils of our land are irreversibly embezzled of nutrients and eroded into our waterways?
I am compelled to say no.
Moreover, the issue of feeding the world is much greater than simply producing enough food to feed it. Corrupt politicians and a legacy of colonial ties has crippled much of our world.
I find it hard to believe that pillaging our soils of nutrition to produce obscene surpluses, which have not, are not and will not be redistributed evenly throughout the world’s population, will feed anyone but wealthy North Americans.
I am of the option that the debate is not, and has never been, simply between organic and conventional.
It is between agrarian and industrial.
The core issue of this whole debate is that of scale. To quote long-time agrarian author Wendell Berry, “I believe that this contest between industrialism and agrarianism now defines the most fundamental human difference, for it divides not just two nearly opposite concepts of agriculture and land use, but also two nearly opposite ways of understanding ourselves, our fellow creatures and our world.”
He goes on the write, “Industrialism begins with technological invention. But agrarianism begins with givens: land, plants, animals, weather, hunger, and the birthright knowledge of agriculture.
Industrialists are always ready to ignore, sell, or destroy the past in order to gain the entirely unprecedented wealth, comfort, and happiness supposedly to be found in the future.
“Agrarian farmers know that their very identity depends on their willingness to receive gratefully, use responsibly, and hand down intact an inheritance, both natural and cultural, from the past.
Agrarians understand themselves as the users and caretakers of some things they did not make, and of some things that they cannot make.”
Bickering about the nutritional differences between production systems is truly a petty distraction from the actual global and local issue of food security.
Until there is a paradigm shift within the psyche of both producers and consumers, we will continue to pillage our soil and starve our people indefinitely until there is nothing left of either.
HAVE YOU ever downloaded music from the internet? Do you know anyone else who has?
Have you ever sent a copy of a song you liked to a friend? When you did, were you sharing a treasured experience and giving a gift, or were you shoplifting and passing along stolen goods?
Those are different images for the same activity, aren’t they?
Joel was 16 in 2003 when he received a letter demanding $5,250 for seven songs he had downloaded through a file sharing service on the internet. He was scared by this official and legal letter demanding payment so, with help from his parents, he sent a cheque for $500 and explained that he was a high school student and couldn’t afford anything more than that.
They offered to settle for $3,500 and his cheque was returned.
Joel graduated from high school and moved to Boston to attend university. Four years had passed when he received a notice requiring him to appear in court. He was being sued, along with some 30,000 other people, by companies like Sony Music, Warner Brothers and Arista records, all coordinated by the Record Industry Association.
Joel offered to settle for $5,000 but the record companies now wanted $10,500.
At this point a law professor offered to represent Joel. Charles Neeson holds the William F. Wed chair in law at Harvard University, where he is also the founder and co-director of the Birkman Center for Internet and Society.
Neeson believes the internet is a digital version of the old common grazing lands of the 17th century. He believes the internet was started as an open domain but has been fenced off by capital investors who want to increase their profits through new exclusive property rights.
Joel lost his court case this summer, as expected. He was found guilty of downloading 30 songs and required to pay compensation of $22,500 per song. That means $675,000. He will appeal.
Sociologists will tell you that markets are embedded in society through law, politics and morality. However, it is possible for markets to be partly embedded and partly separate.
The market for property rights in digital music is embedded in American law through the Digital Theft Deterrence Act.
However, it is not embedded in morality. Not only are there professors and academic institutes that think digital file sharing is not theft, there are artists too.
John Perry Barlow, lyricist for the famous musical group The Grateful Dead, believes that the on-line world presents us with a new form of the gift economy “where no moral blameworthiness attaches to non-commercial sharing.”
When new markets are created, morality is often contested. When public libraries were created, large publishers campaigned against them because borrowing books was going to take away their profits. It is still possible to find old paperbacks with a notice inside the front cover warning the reader that this book could not be lent or even resold.
Markets require legitimacy – political, legal and moral legitimacy. When Mahatma Gandhi marched his followers to the sea to get their own salt, he was breaking the British law by refusing to pay the salt tax.
Was he a criminal? According to the British colonial legal system, yes. Was he morally right? According to the Indian people, even more so.
You can follow Joel’s story for free at http://joelfightsback.com.
