Last year an article in the Economist pointed out some of the complexities and contradictions within the organic, Fair Trade, local food movement. The article is well written and provocative, but is it accurate? My attention was particularly drawn to statements made my Norman Borlaug, father of the Green revolution:

[Borlaug] claims the idea that organic farming is better for the environment is “ridiculous” because organic farming produces lower yields and therefore requires more land under cultivation to produce the same amount of food…The more intensively you farm, Mr Borlaug contends, the more room you have left for rainforest.

Unfortunately Borlaug produces no evidence to backup his claim. Does organic farming produce lower yields? In this case, there is little evidence to either refute or corroborate his claim.

Research that I have personally conducted has shown that chemically intensive agriculture shows yields across the board. The best explanation for variability in yields is rational management of critical farm inputs, like fertilizers, labor, and pesticides. A chemically intensive farm may yield as much as 35 to 40 tons of onions per hectare, or as little as 12 tons per hectare. It isn’t the use of chemicals that makes the difference, it is the capability and intelligence of the farmer.

I suspect that this is the case in organic agriculture as well. But with several important caveats. Organic agricultural is, by its nature, a greater mental challenge, so that the farmer is forced to think harder, be more observant, and get better leverage from other resources like local extension agents, researchers, and organic consultants. So organic agriculture creates the mindset that is, as I have mentioned, conducive to higher yields.

Moreover, monoculture is in fact wasteful of space, as it doesn’t take full advantage of the synergistic relationships that can exist between different species of plants, and other organisms like insects, fungi, and birds. This year I have mixed beans into the spaces between my tomato plants; the beans benefit from the climbing space provided by the foliage and tomato cages, while the tomatoes benefit from the added nitrogen fixed by the beans. And Paul Stamets has just begun to open our eyes to the possibilities that mushroom species like Stropharia rugoso annulata and Hypsizygus ulmaris may increase the yield of grain and vegetable crops.

And what about Borlaug’s second point? Do fertilizers save rainforests? Funny that as fertilizer use has increased, so too have deforestation rates, erosion and siltation rates, and eutrophication in aquatic ecosystems. If there is indeed a direct correlation between fertilizer use and rainforest preservation, it sure doesn’t seem like it.

The author, further weighing the criticisms against local food production, goes on to say:

a shift towards a local food system, and away from a supermarket-based food system, with its central distribution depots, lean supply chains and big, full trucks, might actually increase the number of food-vehicle miles being traveled locally, because things would move around in a larger number of smaller, less efficiently packed vehicles.

The sentence is carefully crafted to raise doubt, while at the same time leaving room for ambiguity (“might actually increase”). The fact that we have yet to develop highly efficient mechanisms for local delivery of food doesn’t mean that we can’t or that we won’t. The local food movement is in its infancy; and by nature it is decentralized and non-hierarchical; just like every other emerging industry, local food must learn to crawl before it can walk, to speak before it can write. What is revealed here is a subconscious contempt for small business and local entrepreneurship, and an almost religious zeal for corporate efficiency.

A paucity of comparative research in yield, cost of production, and carbon footprints leaves many of us, aware of the Rumsfeldian “known unknowns”, scratching our heads at statements like those made by Borlaug and the Economist. A blog post on liam’s ruminations offers a more insidious explanation, suggesting that this is a case of “corporate knowledge production”.

f that is the case, then the tactic is a simple one, and in fact they’ve taken a page right out of Microsoft’s playbook. Using Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) is an easy tactic here, because it is well known that making a lifestyle change is much more difficult than following the status quo. By creating an atmosphere of uncertainty and doubt, the awakening consumer is once again jolted into a sense of despair and impotence. At its core, FUD is an attempt to prolong inertia.