Organic Farming Beats Genetically Engineered Corn as Response to Rising Global Temperatures
Web Note: Here is a link to the abstract of the study if you just want a quick overview. The text of the actual study requires a subscription. Sorry for the confusion.
This week
Science published research
(sub. req’d) detailing the vast, global food-security implications of
warming temperatures. The colored graphics are nothing short of
terrifying when you realize the blotches of red and orange covering the
better part of the globe indicate significantly warmer summers in
coming decades.
The implications of the article are clear — we need to be
utilizing agricultural methods and crops that can withstand the
potential myriad impacts of global climate change, especially warmer
temperatures. The article significantly notes, “The probability exceeds
90 percent that by the end of the century, the summer average
temperature will exceed the hottest summer on record throughout the
tropics and subtropics. Because these regions are home to about half of
the world’s population, the human consequences of global climate change
could be enormous.”
Whether you believe global warming is part of a “natural cycle” or a
man-made phenomenon is irrelevant. The bottom line is that our earth is
rapidly warming, and this is going to drastically affect our food
supply. We must undertake both the enormous task of reducing our carbon
emissions now to avert the worst, while at the same time adapting our
society to the vast and multitudinous effects of unavoidable global
climate change. Failing to do either will, as the
Science article indicates, have dire effects on a large portion of our world’s population.
Determining the best course of action for ensuring food security in the
face of global climate change remains a challenging task. Recognizing
that climate change is slated to affect developing countries and
small-scale farmers the most is a crucial point. Such understanding
enables people to realize that viable solutions must be accessible,
affordable, and relevant to the billions of small-scale farmers in the
developing world. Unfortunately, it appears that some of the solutions
on the table fail to meet these criteria.
Last week, Monsanto made a big public relations splash by filing documents with the FDA regarding a drought-tolerant GM corn variety
it is developing with a German company, BASF. Monsanto claims that in
field trials, the corn got 6-10 percent higher yields in drought-prone
areas last year, but the release is extremely short on details.
Regardless of the reality, Monsanto is presenting the corn as a way to
help improve on-farm productivity in other parts of the world, notably
Africa.
Yet, absent from the media hype were the many technical and social problems with Monsanto’s corn.
A little over a year ago, the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics held a conference specific to drought and drought-tolerant crops. As a follow up, the Australian government’s Grains Research and Development Corporation
published a piece detailing the research shared and lessons learned
from the conference. One topic addressed was the potential of GM
drought-tolerant varieties. In the analysis stated, “The most notable
and problematic (effect) is the tendency of drought-tolerant GM lines
to not perform as well under favourable conditions. This appears to be
the case for CIMMYT’s GM wheat and Monsanto’s GM corn. The flaw is a
profound one. It amounts to shifting the yield losses experienced in
dry seasons onto the good years.” In essence, farmers might get a small
bump in yield during droughts, but will suffer yield losses when
conditions are favorable. Considering that climate scientists
continually point to increased erratic weather patterns as a symptom of
global warming, this reality is clearly disastrous. Surely there must
be better solutions that increase production under all weather
conditions
One promising solution appeared in an article published in
BioScience
in 2005. The authors outlined the Rodale Institute’s Farming Systems
Trial, a long-term comparison of organic and conventional farming
systems conducted between 1981 and 2002. Significantly, the trials
found that organic production yielded equivalently to conventional
systems after a transition period. Yet even more importantly, Rodale
found that in drought conditions in which rainfall was 30 percent less
than normal, organic systems yielded 28 to 34 percent higher than
conventional systems. Rodale equates the yield gain to increased water
retention as a result of higher soil organic carbon. Water volumes
percolating through the various systems were 15-20 percent higher in
the organic systems as compared with the conventional systems over the
12 year period.
The
BioScience article additionally noted that the
organic systems used 28 to 32 percent fewer energy inputs, retained
soil carbon and soil nitrogen better, and offered a higher
profitability over conventional systems. What is so significant about
this research is that it demonstrates the ability of organic
agriculture to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions with fewer energy
inputs and withstand climate change impacts like drought with greater
efficacy.
Most importantly, it offers an economical and accessible form of
agriculture for billions of small-scale farmers. Scaling up
agricultural development in rural areas like Africa can be accomplished
with organic methods like manure, compost, and cover crops. Even the
United Nations recognized the opportunity presented by organic
production in a report late last year. Conventional breeding and
improved seeds are also part of the solution. Between 1939 and 2005,
conventional breeding contributed significantly to an almost six-fold
yield-gain in corn in the U.S.
This point is crucial, since the seeds Monsanto is planning to release
will be owned by the company and sold at exorbitant prices. GMO seeds
cost from two to over four times as much as conventional seed
varieties, and the disparity is increasing. How will small-scale
farmers pay for such seeds? How will they pay for the chemicals and
synthetic fertilizers necessary for such production? Shouldn’t we be
looking for solutions that are viable and realistic for those people
who are most food insecure? Monsanto does not have the answers here,
but organic methods can and should be a big part of the solution.
The future of food security in the face of warming temperatures cannot
be based on a system of profits and research that fails to address the
needs of food-insecure farmers. We need real solutions that will enable
farmers to maintain and increase yields with those materials and
techniques already available to them with little extra cost: animal
manure, increased irrigation opportunities, cover crops, compost, and
integrated pest-management systems. Organic agriculture will reduce,
mitigate, and adapt to climate change impacts and still remain
accessible and economic to the billions of subsistence farmers around
the world. If we really want to fight the food crisis, let’s start
investing in and promoting organic production today to ensure better
climate adaptation in the future.