You see those organic labels everywhere
August 31st, 2009 at 12:15pm Jennie Pollock
So how much U.S. cropland is farmed organically? Less than 1 percent, according to the USDA.
I learned this in Time’s recent story about the environmental price of cheap food. If you don’t read the whole thing, here is its message in a nutshell.
We don’t have the luxury of philosophizing about food. With the exhaustion of the soil, the impact of global warming and the inevitably rising price of oil — which will affect everything from fertilizer to supermarket electricity bills — our industrial style of food production will end sooner or later. As the developing world grows richer, hundreds of millions of people will want to shift to the same calorie-heavy, protein-rich diet that has made Americans so unhealthy — demand for meat and poultry worldwide is set to rise 25% by 2015 — but the earth can no longer deliver. Unless Americans radically rethink the way they grow and consume food, they face a future of eroded farmland, hollowed-out countryside, scarier germs, higher health costs — and bland taste. Sustainable food has an élitist reputation, but each of us depends on the soil, animals and plants — and as every farmer knows, if you don’t take care of your land, it can’t take care of you.
Each week on this blog, you can learn more from local experts and farmers about eating locally.
Entry Filed under: Organic, Green home, Eat locally, In the news
1 Comment Add your own
1. Ken R | September 10th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Whoa – I went back and read the entire Time magazine article. Usually I’ve found Time articles to be rather balanced. Unfortunately that is not the case with this article.
As a 5th generation N IL farmer, I found that it was rather one sided and contained many misleading statements. We “face a future of eroded cropland?” No, because we use minimum tillage and no-till cropping practices to prevent erosion and keep soil where it belongs. No-till is where the farmer plants the seed directly into last year’s crop residue. The last figure I saw placed Illinois number one in the use of no-till.
The rising price of oil will impact our ability to use our most popular and cost effective fertilizers. With petroleum the main component, we are using university and private research to make better use of nitrogen and other nutrients. Split application, variable rates, and other practices have reduced the amount of nitrogen applied per acre.
I found it interesting that the opening paragraph of the Time article leads readers to believe that livestock manure is a hazardous material stored for an indefinite time. I think many are left with an impression of manure being similar to the spent fuel at our nearby nuclear plant. However, in reality the manure is removed once or twice a year and applied as an organic fertilizer to cropland. Manure is the primary replacement for petroleum based fertilizers.
It’s good that readers learn about their food and where it comes from. Buying locally is a good way to help support the smaller farmers. But the biggest local threat to farmland is the growth of the towns and cities. As long as elected officials approve developments on farm land in lieu of promoting redevelopment of existing commercial, industrial, or residential land, then farmland will be threatened. By choosing who represents them, the people of Rockford, Machesney Park, Loves Park, Roscoe, and others directly decide the future of local food and farmland.
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