Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has some pretty complicated problems facing his Department. On the one hand, he has biotech companies developing products that have been determined by science to be safe and many farmers who wish to use them. On the other hand, he has a small but growing group of organic farmers who claim that biotech crops will “destroy their ability to farm organically”. He’s looking for coexistence between both types of farmers.
At this time, coexistence between organic and conventional farms is worked out individually by neighbors. On a national scale, organic groups have initiated multiple lawsuits against the USDA in what some say are blatant attempts to prevent biotech crops from being grown at all (sugar beets, alfalfa).
In an effort to solve the problem, a creative potential solution has been devised – partial deregulation of biotech alfalfa. This would “include isolation standards from other crops, set geographic restrictions on where the crop is grown, spell out harvest periods and regulate equipment use,” writes Charles Abbott on Check Biotech.
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The Locavore’s Dilemma
Two economics professors in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Oklahoma State University have written an interesting piece about local food, titled The Locavore’s Dilemma: Why Pineapples Shouldn’t Be Grown in North Dakota. Jayson L. Lusk is Professor and Willard Sparks Endowed Chair of Agribusiness and F. Bailey Norwood is Associate Professor.
In short, the economists argue “there is a tradeoff between providing a larger quantity of more-nutritious non-local foods and a smaller quantity of more-nutritious local foods”, particularly when it comes to school lunches. Individual consumers are free to make whatever shopping choices they wish, but, according to the authors, mandates for public spending on local food aren’t economically sounds and don’t actually provide benefits that promoters of local food say it has.
This is the most comprehensive article on the subject that I have read. Every time I thought “but what about this” the next section covered it. I’m particularly glad they mentioned taste, which in my opinion is the most sound out of all the arguments for eating local.
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