As with Christianity over the centuries, over the last 50 years environmentalism’s done an enormous amount of good. Christianity needed some 1500 years before it’s wake-up call came on 31 October 1517 when Martin Luther nailed 95 theses on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg .

These are fast moving times, and environmentalism’s changed much faster than Christianity did.

Forty-seven years after the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring , the corresponding key date to 10/31/1517 in the reformation of environmentalism, is the day in 2009 when Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Discipline: an Ecopragmatist Manifesto reached the bookstores.

It’s not what Stewart Brand says that important (and there is quite a bit I disagree with in the book). It is the open-minded and pragmatic way he goes about questioning the down-side of the romanticism that has dominated the environmentalist movement of the last 48 years. He points out where scientific environmental pragmatism and scepticism got submerged by quasi-religious faith in big ideas that are often wrong. It is these wrong big ideas are now both harming people, and harming the reputation of environmentalism. Environmentalism needs a Martin Luther to rescue it’s reputation.

As he rightly says “it’s fortunate that there are so many romantics in the movement, because they are the ones who inspired the majority in most developed societies to see themselves as environmentalists. But that also means that scientists and their perceptions are always in the minority; they are easily ignored, suppressed, or demonised when their views don’t fit the consensus storyline.” That’s the problem.

This reflexive almost paranoid suppression of critical views comes through of the environmental hierarchy’s common portrayal of those who stray from the party line as being evil or in the pay of vile multinational corporations (or both). This dogmatism is preventing environmentalists from working out themselves where they are wrong.

Brand refreshingly and frankly states that he is willing to change his mind when he realises that the evidence shows his own opinion is wrong. He even gives examples of his own big mistakes. Such intellectual honesty is the way scientists work, as that’s the way science is successful. Science gains by throwing out false opinion. The opinions of science are always subject to change, and scepticism should be, and usually is, welcome. Not only welcome, it is absolutely necessary. Sadly, we are a very rarely see this in environmentalist “advocacy” groups, at least in their public statements. They seem to think that being an advocate means they can forget about scientific due process (although they are happy to claim the credibility of being supported by science). As the recent Glaciergate and E-mailgate scandals about the IPCC demonstrate, we sorely need evidence-based environmentalism to restore full credibility to environmental policies.

I hope that Brand’s wake-up call for greater respect for sceptical hardheaded science is heeded by the various environmentalist lobby groups, because as Brand demonstrates , the issues on which it needs to be brought to bear are important. Brand’s discussion of genetic engineering of crops and food production is perhaps the best single exposition for the intelligent general reader why genetic engineering is needed for pragmatic solutions of important environmental challenges, such as reducing the amount of nitrogen fertiliser used in agriculture, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions caused by the use of this fertiliser.

As Brand has credentials in organic farming, he may finally get through to the great bulk of organic farming community who seem to be the dominant sources of resistance to genetic modification in agriculture. If they took Brand’s advice, they would finally realise that the organic way and genetic engineering are very compatible:

“I have a history with organic farming-more than I realised. Reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2007), Michael Pollan’s natural history of American agriculture, I was surprised by this passage:

Organic Gardening and Farming struggled along in obscurity until 1969, when an ecstatic review in the Whole Earth Catalog [famously written by Brand] brought it to the attention of hippies trying to figure out how to grow vegetables without patronising the military-industrial complex. Within two years Organic Gardening and Farming’s circulation climbed from 400,000 to 700,000.”

To give a further taste of flavour of the book:

“In 2000 project called BioCassava Plus, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, undertook to engineer a radically improved cassava. It had eight goals for the new cultivar. In terms of nutrition, a daily diet should provide all a person needs of bioavailable protein, vitamin A, vitamin E, iron, and zinc. In addition, the new cassava should be free of cyanide, should be storable for two weeks instead of one day, and should be resistant to the viruses that afflict the crop. Each trait would be engineered separately and then stacked into a single all-purpose crop plant. “This is the single most ambitious plant genetic engineering project ever attempted,” says the project leader, plant biologist Richard Sayre from a Ohio State… when all these traits get stacked into what will be a farmer-preferred cultivar from Africa, this work will be done by African scientists in African laboratories. We’re developing the tools mostly in the United States and Europe but once these tools are in place, it becomes an African-owned and developed project.” Field trials have begun in Kenya and Nigeria…

.. another venture of the Gates foundation is the African biofortified sorghum project, with Florence Wanbugu’s Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation leading a consortium of nine institutions, including DuPont-Pioneer. Sorghum is a drought-tolerant staple for 500 million worldwide. The GE version will improve digestibility and vitamin K and E, iron and zinc, and three amino acids. Greenhouse trials are under way in South Africa. (Vitamin A, incidentally, is currently distributed to the developing world in the form of 500 million capsules costing about a dollar apiece. Getting the same amount of vitamin A from a fortified crop will cost about a fifth of a cent.) GE bananas are also being developed to provide a full allowances of vitamins A and E and iron for countries like Uganda, that rely on bananas as their major food source.

“Greenpeace will fight to keep GE bananas, cassava, and sorghum from poor countries’ fields, just as it will keep opposing golden rice, says Janet Cotter of Greenpeace‘s Science Unit in London.” That quote was in an April 2008 issue of Science.

Because the story is being told by an environmentalist with irrefutable Green credentials, the environmental movement will at last wake up to the cruel injustice being inflicted on the world’s poor by well-meaning, well-fed, rich Green romanticists from the developed world.

These well-meaning romanticists are currently able to justify to themselves deliberately impeding the delivery of beneficial genetically engineered food crops to the people who can most benefit from them — the rural poor of the third world, as has just happened in India with insect protected genetically engineered eggplant, banned because of environmentalist activism.

Fortunately Brand’s wonderful book will not be ignored because it makes its statements in a highly direct controversial fashion. He delivers only three short but lethal bullets, unlike the first Martin Luther’s list of 95 theses nailed to the door of the Schlosskirke in 1517.

“Cities are green. Nuclear energy is Green. Genetic engineering is Green” is unavoidable clarity from the new Martin Luther. So look out for them when they arrive in a Penguin paperback edition, due in March, my local bookstore tells me.

——————-

Update May 2010

Pam Ronald, at Science blogs has this to say:

For Earth Day, let’s celebrate Stewart Brand, the distinguished writer, lecturer and author of the classic Whole Earth Catalog, which won the national book award in 1972.

He also has a new book called “Whole Earth Discipline” where he argues that the established Green agenda is outdated, too negative, too tradition bound, too specialized, too politically one-sided to address the scale of environmental problems that we face today.

You might want to check out John Tierney’s column.

“[Stewart Brand] was the one, after all, who helped inspire Earth Day by putting the first picture of the planet on the cover of his “Whole Earth Catalog” in 1968.”

(Continues at link).

A year and a half ago I did some shows to try and revive the program as a standalone podcast, but I realized that I needed to rework the format. Shortly after Pam Ronald and Raoul Adamchak’s book Tomorrow’s Table came out, I recorded an interview with the both of them. But as my revival effort was short-lived I don’t think it got very much attention. So what better than to breathe new life into the interview and broadcast it as my first interview on WSUM? And Tomorrow’s Table just came out in paperback, too, so if you haven’t yet checked out this book (my review here), you can get it from Biofortified’s amazon associate store and help support our blog in the process!

Click here to go to the site and listen to Episode 79. The interview starts at about 24:00 into the show. It was pre-recorded because the air date, January 25, was the day Anastasia and I had dinner with Michael Pollan. On that note, my guest for this week’s show (Feb 1) was Anastasia Bodnar herself, and we talked some more about the Pollan dinner date and about his new book, Food Rules. I’ll be sure to put up a link when that episode is online later this week. And when I know in advance about future interviews about genetic engineering, I might put out a call for some ideas for questions. Vandana Shiva is coming to Madison in March…

Whenever I cover something significant about plant genetics, or conduct a relevant interview I’ll be sure to post a link here on Biofortified. I could make the show mp3′s pop up and play on this blog, however, we have some plans for new media projects for Biofortified, and having my radio show pop up and play on the blog might lead to confusion as to which is the ‘official’ Biofortified stuff and which is not. This is a separate project of my own. But as for the plans we have for this blog, we will tell you more about this later this week!

Farmers, he said, should use the best aspects of organic methods and GM technology to maximise yields while limiting damage to ecosystems. He accepted that organic lobbyists would regard the idea as heresy, but said that genetic engineering could create better organic crops than those grown today with further environmental benefits.

“What frustrates me is there is a real potential for combining GM technology and organic approaches,” said Professor Conway, who stepped down last year as chief scientific adviser to the Department for International Development. “To say that is probably heretical, but there would be real benefits if we got over this notion that GM is somehow not organic.”

He continues, explaining how the pure philosophical basis and underlying assumptions may work against the overall goal. And I’m glad to see that he pointed out how conventional breeding is just as artificial as genetic engineering. (It’s called artificial selection for a reason!)

While the processes used to create GM crops are unnatural, so too is the conventional breeding that has created today’s non-GM varieties. Both methods involve genes that are natural in origin, but genetic engineering can create crops with significant advantages.

The rigidity of organic certification rules can thus work against sustainability by blocking the use of helpful technologies, Professor Conway said.

Current Organic orthodoxy doesn’t currently allow for it, and organic customers aren’t too likely to go for it, yet Conway is optimistic about the future of such an approach.

“I think we are going to end up in a very interesting hybrid world in which we choose the technology because it is appropriate, not because of where it has come from. And 2050 will be like that: it will not be completely high-technology, and it will not be a completely back-tonature world.”

Can we do it in 40 years? I wonder what could be accomplished in 10.

John Reganold and Anastasia at Cafe Beaudelaire in Ames, IA. Frank was waiting in the car, anxious to go pick up Pamela Ronald and Raoul Adamchak from the Des Moines airport.

John Reganold, Regents Professor of Soil Science and Agroecology at Washington State University, recently presented a lecture at Iowa State. I have to admit, a professor of agroecology automatically raises my skeptical eyebrows, but I’d previously read Dr. Reganold’s 2001 letter in Nature: Sustainability of three apple production systems, which was about some pretty solid research, so I was really looking forward to his talk. In this letter, Dr. Reganold and his colleagues showed that organic, conventional, and integrated (aka a mixture of organic and conventional techniques) were each viable methods of farming, each with their own benefits.

During this visit to Sustainable Agriculture Colloquium at Iowa State, Dr. Reganold talked about comparing organic and conventional methods, of course! According to Dr. Reganold, indicators of sustainability include: adequate yields of high quality, economics, environmental impact, and social justice, among others. He said that we need to judge all farming systems, including organic and conventional, on the same indicators.

One indicator of successful farming practices that Dr. Reganold said needed to change is our fixation on yields. Using yield as a measure of agriculture leaves out many factors, including soil, water, and other environmental effects. It also leaves out the human effect. Conventional agriculture, and much of organic agriculture as well, has a very carefree attitude towards social justice. At first, the organic movement did have a strong social responsibility component, but this has become watered down as organic produce and products have become more popular. There are examples of change, though, such as IFOAM (International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements) which is currently working on new employee standards and product labeling, according to Dr. Reganold. He said, “farms aren’t sustainable if they don’t pay their workers enough for them to get health care and save for retirement.” Choosing yield as the sole indicator also doesn’t take into consideration the nutritional quality of the resulting crops.

Nonetheless, yield is a pretty useful indicator. He brought up quite a few studies* that had undertaken the complex task of comparing the yields of organic and conventional methods, concluding that yields of the two systems are comparable. Many of the sustainable ag students, including me, had never heard of many of the studies he mentioned, such as the 1990 paper The comparative productivity of organic agriculture by Gerald Stanhill, which was a meta-analysis, and Organic agriculture and the global food supply by Catherine Badgley. I’m looking forward to reading them when finals are over.

Dr. Reganold, while encouraged by these studies, was clear in pointing out that every situation is different. For example, soil types vary widely. Some soils do well with no-till, while others do not. “The best farming method is site specific”, he said. Organic farming is a major player in sustainable agriculture, but no one method is the solution. There is no one method that will “feed the world”. Instead, creative integration of methods is key. The biggest issues right now are synthetic fertilizers and pesticides – which can be replaced with integrated farming systems. “We’re arguing GMOs versus organic when there is so much ground in-between that is bigger and we are missing it big time”, Dr. Reganold said.

* Dr. Reganold started to bring up the recent report Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use as one example of how organic farming is more environmentally friendly with regards to pesticides, but an audience member beat me to questioning his reliance on this report. He clarified that Bt has decreased insecticide use and that Round Up Ready has increased herbicide use, and said that all herbicides are not created equal, which seemed to me to be an accurate analysis of the report.

Note: Any errors in this review of Dr. Reganold’s talk are unintentional. If you were there and see that I’ve misquoted or misrepresented what he said in any way, please let me know in the comments.

Eating locally is great, but since apples only ripen once per year, and they spoil relatively fast, that means we only have fresh apples for a short time each year. That’s too bad, since apples are a wonderful crunchy snack loved by kids and adults that provide health benefits from their fiber and antioxidants.

Shipping the apples from another place (like New Zealand) extends the time that apples are available, but shipping in refrigerated containers is expensive and results in greenhouse gas emissions, and we all know that those apples from far away just don’t taste as good as local ones.

Scab Resistant Selection RS103-130. Image from "Organic Production of a New Australian-bred Scab Resistant Apple in Queensland, Australia" by Middleton, et. al

There might be a way to have local apples available for a much longer time, as well as to have apples shipped in that use less energy and less pesticides!

After more than 20 years of work, researchers in Australia have developed apples that are resistant to black spot aka apple scab, a fungus that destroys fruit and leaves. The scab resistant line, called RS103-130, also stays fresh and crunchy much longer than typical apple lines. They achieved this through some initial crosses with a crabapple species followed by years of selective breeding. The crabapple provided RS103-130 with the Vf gene complex, which has been previously used to produce transgenic scab-resistant apples, which I’ll describe in more detail shortly. You can find the Australian patent for RS103-130 at FreePatentsOnline.

In 2005 and 2006, comparison experiments showed RS103-130 to have many benefits over Galaxy, a typical non-resistant cultivar (see chart below). According to Middleton, et. al, RS103-130 has off white flesh and medium texture, is crisp, sweet, low-acid, and juicy, with a mild flavor.

Chart from "Organic Production of a New Australian-bred Scab Resistant Apple in Queensland, Australia" by Middleton, et. al.

Because of all of these benefits and the reduced pesticides needed, organic apple growers in Australia are very interested in RS103-130. I wasn’t able to find any information on whether RS103-130 has been commercialized yet, or on how long it might be before I can try them. Apparently something happened with RS103-130 lately, because stories appeared in The Independent and in the New York Daily News last week. Neither of the stories say what prompted the coverage, nor does Treehugger, which picked up on the 1st two. If you know what’s new with these apples, please comment!

My first question upon reading these articles was: why has it taken twenty years?! Selective breeding can be painstaking, especially when you’re talking trees. There is a faster way…

The HcrVf2 gene from a wild apple confers scab resistance to a transgenic cultivated variety showed that the Vf gene can be inserted with biotechnology into apple varieties (in this case, the gene was inserted by Agrobacterium tumefaciens into the Gala apple cultivar). In the introduction of this paper from 2003, Belfanti et. al point out that:

the transfer of these genes by classical breeding to cultivated apples is difficult because of the long juvenile phase, self-incompatibility, and the impossibility of exactly reproducing the heterozygous state of cultivated varieties. Starting from the wild species Malus floribunda 821 carrying the Vf gene, breeders have developed several scab-resistant apple cvs. (2), but not one has met with commercial success. Indeed, when compared with such commercially popular cvs. as Golden Delicious and Gala, the main horticultural and fruit-quality traits of these scab-resistant cvs. are notably different and undoubtedly less acceptable.

Using biotechnology, the researchers were able to confer scab resistance in one generation. In this paper, the authors don’t mention any increase in lifespan for the fresh apples – I’ll look on Web of Science for more info tomorrow. I do appreciate that the authors are hopeful for the future of apple biotech.

The cloning of an apple scab resistance gene represents the basis for further investigation of the resistance mechanism. It also represents a step toward a gene therapy (restoring resistance where lost) of the scab-susceptible cvs. that currently dominate the apple industry. This strategy will allow the transfer of resistance from a wild apple species to any commercial apple genotype while maintaining the horticultural and fruit-quality traits growers and consumers prize most. It may also be possible to achieve greater resistance durability by the simultaneous transfer of several resistance genes from wild apple species. Going one step further, it may be possible to use apple promoters and novel techniques that, by eliminating selective marker genes (38, 39), generate transgenic varieties without any foreign genes and, hence, may make genetically modified plants more acceptable to growers and consumers alike.

I’m particularly interested that Balfanti et. al mentioned cisgenics, although they didn’t use the term. There is potential to insert genes like Vf into many varieties of apples, meaning that cultivars developed for specific microclimates may be quickly made resistant to scab (and potentially given a longer shelf life) without any loss of their other traits. This is a good example of how biotechnology and breeding can have the same results – get a gene into a cultivar – although one takes much longer than the other.

When delegates from 192 nations arrive in Copenhagen in December for the UN COP15 summit, they will confront a 181-page draft negotiation text, 2,000 bracketed passages still in dispute, and just 11 days in which to come to some sort of consensus. To power them through these discussions, Denmark has promised a smorgasbord of ecologically minded fare: All water will be tap (not bottled), tea and coffee will be fair trade, and the food menu will be no less than 65 percent organic.

Though undoubtedly well-intentioned, this last provision is troubling, but not because anyone really cares about the provenance of Ban Ki-Moon’s turnip greens. Rather, it suggests a willful and dangerous ignorance about the tenuous state of global agriculture, and the prospects for feeding 9 billion people while also addressing biodiversity loss, water shortage, and, yes, climate change. Organic foods are enjoying skyrocketing popularity in the US and Europe, as are their ill-defined sidekicks, “natural,” “whole,” and “real” foods. Yet popular notions that these foods—and the agriculture that begets them—are at once better for people and for the planet turn out to be largely devoid of experimental support. Worse still, “organophilia” tends to go hand-in-hand with technophobic skepticism towards the very sorts of scientific approaches most likely to supercharge an ailing food system while leaving our planet intact.

How did this movement get this way?

Unfortunately, what may have begun as a revolt against fake food or, for many, the horrors of concentrated animal feed lots, has given way to a culture that increasingly fetishizes organic, natural, and whole foods with little agreement on what such terms even mean, outside of an emphatic devotion to what they are not: They aren’t in any way related to industrial-scale farms or big-box grocery chains; chemical herbicides or pesticides; biotechnology or its subgenre, genetic engineering. And by those criteria, they are deemed to be safer, more nutritious, and less damaging to the environment.

Someone else has noticed that Organic has been identifying itself by what it is not, rather than what it is. So is organic automatically better? Read the rest and come back!

I particularly liked the part about the rat feeding study… Definitely going to look that one up.

“On May 26, 2009, the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) posted a Global Agriculture Information Network (GAIN) report titled, “The Unexplored Potential of Organic-Biotech Production.”  This report should have been accompanied by a clear statement that the report does not represent the policy of the United States Government, and given this, the report has been removed from the agency’s Web site. It should be noted that USDA’s National Organic Program regulations exclude the use of genetically engineered organisms in organic production. Additionally, FAS has no role in the administration of the National Organic Program.”

It turns out that there was a resounding negative response from certain organizations that do not like genetic engineering – and the very thought of organic + biotech is disconcerting. It led to a pile of emails sent in the USDA’s direction.

The Organic Consumer’s Association told a whopper when they first heard about it:

This USDA report attempting to make the case for “organic genetically engineering” is part of a well-funded campaign coordinated by Monsanto and their governmental, corporate, and non-profit partners to legitimize a dangerous and untested technology.

First of all, USDA employees are very careful about their contacts. Secondly, according to GE opponents, Monsanto is all about the chemicalz. So why would they be interested in GE organic crops, when they can’t sell their roundup herbicide to those farmers? Finally, the OCA has no evidence that the few people promoting the Organic-Biotech partnership, such as Pam Ronald, are funded by Monsanto in any way. No research in her laboratory is funded by any company, for example. This is a cynical attempt at poisoning the well. If they can prevent fans of organic from considering the arguments, then they have accomplished their goal.

The Grassroots Netroots Alliance issued a call to action, which may have been the source of the deluge of emails:

Please use the form below to tell the USDA that you (1) oppose their cynical attempt to promote genetic engineering as potentially organic

One wonders why they are so resistant to this possibility. If Organic agriculture is all about moving toward a more sustainable, biological way of farming, genetically engineered traits that can help that would be an ideal tool to include in that system. The GNA, however, tells us the reason for the opposition:

One reason consumers shop for things that are certified organic is to avoid the ubiquitous and unlabeled genetically engineered and nanotech products that have filled stores in recent years.

After so many years of beating back attempts to contaminate organic with untested technologies, it is very discouraging to learn that the USDA under Obama, just like under Clinton and Bush, is still trying to help industry destroy organic.

What would be “destroyed” is the perception that organic is a refuge for people with food fears. Without that psychological assurance, they fear that they will lose some customers. In my humble opinion, I think organic should be a positive vision of what agriculture should be, not a negative vision of what it shouldn’t.

Jill Richardson of La Vida Locavore says that putting the report up on the web in the first place was a no-no, but I think the knee-jerk closed-minded response of some people to this possibility is the real no-no. The signal they have sent to the USDA is ‘don’t think about how to make agriculture better – just satisfy our predispositions.‘

The Fanatic Cook noticed the report, and did give it some thought, for a millisecond:

“Organic-Biotech.” If ever there was an oxymoron.

Well I suppose you could use an ox in organic ag, but what about the moron? Tee hee. This is one of the problems that genetic engineering in organic agriculture faces – because of how the political lines were drawn early on in the history of organic standards, now people are just defending the standards as-is, without going back to what is the real basis for the exclusion. In other words, they are defending a historical contingency – something that people decided in the past before understanding how genetic engineering could be used to help organic production. And so the status quo is assumed to be the right way, without any thoughtful analysis whatsoever.

Indeed, if Bix at The Fanatic Cook thought about the meaning of Biotechnology, they would realize that organic is biotechnology. A technology using biology, from inserting genes with a gene gun, to making cheese with enzymes and fungi, is a bio-technology. Using cover crops, rotations, beneficial insects, and Bt-toxin producing bacteria are all biotechnologies – Organic is a term that refers to a specific set of biotechnology. The question is, will the organic system and its adherents be open to one more bio-technology in that system, or will we need to look elsewhere for a rational, scientific approach to growing crops?

In the meantime, I have uploaded the USDA report here so that you can still download and read it. The USDA should have never pulled the report form the site – a clarification that the agency is not taking a position on the issue, but is allowing discussion to take place would have been the proper response. Looks like it’s not just the organic folks that are too sensitive to the boat being rocked.

Cyndi Barmore authored a report for the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service titled The Unexplored Potential of Organic-Biotech Production. It was published on May 26, 2009, but I just heard about it now. Here’s the introduction:

The organic movement rejects biotechnology as inherently contradictory to its fundamental goal of promoting environmental protection in agriculture. European organic promoters in particular stress respect for nature over yield maximization, campaigning for a return to traditional production methods and inputs. [1] In reality, the divide between organics and biotechnology is an artificial construction maintained by ideology rather than science. A governmental decision to change organic regulations to permit the use of biotechnology could have far-reaching policy implications for global agriculture. Allowing producers to gain organic certification for biotech crops could encourage the development of a new type of environmentally sustainable agricultural production with greater benefits for the consumer.

The report talks about several biotech traits that could benefit organic growing systems, including salt and drought tolerance, insect and disease resistance, and other losses that biotechnology could address. Barmore also talks briefly about the history of the organic movement, and how many of its goals are in line with the goals of biotechnology. What does she conclude should be done about it?

Governments should change their regulations to allow producers to gain organic certification for biotech crops grown with organic methods. Such a system would better achieve the organic movement’s stated goals of environmental sustainability and the promotion of human health. At the very least, regulations should not include different standards for the unintentional addition of conventional and biotech ingredients in organic products. Doing so unnecessarily increases the stigma of biotechnology, stifling global technological development without scientific justification.

She argues that what is needed are governments to change organic to include biotech. The other option that is not mentioned is to incorporate organic growing methods into a new agricultural standard that also includes some genetically engineered crops. The best name I have heard for this is “Orgenic”.

Interestingly, the report makes no mention of Tomorrow’s Table by Pamela Ronald and Raoul Adamchak, including in its references. Perhaps Barmore didn’t know about the book, but if so, it would have been good to include it so people who are curious could read about it in more depth.

To meet the growing need to feed the world’s population in an environmentally friendly way will require combining the technologies of genetic engineering and organic farming.

To successfully marry these two technologies we will need to overcome long held animosity between scientists, supporters of organic farming and conventional farmers. We will also need to address the antagonism some feel toward the idea of genetic engineering.

The recent debate on the Big Island over genetically engineered crops pitted organic coffee farmers against researchers and the biotech industry, with some organic farmers voicing concern that genetically engineered crops threaten their livelihood and agricultural philosophy.

However, it appears their concerns about food safety are driven more by technological anxiety than by science. Today, the majority of all processed foods in the United States have at least one ingredient from genetically engineered crops and all scientific panels that have studied this matter have concluded that the GE crops currently grown in the United States are safe to eat.

The National Academy of Sciences and the United Kingdom Genetically Modified Science Review Panel have both concluded that the process of adding genes to our food by genetic engineering is just as safe as conventional plant breeding.

Organic farming techniques have proven results in reducing the use of insecticides, and doing so benefits humans and the environment. The question is whether the technology of organic agriculture is robust enough to meet the growing demand for food around the world.

One way to enhance yields is to develop new varieties of crops that can survive harsh conditions such as drought, cold, heat, salt, and flooding. Many of the world’s poorest people farm in areas that are far from ideal. They face tremendous obstacles with soil quality, access to water, pests, and periodic flooding. Organic farming techniques can offer some solutions, but they still have their limits.

It is estimated that pests and disease can reduce agricultural productivity worldwide by 40 percent. If we reduce this loss it would be equivalent to creating more land and more water. However, current pesticide use is a health and environmental hazard.

One logical approach would have to be combining the techniques of organic farming and genetic engineering. Genetic engineering can be used to develop plants with enhanced resistance to pests and disease; organic farming can manage the overall spectrum of pests more effectively.

Genetically engineered crops have already been proven against pests. For example, in central and southern India, where small-scale farmers typically suffer large losses because of pests, average yields of genetically engineered crops exceeded those of conventional crops by 80 percent.

In Hawaii, the 1998 introduction of an engineered papaya plant that could resist the papaya ringspot virus has long been credited with saving the industry. The availability of GE papaya brought struggling growers back into the papaya business and by 2003, production in the region had rebounded. There was no other technology then, including organic farming techniques, to protect the papaya from this devastating disease, nor is there today.

Genetic engineering also helps achieve other goals of the organic farming movement. By reducing the use of pesticides and by reducing pest and disease, it can make farming more affordable and thus keep family farmers in business. It can also assure local food security, an issue of growing concern here in Hawaii.

Worldwide demand by farmers for improved hybrid corn has also made Hawaii’s expanding seed industry the number one agricultural commodity in the state. According to an economic analysis commissioned by the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation, the Hawaii seed industry contributes approximately $144 million of economic activity to Hawaii’s economy. This translates to $7 million in annual taxes to the state, $53 million in annual labor income, and more than 2,000 jobs.

There seems to be a communication gap between organic and conventional farmers, as well as between consumers and scientists. It is time to close that gap. Dialogue is needed if we are to advance along the road to an ecologically balanced, biologically based system of farming.

Science and good farming alone will not be sufficient to provide food security to the healthy, or to the poor and malnourished, or to solve all our current environmental problems. However, without science and good farming we cannot even begin to dream about maintaining such a secure future.

Rather than indulge in speculation and mistrust, let us focus our attention on the facts and to where it matters: the need to support farming methods that are good for the environment and for our children.