New Strategy To Verify Authenticity of Claimed Organic Foods

The high cost and popularity of organic foods can be an incentive to try to pass off pesticide-treated foods as organic. Pesticide detection can be challenging, or even impossible, especially because some of these substances break down rapidly after being applied, leading to a false impression that a food has not been treated.

 However, a bit of pesticide on the surface of a fruit doesn't necessarily signal intentional fraud. The compound might have just blown over from a neighboring field. To help improve the practice of verifying organic foods, Jana Hajslova and colleagues developed a method to analyze the metabolites generated within plants when pesticides break down, using an experimental vineyard as their testing ground.

The researchers used a combination of ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography and high-resolution mass spectrometry to identify and screen the metabolites of seven common pesticides. The team then used the method on the leaves and fruits of treated grapevines at different intervals between planting and harvest, as well as the wine made from the treated fruits.

With the technique, the team observed decreasing levels of the initial pesticides as degradation occurred. The group also detected the metabolites of these substances as their levels varied over time. Many metabolites were still detectable at higher levels than the applied pesticide compound in wine made from the treated fruits, meaning that organic wines, not just fruits and leaves, could potentially be verified using the strategy. The researchers say that their methodology, with some refinement, should aid in food regulators' efforts to crack down on illegal practices in organic farming.

PhysOrg

Cameroon's Ndanifor Permaculture Eco-village in the news

Mostly away from the limelight, there are innumerable efforts by locals all over Africa to address the perennial issues of dealing with issues of declining soil fertility, yield losses due to climate change, poorly accessible and expensive farming inputs and many others that plague small scale farmers.

Permaculture is one such ideology/group of methodologies. Spoken of passionately by its practitioners as part of 'sustainable agriculture' particularly suited to small scale and resource-poor farmers, it is pooh-poohed by others as unrealistic romanticism by opponents of 'modern' agriculture.

 Ndanifor Permaculture Eco-village in Cameroon has been featured in an article by IPS. While the article delves a little into the motivations behind the founder's efforts, it is unfortunately very short of specifics about actual farming practises, lessons learned and challenges faced, or results. The photo used to illustrate the article shows little to give one the impression that the no doubt well-intentioned initiative is yet doing or achieving much. Perhaps it's early days for the effort.

 The website of the mother organisation, Better World Cameroon, is unfortunately not any more forthcoming on actual work going on, although there are pitches for donations of various resources and materials.

African Agriculture

An example of blended agro-ecological and conventional farming: growing maize with 'fertilizer trees' and reduced inorganic fertilizer

Nitrogen-fixing 'fertilizer trees' have long been used by farmers in farming-difficult areas such as parts of the Sahel. Rainfall is poor, the soils are often sandy and infertile, and yet there are several varieties of acacia and other nitrogen-fixing trees which do well there.

That these trees benefit other crops growing under or between them has long been known. What is perhaps fairly new in recent years is the more scientific study of the phenomenon, and its deliberate encouragement in parts of Africa that have not previously widely used these trees as an additional soil fertility supplementation strategy.

Given all this, 'Can Integration of Legume Trees Increase Yield Stability in Rainfed Maize Cropping Systems in Southern Africa?' seems like a somewhat superflous question whose answer is already known.

Nevertheless, researchers at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) have been undertaking a 12 year study to find answers to the question. The 'hook' they used to justify the study and give the impression of finding something new was that they were studying the 'stability' of the yields of maize intercropped with Gliricidia sepium.

Amongst the findings:

* the control fields of conventional (inorganic fertilizer-using) maize monocultures had the highest

* close behind were the yields for maize intercropped with Gliricidia sepium and then supplemented with 50% of the inorganic fertilizer that would normally be used in 'conventional' maize monocultures.

This is an interesting practice long used by 'resource poor' farmers-using 'agro-ecological' farming techniques to stretch out and supplement the relatively small amounts of inorganic fertilizers they can afford to buy. This is real world small holder farming, not the pie-in-the-sky 'fully organic or death' mantras mouthed by activists in cushy donor-funded offices in town, worlds away from the realities of scratching out a living from the land..

The study's conclusion: "Maize yields remain more stable in maize–gliricidia intercropping than in fertilized maize monoculture in the long term, although average yields may be higher with full fertilization."

Hardly a ground-breaking study or findings, but still interesting.

African Agriculture

Gambia's Njawara Agricultural Training Center teaches ecological farming

Njawara Agricultural Training Center in Gambia was began by Badarra Jobe, who left comfrtable urban life to go and 'give back' to his rural community by disseminating knowledge about ecological farming.

He is the recipient of an Ashoka Fellowship, awarded to social entrepreneurs all over the world who are selected for their innovative solutions to social issues. He was one of 100 people chosen by the World Bank to go to Washington to present his project proposal on farmer-led value addition, allowing farmers to conduct on-farm processing and thus get a higher price for their crop.

more...Policymic

Blended organic-conventional farming could feed the world

by Steve Baragona

In rural Maryland, an hour-and-a-half drive from Washington, Bill Mason is tilling his fields to plant organic maize and soybeans. About two-thirds of his 340 hectares are organic, but not all of them. And that bothers some people.

“There are some die-hard organics," Mason says. "They think every organic farmer should not be planting any conventional.”

As both an organic and conventional farmer, Mason sits right in the middle of a long-running debate over how best to feed the world.

Demand for organic food - produced without artificial fertilizers or pesticides - is growing worldwide, but some experts doubt a growing world population can be fed if farmers don't use these chemicals.

An April study in Nature (Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture) found organic farming is 25 percent less productive on average than conventional farming.  But while some say we cannot feed the world with organic agriculture, others say we cannot feed the world without it.

Critics of conventional farming say excessive fertilizer use pollutes waterways, kills fish and contributes to climate change. Customers will pay a premium for food produced without pesticides and fertilizers.

But Mason says his organic crops typically do not produce as much. “We are finding that our corn yields are about three-quarters of the yield of a normal conventional crop."

Ecological consequences

With those lower yields, feeding the world organically could require clearing more land for farms.

“We’ll have to get more land into cultivation to do it that way," says Columbia University soil scientist Pedro Sanchez, "with horrible, negative ecological consequences.”

Experts say deforestation to make way for agriculture is already contributing to climate change and a loss of biodiversity.

And farmers will have nine billion mouths to feed by mid-century, which puts agriculture in a difficult position.

“Right now, we can’t feed 9 billion people with the ways we’re farming, whether it’s conventional or organic,” says U.S. Department of Agriculture researcher Michel Cavigelli.

Working both sides

So experts are working on both sides of the equation. Cavigelli is working to improve the productivity of organic farms using natural fertilizers like chicken manure. The trouble, he says, is that often it does not provide enough nutrients.

“We need to improve all systems. And so, what’s the best way to do that, both to feed the world’s population but also to do it in the way where we’re not destroying the planet?”

Many of the African farmers Pedro Sanchez has worked with have used synthetic fertilizers to triple their yields, making a huge difference in their food security.

Blended solution

“But as a scientist, I don’t like that as the solution," Sanchez says. "And I will not preach it as the solution. I want to integrate that with organically-produced nutrients.”

Organic nutrients, such as fertilizing cover crops, have worked out for Bill Mason and his conventional-farming neighbors are taking notice.

“I think there’s ideas that we’re using that are carrying over to the conventional world,” Mason says.

So the ideal solution to feeding a world of nine billion might not necessarily be a choice between organic or conventional farming, but rather a blend of both.

VOA

A Swiss organic farming training manual for Africa, funded by the Gates and Syngenta foundations: are organic agriculture’s promoters selling out to their ideological foes?

by Chido Makunike

A new organic farming manual for trainers of African farmers has been published by the Switzerland-based Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL.) It is hoped that the African Organic Agriculture Training Manual will ‘’encourage application of new technologies for sustainable agriculture.‘’  

FiBL has a solid reputation in the promotion of organic agriculture. There is also no serious doubt that some variation of organic agriculture is what the vast majority of African farmers employ. Any initiatives to improve their efforts must be considered welcome.

There are some who pooh-pooh organic agriculture as part of the reason for low productivity in African farming. However, until the critics also provide realistic answers to how to widely avail African farmers of fertilizers and other external inputs, these remain mere ivory tower arguments.

According to a September 29 2011 media release, ‘’the manual is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture.’’   

The Gates Foundation has thrust itself to the center of developments in African agriculture, to mixed views. It has carefully distanced itself from charges that it is an advance army for the introduction of GM technology, still an emotive issue in much of Africa. But these denials are considerably weakened by the foundation’s investments in Monsanto, the leading commercial force in GM seed technology. In the minds of some, fairly or unfairly, it becomes very difficult to separate the Gates Foundation’s philanthropic activities in African agriculture from its stake in Monsanto’s commercial activities, despite the foundation’s protests that the two are entirely separate and unrelated. 

Syngenta may have a ‘sustainable agriculture foundation,’ but its fame is as a purveyor of synthetic agro-chemicals, which even supporters and users would have a hard time convincingly arguing can be considered ‘sustainable.’ Not as well known is that it is also a significant player in the development of GM seeds.

For now, Africa may constitute a relatively small market for GM technology and agro-chemicals, but this could change explosively in coming years. It is hardly surprising that companies like Monsanto and Syngenta are positioning themselves for the windfall if and when that happens.  

Sometime during the work of compiling the manual, which FiBL on its website said begun in 2009, the organization said it was a ;‘a collaboration of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), National African Organic Agricultural Movements (NOAMs) and agricultural experts from all parts of Africa.’'

Given the foregoing, it is easy to see why the Gates and Syngenta Foundations would be happy to be associated with such a training manual. On a simple philanthropic level, it must be assumed that they are glad to assist with an effort that addresses where many African farmers they hope might be their future customers are now in their farming developarly as ideological as many activists who claim to speak on their behalf. The small but growing farmer of today may well be the purchaser of hybrid or GM seed tomorrow, or of herbicides.  

The Gates and Sygnenta foundations can likely also count on the quite considerable benefit of association with the chain of organizations said to have been involved in putting together the manual.

Whatever criticisms there are of it, organic agriculture is undoubtedly a politically correct cause in Africa, unlike GM seeds and agrochemicals. For the Gates and Syngenta foundations, funding a training manual for organic farming in Africa is a low bucks, high-return way to be linked to a sexy, feel-good cause. It can to some extent be used effectively to offset the negative associations (fair or unfair) of being perceived by some as greedy commercial interests wanting to make poor African farmers dependent on expensive, inappropriate proprietary seed and chemical technologies.  

That the organic farming manual is said to have been put together with the input of many ostensibly on-the-ground organizations obviously adds to its cachet for those who fund it. 

But if the many benefits for the Gates and Syngenta foundations of funding the manual seem fairly obvious, it is not quite as easy to see why the beneficiaries who put together the manual would accept funding that seems at best highly controversial. If the donor foundations have much to gain, the recipient organizations would seem to have at least as much to lose by being perceived by some as having been compromised and ‘bought’ by their ideological opponents.

According to the ‘principles of organic agriculture,’ the voluntary practitioners of this type of farming accept that it does not, cannot go hand in hand with the use of GM seeds and most synthetic agrochemicals. While the Gates and Syngenta foundations may deliberately sell what they support very broadly, FiBL and its manual-compiling partners would seem to have a set of defining beliefs that would put them fundamentally at odds with Syngenta, and arguably also with a good part of the work of the Gates Foundation, particularly (but not only) if the Monsanto shareholding angle is taken into account.

Formal organic agriculture is not taken terribly seriously by most African governments as a significant contributor to the continent’s farming and economy, despite the frequently heard ‘organic agriculture can feed the world’ mantra. It is mostly treated as the default position from which Africa must move on. Arguably, lobbying/advocacy for organic agriculture to be better understood and supported by African governments is its most pressing need, rather than yet another pretty training manual.

One also wonders if African farmers are not a lot more knowledgeable than many activists repeatedly think them to be, as shown by how many ‘projects’ to supposedly help them are structured. Very often, the major stumbling block for small scale farmers to making big productivity gains is not so much lack of know-how of techniques appropriate to them, but lack of the means to apply them. PDF training manuals do nothing to address this.       

Many ‘sustainable agriculture’ proponents/GM opponents seemed to have been caught off guard by Kenya’s recent open embrace of GM maize imports, with local cultivation not far off. However you soften the blow, this was a huge setback for GM opponents, of whom the promoters of organic agriculture would have been expected to be in the lead.

Yet a curious aspect of the aftermath of Kenya’s announcement was the deafening silence of some of the leading African and other proponents/defenders of organic agriculture. A few did raise their heads, but many seem to have curiously lost their voices.   

Africa is clearly going to use a mix of agricultural technologies to try and meet its food and economic needs. It is helpful and useful for understanding the range of choices on offer when their various proponents can speak clearly and independently, so the competing pros and cons can be well understood and evaluated for appropriateness.

When proponents of organic agriculture accept funding support from pushers of methodologies that have hitherto been said to be fundamentally incompatible with organic farming, it sends very confusing signals. Perhaps more ominously, it suggests a chilling of what should be free, open and robust debate on the different agricultural development pathways on offer.    

Perhaps the new FiBL organic farming training manual will help some African farmers, if there really is a significant number who don’t understand the importance of weeding, how to make compost, and why/how to apply mulch. But does the odd-seeming source of the FiBL manual’s funding not represent a retreat, a capitulation, a surrender to monied interests whose methods negate a lot of the core of what organic agriculture is said to stand for?

African Agriculture 

European fashion group C&A to source more sustainably produced African cotton

C&A, one of Europe’s leading fashion groups, has joined the Cotton Made In Africa initiative’s Demand Alliance. In 2012 the company plans to take up 1,000 tonnes of sustainably produced African cotton for its textile products. This additional demand supports the initiative in improving the living conditions of some 240,000 smallholder farmers and their families in Benin, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Malawi and Ivory Coast.

“We’re happy to respond to our customers’ demand for fashion produced in a socially and environmentally sustainable way”, says Phil Chamberlain, Head of Sustainable Business Development at C&A. “Cotton Made In Africa offers us a great opportunity to use a high-value raw material with added social value in our textiles.”

With this sustainably produced cotton, C&A widens its already extensive engagement in the organic cotton sector. In 2012 it plans to take up 1,000 tonnes of African cotton; in 2013, 1,500 tonnes and in 2014, 2,000 tonnes of Cotton Made In Africa are to be processed into C&A textiles.

Cotton Made In Africa provides participating smallholder farmers with cultivation methods that both conserve the environment and raise crop yields, while providing training and education for adults and children. Besides C&A the Otto Group, PUMA, Anvil and Tchibo are also Demand Alliance Partners.

Cotton Made in Africa

Organic cotton market grows 20%

According to a report by Textile Exchange (formerly Organic Exchange) released, neither the recession nor unstable economies put a damper on the fast-growing organic textiles industry which grew 20 percent to an estimated $5.61 billion in 2010.

Several brands and retailers more than doubled their usage of organic cotton alone and plan to do so in 2012 as well. Others with large programs are staying the course. As a result, Textile Exchange projects the global organic cotton market will increase another 20 percent in 2011 to result in an estimated $6.2 billion market in 2011 and $7.4 billion market in 2012.

2010 was the first year that Textile Exchange requested data regarding industry use of sustainable fibers including recycled and cellulosic fiber. Two fibers, recycled polyester and Tencel were the two leading fibers in terms of quantity reported by responding companies, with all respondents indicating substantial increases in use of those and other sustainable fibers in the upcoming years. The 2010 results will form the base line for next year’s report.

Textile Exchange

Busting myths about organic farming

by Christie Wilcox

People believe a lot of things that we have little to no evidence for. One of the things I like to do is bust commonly held myths that I think matter.”

Ten years ago, Certified Organic didn’t exist in the United States. Yet in 2010, a mere eight years after USDA’s regulations officially went into effect, organic foods and beverages made $26.7 billion. In the past year or two, certified organic sales have jumped to about $52 billion worldwide despite the fact that organic foods cost up to three times as much as those produced by conventional methods. More and more, people are shelling out their hard-earned cash for what they believe are the best foods available. Imagine, people say: you can improve your nutrition while helping save the planet from the evils of conventional agriculture – a complete win-win. And who wouldn’t buy organic, when it just sounds so good?

Here’s the thing: there are a lot of myths out there about organic foods, and a lot of propaganda supporting methods that are rarely understood. It’s like your mother used to say: just because everyone is jumping off a bridge doesn’t mean you should do it, too.

Now, before I get yelled at too much, let me state unequivocally that I’m not saying organic farming is bad – far from it. There are some definite upsides and benefits that come from many organic farming methods. For example, the efforts of organic farmers to move away from monocultures, where crops are farmed in single-species plots, are fantastic; crop rotations and mixed planting are much better for the soil and environment. My goal in this post isn’t to bash organic farms, instead, it’s to bust the worst of the myths that surround them so that everyone can judge organic farming based on facts. In particular, there are four myths thrown around like they’re real that just drive me crazy.

Myth #1: Organic Farms Don’t Use Pesticides

When the Soil Association, a major organic accreditation body in the UK, asked consumers why they buy organic food, 95% of them said their top reason was to avoid pesticides. They, like many people, believe that organic farming involves little to no pesticide use. I hate to burst the bubble, but that’s simply not true. Organic farming, just like other forms of agriculture, still uses pesticides and fungicides to prevent critters from destroying their crops. Confused?

.. turns out that there are over 20 chemicals commonly used in the growing and processing of organic crops that are approved by the US Organic Standards. And, shockingly, the actual volume usage of pesticides on organic farms is not recorded by the government. Why the government isn’t keeping watch on organic pesticide and fungicide use is a damn good question, especially considering that many organic pesticides that are also used by conventional farmers are used more intensively than synthetic ones due to their lower levels of effectiveness.

The sad truth is, factory farming is factory farming, whether its organic or conventional. Many large organic farms use pesticides liberally. They’re organic by certification, but you’d never know it if you saw their farming practices.

What makes organic farming different, then? It’s not the use of pesticides, it’s the origin of the pesticides used. Organic pesticides are those that are derived from natural sources and processed lightly if at all before use. This is different than the current pesticides used by conventional agriculture, which are generally synthetic. It has been assumed for years that pesticides that occur naturally (in certain plants, for example) are somehow better for us and the environment than those that have been created by man. As more research is done into their toxicity, however, this simply isn’t true, either. Many natural pesticides have been found to be potential – or serious – health risks.

Take the example of Rotenone... Research found that exposure to rotenone caused Parkinson’s Disease-like symptoms in rats, and had the potential to kill many species, including humans. Rotenone’s use as a pesticide has already been discontinued in the US as of 2005 due to health concerns...

The point I’m driving home here is that just because something is natural doesn’t make it non-toxic or safe.

Myth #2: Organic Foods are Healthier

... science simply cannot find any evidence that organic foods are in any way healthier than non-organic ones – and scientists have been comparing the two for over 50 years.

Just recently, an independent research project in the UK systematically reviewed the 162 articles on organic versus non-organic crops published in peer-reviewed journals between 1958 and 2008  They found absolutely no evidence for any differences in content of over 15 different nutrients...

Joseph D. Rosen, emeritus professor of food toxicology at Rutgers, puts it even more strongly. “Any consumers who buy organic food because they believe that it contains more healthful nutrients than conventional food are wasting their money,” he writes in a comprehensive review of organic nutritional claims.

Strong organic proponents also argue that organic food tastes better. In the same poll where 95% of UK organic consumers said they buy organic to avoid pesticides, over two-thirds of respondents said organic produce and meats taste better than non-organic ones. But when researchers had people put their mouths to the test, they found that people couldn’t tell the difference between the two in blind taste tests.

So, in short, organics are not better for us and we can’t tell the difference between them and non-organic foods. There may be many things that are good about organic farming, from increased biodiversity on farms to movement away from monocultures, but producing foods that are healthier and tastier simply isn’t one of them.

Myth #3: Organic Farming Is Better For The Environment


Yes, organic farming practices use less synthetic pesticides which have been found to be ecologically damaging. But factory organic farms use their own barrage of chemicals that are still ecologically damaging, and refuse to endorse technologies that might reduce or eliminate the use of these all together. Take, for example, organic farming’s adamant stance against genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

GMOs have the potential to up crop yields, increase nutritious value, and generally improve farming practices while reducing synthetic chemical use – which is exactly what organic farming seeks to do. As we speak, there are sweet potatoes are being engineered to be resistant to a virus that currently decimates the African harvest every year, which could feed millions in some of the poorest nations in the world.

Yet organic proponents refuse to even give GMOs a chance, even to the point of hypocrisy. For example, organic farmers apply Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin (a small insecticidal protein from soil bacteria) unabashedly across their crops every year, as they have for decades. It’s one of the most widely used organic pesticides by organic farmers. Yet when genetic engineering is used to place the gene encoding the Bt toxin into a plant’s genome, the resulting GM plants are vilified by the very people willing to liberally spray the exact same toxin that the gene encodes for over the exact same species of plant. If the goal is protect the environment, why not incorporate the newest technologies which help us do so?

But the real reason organic farming isn’t more green than conventional is that while it might be better for local environments on the small scale, organic farms produce far less food per unit land than conventional ones. Organic farms produce around 80% that what the same size conventional farm produces (some studies place organic yields below 50% those of conventional farms!).


The unfortunate truth is that until organic farming can rival the production output of conventional farming, its ecological cost due to the need for space is devastating. As bad as any of the pesticides and fertilizers polluting the world’s waterways from conventional agriculture are, it’s a far better ecological situation than destroying those key habitats altogether. That’s not to say that there’s no hope for organic farming; better technology could overcome the production gap, allowing organic methods to produce on par with conventional agriculture. If that does occur, then organic agriculture becomes a lot more ecologically sustainable. On the small scale, particularly in areas where food surpluses already occur, organic farming could be beneficial, but presuming it’s the end all be all of sustainable agriculture is a mistake.

Myth #4: It’s all or none

The point of this piece isn’t to vilify organic farming; it’s merely to point out that it’s not as black and white as it looks. Organic farming does have many potential upsides, and may indeed be the better way to go in the long run, but it really depends on technology and what we discover and learn in the future. Until organic farming can produce crops on par in terms of volume with conventional methods, it cannot be considered a viable option for the majority of the world.

What bothers me most, however, is that both sides of the organic debate spend millions in press and advertising to attack each other instead of looking for a resolution. Organic supporters tend to vilify new technologies, while conventional supporters insist that chemicals and massive production monocultures are the only way to go. This simply strikes me as absurd. Synthetic doesn’t necessarily mean bad for the environment.

I also firmly believe that increasing the chemicals used in agriculture to support insanely over-harvested monocultures will never lead to ecological improvement. In my mind, the ideal future will merge conventional and organic methods, using GMOs and/or other new technologies to reduce pesticide use while increasing the bioavailability of soils, crop yield, nutritional quality and biodiversity in agricultural lands. New technology isn’t the enemy of organic farming; it should be its strongest ally.

As far as I’m concerned, the biggest myth when it comes to organic farming is that you have to choose sides. Guess what? You don’t. You can appreciate the upsides of rotating crops and how GMOs might improve output and nutrition. You, the wise and intelligent consumer, don’t have to buy into either side’s propaganda and polarize to one end or another. You can, instead, be somewhere along the spectrum, and encourage both ends to listen up and work together to improve our global food resources and act sustainably.

Scientific American

In defense of organic agriculture

by Tom Laskawy

''Mythbusting" Scientific American blogger Christie Wilcox took on organic agriculture recently. Now, I do agree that there should be no sacred cows -- we should examine everything with a critical, if not jaundiced, eye. And indeed Wilcox brings up issues surrounding organic ag about which many people may not be aware. But sadly, her analysis goes quickly and seriously off the rails.

First the good points: Organic ag does use pesticides, sometimes in large quantities. This is not a new revelation: There are a set of pesticides approved for organic use, including copper and sulfur anti-fumigants and the naturally occurring Bt toxin. Copper and sulfur in particular are often overused, especially among fruit growers. While these chemicals can be used by any scale of farmer, it's a particular problem among so-called "industrial organic" farmers.

As the organic industry has taken off, many large-scale farmers have in essence adapted the industrial agriculture mindset -- with its monocropping, its focus on inputs and outputs and maximizing productivity -- if not all its techniques.

Wilcox should also be commended for her point that the main criteria for allowed organic pesticides are simply that they be "naturally occurring" rather than synthetic. As she says, "just because something is natural doesn't make it non-toxic or safe." Too true.

So far so good. Next up, she knocks down health claims about organic food; this is where the problems start. While this issue is actually very much in flux, Wilcox doesn't treat it as such. Instead, she cites a 2010 review paper that concludes "any consumers who buy organic food because they believe that it contains more healthful nutrients than conventional food are wasting their money." Wow -- pretty clear cut, right?

But science isn't nearly at a place where anyone can definitively make that claim. Some evidence shows conventionally grown food is decreasing in nutritional quality, and we've collected credible data showing organic food is more nutritious... It's simply going too far to suggest the science on the matter is settled, and thus unfair to call the health evidence "mythical."

But Wilcox's worst offense came with an attempt to bust the "myth" that "Organic farming is better for the environment." Her bizarre claim defies even a cursory understanding of how agriculture (conventional or organic) works, but rather than attempt to defend it, Wilcox immediately declares that the "solution" to all our problems lies with GMOs:

GMOs have the potential to up crop yields, increase nutritious value, and generally improve farming practices while reducing synthetic chemical use ... And with that, Wilcox moves from science to science fiction.

None of the fabulous features she claims for GMOs exist commercially -- and most don't even exist in the lab. In fact, strong evidence demonstrates that, despite Wilcox's claims, even GMOs' basic productivity lags behind non-GMO crops.

And her embrace of "therapeutic" food is chilling. In her vision, genetic modification is all benefit and no risk. And if recent history has taught us anything, it's that there is no such thing as the elimination of risk. It's crucial we fully understand the implications of futzing with animal and plant genes before we introduce them into the environment, much less feed them to people. And we simply don't know as much as industry and government want us to think we know.

In fact, the reason that the science behind GMOs is shockingly thin is that it's almost entirely performed by the biotechnology industry or by industry-funded scientists. Independent scientists are either not allowed access to the patented technology behind GMOs or are restricted in what they can study, e.g. they can't get access to the seeds unless they promise not to look at the human health effects of these seeds.

And even the things that GMOs can do -- like produce pesticides or resist herbicides -- are beginning to fail. A report from India shows that the country's cotton crop is being devastated by insects -- even genetically engineered Bt cotton, which produces its own pesticide. (So much for the "magic" of a GMO seed that needs no additional chemicals.) Even scarier: The pesticide produced by these kind of crops is turning up in the blood of women, despite biotech industry promises that such a thing simply could not happen.

While we're at it, check out the latest issue of Weed Science, which researches the rise of superweeds -- a phenomenon resulting in large part from the broad planting of GMO crops resistant to Monsanto's herbicide glyphosate.

Don't get me started on her "feeding the world" argument, given that conventional ag, which has already almost entirely made the transition to GMOs (especially where grains are concerned) has utterly failed to do so. In fact, that BBC report on golden rice contained this brutal quote from Steve Smith, a Syngenta biotechnology scientist who died in 2003. "If anyone tells you that GM is going to feed the world, tell them that it is not ... To feed the world takes political and financial will -- it's not about production and distribution."

I am not one to argue that the future lies solely with "organic" ag as we practice it here, and in that way I agree with Wilcox's point that it's not "all or nothing." That said, the true experts in the field would argue that the future lies in "agro-ecological" techniques, not in high-tech, patented technology with unknown risks.Agro-ecology does allow some use of pesticides but fundamentally relies on natural, ecological systems that enhance productivity and combat pests. Evidence is strong that these practices represent our best way forward.

Perhaps that's the ultimate agricultural myth to be busted: that the true future of food production lies along any other path.

full article and discussion...Grist

Africa’s first microfinance fund for sustainable farmers launched

by Mariah Jen

Africa’s first specialist rural microfinance fund supporting fair trade and organic small business, FEFISOL, the European Solidarity Financing Fund for Africa, has been launched by the European Investment Bank, Agence Française de Développement and a broad grouping of development bodies, social investors and microfinance service providers. The EUR 15 million FEFISOL fund will provide much needed microfinance funds for poor rural households across Africa and help finance small scale investment in agricultural activities.

FEFISOL will fund microfinance institutions and producer organisations across the continent in local currency. African microfinance bodies will benefit from a subsidised loan provided by AFD that absorbs foreign exchange loss on local currencies. Dedicated support for fair trade and organic producer organisations will help improve the quality and development of their activities over the long-term, notably by gaining access to new market sectors. SOS Faim and the African Microfinance Institutions Network will assist in this process, along with specialist fair trade organisations based in Africa.

IEWY

First meeting of agroecology trainers in Africa

by La Via Campesina

The Shashe Declaration:

We are 47 people from 22 organizations in 18 countries (Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Angola, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, South Africa, Central African Republic, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Portugal, USA, France, and Germany).

We are farmers and staff representing member organizations of La Via Campesina, along with allies from other farmer organizations and networks, NGOs, academics, researchers, interpreters and others.

We have been meeting at the Shashe Endogenous Development Training Centre in Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe to plan how to promote agroecology in our region (Southern, Eastern & Central Africa).

Here we have been privileged to witness firsthand the successful combination of agrarian reform with organic farming and agroecology carried out by local small holder farming families. In what were once large cattle ranches owned by three large farmers who owned 800 head of cattle and produced no grain or anything else, there are now more than 365 small holder peasant farming families with more than 3,400 head of cattle, who also produce a yearly average of 1 to 2 tonnes of grain per family plus vegetables and other products, in many cases using agroecological methods and local peasant seeds. This experience strengthens our commitment to and belief in agroecology and agrarian reform as fundamental pillars in the construction of Food Sovereignty.

Our region of Africa is currently facing challenges and threats that together undermine the food security and well-being of our communities, displace small holder farmers and undercut their livelihoods, undermine our collective ability to feed our nations, and cause grave damage to the soil, the environment and the Mother Earth.

These include local and regional manifestations of the global food price crisis and the climate crisis that have been produced by runaway neoliberal policies and the greed and profit-taking of Transnational Corporations (TNCs). Cheap subsidized food imports brought by TNCs, made possible by misguided free trade agreements, lowers the prices we receive for our farm products, forcing families to abandon farming and migrate to cities, while undermining local and national food production.

Foreign investors, invited in by some of our governments, grab the best farm land, displacing food producing local farmers, and redirecting that land toward environmentally devastating mining, agrofuel plantations that feed cars instead of people, and other export plantations that do nothing to build Food Sovereignty for our peoples, and only enrich a few.

At the same time, uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution from Developed Countries and from the global corporate food system based on long distance transport and industrial agriculture are changing the climate in ways that directly affect farmers. Our lands become more arid, with water ever more scarce, we face rising temperatures, and increased extreme weather conditions like severe storms, floods and droughts. The dates of the rainy season have become completely unpredictable, so that nobody knows when to plant anymore. The changing climate is also implicated in epidemics of communicable diseases of humans, crops and livestock. All of this hurts farming families and affects food production.

We face TNCs who want to force GMO seeds into our countries, whether or not we currently have GMO bans, and agencies like the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) who conspire with TNCs like Cargill and Monsanto and with our governments to buy off national research and seed systems in order to sell GMO seeds. These seeds threaten the integrity of our local varieties and the health of our consumers. The same companies even manipulate regional farmer organizations to push GMOs, and we call on such organizations to resist being used in such ways.

While our soils, agroecosytems and forests are ever more degraded by industrial agriculture and plantations, and local seed biodiversity is lost, the costs of production under the conventional "Green Revolution" model are more expensive and out of the reach of small holder farmers. The price of chemical fertilizer on the world market, for example, has risen more than 300% in the last few years.

Faced with this bleak situation for small holder agriculture and Food Sovereignty in our region, as members of organizations belonging to La Via Campesina we take the following positions:

Positions of La Via Campesina in Africa Region 1:

We believe that . . .

Agroecological farming as practiced by small holder farmers, and Food Sovereignty policies, offer the only reasonable and feasible solutions to these multiple challenges facing our region.

Only agroecological methods (also called sustainable agriculture, organic farming, ecological agriculture, etc.) can restore soils and agroecosystems that have been degraded by industrial agriculture. Even chemicals do not work after severe degradation, but with agroecology we can restore soil organic matter and fertility, along with functional agroecosystem processes and services like nutrient recycling, soil biology, natural pest control, etc. We have seen that small holder agroecological systems have much greater total productivity than industrial monocultures, with little or no purchased inputs, reducing the dependency and increasing the autonomy and well-being of rural families while producing abundant and healthy food for our peoples. Global research by La Via Campesina demonstrates that Sustainable Peasant Agriculture Can Feed the World, based on endogenous knowledge and agroecology.

The global food system currently generates between 44 and 57% of global greenhouse gas emissions, almost all of which could be eliminated by transforming the food system based on the principles of agroecology, agrarian reform and Food Sovereignty. Sustainable Peasant Agriculture Cools the Planet, and this is our best solution to climate change.

In order to adapt to a changing climate we need the greater resiliency of diversified agroecological systems (and water conservation and harvesting, watershed management, agroforestry, ground cover, etc.) and the genetic diversity of local peasant seeds and peasant seed systems. We demand that our governments withdraw support from the corporate seed industry with its standardized and often genetically modified seeds, and instead support peasant seed systems based on recovering, saving, multiplying, storing, breeding and exchanging seeds at the local level.

Our national education and research systems are heavily biased toward the very industrial agriculture practices that are killing our planet and contributing to the failure of Africans to feed ourselves. We demand the reorientation of research toward farmer-led methods and agroecology, and the transformation of curricula at primary and secondary schools levels, and in higher education, to focus on agroecology.

We call for an end to trade liberalization and the renewed protection of domestic markets so that African farmers can receive the fair prices that will enable us to boost production and feed our peoples.

We call on governments to create comprehensive programs to support agroecological farming by small holders and to rebuild Food Sovereignty, including genuine agrarian reform and the defense of peasant lands from land grabbing, the reorientation of government food procurement from agribusiness toward purchasing ecological food at fair prices from small holders to supply schools, hospitals, institutional cafeterias, etc., as a way to support farmers and to provide healthy food to children, sick people and government employees, and programs of production credit for small holders engaged in ecological farming instead of subsidies tied to chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

At the COP-16 in Cancun, Mexico, the governments of the world (except Bolivia) met to conduct business with TNCs who traffic in false solutions to climate changes like agrofuels, GMOs, carbon markets, REDD+, etc., instead of meeting to seriously and effectively reverse global warming through real emission reductions by Developed Countries and the transformation of our global food, energy and transport systems. We demand that our governments behave more responsibly at COP-17 in Durban, South Africa, refusing to sign agreements imposed by the North and by TNCs, instead supporting the Cochabamba Principles on the Climate and the Rights of the Mother Earth.

Commitments of La Via Campesina:

While we demand that our governments act in all the ways mentioned above, and will turn up the pressure on them to do so, we will not wait for them. Instead we pledge to continue to build agroecology and Food Sovereignty from below. We pledge to take the following practical steps:

We will build organizational structures in La Via Campesina at the regional level to support our national member organizations in their work to promote agroecology among their member families. This includes regional training programs, exchange visits, the production and sharing of educational materials, and the identification and documentation of successful cases in the region so that all can learn the lessons they offer. Among the structures we will build is a network of agroecology trainers and practitioners in La Via Campesina in our region.

We will promote the creation of agroecology training programs and schools in our organizations, and farmer-to-farmer and community-to-community agroecology promotion programs.

Through our own organizations we will promote the creation and strengthening of local peasant seed systems.
We will document the experience in Zimbabwe of agrarian reform and organic farming by beneficiary families, as successful steps toward Food Sovereignty that we who are in other countries can learn from.

We will work to "keep carbon in the ground and in trees" in the areas under our control, by promoting agroforestry, tree planting, agroecology, energy conservation, and by fighting land grabs for mining and industrial plantations.

We will engage and pressure governments at all levels (local, traditional provincial, national and regional) to adopt Public Policies that favor agroecology and Food Sovereignty.

We will build a powerful small holder farmer and peasant voice to be present with other sectors of civil society at COP-17 in Durban, and at Rio +20 in Brazil, with the message that we oppose false solutions to climate change and demand the adoption of the Cochabamba Principles. We will insist on Small Holder Sustainable Agriculture and Food Sovereignty as the most important true solutions to climate change.

Masvingo District, Zimbabwe, 20 June 2011

For more information, visit viacampesina.org/en/

Swiss scientist 's insect-control innovation prevents cassava disease

by Isobel Leybold

Insect expert Hans Rudolf Herren’s work in tackling the devastating cassava mealybug crop pest in Africa saved millions of lives and won him the 1995 World Food Prize.

Herren, the subject of a new biography, tells swissinfo.ch how he managed to naturally control the bug using a method that involved shooting the insect’s natural enemy, a type of wasp, from aeroplanes across huge swathes of Africa.

The scientist was only 31 when he took a job in the middle of a crisis: the mealybug was decimating Africa’s staple crop, cassava. After ten years, his radical, non-chemical solution had turned the situation around and averted a famine. He is so far the only Swiss to receive the World Food Prize.

Herren has since continued his research into insects and natural pest control in plants, animals and humans.

In 1998 he set up the Zurich-based Biovision foundation with friends, using money from his various prizes, to promote sustainable organic agriculture in Africa. He is also president of the non-profit Millennium Institute in Washington, which promotes sustainable development.

swissinfo.ch: The biography’s title is: How Hans Rudolf Herren saved 20 million people. How did you do this?

Hans Rudolf Herren: We knew that the mealybug was not of African origin. That’s actually one of the reasons it spread like wildfire after its introduction, because it had no natural enemies. Specialists decided it was a species from the New World and also from somewhere where cassava or any of its wild relatives would occur.

Cassava comes from the Amazon region so it was quite clear that somebody must have transported cuttings or plant material to Africa and brought the pest in. So the plan was to find where this mealybug had come from, check if there was anything useful you could connect to it and then bring this information back to Africa.

swissinfo.ch: So it was a lot of detective work.


H.R.H.: It was. What was interesting was that in all the many years scientists had studied cassava in Latin America, no one had seen the mealybug.

This seemed very strange to me. I thought it may actually be on one of the wild relatives of the crop. Eventually it was found in the border area of Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia, interestingly on cultivated cassava.




But no one had seen it there because it was a very low population. In the Americas there are very few mealybugs which meant something was keeping it under control.

swissinfo.ch: You found out that it was a type of wasp.

H.R.H.: Yes, it was a parasitoid wasp [which lays eggs into the bug, eventually killing it]. We had a big factory to produce hundreds and thousands of them and they were packaged in a way that they could be shot out of an airplane travelling at 300 kilometres per hour or more across Africa, from Senegal on one side to Mozambique on the other.

We were careful that it was specific to the cassava mealybug. Thirty years later, no problem has been created and the mealybug is still under control.

swissinfo.ch: Agriculture today still involves the use of many chemicals and even genetic technology. How does your vision of using nature’s tools fit in?


H.R.H.: The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development IAASTD report [published in 2008], of which I was co-chair, made clear that we needed a radical change to agriculture for both developed and developing countries.

The authors decided that we needed to change from this industrial, energy intensive agriculture and from the very traditional agriculture that has a low input and productivity towards a multifunctional, agro-ecological, organic type of agriculture which is self-regenerating.

Biovision was almost ahead of that report by promoting an ecologically-based agriculture, which is in harmony with the system, which doesn’t fight the environment but works with it, and which will produce enough to nourish everybody by 2050. I’m convinced we can do it. The question is can we actually implement it now?

Swiss Info

Kenya GM foods decision faces criticism from organic activists

by Joe DeCapua


Kenya is now allowing the production and importation of genetically modified foods. On July 1, a new law took effect making it the fourth African country to allow the crops. The others are South Africa, Egypt and Burkina Faso.

Supporters of the law say genetically modified foods will help Kenya deal with chronic grain shortages. In the United States, federal officials say they are safe to eat, but others are opposed to them.


Dr. Vandana Shiva, director of Navdanya, a research foundation based in New Delhi, India, has long been an opponent of GM foods.

“I have been monitoring this issue since it became an issue. And Africa has been a leader in bio-safety. Africa, 10 years, 15 years ago, was showing that you don’t need GMOs. The fact that Kenya has opened its doors to GMOs is part of the pressure that’s building up with big money…. It’s not really a democratic decision, which is why you’re seeing protests in Kenya,” she said.


The new law states that approval of Kenya’s National Safety Authority is needed before GM business can be conducted.

Shiva disagrees with those who say the modified crops are needed because Kenya faces a chronic grain shortfall.

“GMOs definitely don’t overcome grain shortages. The technology doesn’t allow an increase in yield. So far, all it’s done is introduce two kinds of toxic genes into plants. One, herbicide resistance, which is failing to control weeds in the U.S…and Bt toxin gene, which is also not able to control pests. We have an emergence of resistance in the bollworm in India,” she said.

The U.S.has said GM foods are safe to eat. Monsanto, a major producer of genetically modified crops, has also said, “Hundreds of millions of meals containing food from GM crops have been consumed and that there has not been a single substantiated instance of illness or harm associated with GM crops,”

Shiva once again disagrees. She said, “There are safety issues. The U.S. has never ever done serious trials independent of the company’s. Unfortunately, in 1992 the United States introduced the principle of ‘substantial equivalence,’ which said treat a genetically modified food as if it is a normal food. And therefore, it is a ‘don’t see, don’t look and assume safety’ policy.”

On its website, Monsanto states, “Substantial equivalence is a useful concept which is accepted and utilized by most regulatory agencies worldwide, including the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the Japanese Ministry of Health and welfare, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. However, substantial equivalence is NOT the end of the assessment process--we still have to address anything that is new or different.”

Shiva describes the U.S. as being “backward” in bio-safety testing. She added that independent testing done in Europe was “attacked by the industry” when safety issues were raised.

“Organs are getting affected. Immunity is getting affected,” she said.

Monsanto produces a variety of GM crops. It said, “All of these crops have been assessed for food and feed safety in producing countries, and many more countries have approved the import of food or food ingredients that contain GM products.”

Shiva and her foundation promote organic farming to solve food security problems. But can organic farming cover Kenya’s food needs, considering the country is in the midst of a serious and prolonged drought?

“The only way to deal with drought is through organic farming because drought means scarcity of water. That means you must have more moisture available in your soil to be able to produce food,” she said. “The only way you can increase soil moisture is through increasing organic matter. Our research in India shows that we can have as much as a 25 percent increase in organic matter by recycling plant residues, organic manure and doing composting.”

She said this technique not only creates drought resilience but also increases food production.

Our work in India,” said Shiva, “shows that we can double food production in India if we adopt ecological methods. The United Nations, based on African studies…put out a report showing that ecological methods are…doubling production in Africa. That data cannot be ignored anymore. Kenya can feed itself. Africa can feed itself. The world can feed itself through organic matter.”


In the United States, organic food often costs more than non-organic food.

“The higher prices that are prevailing in the world across the board on food are because of speculation. As far as organic being costly is concerned, in the supermarkets, yes, but not in the farmers’ market. And therefore what we need to do to make organic accessible is to create decentralized distribution systems where there are direct links between the farmers and the eaters,” she said.

Shiva said this has been done in Brazil with great success.

“It’s not organic that’s costly,’ she said. “It’s organic distribution that becomes costly because it has no support, no subsidies of the kind that chemical food. Food controlled by agribusiness gets $400 billion of subsidies in the rich countries.”

Shiva said other countries may follow Kenya in allowing GM foods because of the heavy marketing by Monsanto.

Groups opposed to genetically modified foods plan to release a new report on the matter on World Food Day, October 16.

VOA News

Kenya under fire for allowing import of GMOs

by David Musyoka and Peter Mutai

Kenya’s environmental and food security activists have called on the Government to shun genetically modified (GM) foods, and instead support organic agriculture practiced by most small-scale farmers.

In June the Government gave a go-ahead to the nation’s grain millers to import genetically modified maize from South Africa and Europe to ease the shortage of maize in the local market.

"We request the Government to recognise organic agriculture and other agro-ecological farming practices in Kenya’s agriculture policies and practices," Anne Maina, the advocacy coordinator for nonprofit environmental group African Biodiversity Network (ABN).

Kenya allowed importation of genetically modified food in 2009 but also controlled growing of genetically modified crops.

The activists said the introduction of patented seeds and related chemicals into the farming systems threatens Kenya’s agricultural practices, livelihood, the environment, and undermines national seed sovereignty.

"We believe that we can feed our communities and this country with organic and agroecological farming practices that do not destroy, pollute and contaminate food, land and seeds," said Gacheke Gachihi, the coordinator of the Bunge La Mwananchi Social Movement.


"Our ability to feed Africa through agro-ecological practices is recognised and supported by United Nations reports. We call upon the Government to support small-scale farmers in having access to water and capacity building in agro-ecology and for this to be enshrined in our Kenyan policies."


The activists said there is a growing body of scientific evidence to show that genetically modified foods can cause serious damage to health, environment, food production and livelihood. They cited animal feeding trials, that have shown damage to liver, kidney and pancreas, effecting on fertility and stomach bleeding. They said some of the problematic environmental consequences of genetically modified foods include the development of insect species that are resistant to the pesticides engineered into crops as well as the emergence of new and secondary pests destroying farmers’ crops forcing them to buy and use highly toxic pesticides.

"We do not believe that top-down technological solutions will solve the many challenges that Kenyan farmers face. This one-size-fits all solution cannot attend to our varied needs. Instead, we call for collaboration between farmers, scientists and government to ensure that we produce healthy and plentiful food," said Maina.

"This is a solution- centered approach and farmer-scientist cooperation has in the past resulted in such innovations like the Katumani breed of maize for drier areas of Kenya and an improvement in food production systems and increased yields in a sustainable way," she added.

The activists said hunger is not caused by under-production of food, but because people have no money to buy food, and therefore the genetically modified maize may be as expensive and will not solve hunger problem.

"We want the Government to protect the integrity of agro-ecological practices and farmer saved seed varieties by banning the introduction of genetically modified foods into Kenya," the activists said in a joint statement.

The Standard

Organic pesticides: Not an oxymoron

by Maureen Langlois

It may seem counterintuitive, but foods that are grown to organic standards can contain commercially manufactured pesticides.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture survey of produce that found nearly 20 percent of organic lettuce tested positive for pesticide residues.

... Jeff Gillman, a professor of nursery management at the University of Minnesota, has written about organic practices for lay readers. He said:

When people are buying organic food, they often make the incorrect assumption that there are no pesticides. It's true that organic production often uses fewer dangerous chemicals, but certain pesticides are allowed.

...a key factor in chemicals being cleared for use on organic crops is whether they occur naturally.

The USDA maintains an official list of substances that can and can't be used for organic farming. Other potent natural extracts that have been approved for use as pesticides include pyrethrin, derived from chrysanthemums, and azadirachtin, from the Asian neem tree, which was also detected on some samples of organic lettuce.All three of these substances are considered slightly toxic by the EPA.

Synthetic compounds can also make it onto the list as pesticides, if they are relatively nontoxic combinations that include minerals or natural elements, such as copper or sulfur. But some naturally occuring substances, such as nicotine and arsenic are off limits.

Are naturally derived pesticides less toxic than synthetic ones?

The answer depends a lot on the dosage, says Gillman. "To control fire blight on the same acre of land," he explains, "I could use a tiny amount of a potent synthetic that has proved safe over the last 50 years, or a much larger amount of an organic pesticide." He demurs on saying which is better, saying, "I want people to know that there are definitely tradeoffs."

The seeming contradiction between organic labeling and potentially harmful pesticide practices may lie in the relative leniency of the USDA organic guidelines, Gillman says. Various organic certification agencies, such as the Oregon Tilth, have tighter rules. (Check out this roundup of acceptable and forbidden pesticides.)

Gillman says just because an organic farmer used some authorized chemicals is no reason to shun the food. But it's important for consumers to know what's going on. For him, the answer to the ambiguity around organic labeling is to go local. "I go to the farmers market and talk to the growers to see who is serious about reducing pesticide use," he says. "I'd rather buy food from someone who used Roundup once than someone who uses organic pesticides all the time."

...full article...NPR

E.coli outbreak in Germany poses questions for organic farming

by Kate Kelland

The warm, watery organic growing environment suspected as the source of a deadly E.coli outbreak in Germany may produce delicious, nutritious bean sprouts, but is also an ideal breeding ground for the dangerous bacteria.

Bean sprouts are often prime suspects in E.coli outbreaks around the world, and health experts say it is no surprise the hunt for source of the lethal strain that has killed 22 people and made more than 2,200 sick has led to an organic bean farmer.

Some say the case raises questions about the future of organic growing methods.

"Bean sprouts are very frequently the cause of outbreaks on both sides of the Atlantic. They're very difficult to grow hygienically and you have to be so careful not to contaminate them," said Paul Hunter, a professor of public health at Britain's University of East Anglia. "And organic farms, with all that they entail in terms of not using ordinary chemicals and non-organic fertilizers, carry an extra risk."

Hunter said he personally bought organic fruits and vegetables, but steered clear of organic raw salad foods "for precisely that reason."

The original source of the contamination in Germany is highly likely to be manure, farm slurry or faeces of some sort, since the Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli or STEC found in this outbreak are known to be able to lurk in cattle guts.

The farmer at the center of Germany's outbreak has said he used no fertilizers, but scientists say the contamination may have been on or in the bean seeds themselves, in the water used to grow them, or have come from a worker handling the beans. And once the bug was in, the conditions may have been perfect for it to reproduce.

"Bean sprouts are quite often grown at high temperatures, around 37 degrees (Celsius), and that is also the optimum growing temperature for E. coli, so it would allow any traces of it to multiply quickly," said Brendan Wren, a microbiology professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "It's a 'perfect storm' scenario. It's rare and unlikely, but if all of these events happen then the produce could rapidly become contaminated."

Food poisoning cases linked to bean sprouts are not new. In the United States in 1997, investigations into an outbreak of E. coli traced it back to alfalfa beans harvested in Idaho and then used for sprouting.

Stephen Smith, a lecturer in clinical microbiology at Ireland's Trinity College Dublin, said previous research in laboratories has shown that a type of E. coli that causes the life-threatening complication Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, or HUS, can bind to alfalfa sprouts. HUS often leads to kidney failure and has been one of the main causes of death and serious illness in the German outbreak.

"E. coli can stick tightly to the surface of seeds needed to make sprouts and ... lay dormant on the seeds for months," Smith said. Then, during germination, "the population of bugs can expand 100,000-fold."

The suspicions about bean sprouts are strengthened by the pattern of infections, which are all in or linked to Germany, and by the distinctive age and gender profile of the victims.

In Germany and Europe, just as in the 1997 U.S. outbreak, most of those infected have been women aged between 20 and 50, a group not usually hard hit by E.coli outbreaks from other sources, which tend to harm children and old people.

Young women, more than other groups, tend to eat raw bean sprouts, believing them to be healthy, scientists say.

"The big issue will be for the bean sprout industry, particular the organic side," said Hunter. "If you're growing these non-organically, you can separate them from feces in a way that is problematic if you are using organic production methods. Organic production of salad stuffs just may not be as safe as non-organic methods."

Reuters

German officials see no E. coli fault at organic farm

by Brian Rohan

Officials investigating an organic farm in northern Germany said on June 11 they do not expect to take legal action against it for causing an E.coli outbreak that has killed at least 31 people.

Authorities link the epidemic, the deadliest in modern history, to contaminated bean sprouts and shoots grown at the farm that made their way to restaurants and kitchens across the country.

"Everything we have looked into until now shows the farm was flawless," said Gert Hahne, spokesperson for the consumer protection office of Lower Saxony state. "It is hygienic and followed all the regulations."No matter how you look at it we don't see any fault with the farm or legal ground to hold them accountable," he said by telephone. "You cannot punish someone for having bad luck."

The source of the bacterium behind a deadly outbreak of E. coli in Germany remains a mystery.
However, the farm has been shut down. Authorities say results of tests taken there have yet to place E.coli on site, but that some 500 samples are still being examined -- including some from the farm's seeds, which came from Europe and Asia.

The German government had come under fire at home and around Europe for failing to pin down the cause of the month-long outbreak, which only on Friday was officially identified as having come from the bean sprouts.

Scientists said then that traces of the deadly strain were detected in a packet of bean sprouts from the farm found in a family's rubbish bin after two of the family members fell ill from eating them. The results were confirmed on June 11.

About a quarter of the near 3 000 people sick from E.coli have developed a severe complication from the bacteria called haemolytic uraemic syndrome, or HUS, which affects the blood, kidneys and nervous system.

Authorities warn that the particularly virulent outbreak is still a threat, and the death toll may rise despite signs of a slowdown in new infections.

Late on June 10, Health Minister Daniel Bahr responded to mounting criticism over the handling of the outbreak, telling broadcaster ZDF that information should have been shared sooner.

Several scientists say the investigation should have focused on bean sprouts earlier.

Reuters

Organic farming gains popularity in India

by Amy Yee

On Thakur Das’s farm in northern India, rice fields stretch into the distance, creating a chartreuse sea of waist-high stalks. Mr. Das, 59, gazed out at the crops on his small farm, about 16 kilometers from the city of Dehra Dun, where he grows rice, wheat and corn in rotation, as well as turmeric and beans. It looked to be another plentiful harvest. “Too much growth,” he joked.

The bounty was all the more fruitful because Mr. Das’s farm, 10 miles from the city, is organic. He has not used chemical pesticides or fertilizers since 2002, when he joined Navdanya, a nonprofit biodiversity center and organic farm, a few kilometers away, to learn how to farm organically. Since he went organic, Mr. Das said, his crop yields, and his profit, have doubled.

Before Mr. Das switched to organic, one acre, or about 0.4 hectare, of land yielded 600 kilograms, or 1,300 pounds, of rice; now it yields 1,200 kilograms. He practices crop rotation and intercropping, or growing different crops together in the same field, and uses natural pesticides and fertilizer, like compost produced by worms.

“Organic is best benefit. Taste is different. Size of grain is bigger,” said Mr. Das. “Most farmers use chemicals. Soil is totally dead.”

In India, certified organic farming accounts for only about 1 percent of overall agriculture production, according to the Indian Agricultural Products Export Development Agency. Organic farming is still small worldwide, as well; it accounts for less than 2 percent of global retail production, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

But as food prices rise around the world, agriculture has moved to the top of the global agenda after decades of neglect from policy makers and investors. India’s Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s used high-yield seeds, chemical fertilizers and irrigation to significantly increase agricultural production.

Yet over the years, chemical “inputs” — namely, fertilizer and pesticides — have depleted soil, and inefficient irrigation has caused water tables to plunge in many parts of India. For many farmers, crop yields have fallen even as India’s food demand has increased. Now farmers and experts are looking for improved farming methods. In some cases, this means a back-to-basics approach.

A paper submitted to the U.N. General Assembly last December highlighted the benefits of “agroecology” — otherwise known as organic farming. “Agroecology delivers advantages that are complementary to better known conventional approaches such as breeding high-yielding varieties. And it strongly contributes to the broader economic development,” the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food wrote.

In India, agriculture has always been an important topic, even if methods remain largely outdated and manual. More than half of the country’s population of 1.2 billion relies on agriculture for a living.

Hunger and food security are also pressing, perennial issues for hundreds of millions of poor Indians. Malnutrition rates of children under age 5 is higher in India than in sub-Saharan Africa. Suicides of struggling, indebted farmers claim newspaper headlines each year. In India, rising food prices are particularly politically sensitive; the affordability of onions, a staple food here, is an unofficial but critical barometer of public sentiment in election years.

The vast majority of farms in India are small — three acres — and farmers can be burdened by the cost of fertilizer and pesticides, even though the government heavily subsidizes them. For some small farmers like Mr. Das, organic farming makes sense if farmers are given training, support and linked to markets with affluent customers.

Navdanya, which is leading the charge for organic farming and biodiversity in India, has trained 500,000 farmers in sustainable agriculture in 16 states across India since it was founded in 1987. It also set up the largest direct-marketing, fair-trade organic network in the country and has established seed banks to preserve indigenous seeds. Navdanya sells its products in stores in Delhi, Dehra Dun and Mumbai.

The organization says that “ecological agriculture is highly productive and the only lasting solution to hunger and poverty.”

A new report from Navdanya, called “Health Per Acre,” was released in New Delhi in March by Syeda Hameed, a member of the Indian Planning Commission, whose chairman is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

According to the report, “a shift to biodiverse organic farming and ecological intensification increases output of nutrition while reducing input costs.” Agricultural output should be measured in terms of “‘Health per Acre’ and ‘Nutrition per Acre’ instead of ‘Yield per Acre,”’ the report says. The paper said that “this should be the strategy for protecting the livelihoods of farmers as well the right to food and right to health of all our people.”

Vandana Shiva, the Indian environmentalist and advocate who founded Navdanya, claims that organic farming produces more food and nutrition than conventional methods. Through intercropping, one organic farm could produce 900 kilograms of food per acre, including 400 kilograms of corn and 500 kilograms of beans and other crops, according to Navdanya’s studies of the farms of its members. A comparable conventional farm growing one crop would yield 500 kilograms of corn but would lose the other products.

Organic farming produces “twice the amount of nutritional needs by intensifying biodiversity rather than monoculture and chemicals,” Ms. Shiva said.

The report from the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food pointed out that the Green Revolution had focused primarily on increasing cereal crops that contain relatively little protein and other essential nutrients. “Nutritionists now increasingly insist on the need for more diverse agro-ecosystems in order to ensure a more diversified nutrient output,” it said.

But some agriculture experts say that while organic farming has benefits, it cannot make a significant dent in total agricultural demand. Organic farming is an important niche market with big potential near major cities. But it is “not a general solution to malnutrition at all,” said Mark W. Rosegrant of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington. “You have to put inputs in to get yields. To move fully to organic, you are going to lose productivity.”

A chapter in the 2006 book “Global Development of Organic Agriculture,” co-written by Mr. Rosegrant, said that compared with “high-yielding crops cultivated with the use of fertilizer and pesticides, most organic crops yield less per hectare due to a combination of lower nutrient supply and yield reductions from weeds, fungi, and insects.” The paper cited a study from 28 countries that found “that on average organic yields are 80 percent of those under conventional agriculture.”

There are other barriers to the growth of organic farming in India. Organic certification from international agencies is expensive and bureaucratic. A shift to organic farming requires extensive training and support for farmers who are largely uneducated. Farmers must be connected to markets and shops that sell their goods, usually in cities with wealthy consumers — no small feat in India where roads and infrastructure are poor.

Organic food is at least 30 percent more expensive than foods produced by conventional methods. In India, there is no financial support from the government for organic farming, while the majority of fertilizer and pesticide companies are subsidized.

But if organic farming reached a greater scale, prices would fall, said Vinod Bhatt, a director of Navdanya. As he led a tour of Navdanya’s tranquil 45-acre farm near Dehra Dun, Mr. Bhatt walked past lush rice fields and explained how ginger and turmeric were grown between rows of corn to retain soil fertility and maximize yield per acre.

A botanist by training, Mr. Bhatt said rice should not be grown in successive seasons but should be alternated with peas, wheat, corn and mustard over two years to keep the soil fertile. Marigolds planted on the edge of the field help keep pests away, as do lantana plants and neem trees, and mixtures made of cow urine and worm secretions, he said.

Mr. Bhatt joined Navdanya in 1997, and he recalled that interest in organic farming was limited back then. Now, “farmers are coming to us because they can see the results,” he said. He pointed out some okra growing on tall stalks.

Mr. Bhatt bent a stem so a visitor could peer at the large green “lady fingers,” as okra is called in India. “I don’t know why people don’t believe organic is more productive,” he said.

New York Times

Burkina Faso: Organic cotton under threat from GM cotton

by Inoussa Maiga

Maxime Ouoba is committed to growing organic cotton. He explains, “It has no adverse effects on [the] health of the producer. Organic farming also allows me to sustain the fertility of my land. I chose to produce organic cotton because this production method is right for me.”

Mr. Ouoba is a farmer in the Eastern Region of Burkina Faso. He began growing cotton when he heard about a program promoting organic cotton. This program, led by the Swiss NGO, Helvetas, began in 2004.

At that time, 72 producers produced about 12 tonnes of seed cotton. By 2008, almost 7000 farmers were producing 2200 tonnes of seed cotton. This rapid expansion encouraged producers and project staff.

But today, producers and project staff are worried about the future of organic cotton. What concerns them is the jump in plantings of genetically modified or GM cotton. By 2009, genes from GM crops had been found in organic cotton. At that time, only 10% of conventional cotton farmers were growing GM varieties. But with the massive spread of GM cotton in 2010, almost 90% of conventional producers now grow GM cotton.

Organic cotton can be contaminated in many ways. Organic cotton seed can be mixed with GM or conventional seed before planting. Cross-pollination is possible between neighbouring fields of GM or conventional and organic cotton. Contamination can occur through mixing (whether unintentional or intentional) during storage, transport or processing.

Many supporters of organic cotton believe that the program in Burkina Faso is threatened. Pierre works for the organic project. He laments, “Today, it is virtually impossible to produce 100% organic cotton. What we want is to reduce the level of contamination.”

Another staff member adds, “Only two years ago, our mission was to recruit more and more farmers to produce organic cotton. Today, our priority is to retain those who have invested in recent years.”

By 2010, the number of organic cotton producers had dropped to around 2,400. One explanation for this drop could be the stringent measures that farmers are required to take to minimize contamination. George Giébré is responsible for the Helvetas organic cotton program. He explains, “On advice of the National Institute for Environment and Agricultural Research, we asked producers to observe a safe distance of at least 100 metres between the organic cotton fields and GM cotton fields.” But it is difficult for farmers to comply due to the size and layout of their plots.

A second way to prevent contamination is to ban the cultivation of organic cotton and GM cotton on the same farm. But the effect of this restriction is to exclude women from growing cotton. Mr. Giébré explains: “Before, in the same farm, men would grow conventional cotton and the women would grow organic cotton in the field next door. But with GMOs, this coexistence is not possible. If there is already a field of GM cotton on a farm, it is no longer possible to grow organic cotton. Thus, many women have been excluded.”

Forced to abandon organic cotton, Moustapha, a farmer in his forties, views his situation with a dose of fatalism. He says, “I was told that I could not grow organic cotton because my field is surrounded by fields of GM cotton. If they say you cannot produce, and you insist on harvesting, they downgrade your cotton.” Cotton downgraded from organic to conventional receives a much lower price.

There is fear that the production of organic cotton will come to a standstill in Burkina Faso in the coming years. Georges Giébré acknowledges the pressure on farmers: “The threats posed by the introduction of GM cotton are real and taken with the utmost seriousness. But this does not undermine the viability of the program.”

Some farmers suggest creating separate zones for organic cotton and GM cotton. This proposition would need state support. At the moment, there are three major cotton production areas in Burkina Faso. Organic cotton is grown in the eastern zone.

While waiting for a solution, the only thing that program staff can do is raise awareness. Pierre says, “We encourage our producers to talk to their neighbours before the start of the season to see who plans to produce what and where. Then they can negotiate with GM cotton farmers to plant on another side of their land.” But even Pierre is not sure if this is a sustainable solution.


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