Citation? I'm seeing several conflicting sources.
It looks like 'organic' farming uses more fuel in general, except for the
large amount of fuel needed to make nitrogen fertilizers. Herbicides
and pesticides are energy users to a lesser extent.
It would seem to me that genetically engineering food to fix its own
nitrogen and produce its own pesticides and herbicides would make it
quite a bit cheaper and more energy efficient than organic farming.
And organic farmers would never stoop to allowing such Frankenfoods
on their farms.
But I'd eat them. I'd even be happy to grow them here on my farm.
The London Telegraph dutifully reported the results of a study by the Manchester Business School, comparing energy use in organic and conventional farming systems. In a life cycle assessment - farm to fork - it found that many organic crops use more energy.
The energy needed to grow organic tomatoes is 1.9 times that of conventional methods, the study found. Organic milk requires 80 per cent more land to produce than conventional milk and creates 20 per cent more carbon dioxide, it says.
Energy use in organic agriculture
With non-renewable energy sources waning and mounting concern over greenhouse gas emissions, reducing the food system's energy burden is a critical task. An FAO paper published in August 2007 analyzed energy use in organic agriculture, in comparison with conventional agriculture.
The paper found that organic agriculture uses less fossil fuel based inputs and has a better carbon footprint than standard agricultural practices. This is because conventional agriculture production utilises more overall energy than organic systems due to heavy reliance on energy-intensive fertilisers, chemicals, and concentrated feed, which organic farmers forego. Importantly, organic operations can also provide promising possibilities for further energy reductions throughout the food system.
The summary of the paper is reproduced below. The full paper can be downloaded at http://www.fao.org/docs/eims/upload/233069/energy-use-oa.pdf
-----
Get a free science project every week! "http://scitoys.com/newsletter.html"On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 2:14 PM, Cathal Garvey <cathalgarvey@gmail.com> wrote:
You forgot to factor oil requirements into your formulas. Industrial farming is only "efficient" in terms of labour and land use, but it consumes far more oil, generally.
Yes, I realise this trend isn't true of method X in circumstance Y.
--
mad_casual <ademlookes@gmail.com> wrote:
>Aflatoxin in peanut butter? Check.
>Mercury in vaccines? Check.
>Mercury in tuna? Check.
>Arsenic in Chicken? Check.
>BSE in Beef? Check.
>
>Consuming it all in spite of the risks? Check.
>
>Of note; Brand name peanut butters are lowest in aflatoxin as their
>production processes are more efficient and they dilute out the
>aflatoxin
>with things like palm oil and fully hydrogenated fatty acids. Organic
>vegetables are notorious for requiring extra effort and care in
>preventing
>food borne pathogens that have been automated out of modern industrial
>farming. Neither side has the winning formula; either food production
>is
>cheap, centralized, efficient, and meets some core set of minimum
>standard
>or it is decentralized, expensive, labor intensive, and meets a wide
>array
>of rather whimsical standards.
>
>On Monday, April 23, 2012 8:29:08 PM UTC-5, Nathan McCorkle wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/opinion/kristof-arsenic-in-our-chicken.html
>> "
>> OP-ED COLUMNIST
>> Arsenic in Our Chicken?
>> By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
>> Published: April 4, 2012
>>
>> Let's hope you're not reading this column while munching on a chicken
>
>> sandwich.
>>
>> That's because my topic today is a pair of new scientific studies
>> suggesting that poultry on factory farms are routinely fed caffeine,
>> active ingredients of Tylenol and Benadryl, banned antibiotics and
>> even arsenic.
>>
>> "We were kind of floored," said Keeve E. Nachman, a co-author of both
>> studies and a scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Center for a
>> Livable Future. "It's unbelievable what we found."
>>
>> He said that the researchers had intended to test only for
>> antibiotics. But assays for other chemicals and pharmaceuticals
>didn't
>> cost extra, so researchers asked for those results as well.
>>
>> "We haven't found anything that is an immediate health concern,"
>> Nachman added. "But it makes me question how comfortable we are
>> feeding a number of these things to animals that we're eating. It
>> bewilders me."
>>
>> Likewise, I grew up on a farm, and thought I knew what to expect in
>my
>> food. But Benadryl? Arsenic? These studies don't mean that you should
>> dump the contents of your refrigerator, but they do raise serious
>> questions about the food we eat and how we should shop.
>>
>> It turns out that arsenic has routinely been fed to poultry (and
>> sometimes hogs) because it reduces infections and makes flesh an
>> appetizing shade of pink. There's no evidence that such low levels of
>> arsenic harm either chickens or the people eating them, but still...
>>
>> Big Ag doesn't advertise the chemicals it stuffs into animals, so the
>> scientists conducting these studies figured out a clever way to
>detect
>> them. Bird feathers, like human fingernails, accumulate chemicals and
>> drugs that an animal is exposed to. So scientists from Johns Hopkins
>> University and Arizona State University examined feather meal — a
>> poultry byproduct made of feathers.
>>
>> One study, just published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal,
>> Environmental Science & Technology, found that feather meal routinely
>> contained a banned class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones.
>These
>> antibiotics (such as Cipro), are illegal in poultry production
>because
>> they can breed antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" that harm humans.
>> Already, antibiotic-resistant infections kill more Americans annually
>> than AIDS, according to the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
>>
>> The same study also found that one-third of feather-meal samples
>> contained an antihistamine that is the active ingredient of Benadryl.
>> The great majority of feather meal contained acetaminophen, the
>active
>> ingredient in Tylenol. And feather-meal samples from China contained
>> an antidepressant that is the active ingredient in Prozac.
>>
>> Poultry-growing literature has recommended Benadryl to reduce anxiety
>> among chickens, apparently because stressed chickens have tougher
>meat
>> and grow more slowly. Tylenol and Prozac presumably serve the same
>> purpose.
>>
>> Researchers found that most feather-meal samples contained caffeine.
>> It turns out that chickens are sometimes fed coffee pulp and green
>tea
>> powder to keep them awake so that they can spend more time eating.
>(Is
>> that why they need the Benadryl, to calm them down?)
>>
>> The other peer-reviewed study, reported in a journal called Science
>of
>> the Total Environment, found arsenic in every sample of feather meal
>> tested. Almost 9 in 10 broiler chickens in the United States had been
>> fed arsenic, according to a 2011 industry estimate.
>>
>> These findings will surprise some poultry farmers because even they
>> often don't know what chemicals they feed their birds. Huge food
>> companies require farmers to use a proprietary food mix, and the
>> farmer typically doesn't know exactly what is in it. I asked the
>> United States Poultry and Egg Association for comment, but it said
>> that it had not seen the studies and had nothing more to say.
>>
>> What does all this mean for consumers? The study looked only at
>> feathers, not meat, so we don't know exactly what chemicals reach the
>> plate, or at what levels. The uncertainties are enormous, but I asked
>> Nachman about the food he buys for his own family. "I've been
>studying
>> food-animal production for some time, and the more I study, the more
>> I'm drawn to organic," he said. "We buy organic."
>>
>> I'm the same. I used to be skeptical of organic, but the more
>> reporting I do on our food supply, the more I want my own family
>> eating organic — just to be safe.
>>
>> To me, this underscores the pitfalls of industrial farming. When I
>was
>> growing up on our hopelessly inefficient family farm, we didn't
>> routinely drug animals. If our chickens grew anxious, the reason was
>> perhaps a fox — and we never tried to resolve the problem with
>> Benadryl.
>>
>> My take is that the business model of industrial agriculture has some
>> stunning accomplishments, such as producing cheap food that saves us
>> money at the grocery store. But we all may pay more in medical costs
>> because of antibiotic-resistant infections.
>>
>> Frankly, after reading these studies, I'm so depressed about what has
>> happened to farming that I wonder: Could a Prozac-laced chicken
>nugget
>> help?
>> "
>>
>>
>> --
>> Nathan McCorkle
>> Rochester Institute of Technology
>> College of Science, Biotechnology/Bioinformatics
>>
>
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