Organic Transgenic Food

Even before Tomorrow’s Table graced the shelves of bookstores across America, I was intrigued by the idea of combining science with traditional farming methods. In this week’s Nature Genetics, Jonathan Gressel reviewed Tomorrow’s Table and may have coined a term to describe the combination of organic and transgenic methods – orgenic! What do you think of the term?

Dr. Gressel is interesting in his own right, a professor emeritus of plant sciences at Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, and author of ” Genetic Glass Ceilings: Transgenics for Crop Biodiversity”. I can’t wait to find a copy and let you know what he has to say. A preview is available at Google Books. He argues that we need to use biotechnology in order to break the glass ceiling – alluding to the decline in crop yield improvement over the past few years. According to the reviews, he also addresses problems with biotech and ways to overcome them.

At its heart, organic ag is based on biology – understanding biological processes in order to coax food out of the soil. Conventional ag has forgotten things, such as how soil-bacteria interactions can affect soil fertility, how polyculture (or at least rotation) can help prevent disease, or how natural predators can be used to keep pests away. In short, conventional ag is chemistry while organic is biology.

Even though the technology is new, biotech is biology, not chemistry. This is eloquently described by Raoul Adamchak in Tomorrow’s Table. For example, giving plants the means to protect themselves from disease with technologies like RNAi is very different from spraying potentially toxic chemicals, and doing so is fundamentally true to the idea behind organic farming.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many people who are listening. For example, when I brought this up in a Sustainable Agriculture class at Iowa State, the response was:

Organic agriculture is defined by law (unlike other forms of agriculture) and as such, the rules prescribe that transgenic forms cannot be used in organic agriculture.

The rules about what is and is not organic may be defined by law, but they aren’t defined by science. Some of the additives allowed by the organic rules are quite dangerous and don’t follow from the idea of biologically concious agriculture – such as the use of sulfur and copper (see p133-137 of the Google Books preview of The Truth About Organic Gardening).

The line drawn to exclude biotechnology is arbitrary. Included are techniques like chemical and radioactive mutagenesis, forced hybridization across species, grafting to form physically chimeric plants. Excluded are techniques like cell fusion, microencapsulation and macroencapsulation, and recombinant DNA technology. There is one distinction I can see: techniques allowed in organic farming have been in use for decades and can generally be done with minimal equipment while techniques excluded from organic farming are new, patentable, require expensive equipment and trained technicians.

It has been suggested that the organic movement (specifically the anti-GM movement) is actually a reflection of anti-capitalism and in some cases anti-technology sentiment. The regulations support this theory, but I think at least some of that can be left in the past. I hope we can all look forward to redefining organic to stay true to its original meaning of biologically based agriculture. Without an integrated farming strategy – orgenic farming – I’m afraid we won’t have much left to eat.

Jonathan Gressel (2009). Orgenic Food Nature Genetics, 41 (2), 137-137 DOI: 10.1038/ng0209-137

Fruitless Fall

If Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder: A Literature Review, my recent guest post by Kyle Bailey, just whet your appetite for information about CCD, you should check out the book I happened upon this weekend at my local library: Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis by Rowan Jacobsen. The causes of CCD are still not known, but Rowan does a great job of summarizing the usual suspects as well as proving more information that could be expected in a conversational tone. The overall feel of Fruitless Fall is similar to Diane Ackerman’s Natural History books, but with an overlay of urgency.

The first few chapters provide information: 1 explanation of why bees are so important to agriculture, 2 facinating descriptions of bee life, bee biology, and beekeeping in general, and 3 the first incidences of CCD, including first hand descriptions from beekeepers.

Chapter 4, Whodunit, is where the story starts to get really interesting. Jacobsen carefully explains the dead ends of the investigation (call phones, Bt crops, the rapture, etc) and tells us why none of the various viruses, bacteria, and parasites that afflict bees are likely culprits.

The discussion of Bt crops is surprisingly lucid (if not a tad overdrawn) and contains more than a little foreshadowing for the next chapter: “Why spray crops with a pesticide that washes into the soil and groundwater when you can simply have the plants manufacture it for themselves? Organic farmers have used Bt for years as a natural insecticide. So I can understand Monsanto’s thinking. Then again, I can understand Dr. Frankenstein’s belief that it might be useful to reanimate the dead; it’s in the practice that things get messy.” Jacobsen points out that “lots of CCD cases have been reported in states  [and countries] with no GM crops” and that USDA studies have shown Bt pollen to be completely safe.

Chapter 5, Slow Poison, brings us to a hypothesis that pesticides are the problem, reducing the bees’ ability to defend themselves against disease. Individual pesticides are tested singly for lethality and applied at rates below lethal levels, but they aren’t tested in the combinations that bees experience in the fields. They also aren’t tested long term at non-lethal levels. Low levels of various pesticides, including neonicotinoids (which are a relatively safe synthetic version of nicotine, an organic pesticide) cause nervous system problems in bees. France’s answer has been to ban certain pesticides, but their bees continue to die while bees exposed to the same pesticide (Gaucho) in Argentina are doing just fine.

So, what do we do? In later chapters, Jacobsen offers a few solutions, including a huge switch in farming practices and importing Russian bees, but I’m not satisfied. From bees to babies, it seems obvious that we need to reduce dependance on pesticides in farming. The problem is, we can’t afford it. There is a reason why organic produce costs more. We must find gentle ways to keep yields high.

To me, Jacobsen’s paragraphs on Bt crops and on pesticides combine to a somewhat obvious potential solution – genetic engineering. One of the nice things about GE is that you can target where in the plant a compound (such as Bt or nicotine) is produced. Using the right promoter, we can express a compound in just the leaves or just the roots, whatever part needs to be protected from pests. While some compounds will be transported around the plant, we can realistically produce a GE plant that has very little of the compound in the pollen. With the pesticide safely locked away in the plant parts that need it, the bees can come and go, harvesting pollen without being affected. Instead of demanding a ban on GE, we should demand more intelligent use of the technology.

Of course, genetic engineering alone won’t solve CCD, but neither will banning pesticides. We need a completely fresh look at agriculture. We need a system that rewards farmers for good practices to improve the situation for bees and for the rest of us. For example, if a farmer rotates crops and uses Bt crops properly to reduce insecticide use, allows some weeds to grow to reduce herbicides use, plants borders and hedgerows of wildflowers, uses local bee hives instead of shipping them in, etc – the food can’t be labeled “organic” even though a huge difference has been made for local ecosystems, for the bees, and for the health of the consumer. The farmer won’t be compensated for these efforts which are more time consuming than 100% conventional farming. Without compensation, why bother? It’s far easier to rely on chemicals, and we all need to make a living.

Image of a bee heading toward an almond blossom by pho-tog on flickr, book cover from Jacobsen’s website.

Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder: A Literature Review

Photo by Yvan leduc via Wikipedia.

There is so much information out there on Colony Collapse Disorder. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone summarized it in one place? Kyle Bailey, undergraduate in biology at Iowa State, has done just that. The following, posted with permission, is an up-to-date review of CCD research. It includes information from a variety of sources, from fact sheets to peer-reviewed journal articles.

Introduction

Honeybees (apis mellifera) are the primary pollinator available to agriculturalists in the United States. This makes them a critical part of US agriculture.  Crops such as “almonds (82% of the world’s supply and 100% dependent on interstate pollinators); apples; cherries; blueberries; broccoli; carrots; cranberries; cucurbits like cucumber, melons, squash, pumpkins, and gourds” (Stankus 2008) are heavily reliant on honey bees for pollination.  Traveling hives provided by commercial apiary services pollinates many of these crops.

A current epidemic, called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), affecting honeybee hives throughout the US threatens the apiarist industry.  In the US during 2006-2007 29% of beekeepers reported some loss to CCD with some losing up to 75% of their stock (Winfree, Williams, Dushoff, et al).  CCD is characterized as a mysterious loss of worker bees in the hive.  There are no corpses to be found as the bees apparently wander far from the hive to die.  The hive generally has sufficient food stores to maintain the population.  The hives also generally still have undeveloped brood stock.  The new brood (as well as the queen) is of course doomed without any adult workers present to care for them and they soon die.  Because the bees travel far from the hive there are no bodies to necropsy and attempt to determine a cause (Stankus 2008).

This paper will explore the US economic and agricultural impacts of pollinator loss, and recent research into the causes of and potential solutions to CCD.

Transition to Organic

The Rodale Institute, major proponent of organic agriculture, is offering a free online at-your-own-pace course that focuses on the transition from conventional to organic farming. They also have a calculator that farmers can use to find how much more (or less, I suppose) their farm can make if they transition to organic, given their specific situation. If you take the course, let me know what you think.
The Rodale Institute does a lot of good work, although I am frustrated by their nonscience views on quite a few topics, including raw milk and genetic engineering. The whole technology-is-evil schtick is less than productive, but many organic techniques are productive. I used to have a very negative view of organic because of their rejection of science, but Tomorrow’s Table by Pamela Ronald changed my views. She explains that reduction of chemical inputs and impact on the environment can be best achieved with a combination of organic techniques and careful application of genetic engineering. Buying organic doesn’t necessarily mean “I think GMOs are evil” but it does mean “I don’t want to eat pesticides, and am looking for a change.”
Thanks to Dr. Cornelia Butler Flora of NCRCRD for pointing this course out to ISU’s Sustainable Agriculture students.
The course overall is a good introduction to what organic is and its benefits. Not unexpectedly, I do have a few critiques (as well as compliments)…

Weather takes a toll… everywhere

Farmers have always been subject to ever changing weather, but this year seems especially bad. I wrote last week about the problems local farmers (and researchers) have been facing. The NY Times has an article showing that the weather hasn’t been much friendlier elsewhere. Farms in places as diverse as Australia and the Philippines aren’t off to a good start.
The most sobering quote from the article:

Last year, the rice crop in Arkansas yielded a record 160 bushels an acre. This year, experts there say, 150 bushels will be an achievement.

“There’s no doubt about it, we’re not going to have the rice to export,” said Carl Frein of Farmers Marketing Service in Brinkley, Ark. “Poor countries like Haiti, I don’t know what they’re going to do.”

Randy Kron (photo from NY Times) is an Indiana corn and soy farmer who won’t be able to plant this year. The article follows his story of fields that are too wet to plant. He concludes “I don’t know if this is the worst year we’ve ever had, but it’s moving up the list pretty quick.”
A lot of the comments on the post are typical: too many people don’t research or think before typing. One, though, had a different perspective. I really like reading what real farmers think, especially because they tend to be more optimistic and solution oriented than the doom and gloom Malthusians. One commenter who farms less than 80 miles from the farm in the article writes: