Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - RE: [Market-farming] Dennis Avery is a shill

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Rick Williams" <mrfarm AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [Market-farming] Dennis Avery is a shill
  • Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2003 21:26:34 -0600

> Avery, given permission to begin the session, stated that according to
> "peer-reviewed journals, high-yield farming since World War II has saved
> 16 million square acres for wildlife. The global forest is 16 million
> square miles. High-yield farming is a conservation triumph."

This is an argument that is often made. It may or may not be entirely true,
but there is some truth to it using the current numbers. My argument is that
after using chemical techniques for a long period, the yield are not that
fantastic compared to organic in a number of actually crops. I would agree
that it might be difficult to get some of the yields in the corn belt where
it exceeds 200 bu/A, but even there it may be possible with the right
techniques. There was a recent article on the successes in India where land
that had been using chemicals was not yielding that well anymore and after
switching to more natural means, (after a couple of rough years) the yields
were about the same as before if not better.

> "We face," Avery says, "the challenge of affluence" as the world's
> population will reach 8.5 billion by 2035, then slowly decline. To feed
> these people a high-quality, Western-style diet high in meat and dairy
> products, growers must triple their current output. To meet this
> challenge without losing wildlife habitat, the world will have to
> quadruple yields
> on current acreage. Free trade will raise prices from 25% to 50% so that
> not only will US growers' overproduction be profitably sold
> overseas to feed
> the hungry, but farmers in countries such as India and China will be
> affluent enough to consume meat and dairy products as we do in the West.

This is partially true as well, although only a projection or educated
guess. There are some upward pressures on oils in particular. What is the
first thing that formerly poor people buy with their new increasing wealth?
Typically vegetable oils.

> Goldburg, describing her involvement in the StarLink corn controversy,
> says that "our regulatory system is in knots. We don't have the science to
> know whether this [genetically engineered] protein is an allergen
> [to humans]
> or not." As we don't have the regulations, experience or infrastructure
> to separate GMO from non-GMO foods, mixing of
> approved-for-human-consumption and unapproved (EPA approved StarLink
> corn for animal feed or
> industrial uses only) corn is happening.

True.

> "They want it!" announced Avery. "We have nothing to do with it! There
> has never been a voluntarily vegetarian society - except perhaps the
> Aztecs. But they had cannibalism. If we don't dramatically
> increase our yields,
> the forests of the world will be clear-cut for chicken feed."

It is true that they want the oils and perhaps some low cost protein. It is
later on that meats will become more feasible to purchase, particularly
poultry.

'it's not clear that Golden
> Rice will
> help" says Goldburg.

Golden rice is of limited help. Sure, I suppose every little bit helps, but
it is not that much.

> "The trends show that free trade raises incomes," says Avery. As the
> world welcomes global trade, people would have the income for
> diets to make
> Golden Rice bioavailable.

True. This is one of the things that really bothers me that those on the
extremes are the primary naysayers that people in the third world benefit
tremendously from trade. We need not look much further than China. Some
extreme people will make absurd claims that they are all slaves being forced
to work for starvation wages, etc.

> Avery then asked Goldburg if she favored recent genetic engineering
> techniques to transfer corn's superior ability to convert sunlight to
> energy to rice plants, whose natural photosynthesis apparatus is not as
> efficient. "The increased efficiency could save an area for wildlife the
> size of France!" he stated.

Very hard to say at this time and you have people on both sides with
different views. The GMO's are not proven at this point but theoretically it
could be done.

> Dr. Peter Ferretti, tenured professor
> of Penn State's Department of Horticulture and a man who has trained
> most of Penn State's graduates currently in Extension, recovered
> first. "He's
> full of shit!" said Ferretti.

Not a very enlightened person. Seems to me that it would have been better to
make the criticism on the merits rather than use emotion.

> Dr. Bill Liebhardt of the University of California at Davis, was first.
> "Dennis Avery stated that organic agriculture has only 55% to 60% of
> conventional agriculture's yields. I've spent my career examining the
> data for Pennsylvania, the MidWest and California and I've never
> seen those
> yield losses. Where are you getting your data?"

The reason for this is due to not really working with less chemical
intensive agriculture. We have so focussed on the use of chemicals that it
has blinded many to the possibilities with more natural means.

> "I'm not familiar with Bill Mollison, either," said Avery. The audience
> beginning to wonder just what form of "organic agriculture" Avery
> referred to in any of his quotes and whether it was worth asking
> when Nichols
> granted the floor to Rochelle Kelvin of the Appalachian Natural
> Sales Group.

You have various adherents to different "organic" techniques. The best way
to confront Avery would be to point out what the results are in different
studies and prove he is wrong in terms of yield.
>
> "First, a comment," said Kelvin. "I visited Nepal recently and found
> that many of the houses had a large Pepsi logo painted on the side. The
> villagers told me that Pepsi was paying them $2 a house to paint the
> logo. So, the idea that we in the West aren't pushing our products on
> traditional societies is just silly."

While the trivial stuff that makes the most money, and has brand
identification will be pushed, the products that persons with newly acquired
wealth are those that they buy because they like the taste or results as
previously mentioned.

> "Hybrid seeds produce better yields," said Avery.

Hard to argue with that.

> "Consumers should have the right to boycott whatever products they want
> to boycott!" Goldburg said to Avery, but she supports labeling so
> consumers can choose what they want to eat. Both panelists did agree
> that labels should be more detailed - listing exactly what types of GMOs
> a product contains, rather than a blanket "GMOs included" statement.

My preference from a marketing edge. I will say though that it is a two
edged sword and I can definitely imagine where some consumers would prefer
imported meat from NZ and OZ not only because it was lower in cost, but
because of the perceived higher quality. This could really hurt U.S.
commodity producers and it would trickle down to the other markets as well
because it would reduce the price of some products such as meat.

> "We should only go by the results," says Avery, and not worry so much
> about how we get there. Regular breeding is too slow and we don't have the
> time to get the increased yields we'll need to feed the world without
> depleting wildlife habitat.

I would not agree with his view on this since we must take great care to
reduce the Pandora's Box syndrom. It is not a matter of whether this will
occur, but when.

> "Avery's got an act, like Don Rickles, and he's taken it on the road,"
> says Joseph Griffin of the Oley Institute. "There's no depth there."

Typically no brain comment. How about a criticism of the specifics that he
finds fault with?

> "This session reminds us not to let a simplistic answer go
> unchallenged," says Greg Bowman of the Food, Faith and Farming
> Initiative of the
> Mennonite Resources Network. "We have to ask the right questions and
> insist on complete answers so that we can make informed and responsible
> decisions about how to live together on this planet."

A good assessment.

Sincerely,

Rick Williams





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page