“Monoculture” lowers crop “biodiversity.” These are big words with negative connotations that keep coming up in the propaganda pieces of the food movement. The reason acres of land are planted with the same crop is so they can be treated exactly the same and harvested on the same perfect day, thus maximizing yield (energy efficiency = minimize inputs and maximize outputs). Monoculture increases risk of crop disease, but there is no risk to biodiversity. (Using the word “biodiversity” must bring with it risk of extinction, and this is not the correct word to use with crops. Crops have their highly valued, diverse germplasms in banks). Removing “the corporation” from agriculture removes the energy efficiency and removes the possibly of the eating of any animal food being different from eating oil. The developing middle class of the world votes unequivocally to eat more chickens.
I personally love the idea of the woodlot. A modern pioneer owns 40 acres of mixed forest, and with the wood that grows sustainably from the sun’s energy each year, she fires a modern, EPA-certified, Energy Star wood-burning stove that heats the off-the-grid cabin, boils water and is a stove-top. To think that most of our 7 billion people on Earth could live like this is beyond ignorant. There are two reasons our food supply has kept pace with population growth (in everywhere but sub-Saharan Africa), and they’re improved genetic technology and industrialization. “Heritage crops” grown in urban gardens make hobby-food but can contribute almost nothing to feeding the world without using way more land and energy. Much of the “food movement” is about well-off people needing something. What?
I’ve studied the food movement for nine years now and discuss this topic every year with my Plant and Microbial Biology 13 students here at UC Berkeley. I think I’ve found the real need that drives the food movement, and it’s primarily not about food at all but distrust and fear (or hate?) of corporations. I do not like the corporatization of my life, my university or my food. Corporatization seems dehumanizing to me. However, I’m one of 7 billion living in a rapidly warming 21st century. We made way too many babies for our small planet. I hope we regular people learn how to better control our agricultural corporations, but we really should admit how much we need agribusiness for energy efficiency (and that we are getting just what we deserve!). We did not and do not need all of our people! In about 1924, our Earth had 2 billion people on it, and it will again someday. Until then, I suggest that those interested in food learn the facts and the realities. When we do, I trust we all will find the reasoning of the occupiers of the Gill Tract and the activists of the the food movement to be well-meaning but ultimately not properly addressing how we need to produce food. Perhaps fears of monster corporations and dreams of a more egalitarian politic have clouded their minds. Fears and dreams won’t get us out of our pickle.
Because of basic research, we are learning how plants work. In my opinion, crops will either be genetically upgraded or they will fail to produce in our hotter, drier, degraded future (with economic collapse possible). Basic research is — or was — going on at the university’s Gill Tract. Dr. Damon Lisch, in my lab, with the support of the National Science Foundation, hopes to plant his seed at the tract in about three weeks. I’d like to see Dr. Lisch’s and similar cutting-edge research valued by my university and all people.
Michael Freeling is a professor in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology.
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I agree entirely with Professor Freeling on this issue.
Dear Nia: Your
articulate response to professor Freeling’s essay on ”real food” is deceptive
and more than a little worrisome.
Let’s begin with your use of the term “eugenic,” as if mentioning human
over-population was immediately like an infamous Nazi movement. Professor Freeling’s essay implied
nothing of the sort. And what am I to make of the phrase “usurping the lands
resources for profit ”? Do you
suggest we use North Korea or Cuba as models of efficient food production to
feed our earth’s current population?
If the world actually consumes twice as many store-bought
chickens next year as this year, and the only reason a chicken is a “real food”
is because of energy-efficient corporate
feed, how should the world provide the chickens if not via corporate feed and corporate
chicken farming? I’m a vegetarian,
but the peoples of the world are not and are not likely to become vegetarians. Should only the rich eat chickens? How
can we have “a chicken in every pot” (Herbert Hoover, 1928) and be sustainable
if, as the professor said, eating a chicken is “like eating oil”?
Finally, Cal is a peer-evaluated research university, not a
community college. Finding out
“how plants work” is useful at every level, and is what the Gill Tract is being
used to do. Sounds like the Gill
tract may have been used appropriately all along.
In any case, your well-constructed essay carries the
signatures of brainwashing, not actual education, so you didn’t fool me. I hope you did not get this way in Cal
classes.
You are absolutely right. Thank you for saving me from any further discussion.
The overpopulation argument you use is one from eugenics, Mr. Freeling, respectfully.
Any course in International Food Policy is advised. I won’t address your biodiversity comments because they are from a point of view that gains from usurping the land’s resources for profit. BT corn kills butterflies, bees. Monocropping is the death of biodiversity. Monocropping minimizes inputs?: no, it minimizes the value and health of the land.
The current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, two countries with a rich and diverse history in agriculture and botany were laid waste: counterpoint~the USDA moves in to complete the WTO’s mission for colonized economies replete with g.e. seeds and toxic inputs. It’s big business, Mr. Freeling. Food is political because the modern world has had its share of those who couldn’t be happy without taking from other peoples, lands, and resources. This country has a long history of taking from others, and making money off the backs of other people.
Sympathy for your plight, but beg you to examine your conscience further.
‘The Global Food Economy~the Battle for the Future of Farming” by Tony Weis is an excellent book to turn your arguments on end. A look at the controversial politics of the FAO, the WTO, NAFTA…and any international political economy of food course are other suggestions. Distribution is a key and fundamental issue with growing food. Simplified inputs- as you attempt to note-never combine with the extracted and unlisted costs for food miles, loss of topsoil, land degradation, cumulative health and environmental costs, workers’ illnesses, social injustices and inequity. These are never listed in the ‘cost of doing business’.
Growing food sustainably and locally brings quality of life, nutrition, and self-sufficiency of local economy. I respect your position, but I don’t respect how you are misrepresenting the facts about this movement, these people, your research, here or in any other place in the world. Understanding how plants work?
[I won't address your biodiversity comments because they are from a point
of view that gains from usurping the land's resources for profit.]
So explain why “profit” is inherent bad, and explain why you think the alternative (collective farming) would be any better, considering it has resulted in failure and starvation in most places where it has been tried out.
[Food is political because the modern world has had its share of those
who couldn't be happy without taking from other peoples, lands, and
resources. This country has a long history of taking from others, and
making money off the backs of other people.]
If you actually knew anything about how the real world works (which you obviously do not), you would know that thanks to foreign aid, private charity, and remittances from family members in the US, the net flow of wealth goes outward FROM the USA to third world countries, NOT the other way around.
For all those people peddling their “local food” movement: when are you going to give up coffee, chocolate, pineapples, bananas and other products that consume a lot more CO2-producing fossil fuels per Lb to bring to market than the corn and grain shipped via 100-ton covered rail hoppers from the Midwest (the most fuel-efficient method of land transportation available) or those heads of lettuce trucked in from Evil Nasty Megafood Corporation (TM) out in the Valley? I suspect that most of the self-righteous busybodies who preach to the rest of us about “eating local” are doing that more for their own public grandstanding, as most of them couldn’t live a day without their favorite foo-foo coffee blend or specialty nibbles from Trader Joes/Raleys/Andronicos.
No reply, I noticed. Occupy Farm kooks = cowards and hypocrites.
While I don’t agree (or to be fair) understand everything Professor Freeling has to say, I think he is raising an extremely important issue. One thing nearly everyone seems to agree in the East Bay is that urban gardening is an essential part of a solution to world food issues. I’m no expert, and I like urban gardens as much as guy, so maybe it is. But maybe it isn’t. This isn’t religion (although it starts to feel that way sometimes). It’s science, and public policy, and politics. Advocates of urban farming appear to think that this is a settled issue, and there is a kind of group-think that buys into it because of the passionate advocacy of it by some people who share our other political opinions. Fine, but passionate advocacy cuts both ways (just ask the tea-partiers, or the creationists, or the anti-vaccine crowd. The one thing I can guarantee is what definitely won’t solve our problems is rigid ideological thinking. I would think that the last hundred years of history would have taught us that.
Professor Freeling’s article is thoughtfully pieced together. A lot of his ideas cover the exact topics he teaches in class, and being in that class certainly gives a greater depth to this op/ed. The fact is, whether you agree with his take or not, this tract is university owned land and the severely underpaid staff here ought to have the ability to pursue their dreams. After all, this is a research institution. Maybe Prof Freeling’s discoveries won’t save the world, but by contributing to the general knowledge base he may make available a key resource that will lead to more efficient food production or otherwise.
And frankly, in regards to all his “doomsday” propositions, he is probably right. Sub-saharan Africa isn’t producing enough food to meet its own needs. People are protesting corporations, not really the food itself. Our world is already overpopulated and will continue to grow. Either we will have to purposefully reduce our population (unlikely) or we will eventually crash after using up our world’s resources.
Professor Freeling is correct in asserting that an urban garden would not be as energy-efficient as GM corn. However, we need more than genetically modified corn-sold as products by giant corporations more often than as actual food-to nourish our bodies and minds. I think that both sides have a point and that both types of agriculture are important for feeding the world’s people. Look at it this way, Freeling is right in saying that growing inefficient, local gardens would take up more land and would threaten natural habitats and endangered species further, but government subsidization of monocultures such as corn and soy are inadequate for our nutritional needs, and this supports big business and the 1%. Suggestions: The government should support genetic research into high-nutrition crops such as kale in order to make them more energy-efficient and continue a small subsidy of GM corn. Additionally, corporations need to stop being treated as “natural persons” by the judicial system as they were never meant to have the same rights as US citizens, and this mistake is at the root of our distorted, bloated income distribution, and indirectly, part of the cause of obesity in the US.
-Allison, PMB 13, Sp 2012
[Additionally, corporations need to stop being treated as "natural
persons" by the judicial system as they were never meant to have the
same rights as US citizens]
If corporations aren’t treated as “natural persons” or individual entities under the law, how would you propose handling such issues as legal contracts and disputes? Would everyone from the CEO down to the janitor have to sign contracts, or be subject to civil or criminal liabilities as the result of an investigation or lawsuit? Corporations are treated as individual entities because to do otherwise would be completely impractical. People screaming about this issue are typically individuals with an anti-business bias who aren’t particularly sophisticated about how large organizations are organized, and have no real clue as to the impracticality of the alternative.
[part of the cause of obesity in the US.]
You’re contradicting yourself when you blame agribusiness for both “economic inequality” and “obesity”. If those evil nasty corporations are depriving poor people of food, how in the hell are poor people getting fat? Fact of the matter is that if you classify people by income level and nation of residence, you would find that by far the group with the highest level of obesity would be those living at or near the poverty level in the US. Why is that? For starters, we have an overly generous welfare system that allows many people to collect benefits without rigorous enforcement of workfare laws or other conditions that would prompt people otherwise to get work. In addition, we have food-supplement programs such as WIC and food stamps that operate off the assumption that “poverty” is equivalent to “starvation”, when nothing is further from the truth.
The usual idiot activists who scream “X million people in America are going hungry tonight” don’t do that based on tangible metrics such as weight, caloric intake, or BMI when making such proclamations. They do it on their own wacky reckoning methodologies, such as arbitrarily subtracting the number of people receiving food stamps from those who are theoretically eligible, then declaring that all those people who must be eligible but not collecting food stamps MUST be starving to death. Come on now, when was the last time, other than the occasional druggie, someone who looked like they were starving to death, even in the ‘hood or barrio? You don’t see them because “food insecurity” as the lefties call it is a manufactured issue. There aren’t millions of babies going to bed hungry in this country, or whatever nonsensical crap is being posted.
If you want to complain about agribusiness, there are certainly legitimate areas of concern, such as ethanol subsidies and the promotion of illegal aliens as farm labor, but lay off the proto-marxist blather, because it’s pure nonsense.
While I usually agree with most of what you say, I disagree with you about the cause of obesity in people with lower incomes. It does not come from a generous welfare system. They are getting fatter, because they make poor food choices. The human body tends to take carbohydrates from flour and refined sugar and store it as fat instead of using it for fuel or other needs of the body. People in lower incomes eat too much flour and refined sugar instead of eating complex carbohydrates, vegetables, and proteins. So they get fat. We see the same thing in poor countries without welfare. Low income people are actually starving nutritionally, because what they eat gets stored as fat instead of being used by the body for its needs. So we have obese people losing their lives from malnutrition. This isn’t the fault of the industrial farms. The farms grow the foods we demand.
Allison, industrial farming grows much more than corn. They grow pretty much everything that you would be able to eat. I don’t know why the occupiers are so focused on corn other than one of the researchers is using corn to learn more about all plants. Agribusiness does not support the 1%. Quite the opposite, it supports the 99%. Industrial farms are the result of our need to feed the 99% healthy inexpensive food.
Corporations need to be treated more like natural persons. That will be the only way our legal system will make sure that they act like responsible citizens. It is when we treat companies like they are not natural persons, that they stop taking responsibility for their actions, because they no longer fear the law.
Post apocalyptic awesomeness: Mad Michael Beyond Thunderdome! The future is bleak: 2/3 of us must die, plants must be genetically upgraded, total economic collapse is imminent and our only hope is a lone researcher tinkering around in his lab with the key to solve it all: an upgraded inedible corn plant!
But until then, corporations are awesome and its the hippies that are out to lunch. Uh huh.
Lay off the bong before you post next time, please.
What an ego! A whole 9 years of studying the food movement!
At least noone occupying the gill tract thinks that their tiny contribution to localized urban agriculture will cure hunger (not even locally). Contrast this with the hubris of Freeling, who is convinced that HIS tiny contributions to science are the lynchpin for our hopes of feeding EVERYONE in the world.
To his credit, Damon Lisch – like most good scientists, and unlike Freeling – is a lot more humble and realistic about the size and scope of his scientific contributions. Lisch is concerned with feeding his family. Ask him what he actually thinks about his research and the goals of the occupiers and he will tell you a very different story than Freeling.
maybe you don’t understand Dr. Lisch’s perspective as well as you think you do…http://www.dailycal.org/2012/05/02/gill-tract-occupation-impedes-agricultural-research/
> What an ego! A whole 9 years of studying the food movement!
Given that you come in here like a f*cking pompous ass, and crap all over someone who has contributed far more to society than you EVER will in your misdirected lifetime, you’re the LAST one who has any grounds to bring others to tasks for their egos.
I just read the op/ed article from the sophomore who never planted anything until the occupation of the Gill tract as she gives us her take on farming. Who has a larger ego about the food movement, the professor with nine years of research or the occupiers with no experience?
Except there’s enough corn already, to feed the whole world. Not sure why this guy thinks making more of it will help. Another “common sense” appeal from a scientist who possesses little of it.
“Because of basic research, we are learning how plants work. In my opinion, crops will either be genetically upgraded or they will fail to produce in our hotter, drier, degraded future (with economic collapse possible). Basic research is — or was — going on at the university’s Gill Tract….”
Really? I believe the objective here is to better understand plants genetics as a whole and these researchers are choosing to use corn as an exploratory medium. Please try reading before it is necessary to put your foot in your mouth.
The professor was pointing out that the occupy people who said corn was bad are incorrect. In a world with limited resources, corn is a food source that is more beneficial than many planted in the occupy farm.
> “Much of the “food movement” is about well-off people needing something. What?”
The need to feel relevant and morally superior to the rest of the unwashed masses, to be blunt.
I disagree on several points, but still, a far more level-headed, balanced article than most of the drivel posted on this subject.