Rainy days and Mondays sometimes get me down, as Karen Carpenter so sweetly (almost) put it. I have two responses to the inertia that the combination of the two can bring – give in to it with some Nick Drake or Lee Hazelwood/Nancy Sinatra, or turn the volume up with some noise or other. Today has been noise. It’s helping. That article went off courtesy of some vintage PiL. Ah, where has all the conviction in music gone.
Where was I. Looking at Twitter too much, that’s where.
An interesting (given it’s raining and the Test series has ended) debate has sprung up about organic agriculture being inefficient. Two writers have contended that organic agriculture is less efficient than inorganic production due to its lower yields.
Mark Lynas has written a blog outlining his thoughts on the matter; Simon Singh has also written on the subject, asking Monty Don (President of the Soil Association) a couple of questions. One was about homeopathy which I’m not getting into, the other is below:
Do you agree with the conclusions of the meta-analysis in Nature (2012), which reviewed 66 studies comparing the yields of 34 different crop species, and which concluded that the yield per acre for organic farming is 3% less for fruit, 11% less for legumes, 26% less for cereals and 33% less for vegetables. So, while organic fruit production is fairly efficient, everything else performs poorly to very poorly. By all means say that there are other factors to be considered when considering organic farming, but was this a good piece of research on the issue of yield per acre? If not, why not?
Now I am not, by several inches of shoulder breadth, considerable pairs of braces and a good few degrees of profile Monty Don, but this is an area I have studied, worked on and written about and being as it’s raining and I have only duller things to do, I thought I’d write a bit. I have given myself one playing of the Bowie’s Lodger album to say what I have to say, so apologies for this being untidy but I should be working really. I will try to lighten the tedium with a few irrelevant pictures.
The argument that inorganic agriculture is more efficient than organic agriculture based on analysis of respective yields seems to me a very slim part of a very large picture.
Even if we accept that an acre of organic land always yields less (and many would contest it) it doesn’t get to the heart of the notion of ‘efficiency’.
Simon’s is an interesting blog that, I suspect, raises some points many share. He states that he only has a ‘superficial understanding and knowledge of the subject’ which is where most sensible people with a life reside.
I too am no expert, but efficiency is usually measured as a ratio of inputs to outputs, rather than one element of it. In short, there are other ‘currencies’ we need to look at – oil, water, carbon and phosphate among them, if we are to gain a balanced view.
It’s a wet Monday and life is too short to look at them all, (and I’m already halfway through the not-entirely-spectacular 3rd track, ‘Yassassin‘) so I’ll try just ‘nitrogen’ in the hope that the most loyal among you will allow me at least a few paras before popping off to watch Eastenders. I know, nitrogen isn’t on that list of other currencies, but that’ll come clear in a moment.
Nitrogen is essential to plant growth and in the search for higher yields from our acres we have made our own nitrogen fertilisers which are now widely used on inorganic farms. Most farmers report fast growth and high yields but these benefits have costs. Nitrogen finding its way into the water system and greenhouse gas emissions are two of them.
The European Nitrogen Assessment, a major Europe-wide study published last year, identified a few key points:
1 – At least ten million people in Europe are potentially exposed to drinking water with nitrate concentrations above recommended levels
2 – Nitrates cause toxic algal blooms and dead zones in the sea, especially in the North, Adriatic and Baltic seas and along the coast of Brittany
3 – Nitrogen-based air pollution from agriculture, industry and traffic in urban areas contributes to particulate matter air pollution, which is reducing the life expectancy of the average European by approx 6 months
4 – In the forests, atmospheric nitrogen deposition has caused at least 10% loss of plant diversity over two-thirds of Europe.
I find the reach of that damage quietly impressive. You might think those impacts a fair swap for the prospect of more food per acre, but there are other factors to consider.
To make a ton of nitrogen fertiliser, you will need:
1 ton oil
108 tons water
Both of these raw ingredients are in increasingly pressured demand. It is commonly supposed that we are beyond the peak of oil extraction. We are also, apparently, committed to more careful use of fossil fuels. In short, even if we wanted to keep producing food the way we have and accept all the related impacts, we simply won’t be able to as the raw ingredients are running out and becoming too expensive as they do.
Our reliance on fossil fuels for growing food is very recent, for only comparatively few decades – a period that Rob Hopkins of the Transition Movement calls The Petroleum Interval. The vast majority of the ecological and cultural evolution of this planet occured entirely their benefit. It is interesting, then, that the use of fossil-fuel chemicals in agriculture is referred to as ‘conventional’ farming, as opposed to organic farming.
Just creating the fertiliser has impacts – 7 tons of CO2 equivalent gases are released into the atmosphere. And as the fertiliser breaks down it releases yet more, in the form of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas over 300 times more powerful than CO2. Even if you are skeptical about a warming climate and the effects of GHG emissions, the reduction in human life expectancy and water pollution are impressive enough.
A similar case can be made when looking at water (70% of the world’s potable water goes to agriculture, not least because of that recipe above) and phosphate use – organic systems typically consume considerably less of both.
There is also the issue of soil management – UK soils now release more carbon that they sequester (ie our soil emits GHGs that contribute to climate change), and repeated ploughing (for resowing and fertiliser application) is a primary contributer. And then there’s equitability – most of the impacts aren’t felt where they are generated.
I could go on (if Lodger was a double album) but the long and the short of it is our current food system is deeply flawed, unresilient and insecure. It relies on fossil fuels and the consumption of other resources at an intensity that we can no longer sustain. It is also deeply inequitable – food access is biased and many of the impacts associated with how we grow food are exported to other countries and cultures.
The challenge of feeding a rising population (9 billion people by 2050) will require some bright thinking. Using more land for agriculture or intensifying production may not be the answer. We produce comfortably enough food to feed everyone – the problem of hunger lies in distribution and the equality of that distribution. We also waste around a third of the food we produce. In short, and bizarrely, hunger won’t vanish if we grow more food.
Considering the wider picture of what we eat is crucial to a better food system. Some aspects are fairly obvious: around 40% of cereals grown worldwide is eaten by livestock that we in turn eat. It is hugely energy and water inefficient. If we reduced our meat-eating to the level it was just 12 years ago at the turn of the new millenium it would free up enough to cereals to feed 1.2 billion more people by 2050 than if we keep carry on as we are. A switch to eating more of our meat from animals that graze land less suited to crop production (many of the uplands of the UK for example) would help retain the character of those landscapes as well as produce ‘better’ meat.
We have to look forward but we also need to look back: growing food is essentially very simple – needing little more than sunlight, water and well managed soil. THIS is ‘conventional’ growing. Anything else that we add to that mix we should add with eyes open – not just to the potential for increased yields and land ‘efficiencies’, but to the impacts as well as the benefits.
Yes, there is (as Mark points out) the occasional incident associated with organic farming (such as the outbreak of E.coli in Germany in 2011 that killed over 50) but they are few and far between and serious though they are, we need to stack them up against the enduring, consistent impacts caused by manmade nitrogen fertilisers etc.
Simon writes: ‘I probably prefer the risk of pesticides traces rather the risk of bacteria traces, but let’s just assume that the price premium on organic does not buy any health/safety bonus’.
Even without getting into pesticides, looking just at our use of man-made nitrogen fertilisers throws up plenty of ‘health/safety bonuses’ of food produced organically. With phosphate use, water, soil health and equitability, a similar case can be made.
So, to respond to Simon’s question if I may, it may well have been a good piece of research about yield per acre, but it doesn’t tell us very much about what we need to know.
Enough with the jabbering on and just in the middle of Boys Keep Swinging. Which gives me time to take out some typos. Let’s hope it’s sunnier tomorrow.
Bowie’s always kept a good band around him. I suspect he also knows the value of including someone who looks like a dad who’s walked in, sloped past security and picked up an instrument. The guitarist, Adrian Belew, takes the accolade in that video. Like Robert Frip who played the evocative whine on Heroes, he mostly makes noise more than plays notes which seems to suit Bowie, Zappa and as well as King Crimson who he’s played most with. It works with football teams too. Liverpool FC, Manchester Utd< Arsenal..you name it, they're always better with a good smattering of ugly/dad players.
I won’t comment on the Bowie album. I never got past the 70s on that one. A few other thoughts though:
– Nitrogen is nitrogen is nitrogen. So your organic legumes fix nitrogen and make it biologically available just as does ammonium fertiliser. Nitrogen, once it becomes reactive (i.e. no longer N2) can take a variety of forms, including nitrous oxide (high greenhouse gas) and other nasties.
– Having said that, the key lesson from the Nature study is that most organic systems are nitrogen-limited. So they will undoubtedly contribute less to runoff and eutrophication of freshwater systems. But this is all about trade-offs. If you want to run an inefficient nitrogen-limited agricultural system, you will use more land. Perhaps that will mean chopping down the rainforests in another country. Who knows. These indirect footprint effects are incredibly difficult to quantify. But anyway, this is why yield per acre matters.
– You rather shift the goalposts by moving the discussion onto nitrogen. To answer Simon’s question, as an organic grower do you accept that yields per acre are generally significantly lower? The Soil Association doesn’t.
– Don’t bet on peak oil. And fertiliser is produced using gas, not oil. There’s a lot of gas around just now, thanks to the shale gas glut in the US, and LNG from Qatar, Australia and suchlike. Because it’s using air-capture, apart from the climate impact fertiliser production is actually quite environmentally-friendly in my view – dramatically reducing our land-take, and leaving more spare for biodiversity than would otherwise be the case.
– Sure, convincing people to eat less meat would reduce land intensity. Go ahead, try it.
Blimey that was quick – you must have google alerts on ‘high’ sensitivity.
Thanks for the reply – and do try Lodger, 1979, and apparently his favourite.
I hope I made the point about trade offs – I’m not necessarily advocating a return to 18thC growing but I am saying we need to openly accept any compromises and trade offs in their entirety. At present few are aware of the wider picture, and it is complex and, as you say, difficult to quantify. Who agreed to loss of biodiversity across our forests as a result of using manmade nitrogen?
Yield per acre is a consideration, of course, but it is misleading to consider it in isolation. It can be tempting to assume that we should produce more food because people are hungry but the issue isn’t about volume of food.
I don’t think I was moving the goalposts – just round out the picture a bit. As an organic grower (on a small scale) I don’t think about just maximising yields – my focus is on caring for the soil, managing the holding as well as I can and keeping a diverse holding that I hope will insulate me against most of what our seasons can throw at us – ie a polyculture, where biodiversity is encouraged. I wouldn’t know if yields could be higher using other methods as they don’t interest me. Sorry, I sounds like a dreadful hippy.
I suspect we will find a few other efficient ways of extracting more fossil fuels for a while yet – but we can’t dismiss the climate impact so easily can we?
I’d like to vie for the title “least informed commenter” but just wondered what the drive for GM modified crops that derive nitrogen from the air rather than from fertilizers means for some of the problems you mention re nitrogen concentrations in people/ water supplies/pollution?
Ah Burley, how nice to see you. GM is another can of worms altogether. Many huge implications to do with ownership of technology and patents, exporting western techniques to other cultures less suited to them, etc etc. Vandana Shiva is well worth a youtube on the subject – an inspiring thinker/speaker.
OK, but let’s assume (for the sake of argument, not because it’s a given)that Mr Gates’ foundation is not going to fund a technology that gives someone else a free reign to exploit developing nations, and that as a species all cultures are entitled to access the technology that we as a species develop. Does the possibility of widespread GM crops extracting nitrogen from the atmosphere potentially disrupt concentrations of nitrates, algal blooms, pollution etc?
I have a little knowledge having done a PhD in the molecular mechanisms of nitrogen-fixing bacterial survival in soil when outside the legume nodule. Its not the plant that does the fixing you know, but one of those bacterial things. Its a symbiosis, one of many between plant and microbe that human life depends upon.
The recent investment by the Gates foundation is to help prevent the IP argument of GM and provide the majority of nitrogen fertiliser-dependent crops with a means of acquiring usable (fixed) nitrogen. All legumes can harness bacteria to fix nitrogen. All legumes are essentially organic in the purist sense of the word (carbon based molecules) and can be, but don’t have to be, grown organically (ie according to soil association rules). Just to be pedantic on somantics.
Tim asks an extremely interesting question. Will the widespread growth of nitrogen fixing crops unbalance our nitrogen cycle in other ways? Tim, we just don’t know and even sophisticated modelling may not be able to accurately predict that outcome. At the moment there are so many things nobody knows. the complex webs and uncertainties make this whole debate seem farcical to me. People who even admit to having little or no understanding trading insults. What I do think is the only known is as a species we are consuming way beyond our means. And when the ecological/commodity equivalent of Lehman Brothers happens, I hope we all know an awful lot more about this highly complex and poorly researched subject area and that we don’t ruin the planet for its many many other species.
When you link this argument with the points Sir David Attenborough raised in the telegraph, you do have to wonder what a selfish species we are.
Off to an online music vendor to get Bowie. Its a gap in our collection.
I just
wondered whether each word would
appear on a separate line ?
Great response, many thanks. I’m going to use the word antidisestablishmentarianism just to see if it breaks poor Mr D’s website.
Oh and I’d also like to draw attention to what is I think the most important line in Michelle’s well-considered and insightful comment:
“Tim asks an extremely interesting question.”
Never happened before. We’re into uncharted territory here folks.
Now let’s see if I can get the tricky maths question in Mark’s anti-spam thing right…
Tim I will challenge you to a duel for the right to the title of “least informed commenter”. From a naive standpoint a logical further step from your question re GM modified crop my open question is; Is it possible to grow GM crops organically (i.e. using conventional organic principles) ? Could the crops be marketed as such or is “organic GM” a contradiction in terms ?
Sure it is possible to grow GM crops organically, but any other crops on the farm would lose their organic certification? There are other conventional farming methods, using minimal agro-chemicals. But organic produce is certified GM free. One of the reasons why we consumers buy organic, and NOT GM.
Im not sure it is possible…the premise is that the seeds are modified so resist chemicals sot hat you can zap everything surrounding leaving them unaffected
I’m not sure that Mark L read your blogpost properly Mark, perhaps not at all. Or perhaps it’s a clear example that we all read what we want to read. What I read was an excellent strategic view of organic v. ‘conventional’ farming, taking into account the issues of population growth, how choice of diet affects land requirements, the transference of our food cost ‘savings’ onto others via the externalities of pollution, climate change and land degradation and a perspective on forms of food production that spans centuries, rather than decades.
Clearly what Mark read was that organic plants need nitrogen too (any old nitrogen will do) and that the problem with oil use is that it is finite. it’s difficult to engage when the person you are trying to have an intelligent conversation with is listening in a different language.
I don’t know what on earth Sue Beesley is on about – my points were very specific and clear, dealing with some of the issues raised in the blog I did not feel were fully accurate (or needed elaboration). No foreign language degree required, unless of course one does not want to deal with the issue at hand, which is the productivity of organic vs conventional agriculture.
I’m very well-acquainted with the issue of trade-offs, between biodiversity, water, nitrogen use and so on, as it’s a central theme (perhaps the central theme) in my most recent book, the God Species. If organic growers want to say, “OK, I realise this is more land inefficient, but I’m trading that off against reduce nitrogen loading in my local stream”, that’s fine by me. Let’s just be explicit about this and then we can have a reasonable conversation about priorities.
I’m hoping we can keep it relaxed – too often it gets dreadfully polarised on such issues!
Im not sure why the fixation with land efficiency? As I wrote, we produce more than enough food as it is, so it seems unnecessary to single out one element…or to limit our thinking to starting with the status quo. Surely we can allow ourselves to imagine a food system that would ‘work’ in the widest sense and see how we might move towards it. If we accept that we already produce enough food and that there are mechanisms for make that more efficient/equitable, why is land efficiency such an important issue?
Fair enough Mark (L). Unlike Mark (D) I have not read your books so was not properly aware of your wider perspective. I shall make good this omission over the winter. Perhaps next week at this rate…
Another no-expert-on-the-topic-comment, not that I consider myself a total ignoramus on the issue – about the yield per acre point – now I know this is considered contentious by many, but Masanobu Fukuako with his, admittedly rather labour-intensive way of farming, had a yield of grain and rice comparable to that of farmers using “traditional” (now I’m confused about when to use the word) Japanese farming methods.
Will investigate….
I went to a lecture about 2 years ago by Professor Beddington and the figures he showed on population growth across the world and projected use of water, fuel and food requirements was quite frankly terrifying.
His conclusion was, as you say Mark, that we need to change our habits. To start with we eat far too much meat. We need to increase the price of meat to make it less affordable especially for the fast food companies. But that is only a small contribution. There is the whole issue of re-educating people to eat differently and we know from Jamie Oliver’s attempts to improve school dinners how impossible that can be with certain groups of people. I sometime wonder if it will take a major disaster/event for people to wake up to the situation but I wouldnt want to wish that on anyone.
As for the yield from organic growing against non-organic growing I cant speak for commercial growers but from an amateur point of view an comparing with the ‘conventional’ growers yields at my allotment site I think my crops are as good and I am not stacking up problems for the future. I enrich the soil through various organic means and presumably this will mean with careful management that the yields will improve year on year.
I found the piece on Countryfile this week on GM crops very interesting and I personally feel that we need a combination of approaches – taking the best from each approach. There are elements of GM which would be beneficial and would not damage our heritage, soil whatever.
Im not actually anti GM for the sake of it – but Ive never been convinced of any success stories, of it doing what it says on the tin – increasing yields, helping countries to develop, doing away with starvation etc. It doesnt happen
What I have seen is a few large chemical companies benefitting hugely from the promotion of seeds that sell their chemicals tot he detriment of other people’s health, livelihood and environment.
Vandana Shiva, who I saw speak a couple of years ago, is one of the brightest voices on its dangers, eg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oju86YIOOLI
This thing about that “we need to change our habits” I personally find extremely sensible, seen objectively I find it very wishful thinking. In the early 80s I lived in China for some years, most people simply could not afford meat, later as more people got more affluent the main thing they want to eat is meat. In Switzerland where I live now, whenever there is any kind of celebration, the thing people, or at least men, want to eat is meat. It seems so inbred, I don’t see any reasonable way of stopping this craving. I don’t mean to sound defeatist, but what can be done to change this? I’d love to hear suggestions.
Tricky one…most people can afford to eat meat – it is now seen as a right to eat meat as frequently as it is wanted and supermarkets find a way to make it available at a price almost all can afford. By all sensible means it should be impossible to breed, raise, feed, home, care for, kill, prepare, package and transport a chicken to be sold for £3…but a way has been found, however hideous that way maybe.
As far as I’m aware the high yields from ‘conventional’ agriculture are a product of large-scale, high-input growing methods which require the use of high-tech and mechanical means of sowing, spraying, fertilizing and harvesting. Organic systems yield better on a small scale, and organic growing methods are much more accessible to home-growers and communities who want to take steps towards local food security and to engage with the processes involved in producing their own crops. Building local food resilience around small-scale, mixed organic farms seems to be a much better way for us all to become healthier, happier and more closely linked with the communities we live in and with the natural world we are a part of. Food quality must rate as highly as food quantity in our list of priorities or we are simply storing up health problems within our population for the future.
I think that the only truly sustainable methods of food production are more along the forest-gardening/agroforestry line of thinking, but I don’t know how we go about implementing that on a wider scale across the country. It would also mean a radical re-think in terms of which crops we consider as our staple foods.
Oh, and isn’t peak phosphate becoming more of a pressing issue these days than peak oil? Even more reason to get our nutrient cycles right and re-use the phosphate already in the system by using organic soil improvement methods.
One day its phosphate that’s most pressing, next oil…either way, they and water are not getting any less pressured/cheap
“We have to look forward but we also need to look back: growing food is essentially very simple – needing little more than sunlight, water and well managed soil.” As a very non-expert gardener and grower that’s where I kind of start and finish. I do know we waste far too much food, and that fairer distribution (and some dietary/cultural changes) would feed all of us well, and that oil and other resources are finite. It seems clear enough to me.
By the way Mark, I will spend the day slightly haunted by your question: ‘what if “Lodger” was a double album?’ – oh, that’d cheer up a bleak summer no end!
A double indeed…but then Scary Monsters just after which is a beauty too
only thing I know is there’s two Ps in Robert, Mark, FP to him
I think you’ll find there’s no Ps in ‘Robert’ Michael. Weird, I’m havent been tampering with me php have you? I know your sort
Carlos Alomar on the other one and Gail Ann Dorsey on the bass…bit of a supergroup, though hardly enough to rival Minx eh
tiny tiny tiny reply
And now it’s fixed, who looks the twonk now eh…didnt think of that did you
*Lovely* pictures.
You’re very kind
Are we leaving Mark Lynas’ advocacy of the use of shale gas unchallenged, or was it refuted in print which was too small for me?
And not sure about your choice of Bowie albums. I’ve always thought Lodger a few too late. Hunky Dory just shades Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, although the latter has the best associations.
Well, there was a little light challenging to Mark L’s advocation of shale gas, but he hasnt come back about whether we can ignore the GHG/carbon implications in any measure of how ‘good’ it is.
Lodger is ptchy but the good bits are fantastic…Boys Keep swinging makes me very happy and Scary Monster (the one after) is a belter. But the other three you mention are undoubtedly his classics….Aladdin Sane on the rickety turntable in Exeter Rd on a sunday after a saturday night will stick long in the mind
Michelle’s response is excellent with the only real axiom in all of this – the recognition of the complexity that all the main protagonists in this fail to realise. Working outside of the UK, yet a Brit I am staggered at the regression of science and the new need to have to spend time and resources arguing against commentators with little real knowledge asides their own interpretation of one of a hundred peer reviewed and cross land management spectrum articles they need to read.
Working in France, usually at the bottom of a soil test pit, as part of a landscape approach to further research into sustainable land management allows one to quickly understand that what happens in one location is very different to another less than 100m away. Thus each solution has to be site specific. This ‘anglophone’ silliness in allowing continued debate perpetuated by those seeking a celebration of themselves is diverting everybody’s attention and therefore potential funding from real solutions.
The simple fact is that we are killing our soils rapidly with a variety of additives organic and chemical. This has to be stopped and we can stop it but not whilst every ego in town feels the need to jump in on something they know sod all about – maybe they should start by digging a hole in their back garden and finding out for themselves just how extraordinarily complex and diverse soil really is.
Fascinating…and as you say, we fail to recohgnise the importance of the soil. I think most see it as an inert reservoir of mud rather than a living entity upon which all is built. Thanks for your thoughts
Fascinating post and debate, Mark. I grow organically on my plot and buy organic food where possible. I do this because I don’t want to use chemicals which even if ‘safe’ for humans are often dangerous to earthworms which are vital to healthy soil. Whilst there is, so far, it seems, little evidence to suggest organic fruit and veg has more nutrients in it, there is evidence which shows cows reared organically on clover rich grass producing milk which has more antioxidants, nutrients and healthier fats in it. And surely it is better for our health that we don’t consume a cocktail of chemical residues on our food.
It can’t be denied that intensive farming has changed our countryside and the biodiversity of species that now exist. Populations for farmland birds in 2010 were half of what they were in 1970 (Defra). However, organic farming works with nature. Conventional agriculture is now trying to work more with the environment by, for instance, creating wildflower margins to provide habitats for pollinators. However, we have the strange situation where farmers growing oil-seed rape use seed treated with neonicotinoids, which independent research shows has a negative impact on bees. This seems quite a contradictory situation to me and I wonder how much of this ‘greening’ of agriculture is an actual interest in improving biodiversity or the threat of a cut in subsidies for farmers who don’t join in.
As for organic food producing lower yields. It may well but I don’t think you can denigrate organic food based on this. How about we try to reduce the world’s population growth, stop eating so much meat, eat seasonal produce and reconnect with how the food we eat is produced rather than thinking food is a ready meal zapped in the microwave. How much land goes into producing ‘food’ which is high in calories and fats and which provides little in the way of nutrition? In my own experience those who eat organically are not all vegetarian but because they pay more for their meat they eat it less frequently. Maybe these changes would be hard for some, so is it simply that using chemicals is the easier option?
If I started to write about why I disagree with GM I could be here all day and I don’t want to inflict that rant on anyone. Instead I’m off to plant out my leeks … organic ones! Oh, totally agree about Vandana Shiva, came across her when I had to argue FOR GM food in a debate at college. A fascinating woman.
Thanks WW…and do feel free to rant away anytime
Thanks to Wellywoman for mentioning the Good Doctor. Wisdom and compassion combined.
The thing that I came away with from my Organics course at Capel Manor was the input to output ratio was crucial. Proportionately lower yields compared were more than made up for by lower (and infinitely more sustainable) inputs. The was a Swiss study that projected that organic was financially more viable than industrial husbandry over a ten year period. I’d be interested to find out if chemically depleted soils have suffered more than those of organic growers in the recent deluges. Soil health isn’t just about fertility, but ability to withstand erosion and so forth.
But the key question is sustainability. Fossil fuels are finite resources, which is why renewable based soil amendments are a far better long term option. Someone will undoubtedly point out that oil is technically renewable, but in realistic timeframes, when it’s gone it’s gone. Same of course is true for peat, but also for vermiculite, perlite, gravel, grit and so forth. If you wanted to, you could argue the sustainability of top soil and terracotta too, but that is for some time in the future. And as for the e-coli issue – slapdash husbandry will always be a risk. But it’s not just caterers who should learn food hygiene.
But I guess this argument will rumble on until the oil runs out. (And don’t forget that Peak Oil refers to viable, accessible sources. Shale/tar sands, deep water / polar drilling don’t fit that model. The tipping point may have already passed).
Thank you, v interesting….who knows about the tipping point…
Rob Hopkins shedding his Cockney rough diamond persona to join the Transition Movement? I guess he hasn’t worked much since “Made in Dagenham”….
Bejesus….
Speaking as someone who knows a great deal about this subject I feel moved to contribute to this intelligent and intense debate.
Scary Monsters is better than Lodger.
I would also like to say that I object to being made to do Hard Sums to prove that I am not a spambot.
As with all stopped clocks, twice a day they are right….Scary Monster is indeed better than Lodger, BUT Lodger is still a belter without which there would’ve been no Scary Monsters.
You may continue for the rest of the day safe in the knowledge that you may be right only once more