Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Agribusiness Chief Slams Organics
"Organic food is not only not better for the planet," he said, in an interview at The New York Times building on Tuesday. "It is categorically worse."
Michael Mack, the chief executive of the Swiss agribusiness firm Syngenta, says organic farming is “categorically worse” for the planet. (Syngenta) The problem, Mr. Mack said, is that organic farming takes up about 30 percent more land, on average, than non-organic farming for the same yield (though this varies by crop, of course). If the world wants to feed its fast-growing population on existing cropland - and Mr. Mack is clear that he does not want forests chopped down to clear more land for biofuel production, let alone food - then productivity becomes a key factor, he said.
"If the whole planet were to suddenly switch to organic farming tomorrow, it would be an ecological disaster," he said.
In terms of yields, he continued, organic food is the "productive equivalent of driving an S.U.V."
Mr. Mack also addressed what he called the "mistaken belief that natural is always better."
Pesticides that help crops to grow more efficiently in this country, he argued, "have been proven safe and effective and absolutely not harmful to the environment or to humans," and have been certified as such by the Food and Drug Administration or the Environmental Protection Agency.
The implication of not believing that pesticides are safe, he said, is that you don't trust the government's findings.
"Once you go down that path, I don't know where the guard rails are," he said.
Mr. Mack dismissed the notion that Syngenta, a company that sold nearly $12 billion of seeds and "crop protection" technologies last year, felt threatened by the organic movement.
His concern, he said, was to make people aware of the limitations of organic food.
"It underplays the significance of agricultural productivity," he said.
- Posted in
75 Comments so far
Show AllGRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!
Gee. Another brazen disinformation campaign from a corporate monster. What will they do next?
One thing that we won't read is any objective evaluation of this douchebag's claims in the corporate media.
q
Seriously. This is news?
Apparently, Mr Mack has been smoking Crack.. if this man truly did make these statements, about the only utterance of any merit is that farming organically on existing pesticide laden soils would indeed be a zero sum effort.
We would likely have to grow our foods hydroponically/ aeroponically for a season or two while fungi regenerates the soil back from its present chemically stressed state.
Once citizens actually commit to taking personal responsibility for what they eat, don't expect that these pirates will go down without a fight.. (countdown to the Global War on Food)
//The implication of not believing that pesticides are safe, he said, is that you don't trust the government's findings.//
That's so weak!
===
Control of the food supply, by companies such as Syngenta with their GMOs and pesticides, is one of the greatest evils the world has ever known.
Michael Mack's company is every bit as vicious and dangerous as the multi-national oil companies and U.S. based defense contractors who are destroying and destabilizing the planet.
Monsanto, Syngenta etc. have as their ultimate goal complete control and ownership of ALL FOOD.
Their seeds have NEVER been independently tested to be safe for human consumption or the environment. The contract you sign with them allows no scientific verification of their safety.
Notice as well how Mr. Mack uses a classic propaganda technique by applying the characteristic that most aptly describes the evil of his company and attributes it to organic food. Thus organic food is now as wasteful as an SUV according to the K-street consulting firm Mr. Mack obviously consulted for a snappy one-liner.
Mr. Mack, his magic seeds and deadly pesticides, are better than farming in concert and harmony with the Earth. We must accept this as fact according to Syngenta.
Mr. Mack obviously has a messiah complex.
DO I trust the gov't and their findings? Not after the last 30 years, I don't. WHO paid for the gov't to come up with these findings? Gee, might it have been BIG AGRIBUSINESS? And why should I then be surprised that the feds found nothing to be worried about?
In Europe, they have to go through massive testing to PROVE something is safe BEFORE it can be put out on the market, whereas here we have to go to court to prove that things ARE DEADLY before they are removed from the market. In that amount of time large numbers of people are frequently injured or even killed.
Trust industry that they AREN'T profiting in the short term while doing serious damage long term? Not on your miserable life, Mr Executive. Your goal is to make money, regardless of how many people get hurt in the process. Why should I trust you for a heartbeat? You will go to your grave LONG before I trust you and your industry brethren.
BTW, testing on soil in this country has shown that the very dirt we grow food in is sterile. It has no nutrients to give to the food, and as a result, our health is going down hill fast. You and your buddies have sold us the fallacy that corn syrup is the same as sugar, when tests have shown that it has exactly the opposite effect on the body as sugar. Sugar shuts off your hunger centers, while corn syrup tells the same hunger centers that you are starving. So you over eat, and get obese. Then the "medical" industry gives you a pill for that, and everyone but YOU makes out like a GD bandit.
Yeah. I'm REALLY going to trust industry about much of ANYTHING, anymore.
What these folks never say is that the reason organic crops take more land is that they are rotated with soil-building crops so that the result is improved soil, rather than the chemical equivalent of slash-and-burn. If we lay a third dimension - time - onto this discussion, I daresay that organics will win hands-down. When soils die, civilizations follow.
If we were to stop feeding corn and soybeans to cows, which were born to eat grass, we could free up vast acreages for human food. This doesn't mean we have to stop eating meat and dairy foods, but we might have to pay the true costs of producing them. Americans (U.S.) could certainly stand to eat a little less meat. We could use pasture land for pasture and crop land for crops (what a novel idea). Good pasture management actually improves soil, stops erosion and sequesters carbon. Plowing and tilling release carbon, and the production of corn and soybeans consumes massive amounts of fuel. We are irrigating deserts with fossil water to raise animals and their feed in arid places where grass doesn't grow.
Ironically, there is too much food in this country, even as people go hungry. Because of this surplus, farmers are paid low prices for their products because what they produce is perishable -- they must accept whatever agribusiness offers them. The big money is made in TRADING commodities, the Wall Street of farming. More big money is made from taking a simple raw farm product, processing it and putting a fancy label on it.
If you read, take in one or more of Michael Pollan's books. If not, you can now get Food Inc from Netflix.
Let us pray that this man and his associates are plagued by dreams of abundant, fecund and fertile soils, teeming with myriad lifeforms, smelling like heaven, rich with grasses and clovers, wildflowers, fruit trees, bees, bluebirds, wrens, ground beetles, foxes, frogs and garter snakes, the whispers of bats and rare moths, the scent of violets...let us pray that in these dreams, this man, Michael Mack, lies prone on the earth, crumbs of earthworm castings dusting his cheek, and his heart is broken open by proximity to miracles, and he wakes, weeping.
Good on ya! yes!
Could you please expand that prayer exponentially in every dimension and make it contageous???
Productivity and efficiency--oh, and yes, his profits. That's really all there is to food!
Yes, Evil lurks in Europe too. The man needs to become fertilizer, and soon.
For an objective refutation of this flack's claims, see
http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~christos/articles/cv_organic_farming.html
This research out of UC Berkeley proves that organic farming after a couple of years is more productive than corporate farming...and on the same amount of land.
Thank you nosurrender,
The article is magnificent (I just read it). In general I am not very interested in opinions which are not backed up by data or proof, and you have provided it. The article seems to have been written around the year 2000.
More recently, I would also like to refer people to the: "International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD)" A summary of the report is that:
"The report reflects a growing consensus among the global scientific community and most governments that the old paradigm of industrial, energy-intensive and toxic agriculture is a concept of the past. The key message of the report is that small-scale farmers and agro-ecological methods provide the way forward to avert the current food crisis and meet the needs of local communities."
http://practicalaction.org/home/iaastd
For 15,800 sites about the report, google:
"International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development",agro-ecological"
For example, take a look at:
Is Ecological Agriculture Productive? By Lim Li Ching, Researcher, Third World Network (November 2008)
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/susagri/susagri064.htm
Enjoy,
Laurence
"...mistaken belief that natural is always better."
George Orwell is crying down on us.
But I could be wrong !
Join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program. They're everywhere. Even "The City" of San Francisco has hundreds organic gardens in urban back yards and lots, that supply local CSA programs. Google it for more info. Tasty!
What a lying sack of shit!
The whole world is ALREADY practicing organic agriculture, with the exception of the U.S. and a (few?) other countries. (And, the U.S. only strayed from organic agriculture beginning about 60 years ago.)
Pesticides have NOT been proven safe! Quite the opposite. They've been proven to cause cancer, neurological disease, reproductive disorders and heart disease!
I wouldn't be so sure. Some of the Asian countries have been getting hooked to agri-business practices in agriculture despite the higher long term costs. There are efforts in the US to revert to organic farming. It is a matter of doing one's best to go on the offensive.
I think that's what I said. With the exception of the U.S. and a few other countries (like India) the world is--and has been for thousands of years--practicing organic agriculture. That's what makes this corporate whore's warning so absurd.
Where is the organic counter point to this article? This article reads like a press release from Syngenta, not an article written by a real jouralist, as if real journalism really exist anymore.
At least the people in the comments section of the NY Times article are calling out the false arguments presented. The comments section are more objective than the "journalist" in this case!
This was exactly my first thought. Where is the fact-checking, or just a teeny tiny bit of fact checking? Imagine, there are still people who think the NY Times is a good newspaper.
There are?
The one liner about SUVs will, in the long run, go down in history as making the piece prophetically worthwhile.
Some refutation...
From this article...
http://www.dfwnetmall.com/earth/organic-farm-yield-equals-conventional.htm ...
"The 22-year farming trial study found that organic farming produces the same yields of corn and soybeans as does conventional farming, but uses 30 percent less energy, less water and no pesticides." and "He adds, "Organic farming approaches for these crops not only use an average of 30 percent less fossil energy but also conserve more water in the soil, induce less erosion, maintain soil quality, and conserve more biological resources than conventional farming does."
more...
Organic vs Chemical Agriculture Some Environmental Facts
http://www.parkday.org/organic_vs_chemical_agriculture.htm
and more...
Comparing organic vs. conventional agriculture on biodiversity...
http://www.conservationmaven.com/frontpage/2009/10/16/comparing-organic-vs-conventional-agriculture-on-biodiversit.html
... and so I am sure if we could come up with a formula that took all factors into consideration, Organic methods of farming would be proven to be the only long range sustainable approach for both agriculture and health.
Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live
Good job, thanks.
Poison good. Nature bad.
Cigarettes safe.
Coal clean.
Just had a lively discussion with a retired old conservative military lifer. Some of his arguments are that corporations are good and have made this country great. That we liberals don't understand this because we don't read, watch or listen to the (mainstream) media, Chavez is bad because he is arming his country, etc. He like most people of his faithfully voting retired generation, is not online and gets his info from the MSM all day long.
Reasoning with Internet illiterate conservatives is daunting. They mostly parrot FOX and react with personal attacks. So assuming that coming generations will try seek out the truth online wherever it leads, it may take another generation to fix things, if its not too late by then. The elders we turned to for counsel have been media brainwashed. They are being replaced by their nemesis, the Internet.
As the NYTimes and other propaganda outlets die off, troglodytes like Syngenta don't stand a chance unless they get control of online information.
They are not true conservatives. Here, read this article on the death of conservatives by the neocons. The "conservative" you refer to is a blind goon worthy of being considered a mugger.
THE DEATH OF CONSERVATISM
The Destruction By The Neo-Cons Of All That Was Held Dear By Conservatives Has A Growing Number Joining The Ranks Of Independents
by Samuel A Stanson
http://www.moderateindependent.com/v1i15conservatism.htm
I live in a small town, and have only met one Democrat in the dozen years I've been here. I thought I'd moved into the vipers' nest and really watched what I said. But by 2003 I was hearing a lot of those vipers voicing extreme displeasure at where their GOP was being taken, and while some just stopped voting, a whole bunch went independent. I have no doubts that a great many of both groups will vote conservative to get Obama and the Democrats out in 2010 and 2012.
I can't speak for all of them but I'll bet that a lot of them voted Obama very reluctantly much like a lot of us fellow progressives and liberals. They may not agree with Obama on some or all the issues but I'll bet that all they wanted was a bold leader to think differently. They're not even getting that and with the way Obama is doing a swell job turning off voters, what happened in NJ and VA earlier this month is on its way to going national. I don't blame the voters for getting Obama and the Democrats out in 2010 and 2012. Obama and the Democrats are the ones who are playing the jackass game of wanting themselves kicked out of office probably because their next job awaiting them is more lucrative than what they're doing now I suppose. Maybe Obama might pull a "Lawton Chiles of 1994" in 2012 and squeak by to a second term but I doubt it.
The agribusiness goons at it again. Sounds like we need agricultural vigilantes to do to agri-biz CEOs what Paul Kersey does to muggers but financially. First, don't be surprised to see an agri-business goon attacking Organic anything. Instead, take this as a queue to go on the offensive. Organic is just a return to the healthy. I have seen this nation and other nations lose to unsustainable food production and it's high time to reverse it.
Organic is great, but where do we get the many thousands of laborers it will take to do all of that hard work of raising food the old fashioned ways? One man can now plant and harvest several thousand acres of grain using no cultivation, pesticides, or manual labor. The only people that are doing farming the hard way are immigrants that are used to that. Without the use of modern methods we will all be hungry, except for the few that can pay high prices for organic food.
Excuse me, Kernelz, but as a former organic farmer, I assure you it isn't only immigrants doing hard labor. And they are working in chemically poisoned fields, getting very sick as a result of direct contact with pesticides and herbicides.
Sounds like you've been drinking corporate koolaid.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
By returning to the farms of the past, 360 or 640 acre spreads...or much smaller, using tools of the present and future: Precision seeders, transplanters, efficient tractors fueled by waste-oil, thousands of precision small tech tractor implements, greenhouses, hoophouses, computers, spreadsheets, the internet, precision irrigation systems run on solar power, etc. I farm, and to be quite honest, dearly enjoy the physical labor, the constant varying tasks, the challenges of planning, executing and marketing, and the fact that my customers are very grateful for what I grow. I love to work outside, intimate with the rhythms of nature, and constantly in awe of what I am learning. I know that there are many, many like me, not afraid to work like this....especially when so many(what 60 million?)are for the forseeable future unemployed. Its not for everyone, but neither is it drudgery for dullards, either.
I have a truck farm.
One acre planted.
I share with my neighbors who have gardens too.
I sell what I don't share.
I get a nice tax write off for it too.
I have mostly trees which aren't hard to harvest.
And a 10 x 20 veggie garden for family use.
When I lived in a city I had window boxes full of tomatoes which I traded and shared.
Is not difficult except that the pace of modern life is so fast that a lot of folks just don't have the time or the inclination.
But it's a good life and I encourage everyone to give someone a hot house plant for Christmas.
You just might be surprised how easy it is and how good it tastes!
"where do we get the many thousands of laborers it will take to do all of that hard work"
Oh gee, where are we going to get the many thousands of mommies to spoonfeed the high fructose corn syrup to the nation of baby video zombies? I have an idea. Let the baby video zombies walk their pasty butts out to the field to do the hard labor of feeding themselves!
We had millions upon millions of farmers that had to leave their farms when our government began subsidizing for corn, wheat and soy and they began to give Big Agribusiness breaks, but not the farmer. If we stopped subsidizing farming and supported local farmers and fair trade practices, we could easily start making a dent in the 10.2% unemployment rate that we currently have. If we don't change our current farm policies, a dollar crisis or an oil crisis will lead to millions of Americans starving to death in their own country
I found this entire article hilarious but my favorite part was when Mr. Mack said if you can't trust the government he didn't know where the guard rails are. How about, there aren't any.
By the way, has the New York Times gone loony?
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Theoretically, it is possible to get government literally out of the way so that Mr. Mack's dirty business collapses and then local farmers, most of them organic too I believe, can then rise and replace. Mr. Mack has to be careful what he is wishing for.
did you mean the new york slimes? my friend works as a printer
for them daily harass their trying to break the union sleazy
bunch of f...s!
This jerk's words are as tainted as his food.
French intensive gardening will yeild more
per sq. ft. than any Jethro Tull system.
HERE'S HOW YOU DO IT: find some scrap lumber (not treated), build a bottomless box about 2 feet or a bit more high, 4-5 feet wide, and 10-20-50-100 feet long.
Fill it with composted food and yard waste, which you've been composting in your backyard or the field down the street.
NO TILLING, NO MACHINES, EVER!
Ruffle soil surface, interplant different plant species to fool insects, weed standing up, harvest food, family eats.
This can be done on a fairly large scale - why not? I'm an organic farmer and this is what we do. Incredible results in the 25 years we've been growing food this way.
Next year you add some more compost on top and that's all you have to do - start over. Rotate crops, add compost. There, you've got lots of good, healthy, organic food.
Not complicated or difficult or very labor-intensive at all.
I believe everything that this man says.
I believe everything that the government says.
I believe everything that TV says.
I believe in the easter bunny.
I didn't know that SUVs were bad. Do the car companies know this?
PS - While it may be true that you get more 'yield' from an acre of land that uses genetically modified foods and pesticides, that isn't the issue. The issue is a buildup of toxic compounds that is damaging and killing more people than the lack of food would. Check out the big dead spot in the Gulf of Mexico due to the agricultural toxic runoff of the Mississippi River from the farms that are up river. Cigarette science at work again.
Mack is the face of corporatism--the globalisation of our food supply--and the corporatocracy running America. He doesn't care about the truth or what the people want (we confuse capitalism with democracy); it's all about profits. Take your food seriously: Come back to earth, grow your own. Find a way.
At least we know why there's such a big push to keep those babies coming. The more that comes, the more the numbers help the argument of bio foods being better able to feed the masses.
The professionally trained personal chefs of Michael Mack and his associates prepare for them only the finest, freshest, locally grown all natural organic free range pastured heirloom heritage micro artisan boutique meats and vegetables... (translation: grown on biodiverse fertile soils and pastures without chemicals, fungicides, herbicides, pesticides, hormones, antibiotics or GMO inputs)
What does he know of actually making a meal out of feed corn byproducts, or soybean derivatives??
I'll bet my farm on it.
Wait a minute. This guy sells $12 Billion of chemical to the agriculture industry. He must be making himself few $ millions a year. What else could he say? 2 + 2 = 4.
I think that reporting this story is useless unless you want to believe what this clown is saying. Another sociopath roaming around this planet, no surprise that our world is in trouble!!!
Vampire Slams Apple Pie !
I'm gonna try to play devil's advocate in defense of the NYTimes here, given that I've worked for several newspapers over the years...
Editorial Board meeting on the interview, simplistically:
"Can you believe this guy?!"
"No, but he's Chief Exec of Syngenta."
"What do we do with this?"
"No need for point-counterpoint. Just put it out there as it is and let the reader decide."
When Moses came down from the Mount after the burning bush, the Old Testament does not have Herat arguing, "but what's wrong with coveting thy neighbor's wife? I mean, she's so hot."
Do unto others, do unto Mr. Mack. If he believes what he is quoted as saying, he is certifiable. As it is the world produces far more food than its humans consume, due to economic inequities in distribution. Some 20 to 25 per cent of American food is DISCARDED due to many reasons. (OTOH: as Michael Pollan asks: Define "food.")
Our food/agricultural system is extremely unhealthy for people. To say nothing of the planet, Earth. Mack's form of agriculture/food distribution is an extractive industry, like mining coal. It is destroying the fecundity of the soil. It commodifies and financializes LIFE. In hell, this man will forever stare into a mirror.
To NOT have published this sociopath's views, as stated within the bowels of the NYTimes, would have been journalistic misfeasance.
There, I've said it.
-30-
Man there a lot of good comments.
They all really miss the important point, which is......Pesticides will cause infertility in humans. This is the way that the food problem will be solved. No more babies.
Chemists of the world unite!