How the Government Got in Your Backyard

by Jeff Gillman

  Policy Option One: Leave Things as They Are

  Despite the fact that the USDA is the governmental agency that produces the guidelines a grower must follow to achieve USDA certification, actual certification is provided by a group of independent certification agencies. These agencies may require growers to meet more stringent standards than those imposed by the USDA. This is a benefit of the current system. After all, if an organic grower isn’t satisfied with the rigors of a particular certification agency, he or she can just pick a different certification agency that is more to the grower’s liking, and these certification agencies often have their own label posted right next to the USDA label. The consumer who cares about these stricter rules will know what they’re getting.

  Fundamentally, the requirements for organic production promote safety and sustainability, which is why organic production allows so few pesticides and fertilizers to be used. Additionally, for organically produced livestock, the drastic reduction or elimination of antibiotics and hormones is reason enough to eat organic meat, eggs, and dairy. The more humane treatment of animals, which organic production incorporates by allowing animals access to the outdoors, is another strong reason. For fruits and vegetables, the reduction (though not elimination) in the use of nonrenewable resources and pesticides could be sufficient reasons in and of themselves for claiming that today’s organically produced food is better than conventionally produced food.

  By giving organic growers the ability to label food produced in this natural way, the government is actually pointing to a way that consumers can eat more healthily. The reason the government refuses to acknowledge outright the superiority of organic foods is because acknowledging this “fact” will irritate big, important agricultural companies.

  Regardless of the regulations and actions of executive agencies, what the president and first lady do sends a very powerful message. In 2009, President Barack Obama and his family obviously saw some benefit to using organic growing systems because they decided that their White House garden would be maintained using organic principles. They went so far as to import compost from the Rodale Institute, a nonprofit organization started by J. I. Rodale. This gesture brought legitimacy to organic gardening and farming (though the USDA says that there’s nothing wrong with plants grown conventionally).

  Right-Wing Rating The current system is unnecessary, but, at the same time, it is voluntary and allows farmers to more or less govern themselves. If health-conscious consumers demand organic food, farmers will produce more of it.

  Left-Wing Rating The government regulates what organic means and provides a clear signal to consumers that organic is better, but it doesn’t actually have much enforcement power. Organic rules cater to agribusiness and do too little to promote locally grown foods or sustainable, nonindustrial production of food. Government needs to increase its funding of science in this area to demonstrate the benefits of organic foods for consumers and the environment.

  Policy Option Two: Organic Growing Should Not Be Promoted

  When the United States decided to certify food as organic, it opened a can of worms, and the night crawler of the bunch was the fact that the government officially takes the position that there is no difference between the health benefits of organically produced and conventionally produced foods. At this point, science has not shown a clear nutritional benefit to eating organic foods. The possible presence of synthetic pesticide residues on conventionally grown produce is a nonissue to the government and to consumers, since the levels of pesticide residues on our produce is considered too low to cause any harm. Besides, much of it can be washed off easily with hot water. Because organic food can’t be proven to be more nutritious or safer, all it really offers is promotion of one sector of the agriculture industry—organic growers and processors—at taxpayer’s expense.

  The theory that organic food is more sustainable than conventionally produced food because it relies on products that are renewable and are better for the environment remains debatable. As we saw in the discussion of the science earlier in the chapter, nonrenewable fertilizers and potentially dangerous pesticides abound in the organic world, just as in conventional systems. Even if you are willing to accept the questionable argument that the USDA program necessarily results in the production of healthier and more environmentally sustainable foods, many of the foods labeled as organic are shipped in from elsewhere using nonrenewable fossil fuels.

  Furthermore, organic food is elitist. Because of the increased manual labor that goes into it and the know-how that is needed to produce it successfully, organic food costs more than conventionally grown food, so only more affluent people can afford to eat it. By promoting the health benefits of organic food, we are telling people who have less money that they can’t have access to the healthy foods that wealthier people can purchase. This is obviously a strong message, although organic producers vehemently deny it. And finally, it is far too easy for organic producers to cheat. Currently, record keeping and an annual visit by the certifying agency is all that is required to get certification. If producers want to slip in conventional chemicals, the chances of getting caught are slim and, even if they are caught, punishment is not assured.

  Right-Wing Rating Let producers do what they need to do to grow crops. The government shouldn’t promote or protect the market share of one set of farmers over another. If consumers demand organic products, entrepreneurial farmers will produce them and profit by doing so.

  Left-Wing Rating The lack of governmental oversight puts consumers and the environment at risk. Consumers want reassurance from scientists and government that organic food is safe and healthy.

  Policy Option Three: Tighten Organic Standards

  To live up to its promise, organic food policy should change in two ways. First, environmentally sound practices must be required. The government would then be able to say without a doubt that organic foods are more environmentally friendly than conventionally produced foods. And second, more oversight is required to weed out the cheats.

  Though organic food is supposed to be produced in a sustainable way, the reality is that some organic food is produced using unsustainable products such as guano and rock phosphate. Organic producers can also use certain poisons that may have a significant impact on the environment, just like conventional poisons. In fact some poisons, such as copper sulfate, will remain in the soil long after it has been applied, since copper is an element and therefore cannot degrade further.

  Fresh, local produce is also a key to organic reform. The closer to home something is grown the better it tastes. Storage is the enemy of flavor (except perhaps in the case of pickles). But the advantages of locally produced food may go well beyond taste, as its proponents (often called locavores) tell us. The biggest environmental advantage of local food is that it does not travel very far and so minimizes the use of fossil fuels. Locavores may even prefer that crop inputs such as fertilizers be produced within a hundred or so miles of where the crop is being grown. Other benefits include the ability to know who is growing your food, so that you can decide whether they are trustworthy or not, and the reassurance that the food that you’re eating supports the local economy. Seems like a win-win situation for everyone involved.

  Yet here is one caveat to promoting locally produced foods. Larger farms tend to be more efficient in their use of fossil fuels than most of our local farms because of the economies of scale in using machinery to plant, harvest, and treat crops. Just as your car gets better gas mileage on the highway than in the city, so farm machinery is more efficient when it is allowed to run over a longer distance. Hence, locally grown foods are not necessarily produced more efficiently in terms of fossil fuel usage than foods grown and transported from farther away.

  The USDA could assure us that organic food was produced in a way that is more environmentally sound than conventional production by requiring that it be produced without extensive use of machinery, and be sold only locally and without the use of products com
ing from across the country or the globe. It should also eliminate the use of nonrenewable resources and all pesticides.

  Some organic growers would complain that this approach inhibits them from growing the foods that they choose to grow. Apple growers in the Northeast, for example, would have a tough time growing apples without spraying any pesticides at all. But there are ways around spraying for these apple producers, though these methods may be restrictive because they are labor intensive. Bags could be placed around the apples when they are young to prevent pests from getting inside, or traps could be set out in the fields to catch many of the pests that infect apples. Or, if those crops are so difficult to grow in some places, then perhaps they shouldn’t be grown there. After all, if we don’t grow oranges in Maine because of the weather, how is this different from not growing organic apples in Pennsylvania because of the insects?

  Right-Wing Rating Our conventional methods of mass production and distribution of food are more energy efficient than the alternatives. Imposing more-stringent regulations and intrusive oversight on organic foods beyond what is currently required would limit options and increase costs for farmers, while restricting the choices of consumers.

  Left-Wing Rating Everyone is better off if government can assure us that organically produced food is superior to conventionally produced food. Buying locally not only helps the environment, it helps the local economy too.

  The Bottom Line

  If you believe that the current methods of production that are feeding the world are just fine and aren’t concerned about synthetic chemicals, then you’re probably irritated at the organic system. After all, the government refuses to say that there’s any benefit to eating organic food. If people really want their own chemical-free food why don’t they just grow it in their own backyard or go out to the farmer’s market and get it from a farmer who doesn’t use chemicals? Why do we need to spend the taxpayer’s money and the legislature’s time worrying about this nonissue?

  Furthermore, while synthetic pesticides certainly have some drawbacks, no one has ever shown that the amount of these pesticides typically found on food is detrimental to humans—and besides, you can wash off the fruit. Organic producers use all kinds of chemicals themselves, albeit organic ones. Our current agricultural system feeds an astounding number of people and to imply that it isn’t working by acknowledging organic production is not only a mistake, but potentially elitist. And finally, if you believe that the conventional system for producing food is broken because of the amount of fertilizer and pesticides used, then the answer isn’t to have two separate methods of producing food—organic and conventional—but rather to change what conventional farming means.

  Depending on your values, it’s certainly reasonable to believe in either the USDA certification as it now exists, or in doing away with certification altogether. But we also see a third option that might be an even better fit with your beliefs.

  For those who believe that organic growing holds great potential, but that this potential has not been achieved by the current system, by far the best system would be for the government to require practices that are known to be sustainable, and to declare that these practices are better for the environment. The government should install a new system for the classification of how a food is grown—superseding the organic program—that supports local and sustainable food production. In fact, there are already programs that do this, such as the Certified Naturally Grown program, which is a nongovernmental program catering to farmers who market their produce locally and who focus on using safe and sustainable practices. While this program shares a few of the same problems that exist in the USDA’s program, especially in terms of enforcement, its focus on local production means that consumers are assured that the food that they are eating only traveled a short distance to get to market and so is potentially more sustainable. If consumers are concerned about the use of chemicals or the trustworthiness of the producer, then they can visit the production location themselves and check things out. A government program that required a reduction in the use of mechanized equipment, required producers to use only local fertilizers and feed, and banned all pesticides (not just synthetics) would really make a difference. Add stricter oversight and you’ve got a program that really works. A program like this would certainly reduce the number of organic farms, make organic food more expensive (paying for more oversight wouldn’t be cheap and neither would an increase in the use of hand labor), and limit the offerings that could be supplied from these farms (you wouldn’t get organic oranges in Maine), but it would also mean coming closer to reaching the ideals upon which organic farming was originally built.

  CHAPTER 3

  Pesticides: How Dangerous

  Is Dangerous?

  WHAT WOULD YOU do if you discovered that the sandwich you’re eating contains over 700 milligrams of a pesticide that is known to have mutagenic effects? And that according to its manufacturer, there is some evidence that the compound might increase the toxemia of pregnancy and cause adverse reproductive effects and birth defects in animals? This stuff could even kill you outright if you ingested as little as three ounces. Would you stop eating? Well, if you’re eating a Big Mac hamburger, then you’re ingesting over 700 milligrams of the herbicide sodium chloride, otherwise known as table salt.

  Even taking the previous paragraph into account, we doubt any of you will seriously consider cutting salt out of your diet (unless you already do so for other medical reasons). We are all familiar with salt. Our parents used it, our grandparents used it, and we like what it does to the taste of our food, so most of us are comfortable using it. But all of us also know that a diet high in salt isn’t good for us, and besides, it can taste bad. So we regulate our salt intake to some degree. Salt, despite its potential for damage, is still deemed safe. But for chemicals that we’re unfamiliar with, and that have weird and scary names such as 2,4-D, atrazine, imadicloprid, and permethrin, we don’t have the same history to fall back on.

  The town of Hudson, Quebec, took a completely different approach to pesticides in 1991 when it decided that dandelions were preferable to toxic chemicals and became the first place in North America to ban the use of pesticides for so-called cosmetic purposes. Chemlawn and Spraytech, two lawn care companies, were apparently not impressed by this and applied chemicals to lawns in Hudson despite the new laws. They were fined $300 for their efforts. In retaliation, the companies sued for their right to spray chemicals, but they lost in every court they entered, including the Supreme Court of Canada in 2001. This cleared the way for any province or municipality in Canada to ban the use of pesticides if they so wished, and many did. In 2006, the province of Quebec entered its final phase of pesticide restrictions, banning the most commonly used household pesticides, including the insecticide carbaryl (also known as Sevin). Ontario banned most pesticides that were used for cosmetic purposes in 2009.

  Meanwhile, as many Canadians enjoy less exposure to pesticides (and more exposure to dandelions and crabgrass), the United States sits by and watches. True, the EPA bans particularly nasty chemicals, but by and large, people in the United States are allowed the freedom to use whatever chemicals they deem appropriate to kill the weeds and insects that they think are taking over their backyards.

  There are many people in the United States who consider synthetic pesticides a danger that poses unreasonable risks to the environment and to humans, and who would support pesticide bans similar to those in Canada. Sometimes it’s difficult to see an argument for the other side—until you look at your lawn and the food on your table. Simply put, pesticides are the easiest and least time-consuming way to rid a lawn, garden, or field of those unsightly weeds, obnoxious insects, and plant diseases that all of us hate.

  Yards and gardens are only the most obvious places where pesticides are used, and since we own them, we control them. But pesticides of one sort or another are also used in orchards, on farms, in federal and state buildings, around schools, in lakes and strea
ms, and in parks. These killers are ubiquitous! They can even be detected on organic fruits and vegetables, as we pointed out in the previous chapter. It wasn’t always this way. Once upon a time, these chemicals were considered valuable and used very sparingly simply because it was tough for people to acquire them. Pesticide use on lawns and gardens was almost unheard of. Back then, if you wanted to keep weeds out of your lawn, you’d actually have to use your hands to do something more than squeeze the trigger of a bottle.

  A Brief History of Pesticides

  Pesticides first emerged during Roman times when sulfur was used to control various problems in fields and homes, and salt was used in warfare to kill crops. Since then, and before the advent of what we now call synthetic pesticides, many other chemicals were added to our palette of tools for killing pests, including pyrethrum, a natural chemical that comes from a type of chrysanthemum, and arsenic, another natural compound very poisonous to insects (as well as people). In the 1800s and early 1900s, lead arsenate, calcium arsenate, and hellebore (made from the roots of Veratrum viride and V. album) were dangerous chemicals that are rarely, if ever, used today because of their toxicity and their relative inefficacy when compared to modern pesticides. Herbicides included salt and vinegar, and compounds such as sulfur and Bordeaux mixture—which is a combination of lime and copper sulfate—were used to control plant disease. But after World War II, things changed. War has always forced humans to innovate, and that war was no different. It provided many new chemicals for pest control, some of which are still being used today.