It Goes Against the Grain

 

Comparing hybrids and GMOs

Now that the Supreme Court of the United States has come out on the side of Monsanto in the case of Vernon Hugh Bowman vs. Monsanto Company et al, those of us with an interest in food and agriculture are thinking a lot about seeds. Vernon Bowman is a farmer sued by Monsanto for patent infringement who took his case all the way up to the highest court in the land and lost.  Reading about this case, its background and its ramifications quickly gets one into hundreds and hundreds of articles largely about corn and soybeans, GMOs and Monsanto. One soon finds that this is because these two crops dominate US agriculture and it is estimated that more than 80% of corn and 90% of the soybeans in the US are grown from GMO seed, most of it sold by Monsanto. These mind-boggling statistics alone are an indication of the rich lode of material to be mined in this situation and looked at from any number of perspectives: legal, health and safety, history and tradition, farming practices, mentality, philosophy and beliefs etc.

One aspect seldom mentioned in the articles I have found is a comparison of hybrid and GMO seeds. The comparison of GMOs and traditional open-pollinated crops is discussed frequently as a juxtaposition of the most modern technology and the oldest, most traditional way of growing food. Hybridization is somewhere in between and throws a lot of light on the reasons for the extreme contentiousness of the whole Monsanto/GMO/industrial agriculture subject matter. Hybrids and GMOs have a lot in common and some revealing and far-reaching differences.

Hybridization got its start in the US in the 1920s, and by the mid 1950s virtually all the corn in the US was grown from hybrid seed. This rapid acceptance is replicated in the 20-30 year history of GMO crops, with the high percentages of corn and soybeans mentioned above accompanied by that of GMO cotton, weighing in with well over 90% of the American crop. Hybrid seeds, like GMO seeds, are more expensive than open-pollinated varieties. But the most interesting similarity is the fact that hybrid seeds, like GMOs, have to be purchased anew each year, but for a different reason. The second generation of hybrids will have far smaller yields, as a rule, and will not “breed true”; the progeny will not all resemble the parent plants and will usually be of lesser quality. On the other hand, it is Monsanto that has decreed that its GMO seeds may not be propagated into the second generation; they grow true to their parent seeds if planted.

This far different reason points up the fact that while GMOs are man-made, hybrids are man-manipulated; the pollination process is natural. It is easy for the farmer to pay more for hybrid seed that promises better taste, resistance to disease and greater yields; it will pay off financially, even though he must buy it anew each year. In addition, while hybrids usually have a number of superior qualities appreciated by the consumer, GMO crops tend to have only one different characteristic, resistance to a particular herbicide, for instance. It is difficult not to notice that the particular herbicide is sold by the same firm that owns the patent on the seeds.

No one worries about the safety of hybrids or contamination by them. There are no suits and court cases brought against hybrids. Farmers and hobby gardeners have free choice between hybrid and open-pollinated seed. There is an enormous difference between adapting natural processes to human needs, which is, after all, what farming is all about, and interfering with those processes at the genetic level. The latter goes against the grain of agricultural history; it produces gut reactions – puns intended.  It definitely goes against the grain of human freedom not to have a choice of GMO or non-GMO seeds, and this is fast becoming reality. GMOs are contaminating non-GMO plants about as rapidly as agri giants like Monsanto are taking over the seed market in the United States.

The Bee – Nature’s Emissary

 

For some years now, bees the world over have been in trouble. Colony Collapse Disorder is the name given to this until recently baffling phenomenon, in which bee colonies are decimated. We usually think honey when we hear bees, but of far greater value to mankind is the pollinating activity of the bee; the FAO estimated in 2010 that more than 2/3 of the world’s major food crops are bee-pollinated (http://www.fao.org/ag/magazine/0512sp1.htm). Visions of humanity being wiped out if the bees all disappear loom on the horizon. 

An almond farmer in Swiss director Markus Imhoof’s recent film More than Honey expresses the place of the bee in the world very succinctly when he says that the bees are go-betweens. Almond trees produces almonds and a bee produces honey, but the bee also interacts with the almond tree to pollinate. Bees bring nectar to the hive and transform it into honey. A bee is a wild animal living in the highly complex social structure that is the hive, and colony behavior is a fine example of cooperation and intricate interaction. The bee is a messenger from the natural world to the human one, producing for us not only honey but also royal jelly, beeswax and propolis. It is a key weaver of the web of life. Because bees are threatened and also commercially so important, they are a high profile exemplification of natural rhythms and relationships brought to bear on human society.

I have had the good fortune to visit a bee house, an old wooden structure in the woods with boxes for the hives along the back. The aged wood, the sweet waxy aroma and our protective garb all contributed to the feeling of ancient ritual. My grandson lifted out one of the frames, the flat structures on which the bees create the honeycomb, and held it close so we could observe the animals at work. I had the feeling of being very present in an age-old natural process, very close to the rhythms of life.

The film More than Honey shows the bees’ interaction with humans and machines and chemicals as well, and reveals how fragile these relationships are if the whole process is not respected. Using pesticides to wipe out predators on food crops, for example, is a single-minded, single-target approach, completely out of whack with this complex network. It is ironic that the manufacturers of the pesticide issue dire warnings about severe crop losses if the pesticides are banned, while friends of the bees prophesy disaster if these chemicals continue to be used. If there are no bees to pollinate there will be no crops needing pesticides. The solution to caring for the bees and producing pest-free crops must be a networked solution. It will require a networking mentality. The bees can show us the way.

Tomato time

It’s tomato planting time!

 Even those of us who garden only on the balcony can pop the plants of this favorite veggie into large pots and they will reward us with plentiful succulent fruit all summer long. Tomatoes don’t like standing in the rain, so they are happy on a covered balcony.

The only problem with growing one’s own tomatoes is that one is forever spoiled – the taste is indescribably better than the usual mealy, watery, store-bought items. The choice of plants is dizzying and an education in itself. I stand in the veggie section of the garden center, inhaling the unique aroma of tomato leaves and studying the colorful labels scattered among the pots. There are varieties bearing fruit large and tiny, ribbed and date-shaped, yellow, purple or pink, types new and heirloom, hybrid and grafted. The mouth waters. One refrains from taking one of each.

The best attribute of heirloom tomatoes is their superior sweetness. Apparently the bright “tomato red” that we associate with the fruit is the result of a natural genetic mutation that unfortunately means sacrificing a sweet taste. Consumers seem to have preferred the red to the sweet for decades, but this is changing, thank goodness, with the reintroduction of heirloom varieties. They tend to produce very tall, sprawling plants, not the best for my small space.

But ah, the grafted plants, with a hardy root topped by a tasty, heavy bearing variety; the resulting combinations enjoy the best of both. I’ve grown these for years, eschewing the small, compact varieties bred especially for the balcony. They bear too little fruit and all at once. I tie up the larger plants so they don’t take over the entire space. I’m rewarded for the extra price I pay for grafted plants by freedom from disease and a luscious, bountiful crop all summer long.

And now I hope you’re starting your own tomato pot garden, maybe under the eaves on the south side of the house. Enjoy!   

Hunger for Justice

Hunger for Justice: the Immorality of our present food system

It came as a surprise to me, and perhaps it will to you, to learn that the right to food is included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, enacted in 1948. Article 25 begins, “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food…………….”. Given that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated in 2012 that there were 868 million undernourished people in the world, it is staggering to see in various sources that from 30% to 50%  of worldwide food production rots or is thrown away. It would seem that the above right is not being implemented very satisfactorily.

What is going on here? Although starvation is partly caused by local factors like civil unrest and the effects of climate change, the data above point to a severe dislocation in the worldwide supply of food. This is the theme of the book Stuffed and Starved, by Raj Patel. In the introduction he tells us that the “stuffed” – the obese – are victims of the same problem as the “starved”: food production as it is now practiced on a global scale. Corporations, in other words, control what and how and whether we eat.

Let’s consider the “stuffed” aspect first. In 2013 there are enough calories available in the “land of the feed” to feed every US citizen twice over. Even subtracting the food that rots, is thrown away or sold and given in aid programs abroad, a great surplus still remains. It is therefore not surprising that food production firms do everything in their power to sell more food. Every time the US government has updated its dietary goals, the food industry has objected to any statement that could be construed to mean “eat less”, although from the health point of view that is exactly the advice many citizens need. Already in 1997 American children got 50% of their calories from added fat and sugar, a situation that has only gotten worse. Industry opposes government regulation, tries to discredit nutritional recommendations and intimidates critics.

The government, meanwhile, issues dietary recommendations with its right hand while using the left to subsidize the corn and soy used as animal feed or in so many products of no or little nutritional value. Fruits and veggies are not subsidized. As sweets and soft drinks offer up to 4 times the calories in the carrots that could be bought for the same money, healthy food is available only to those who can afford it. Not exactly what the Universal Declaration on Human Rights had in mind.

But now let’s turn to an even more dismal aspect of agribusiness, its contribution to growing numbers of starving humans. Soybean cultivation in South America feeds animals in Europe, while local farmers are forced off their land and starve. We have spoken of subsidies, which lead to overproduction that is exported to poor countries whether they want it or not, ruining their own local agriculture. “Free trade has nothing to do with freedom”, as Jean Ziegler, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food from 2000 to April 2008, commented, “ it’s the freedom of the predatory animal in the jungle” .

A modern addition to the causes of starvation is the subsidized use of corn for the production of biofuel, a practice that has little effect on carbon dioxide reduction but which has raised the price of corn dramatically. Stock market speculation on food has driven up prices as well.

Finally, the principles of the green revolution no longer apply; new principles need to be taught and implemented.

Solutions to these blatant perversions of food production abound: bring back local food production, better regulate hedge funds dealing with food, stop subsidizing biofuel, or produce it from waste organic raw material, are some that are gaining ground but slowly in the face of the enormous power wielded by agribusiness.

But isn’t there a far more basic cause of this extreme dislocation in food production and dissemination? Isn’t it simply morally wrong to treat food as just another commodity, like computers and printers? Should it be treated as the responsibility of a public utility, like water? Or partially government regulated, like health insurance in Switzerland?

Of course food is different from water in being far more complex. But it is ethically similar in there is a difference between what we need and what we want. We need to drink a certain amount of water each day; we do not need to water lawns or fill swimming pools. Indeed, it is just these uses that are forbidden in times of water shortages. Should certain practices, like forbidding speculation on food, be instituted?

Or should food production be treated like health insurance here in Switzerland? This would mean basic “packages”, government required and regulated, sold by private concerns in competition with one another. More luxurious food would be available to those who could afford it, but everyone would have the required basic food supply.

It is clear that reforming our food system in any meaningful way will be enormously complicated, particularly because agribusiness as it is presently practiced has such clout on the world market and in the seats of government. But to say it is impossible is to be complacent about the fact that obesity is now one of the most widespread medical problems in children and adolescents in the United States and other developed countries, while 1 in 8 people in the world go to sleep hungry every night.

It is also to say that the rights of agribusiness to continue its present practices unfettered are more important than the human rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Do we really believe this?

Sources and suggested reading

http://www.fao.org/hunger/en/

Food Politics, Marion Nestle

The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan

The film We Feed the World

Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply by Vandana Shiva

World Hunger: Twelve Myths by Frances Moore Lappe, Joseph Collins, Peter Rosse and Luis Esparza

In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan

Food for thought

You are what you eat

The phrase “You are what you eat” is an old one, but is heard more often now that we are becoming increasingly aware of just what constitutes a healthy diet. Those who imbibe mostly fruits, veggies and grains while limiting animal products and eschewing sweets and junk food should be able, we are told, to avoid certain diseases and enjoy better health in general.

In addition to this physical interpretation of the saying, there is another meaning that is just as relevant; the sociological implication. Tell me what you eat and I can make a good guess at your lifestyle, your income level, your attitude toward environmental matters and maybe even your political leanings. I'd venture to say that what you eat can reflect your whole philosophy of life.

OK – now I'd better be prepared to back up what I've said and give examples.

Let's take that healthy food. It's generally agreed that the Mediterranean diet is the ideal for westerners, but it's how it is prepared that says a lot about you. For example, I had a meal a while ago at a restaurant belonging to a group of establishments that promise to serve local, organic food. Well, yes, I suppose, but here's what I ate. The salad came first, a mix of uninspired greens and carrot chunks covered with a yogurt dressing. Fat-free yogurt, no oil, nothing to give it pizazz like lemon juice, herbs or even salt. Moving on to the main course, I made my way through a tasteless fish and its rice accompaniment. Booorrriing. And not even healthy. Carrots need to be grated if they are raw to expose as much surface as possible to the oil necessary to absorb carotene, the precursor of Vitamin A. Naturally, there needs to be oil in the dressing for this to happen. Olive oil is heart-healthy; no need to omit it. No reason not to marry the fish to lemon juice and herbs, or cook it in wine. To present healthy food that is not tasty is a sacrilege!

As it is a restaurant using local, seasonal products, the owners are concerned about the health of the patrons and of  the environment as well, but in a dreary, self-sacrificing way. This fits the picture society used to have of  “tree-huggers”, or as the Swiss say, “hand-knit” people. I guess there are still those who see living in a way that is healthy for the self and for the environment as a sacrifice, doing without.

It doesn't have to be this way. When I went to the Saturday morning market in the next town this morning I picked up organic red potatoes, small sweet carrots, asparagus, red chicory and parsnips.  Tonight I will cut the potatoes, carrots and parsnips in chunks, mix with olive oil and salt and roast them in the oven until they are soft inside and a bit crisp outside. The chicory will become the basis for a tasty salad (with olive oil!), lemon juice, pumpkin seeds and radishes. Tomorrow I will simmer salmon in a little wine, mustard, salt and lemon juice, cook the asparagus and some rice and grate carrots for a salad topped with chopped almonds. Eating healthily is joyful!

This is just fine, you say, if you have a market with fresh produce in the neighborhood and if you can afford organic food. It is a sad fact – outrageous actually – that the poor in the United States can only afford processed food, because it is made of subsidized raw materials. They are not in a position to choose foods that reflect their philosophy of life – they are just trying to get as many calories for as cheap a price as possible. Their diet, heavy in fat  and sugar, is the opposite of the boring meal in the restaurant above, but both reflect a skewed attitude toward that which feeds us – not only physically. The  agriculture and food processing industries as well as politics play an enormous part in creating this situation. But that's a subject for another post.

Strawberry Saturday

Strawberry Saturday

A Saturday post should be practical but relaxed, like the day itself, right? This post is about making jam, and if you have never had a jam-making experience you have missed out! It is a treat for all the senses, easy, fun and a connection to our ancestors.

Now that it is strawberry season it is the ideal time to start. There is something magic about strawberries, perhaps because they are the year’s first berries. Even more ideal is to have the whole experience, from picking the berries yourself on to the ladling the finished product into jars. The ultimate, of course, is picking wild strawberries on a sunny hillside, but wild strawberries are tiny, tiny little things and you need a ton of them. Also it is difficult to find the requisite hillside. The aroma and taste are exquisite and the color of the jam a joy to behold. When my mother used to write to say that she had made a dozen jars of wild strawberry jam, I would picture the warm sun on her back as she picked on the hill behind the house, smell the wafting aroma in the kitchen, see the pink froth on the kettle and the light shining through the finished jars lined up on the windowsill. I have to get my berries at the Saturday market, but going there is a fun experience in itself.

 Back home, with the jam at the boil, the house fills with delicate aroma while I admire the pale pink of the skimmed off foam and wait impatiently for it to cool so I can enjoy a first taste. Then comes the ladling into jars of the deeper pink sweet fruit itself. Some will be taken to friends and some will fill jam tarts next winter. But the first jar will be presented at Sunday morning breakfast and spread on toast. What better start to the year’s celebration of nature’s bounty can there be?

I said at the beginning that some posts will not be “green”, and this is one. On second thought, however, isn’t the enjoyment of nature a basis for all environmental concern?

Nature as Designer

Biomimicry

Asking nature for advice

What technology is so new you may not have heard of it and at the same time has been around as long as the green leaf and the termite? What technology uses the very latest man-made materials to do a job the way nature has done it for thousands of years? It’s called biomimicry and is defined on Wikipedia.com as follows: “Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a relatively new science that studies nature, its models, systems, processes and elements and then imitates or takes creative inspiration from them to solve human problems sustainably.” Or, as Janine M. Benyus, author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, put it in an interview  “I’d say that Biomimicry is asking nature for advice.” 

One of the fascinating applications of this new/old technique is found in Harare, Zimbabwe. The Eastgate Centre, a shopping center and office block built in 1996, is ventilated and cooled entirely naturally, using as a model the mounds built by termites. During the day heat is absorbed by the Centre’s materials, which have a high heat capacity. The temperature inside increases very little. At night, warm internal air is vented through the many chimneys, while cool air flows through cavities in the floor to cool both the interior and the building’s fabric. This passive cooling uses only 10% of the energy needed by a similar building with conventional cooling, saving the owners $3.5 million because there is no standard air-conditioning system, and leading to rents 20% lower than expected. The environment benefits also, of course, as fuel is not used for air conditioning and CO2 is not produced.
  It seems so obvious that if nature has figured out a way to do something successfully it would behoove us to copy it; after all, most of the rest of nature has been around a lot longer than we humans have. So why is biomimicry so new? I think it has to do with the cherished human belief that we are apart from nature, its masters and smarter. We think along certain technical lines; we create machines and chemicals that attack a problem, rather than letting nature work for us. Mimicking nature has been the furthest thing from our minds.

It must also be said that state-of-the-art technologies have played a part in both studying and mimicking aspects of nature. At present, another type of termite mound, located underground, with no obvious ventilation system but with constant temperatures and humidity, is being studied to gain information that should help us build energy-saving structures in harsh environments. This study would not be possible without computer technology.

Let us consider another manifestation of biomimicry. It is quite possible that you have a coat or a sofa fabric that makes use of the “lotus effect”. This is the cleansing effect observed on leaves, large-winged insects and water birds, in which drops of water remove bits of dirt as they roll off the surfaces of these living entities. Manufacturers are now making a water-repelling product that is applied to fabrics as nanoparticles. Water drops or staining liquids on the fabrics roll off, often carrying bits of dirt with them. This product replaces fluorocarbons, which were formerly used for making stain and water resistant finishes and which are harmful to the environment.

What is most exciting about biomimicry is that technology and nature are working together rather than fighting each other. Of course it must be asked why we need new technology – why don’t we simply copy nature exactly?

In the case of the Eastgate Centre, copying the termite mounds exactly would produce a building too fragile for us – we are after all considerably larger than termites. It would also require too much constant human intervention to be practical. The termites in their mounds apparently spend a good part of their day closing off and opening channels to maximize the desired effect. We need to relate to nature, not identify with it.

There is a larger lesson as well for us humans in the examples of biomimicry. Simply going back to nature would be neither possible nor desirable for most of us. We humans have, for example, developed to the point where we cannot drink water from most ponds and streams, as do other mammals; we need to clean up our drinking water. Seeing technology as the manifestation of the best of human imagination and putting it to work responsibly is an exciting and creative venture. Using nature willy-nilly for our own ends leads to crises like global warming. Nature strikes back. Working against nature is a losing proposition for both partners; working with it is a win-win situation for both. Let this be the new paradigm for a new age.

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Sources:

Interview by Patti Marxsen for Voices, a publication of the Boston Research Center for the 21^st Century, 2006

www.inhabitat.com

EcoPerson

EcoPerson: You are a strand in the web of life.

Every so often people ask me questions that make me think about my personal outlook on the environment. Quite different questions, some philosophical, some practical. One person, for example, asked if I lived my environmental beliefs and was I a rabid environmentalist? I try to live my beliefs, but no! I’m not fanatic about them. That would imply identification rather than relationship. And environmentalism is all about relationship. The first law of ecology is “everything is related to everything else”. There is a human feeling environment as well, and it is my belief that if each individual finds his or her path of interaction with the environment in a conscious, informed and healthy way, then we have a chance of keeping life on earth sustainable.

Environmentalism is an attitude, a set of values, lived out by each of us in an individual way. It’s having a sense of responsibility and acting on it.

At the practical end of the spectrum was a question concerning recycling. The friend who asked it said she’d like to be conscientious about recycling but finds it such a hassle; did I have any hints to make it easier? I realized that she already knows the facts about local recycling; she wants to work out her individual way of doing it. As we talked I mentioned that it is important for me to have large enough containers for glass, cans etc. so that I don’t have to take them to the pickup points too often. The notion of going to the grocery store fettered by one plastic bottle, a couple of tins and a battery raises resistance; the occasional grand approach with a whole bag of bottles or a large container of tins is so much more satisfying. A simple suggestion, but she realized that she’d prefer doing it that way too.

These two questions are at opposite ends of a continuum that implies that the individual’s personal feelings about the environment and his or her personal relation to it are important. And ultimately those are not the result of knowing all the facts about global warming, sustainability or the need for biodiversity; they have much more to do with knowing oneself. This is a level deeper than the intellectual or practical level usually addressed in environmental articles and it requires a different kind of input.

If you feel that your eco spirit needs some feeding to help you find your personal relation to the environment, I’d suggest you watch David Attenborough’s nature films. Originally made as TV series, Life on Earth, The Private Life of Plants, and The Life of Birds feature amazing photography and fascinating stories told by this passionate nature journalist. Attenborough has combed the world to find vivid illustrations of his subject matter, and he tells us about it in an engaging way that makes it clear that this man has found his rapport with the environment and is able to draw us into his stories for just that reason. Attenborough has gone on to make more films, including The Blue Planet - Seas of Life, The Living Planet and The Life of Mammals. All are now available as videos and DVDs.

And now for the other side of the coin. Just as Attenborough draws us into the beauty and complexity of healthy life, T. Coraghessen Boyle has presented a horrifying and believable scenario of what will happen to this intricate web if we don’t take care of it in “A Friend of the Earth”, a novel set in California in the year 2025. Searing heat, wind and floods of rain, rain and more rain characterize the weather, rampant species extinction means that there is little left to eat but catfish (and more catfish….) and the population is, understandable depressed and without hope. Boyle is far too complex a writer to create a novel that deals solely with ecological destruction, which is only one of the themes in this intricate story. But the environment of the story itself, the gloominess, hopelessness and misery, seeps into the reader’s bones. One feels the possible effects of global warming rather than learning about them.

So where do you, as a feeling individual, find your links in the web of life? For me the knowledge that my grandchildren will, I hope, still be alive for another 70 years or so is a strong motivation to do what I can to keep the environment as intact as possible. I don’t want them to suffer in Boyle’s scenes of misery. I do want them to enjoy Attenborough’s visions of health and beauty.

Hi BlogFollowers!

 

Hi BlogFollowers!

This is my first attempt at a blog and I am excited and fearful. What am I doing sending all these revealing thoughts out into the ether?

When I started thinking about a name for my blog, greenrudin popped into my head immediately. It is not original. When my older son was a three-year old he had an imaginary friend, a monkey called Green Rudin, who drove his green car to nursery school, wearing green diapers. This son is now a very environmentally-conscious adult, so the name seems doubly appropriate.

A confession - not all the posts will be “green”. As an American living in Switzerland I’ll also write about the differences in norms and values found in the two societies, and probably pop in a few personal chats or harangues as well. There will definitely be an emphasis on food! The blog’s shape and ultimate direction will only gradually become apparent, in other words, rather like life.

Several of the posts have appeared in the same or similar form in The Round Robin, the magazine of the American Women's Club of Zurich.