Excellent Dave and Chris, Now this discussion is getting somewhere.
Here in Ireland it is said that for every calorie that gets to the consumers mouth, 9 calories of fossil fuel are used to generate that calorie. With fossil fuels as a non-sustainable resource (due to depleting reserves as well as pollution problems), that will have to change. I run a conventional orchard. It yields about 20 tons of apples per acre per year. Rainfall here is high, so irrigation is not really necessary. But fungicides are vital. Last year we commenced a project to measure the life-cycle CO2 of the orchards. I had imagined that with all the biomass the apple tree produces over its lifetime (leaves, roots, wood, substantial yield of fruit, increase in soil organic matter content etc.), that my orchard would take in a lot more CO2 than I use in producing the fruits (tractor fuel, fertiliser, cold stores, shipping, packaging, fungicides, herbicides etc.) While the project is not finished, I can report that my orchard is just about carbon neutral, if I leave out the shipping CO2. Not half as good as I expected. And not many crops would fare as well as tree fruits. However, organic apples would not fare any better here, because many of the CO2 inputs would still apply, and yields and biomass increase would be substantially lower. That's why I actually think that your president's garden is a great idea and a great example. If people can grow food outside their back door (either organic or not), then many of the CO2 inputs are virtually eliminated. If you use home-made compost for fertiliser in your garden then the problem of moving organic matter with relatively low nutrient content is also overcome. Unfortunately, because of our economic system, growing your own is bad. If you grow your own vegetables instead of buying, the Gross Domestic Output of the country falls. So it's bad for the economy. On the other hand, if your crash your car, that's good for the economy, as money must change hands to replace or repair it. As long as we have such poor measurement devices for our economies, and pollution is not paid for, we will continue to fail to make any impact in these things. To get back to the earlier point, it is my belief that organic or similar systems can form part of the solution, especially in less developed countries, where a well-managed organic plot using locally produced inputs can vastly improve productivity above the current subsistence levels, and without impoverishing the producers. In much of the developed world, I suspect that organic is not the solution. It does offer lessons and solutions, but for many reasons it is not feasible on the massive scales that we have become used to operating at, not least in horticulture because too much labour would be required. Becoming vegetarians would help, but not in certain parts of Ireland (or the world), where the only vegetation is grass, and as humans can't eat grass, we only have the option of grazing animals and eating these, which is still better than no food at all. This could go on and on... Con Traas The Apple Farm Cahir Ireland ________________________________ From: apple-crop@virtualorchard.net [mailto:apple-c...@virtualorchard.net] On Behalf Of edwdol...@aol.com Sent: 22 July 2009 14:22 To: apple-crop@virtualorchard.net Subject: Re: Apple-Crop: LA Times Re: organic If livestock, dairy and poultry farmers quit raising their products. the supply of manure for composting or fertilizers will be nil. I posed this question to an invited organic grower (the originator of the Topato), speaker at the SW Illinois Vegetable Growers meeting in 1968: "where is the supply of manure to fertilize the 3000 acres of vegetables in the St. Louis production area?" At that time, the recommendation was 2-4 tons per acre or more. It was not available then nor is it now. Chris Doll, Extension retiree -----Original Message----- From: Dave Rosenberger <da...@cornell.edu> To: apple-crop@virtualorchard.net Sent: Tue, Jul 21, 2009 9:03 pm Subject: Re: Apple-Crop: LA Times Re: organic Yes, I was implying that it might be less damaging to our planet if we produced food using pesticides in humid climates rather than draining rivers for arid-land agriculture. However, I really doubt if anyone has calculated the trade-offs, and it would probably be nearly impossible to do so. We are all so interconnected that it is often very difficult to predict how changes in one arena can totally upset the balances half a world away. (Besides, the world would rapidly run out of food if we abandoned all arid-land agriculture or if we abandoned all pesticides not approved for organic use!) To illustrate the complexities of our interconnectedness: A recent article in Science magazine discussed decisions by an agency in California that decided industries should not receive carbon-related credits for using biofuels because the data collected by this agency indicated that biofuels as currently produced provide no net benefit to the environment. The problem is that the huge amounts of the US corn crop consumed for biofuel production resulted, at least initially, in rising food prices worldwide. That caused farmers in tropical and subtropical climates to remove/burn more forest land so as to convert it to farming. The loss of forest land was calculated to negate the carbon-saving benefits of biofuels. The final comment in that article was from a scientist who noted that we could produce enough crops for both biofuels and human food if everyone became a vegetarian because it takes only 1/10th as much land to support humans on vegetarian diets as on meat-based diets.&! nbsp; After reading that comment, I thought it would be interesting to know what would happen if North Americans were told that they could either become vegetarian and continue driving their cars/trucks, or they could give up their vehicles and driver's licenses and continue to eat meat. However, our recent discussion on organic farming has added a new twist: If everyone opted to become vegetarian so that they could continue to drive their cars, we would end up with a world-wide shortage of manure for organic farmers (despite all the BS that comes out of Washington DC!). Given this conundrum, I suppose the ecological choices would be to either become a non-organic vegetarian with a car or an omnivore (organic optional) with no car. Saving the planet gets awfully complicated. And what is the point in eating organic foods to stay healthy (which seems to be the under-lying driver for most organic foodies) if by doing so you end up being the last healthy organism on the planet? >Dave, > >There are lots of points you raise I agree with. Although I am not >sure I understand the water argument and how it ties into pesticide >usage. Are you suggesting it would be environmentally friendlier to >grow fruit in humid climates but with more pesticide usage? Western >climates do provide many other advantages, though. -- ************************************************************** Dave Rosenberger Professor of Plant Pathology Office: 845-691-7231 Cornell University's Hudson Valley Lab Fax: 845-691-2719 P.O. Box 727, Highland, NY 12528 Cell: 845-594-3060 http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/pp/faculty/rosenberger/
