NATURAL VS
SYNTHETIC - THE IDEA
To start the
year off, I will launch a new series, potentially quite polemic. But before
entering into the subjects I have in mind, it is necessary to specify the idea
of this series.
I don't
intend to attack organic farming as such, but rather to attack certain
misconceptions, widely disseminated by the communication, said or unsaid, made
by personalities, lobbies and economic groups that derive their profits
(sometimes huge) from the sale of advice, articles, conferences, trainings,
seminars or simply of organic products.
They
deliberately sow doubt in the minds of consumers for the sole purpose of
causing a change in their consumption habits, in order to be able to generate
ever larger profits.
All means
are good, newspaper articles, television programs, meetings with journalists,
posters, advertising campaigns, market actions, lobbying with political
authorities, social networks, making extensive use of lies, untruths,
manipulation of figures, statistics or images, to make their ideas progress.
Picture: http://www.agrimaroc.ma/wp-content/uploads/agricultre_bio.jpg
I largely
doubt the philosophical will they have to change attitudes.
I
am convinced that the objective lies in two parallel lines, economic on the one
hand, of pure enrichment, and on the other hand, by the power they obtain from
many politic and economic decision-makers, through their actions.
I have a lot
of respect for organic farmers who have to produce with very limited means.
They face the same problems as conventional farmers, but have to solve them
with sometimes illusory means and techniques, and have to bear sometimes
important losses of production.
In some
serious cases, the use of a synthetic solution to solve a desperate situation,
makes them lose their organic certification, and the markets that it allows
them to reach (see this French article http://www.arboriculture-fruitiere.com/content/perdre-ou-ne-pas-perdre-son-label-bio).
It shows, on
the one hand, that organic farming does not have solutions for all situations,
and on the other hand that making the choice of organic is risky for the
farmer.
Some, the
fewest, are organic farmers by conviction (I respect that choice, although I
don't share the philosophy), others, the most numerous, are for economic
interest. Organic has become a very buoyant market today, and they have decided
to rest their company's stability or development in this market (which I also respect
because it is a perfect business logic).
But I am
shocked when one of my colleagues, a consultant in fruit production in France,
tells me that in recent years, almost all organic conversions among his members
(and generally in France, it seems), come from people who do it, neither by
conviction nor by economic choice. Either choice would be perfectly consistent.
No, they are
converting to organic because they no longer support social and family pressure
around the subject of pesticides or pollution of soil, water and air.
Their
family, friendship and social ties are sometimes questioned for a simple reason
of agricultural production technique.
They feel
sidelined by society.
They don't
want to have to justify their work anymore, day after day.
They are
tired of having to defend their activity, at the risk of having to endure
stormy debates or confrontations sometimes hateful.
They
prefer to abandon a struggle that they consider lost in advance and become
organic farmers.
It is
conversion under duress, as in the best hours of the Inquisition or the worst
dictatorships.
Someone
talked about Freedom?
There is
much to be said, without denigrating anyone, about the reality of the use of
pesticides or fertilizers, or about the impossibility of using herbicides in
organic farming. Because organic agriculture requires pesticides, but
authorized pesticides are chosen exclusively according to their natural origin,
even if they are far from being harmless to health or to the environment.
The problem
with fertilizers is similar. Organic farming uses it, but only of natural
origin. Of course, this is not a defect in itself. It is however a limiting
factor, and it is not a choice without environmental or health risk.
One may,
moreover, cast doubt on the value of the choice of the word
"natural", since synthetic chemistry employs only natural products to
transform them, especially petroleum or air.
On the other
hand, chemistry does not invent much. Its main source of inspiration is Nature
itself. Much of the synthetic molecules are copies of natural molecules, or
evolutions of these copies.
In
the course of the examples, we'll see that the use of the notion of natural has
ups and downs according to the interests that must be defended.
The debate
on GMOs is on another level, since rejection is purely philosophical, with no
real scientific justification. I recently had a lively debate on the subject,
on a Facebook page of organic farming. It must be said that I dared to share
there an article defending GMOs. I wanted to provoke a debate, to know if
organic farmers have other arguments than the usual ones, those that are used
and reused in partisan publications and articles. But in the end, my impression
is very clear that the rejection of GMOs comes first and foremost from the use,
sometimes abusive, of herbicides.
I have
already had the opportunity to write on this blog (https://culturagriculture.blogspot.com.es/2015/09/53-gmo-why-not.html)
that herbicide resistant GMOs are not, in my opinion, the main interest of the
technique, and that nutritional or environmental orientation of research would
be much preferable. I also wrote that it is highly probable that if the
technique had been developed from the outset, not to direct economic purposes
but to health or environmental purposes, the current rejection would not have
found a basis for its development.
So I come
back to this personal conclusion that the rejection does not come from the fact
that the crop is GMO, but from the fact that being a glyphosate-resistant GMO
allows farmers to use and abuse of the use of glyphosate, with consequences
that involve glyphosate, not the GMO. It is very different. The arguments are
against the herbicide, not against the GMO nature of the crop.
Finally, the
many scientific arguments in favor of GMOs have no weight when dealing with the
manipulation of minds by arguments that blend the facts into an amalgam between
the GMO nature of the crop and the misuse of the herbicide.
So
we are really on the ground of manipulation and belief.
Picture: http://www.pleinchamp.com/var/ca_pleinchamp/storage/images/plein_champ/home/actualites-generales/actualites/stephane-le-foll-peaufine-son-plan-agroecologie/35904779-1-fre-FR/stephane-le-foll-peaufine-son-plan-agroecologie.jpg
So I have
nothing against organic farming as a method of production. Moreover, I use many
techniques, since I practice integrated production on a daily basis, which can
be briefly defined as an organic farming which allows the use of synthetic
products, as pesticides, herbicides and fertilization.
It should be
noted that the notion of integrated production, which has little carrier and
little talking for whoever has no direct link with agriculture, is gradually
evolving towards a notion of agroecology, which is more or less the same thing,
but more "seller". We really are on the field of communication.
Agroecology,
however, broadens the debate by bringing together under the same banner the
various forms of organic farming and integrated production for their common
efforts to reduce the negative impact of agriculture and by integrating a
social and cultural dimension.
In this
series, I intend to take specific subjects and examples, and to compare the
organic solution with its conventional equivalent, trying to compare, as
objectively as possible, the strengths and weaknesses of each, to bring to
light what is from the domain of reality, of science, what is truly justified,
and what is from the domain of belief.
In the end,
we will find a great incoherence and, above all, a manipulation of the minds of
consumers due to the great confusion deliberately maintained between the notion
of "natural" and the notion of "good for nature" and
"good for health ".
That's what
seems to me the most serious, and that's why I'm starting this series.
You know in
advance what conclusion I will reach, because you know my overall opinion on
these issues.
But what you
don't know yet, is that the arguments for defending my ideas are numerous and
powerful, and that these arguments don't arise neither from the need to produce
more, nor from a problem of profitability, nor from a manipulation by the
agrochemical giants.
We will
mainly talk about efficiency, health, pollution, residues and side effects.