The climate politics of diet
Organic, locally-sourced, Fairtrade (but air-freighted?), dairy-free, free range, Sainsbury’s Basics. The average supermarket trip invites more agonising and dithering indecision in unforgiving strip lights than you find in the clutches of penniless students outside medical testing centres.
Most of us are now pretty well-versed in the climatic consequences of consuming Food From Far Away, but I think it’s fair to say that when it comes to organic food - a partiality of the middle classes, in particular - most selections are made in the belief that organic is better for you: thy body is a temple and no chemicals shalt pass thy lips, even if a few do go up thy nose at weekend dinner parties. Yet the Food Standards Agency (FSA) staunchly maintains that organic food has no additional health benefits compared to conventionally farmed foods, releasing another study this year supporting their stand. Various EU-funded research studies have found the opposite. The Soil Association maintains that ‘no food has higher amounts of beneficial minerals, essential amino acids and vitamins than organic food’, and criticises the FSA’s ‘limited’ research criteria.
Either way, an ecologist and community leader I met in Wayanad district, northern Kerala, made a slightly alarming point. He said that many of the district’s conventional farmers will not eat their own produce, having witnessed the volume of pesticides used in their cultivation. Instead, they grow their own pesticide-free vegetables - organic, in effect - on small plots around their houses. The conventionally-reared crops, the untouchables, are sold at market, or exported.
What isn’t under question, but not nearly as widely discussed, is the link between conventional farming methods and climate change. Our agricultural systems are one of the causing factors of climate change, and not just through food transport and storage. The synthetic nitrogen fertilisers used in conventional farming methods generate nitrous oxide, a gas 298 times as potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, if you compare them tonne-to-tonne over a hundred year time-frame. This is the same nitrous oxide that you suck up from balloons at parties - laughing gas - and is now the most potent destroyer of ozone layer in the upper atmosphere. In fact, in India, synthetic fertilisers emit only 2% less greenhouse gases than those generated from the road network of the entire country. Organic fertilizers (meaning those used in organic farming, rather than the sense in which organic is used in chemistry) also produce nitrous oxide, but far lesser quantities than synthetic fertilizers as they release nitrates slowly, giving the plants a chance to fix the nitrogen in other forms.
The process used to make fertilisers and pesticides is also highly energy-intensive, with most of the energy generation exhaling carbon dioxide, of course. For example, one tonne of oil, seven tonnes of greenhouse gasses and one hundred tonnes of water are involved in manufacturing one tonne of nitrogen fertilizer, according to the Soil Association. Organic farming methods also enhance soil fertility and diversity, and soil that’s rich in biomass reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the air by sequestering the carbon in the earth.
Ironically, and tragically, it is the effects of climate change, created in no small part by conventional farming methods, which are now pushing India’s organic farmers to switch back to conventional methods.
PJ Chackochan runs an organic farm and awareness centre in Wayanad, Kerala, in which one thousand two hundred of the district’s six thousand farmers are now practicing organic agriculture - growing coffee, cocoa, ginger and vanilla which is exported by ship to Switzerland and Germany. However, the drying land, rising temperatures and reduced rainfall of recent years mean that the movement is fighting a losing battle.
“Twenty-five years ago, this area had a lot of rainfall,” says Chackochan. “Now, there is so little and the water table is worryingly low. Six years back, a borewell would only have to reach to a depth of 200ft to find water; now, they must dig to 600ft. What little water there is the land cannot hold on to, as it is lacking in biomass as a result of monocrop cultivation and use of fertilisers and pesticides.”
The monocrop cultivation and deforestation Chackochan refers to is one of the many examples I’ve come across in the last few months in which environmental problems created by local decisions mean communities are far more vulnerable to the global climatic changes now starting to be played out. And as yield decreases and demand for food grows, farmers are even less likely to take the plunge of switching to organic methods, particularly in areas like Wayanad where there is little local demand for the produce.
“Everybody knows the consequences of pesticides and fertilisers. But priority has been given to market pricing, and producing more,” Chackochan asserts. “There’s little demand for organic vegetables here, as people are poor and it’s not their priority. There’s demand abroad, but farmers need to wait at least three years before they can start exporting their produce, as this is the time it takes to be certified as organic.”
The first three or four years after switching to organic methods are also tough for farmers, as yield is lower while the soil recovers from the past use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. It’s not hard to see it takes a certain amount of courage and conviction to commit to the methodology.
“Organic farmers are not greedy,” concludes Chackochan. “They are satisfied with what they’re getting. They’re looking forward and know they need to leave something to the next generation.”
IMAGE: Forest Haiss