Another Dustbowl Averted

There is a group of people that like to bemoan the ills of modern agriculture and who cannot seem to see much good in our present system.  This piece in USA Today last month is a good reminder that things really are better off than they once were (HT Darren Hudson).  

Large parts of the Midwest experienced severe drought this summer with little rainfall and record high ​temperatures.  The conditions were like those that led to the 1930's Dust Bowl.  Yet, we didn't experience anything like it.  Why? 

According to the story:​

In the past 20 years, farmers have transformed from plowing fields 8 to 11 inches deep to "no-till" or "conservation-tillage" practices designed to minimally disturb the ground. That exposes the soil to less wind erosion, preserves natural nutrients, and captures and retains what moisture does fall. These minimum-tillage practices have been around since the 1960s, but farmers did not begin using them on a widespread basis until the 1990s.

Seed companies have built drought-, disease- and insect-resistance into plants. That not only helps crops resist extreme weather and pests but also requires fewer tractor passes through fields, lowering production costs and leaving the ground less packed and less likely to let moisture run off.

​Couple those technological advancements (no-till farming by the way is made easier with biotech seeds which allow broad application of herbicide), farmers' improved knowledge and know-how, and the Conservation Reserve Program which pays farmers not to plant environmentally sensitive land, and another dust bowl was averted.  

Organic Food Misperceptions

In my experience of doing numerous studies on consumer perceptions of organic foods, ​I've found a strong "halo effect."  That means the positive word "organic" acts as a halo and makes everything else about organic appear good even if it's not.  The result is that people often believe a lot of things about organic that aren't true.  

This piece by Christie Wilcox on the Scientific American blog ably dismantles two widely perceived myths about organic food: namely that organic foods don't use pesticides (they do) and that natural pesticides are less toxic than synthetic pesticides (they aren't).  

Effects of School Lunch Policies

This humorous vi​deo by some students in Kansas takes on the changes in the school lunch program brought on by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010.  

Although the kids mainly take issue with the calorie restrictions in the Act, one of the more subtle points in the video is that kids have lots of options.  If they don't like what's being offered at school, they can go off campus or just wait till they get home.  The ability of students to substitute tends to limit the effectiveness of school lunch interventions.  For example, this study found that: 

students who eat school lunches tend to consume fewer vegetables away from school, indicating that there might be some substitution effect present

​and

A policy of no store or snack bar leads to increased consumption of fruit in school. At the same time, there is some indication this policy is associated with less fruit and vegetable intake at home

A parody on the national school lunch policy mandated by The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 which humorously shows the results of the limitations in carbohydrates and proteins. No copyright infringement of original song "We Are Young" by Fun. was intended.

The Legacy of The Silent Spring

In yesterday's USA Today, ​Charles Stenholm and John Block remark on the 50 year anniversary of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.  Here is a key passage

The good is that Silent Spring inspired the creation of federal regulation that subjects pesticides and new technologies to strict scientific scrutiny before they can be commercialized and used.

The bad is that the demonization of agricultural technology obscures the overwhelming environmental fact of our times, that such technology — even pesticides — has been an overwhelming good for the environment and human health.

​And, echoing a major theme of The Food Police, they conclude:

In other words, if we had not embraced new technologies, the farmers of the world would have been forced to raze and plow an area of land equal to the size of Russia, or three Amazon rain forests, to grow the same amount of food. Had we gone back to organic agriculture, which is 30% less efficient, the loss of forest and habitat would also be huge.

So celebrate Silent Spring and the birth of environmental awareness. But don't forget that in the years since, the biggest contribution to the environment has come from agricultural technology.

Moral Intuitions on Food

I’m about half-way through Jonathan Haidt’s new book, The Righteous Mind.  In the book, he makes the case that our moral judgments are mainly based on intuitive reactions.  We only make up logical reasons for our judgments later (if we can) to justify our initial intuitions.  Bailey Norwood and I made a similar case in terms of how we think about the rightness or wrongness of caging farm animals in chapter 6 of our recent book, Compassion by the Pound.  

What struck me as I read Haidt was his discussion on moral disagreement.  It is very had to change someone’s intuitions about what is right or wrong.  If we can’t even articulate the reasons why we think something is wrong, how can someone possibly make a compelling, reasoned counter-argument?  Haidt argues that trying to use reason to change someone’s moral intuition is a bit like trying to make a dog happy by grabbing its tail and wagging it. 

So, how is it that I intuitively feel so differently about various aspects of food production (e.g., biotechnology, irradiation, pesticides, herbicides, etc.) than others who are revolted by the same issues?  When I think about these issues, I am not appalled; I don’t feel any disgust.  But, I suspect I’m in the minority of Americans. 

I gave the Shepard lecture last night to a group of students and faculty at Kenyon College about the future of food.  Although we had a civil, productive discussion, it’s safe to say that many of the students in the room had different moral intuitions about these topics and I do.  Their moral intuitions are that many modern food technologies are self-evidently wrong (while other issues like local, organic, and natural are self-evidently right). 

How is it that our moral intuitions can be so different?  I grew up around “big ag.”  I’ve personally sprayed Monsanto’s Round-Up on hundreds of acres of cotton weeds.  I’ve personal castrated farm animals to limit aggression and off-tasting meat.  I’ve personally had to throw away thousands of pounds of salsa that grew mold because adequate levels of preservatives weren't added.  I’ve personally met and know people who work for Monsanto, Cargill, ADM, etc.  I grew up going to school with kids whose parents were immigrant farm laborers living at or below poverty. 

Now, that doesn’t necessarily make my intuitions about modern food production somehow objectively correct.  But, I at least can lay claim to the fact that they are based on actual life experiences and insights. 

That said, I suspect there were more than a few pre-civil war southerners whose life experiences led them to believe slavery was o.k.  On the flip side, there are many examples of people having faulty (at least what many of us would now say are faulty) moral intuitions on topics for which they had very little experience (e.g., the wrongness of eating pork).  Actual life experience with the issue in question may or may not correlate well with faulty moral intuitions.

I don’t know exactly where that leaves us except to say that Haidt argues that moral persuasion tends to work more on the social level than the cognitive.  According to Haidt, If you think I’m a nice guy, you’re more likely to give my moral intuitions a test-drive. 

Here’s hoping that, despite the facts and logical arguments given in my talk last night, I came across as a nice guy.