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Economist on organics

by Sarah Rose · December 18th, 2006

News, Opinion, Organic

The Economist lays out the complexities of today’s local and organic questions.

If your organic January tomato was flown in from Chile, is it better for the environment, emissionswise, than a local hothouse version?

If organic farming produces lower yields, then there’s more land under cultivation - and, perhaps, less for the rainforest?

Do “fair-trade” practices upset the signals of an efficient market, are they a subsidy to farmers that disincentivizes diversification and quality, does the fair trade subsidy prevent adoption of more profitable crops and methods?

Argued in typical Economist fashion: a) set up a straw man, knock the man down b) and on the otherhand, maybe the straw man was right after all, with caveats — the piece still deserves a read for doing a better job than most of establishing the parameters of the debate.

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3 Responses to “Economist on organics”

Ben Says:
December 18th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
This is the kind of issue I wish the growing food movement addressed more frequently — there is, unfortunately, a tension between feeding ourselves locally and feeding the world globally.
The Jew and the Carrot » Blog Archive » Revenge of the greens Says:
December 19th, 2006 at 5:53 am
[…] Salon strikes back at the anti-organic arguments of Nobelist Norman Borlaug and the recent Economist article on the organic revolution. […]
Rabbi Shmuel Says:
December 21st, 2006 at 3:01 am
“If organic farming produces lower yields, then there’s more land under cultivation - and, perhaps, less for the rainforest?”

The Dean of Harvard Law School once siad “If I state the issue I can never lose the debate”. The question ignores the fact that dietary assumptions will change with a concomitant shift in eating habits and that some land which was now being grazed will now go into cultivation. Thus a paradigm shift would effectively increase the total # of acres in cultivation. Smart little buggers - ya just gotta beat ‘em at their own game.