I wrote "last 2 years" and should have written "last 10 years"

I guess my question is how is sustainable agriculture being defined. Is it being defined by use of fossil fuels, water, other inputs....yields and soil use and quality?

I know that you mention the City markets, just to clarify, Green City Market is an independent 501(c)(3). They have a complementary relationship with the City, the City and GCM co-fund the farm forager, but they are separate and independent. GCM prides itself on its standards and requires each of its vendors to submit a sustainability statement, which is available for inspection by the public at the market. Here is a link to the vendor application: http://www.chicagogreencitymarket.org/P ... nFINAL.pdf, which might of interest. From a brief reading, it doesn't appear that it specifically addresses water management, but I'm certain from my conversations with Sheri Doyl, the farm forager, that it is considered.

But that has changed in the last two years because of 1.) changes to the farm bill and 2.) genetics. Without the same levels of subsidies farmers are focusing on efficiencies and that has equated with the steep growth of no till farming. No till means microorganisms aren't being exposed to air and so don't eat one another and decompose (steep reduction in greenhouse gas emissions). No exposed soil means that the water runs off into streams and rivers without carrying along mother earth for the ride (and fertilizer and other chemistries). No plowing means fewer trips through the field on the tractor and less fossil fuel use. Far less water consumed. Less labor. Same or higher yields.

The second change has been genetics which have brought along genetically modified crops. Since the introduction of gmo's, the use of chemical pesticides in the U.S. has been cut in half. The chemical industry views gmo's as a threat to its survival. Genetically modified crops make no till farming far more probable.

I don't even wan to touch the Farm Bill (a deeply flawed bill, which continues too many benefits to the top earners in the agriculture business). And I'm not sold on transgenic or genetically engineered crops, though I do understand that if you're starving in Africa, transgenic foods are better than no food at all. I'm just not clear where the linkage between increased efficiencies and production makes meat production more sustainable as it does not address methane (a GHG 21 times more powerful than CO2 in warming the environment) production or the pollution problems created by factory farming.

By the way, I definitely agree on the no-till farming, for those of you who are unfamiliar with it, here's an informative article from Scientific American http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=no-till on the subject.

I've looked briefly at the Green City info and really don't see that it puts forth any standards at all. Looks like a group of like minded people -- without deep farming roots -- who decide who can and cannot sell at their market. I know some of their vendors, some exceptional products, but it would be a stretch for me to say that this makes farming more environmentally sustainable. Not much real information there.

I'm just not clear where the linkage between increased efficiencies and production makes meat production more sustainable as it does not address methane (a GHG 21 times more powerful than CO2 in warming the environment) production or the pollution problems created by factory farming.

Not sure that this is well reasoned. If one agrees that GHG emissions, for example, are a measure of efficiency and more efficient production equates with more sustainable production, then a net reduction in GHG emissions within the overall production process would make that process more efficient and therefore more sustainable (even if other parts of the process remain unchanged).

I am not an advocate of the hog hotels and mega dairies that I believe you refer to in your "factory farming" language. We don't eat pork and the less meat and dairy consumed the better. Factory farming creates unique environmental and health issues, especially for those communities in which they are located. But when discussing GHG emissions and methane, presents the greatest opportunity to repurpose methane. Redistributing the animals into smaller groups does not make the problem go away.

I'm not sold on transgenic or genetically engineered crops

Then avoid pasta made with semolina flour.

Not sure that this is well reasoned. If one agrees that GHG emissions, for example, are a measure of efficiency and more efficient production equates with more sustainable production, then a net reduction in GHG emissions within the overall production process would make that process more efficient and therefore more sustainable (even if other parts of the process remain unchanged).

It seems, and I maybe misreading, this language and that of your last post, that you're equating efficiency in production and sustainability. I believe that there's more at play in the larger understanding of sustainability, both in environmental and social costs. You're correct in your statement that redistributing does not make the problem go away, however, to borrow from Michael Pollan's article in yesterday's NY Times Magazine in the section on moving our agriculture system away from commodity monoculture growing and moving it towards polyculture: "while animals living on farms will still emit their share of greenhouse gasses, grazing them on grass and returning their waste to the soil will substantially offset their carbon hoof prints, as will getting ruminant animals off grain." An excellent article, by the way, from the Time's Food Issue of the Magazine. But I do agree that it would be wonderful, particularly at large dairies, if the methane could be repurposed - an excellent article on this subject can be found in Plenty: http://www.plentymag.com/features/2008/ ... _homes.php

The vast majority of pasta that I buy is from Bionaturae, an organic Italian pastamaker, which does not use genetically engineered ingredients. But your point is a solid one in we may be eating transgenic foods without evening knowing it, which is why I support the campaign for labeling. A good site for learning more about this is http://www.thecampaign.org/

that you're equating efficiency in production and sustainability

I would agree that efficiency in and the ability to lower GHG emissions is an indicator of sustainability.

"while animals living on farms will still emit their share of greenhouse gasses, grazing them on grass and returning their waste to the soil will substantially offset their carbon hoof prints, as will getting ruminant animals off grain."

My guess is that there are both cost and land barriers to grass fed beef. If grass fed beef is more sustainable the two companies that can make it happen are McDonald's and Walmart. Why do you suppose that land grant schools don't advocate this and some of the other concepts in Pollin's piece? Big ag $$$ telling them not to? Or, it's been looked at and doesn't stand up to economic scrutiny?

majority of pasta that I buy is from Bionaturae, an organic Italian pastamaker,

Semolina wheat comes from the early 20th century German wheat radiation experiments. I'm sure your pasta is organic. It's also been bioengineered.

Why do you suppose that land grant schools don't advocate this and some of the other concepts in Pollin's piece? Big ag $$$ telling them not to? Or, it's been looked at and doesn't stand up to economic scrutiny?

From observing the efforts at U of I Extension, which deciminates U of I's research based information, they bend over backwards to remove any bias and are very conservative with their advice. If they don't recommend something, then either it has been reviewed and it didn't stand up to economic scrutiny, or they have no research to support or deny any method.

I asked a food historian once about sustainability. He said the last time this country lived at a sustainable level was in the 1830's. That lifestyle is simply not attractive to me.

Regards,

I think that there are a lot of problems in the current food system that raise strong political discussions, which aren't necessarily appropriate for this board as a decision was made a long time ago to avoid hot-button political issues, which I see this veering into. My feeling is that the system we currently have is broken, and there's a lot of money being spent to keepit that way by some of the biggest agricultural players.

One point on genetically modified, transgenic, genetically engineered foods, I was perhaps being unclear, what I'm specifically referring to are foods items that have had their DNA changed through genetic engineering, not irradiation or traditional crop breeding. As I said in my original post, while I'm not sold on bioenginereered foods, but I see validity in the argument that GM foods might be more sustainable than no food at all in Subsaharan Africa. I'm no expert on this subject, but I've read more than enough about these foods to suggest that there are some significant issues associated with them. Ecologist from the UK had a great issue in March on the Death of Food as We Know It, which included an interesting article on nanofoods (the new frontier in genetically engineered foods) as well as the 10 reasons why organic can feed the world and 10 reasons GM can't. I wish I could find it online, perhaps someone else could, it's a very good read.

Again, I'm not sure that this is the right forum to explore many of these issues as they raise some very sticky political issues that I personally don't want to tangle on in this venue.

MAG -- Thanks for your comments and I hope that my posts have expressed the need to evaluate critically important issues using criteria that all reasonably-minded people can embrace. Such criteria includes science and scientific research.

While I enjoy the writings of Michael Pollin and believe that he raises good points from time to time, I don't place more credence in his policy advocacy than I do an actual agronomist or agriculture economist. Someone expert in the field.

Similarly, I'm not going to give my proxy to Green City or any other group that doesn't publish clear standards, no matter how well intentioned they might seem.

I've worked in the U.K. on sensitive food issues and this is perhaps the last country that should be sited in a food issue debate. The U.K., thanks to mad cow, has completely lost its compass. This isn't just food....the field of medicine has been affected as well....it's been a huge brain drain with talent moving from there, where there's no funding because of irrational emotion, to here where funding exists.

My point is that I don't think it a bad thing to ground discussion, at lease in part, on science. That may sound political to those that don't, but it's not meant to be. It's meant to be apolitical.

I fully agree with the necessity of this being more than a touchy-feely debate - it's far too important to be so. I go back to the discussion in Roberts' book in the epilogue where he makes the point that we need to address each solution with a scientific eye - we've got too far big of a problem to cast aside any solution based upon political decision. For example, Roberts doesn't cast aside the genetically engineered angle as many others without considering all the impacts. What I was trying to avoid was a full-blown discussion of U.S. farm policies, which are often not science based, but instead what is economically beneficial for the big agricultural companies.

JamPhil wrote:I found particularly interesting this part of the freakonomics post linked to above -- quoting from a recent article in Environmental Science and Technology by Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews of Carnegie-Mellon:

"We find that although food is transported long distances in general (1640 km delivery and 6760 km life-cycle supply chain on average) the GHG emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase, contributing 83% of the average U.S. household’s 8.1 t CO2e/yr footprint for food consumption. Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. Different food groups exhibit a large range in GHG-intensity; on average, red meat is around 150% more GHG-intensive than chicken or fish. Thus, we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household’s food-related climate footprint than “buying local.” Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food."

Somewhere last night, I believe in the debates, I heard something that made me want to re-visit this little exchange. I heard last night that transportation accounted for 30% of the greenhouse emissions (in fact a quick trip to the google found this cite).

It seems to me that the battle is to reduce that 30%; that's the number to look at, not the percentage of transportation related emissions against other production related emissions. If you reduce the miles food has to travel to you, won't you reduce that 30% figure?

I would think that if the food production and distribution infrastructure could be reoriented to favor local production then yes, reducing the number of miles food travels would lower transportation's contribution to GHG emissions. But doing so in today's system creates new inefficiencies. Believe that a major food retailer is looking at this very thing -- favoring local sourcing -- so there may be hope.

Diet would have a far larger and quicker impact though. Two pounds of grain are required as feed to produce one pound of chicken. For pork it's four pounds (2x chicken) and for beef its six pounds (3x chicken). Which explains 70% + of our corn going to animal feed.

If Americans cut there animal protein consumption in half they'd still be eating far more of the stuff than most of the rest of the world. They'd be thinner and healthier. And that grain could be redirected to renewable fuels (which is really a local industry).

There are way too many variables for anyone to make a convincing argument one way or the other about whether eating local reduces overall transportation costs. For one thing, many people who eat largely local - like me - enjoy seeking out the best food sources they can find. On any given Saturday, that might mean that I drive (occasionally take the CTA) to 3 different farmer's markets and 3 different stores, not always in close-by neighborhoods. Contrarily, a probably larger percentage of non-locavores prefer to just go to the big box store and be done with it. They probably travel a whole lot less than I do in pursuit of their food. They also probably do it less frequently, because while I prefer the freshest possible produce, they can just keep their TV dinners in the freezer forever without any loss of quality. Human elements like this rarely get factored into statistics about which method is better environmentally or economically. That's why I just keep my reasons for eating local simple: (1) it tastes better and (2) I value the intangible romance involved in living in a community where people know their farmers and food artisans. I’d rather live in a world like that than one full of impersonal box stores and giant food corporations.

That's why I just keep my reasons for eating local simple: (1) it tastes better and (2) I value the intangible romance involved in living in a community where people know their farmers and food artisans. I’d rather live in a world like that than one full of impersonal box stores and giant food corporations.

Exactly. I don't care if you can teleport new Xtreme Ranch Jalaperoni Grandma's Olde-Tyme Strawberry Preserves Pocketzzz direct from the lab to my mouth, I ain't eatin' em!

auxen1 wrote:I would think that if the food production and distribution infrastructure could be reoriented to favor local production then yes, reducing the number of miles food travels would lower transportation's contribution to GHG emissions. But doing so in today's system creates new inefficiencies. Believe that a major food retailer is looking at this very thing -- favoring local sourcing -- so there may be hope.

Diet would have a far larger and quicker impact though. Two pounds of grain are required as feed to produce one pound of chicken. For pork it's four pounds (2x chicken) and for beef its six pounds (3x chicken). Which explains 70% + of our corn going to animal feed.

If Americans cut there animal protein consumption in half they'd still be eating far more of the stuff than most of the rest of the world. They'd be thinner and healthier. And that grain could be redirected to renewable fuels (which is really a local industry).

This all may be true, but it is, well I should not say besides the point because they're mostly good points, but it mostly ignores the points I am making.

We replace animal consumption, good. So what? If we replace animal consumption and get our foods locally, are we not making more of a difference? I do not see this firstly as an either/or or mutually exclusive game. One just adds to the other. Secondly, regardless of whether people follow your advice, they can make other changes that impact. It may not be as much change, but less change is not the same as no change.

I've been keeping an intense eye of the availability of local foods, as measured mostly by what's being advertised but also by frequent visits to Caputo's. I blog about it all the time on the LocalBeet. What I am saying is, look at your options. Right now the stores stock asparagus and winter squash. Which should you buy? There's lettuce from Michigan and lettuce from who knows. Pick one. Local potatoes and Idaho potatoes, can you live with smaller ones? We can have peppers and tomatoes now that are grown in the ground, from around here, or at the exact same time, we can find peppers and tomatoes grown in laboratories, shipped in from Holland and Canada. These are choices we have and differences we can make in our day to day eating.

Then, to echo or maybe related to something MikeG said above, what if people do not want to give up their hamburger? For one thing, we can encourage them to get their hamburger locally*. For another thing, we can say that at least if they are doing that bad, they can do something else good. Yes, they could be doing more good by ditching the hamburger altogether, but just because they won't do that, it is no reason to discourage them from doing other things that can matter.

*Taking into account that local meat, meaning meat from small farms tends to be produced in much more green-friendly ways in addition to transportion issues.

Kennyz wrote: That's why I just keep my reasons for eating local simple: (1) it tastes better and (2) I value the intangible romance involved in living in a community where people know their farmers and food artisans.

Ah yes, the simplicity of intangible romance.

it mostly ignores the points I am making

Vital Info, you made a point that if you reduce the miles food has to travel you would reduce the energy/emissions figure.

I did address this by suggesting that the current food complex is not built in such a manner that pulling the "reduce miles" lever does not equate with lower energy use or emissions. But, the largest retailer in the world is looking at this very thing and that might change.

But, today, simply reducing food miles to reduce energy use and emissions likely does not have the intended outcome you're looking for. That goes for beef production as well.

Suggesting that Americans would change consumption behavior (less animal protein) was stupid of me. It's not going to happen but it would have a huge beneficial impact to global warming.

Agree completely that if consumers would uniformly turn their backs on "long distance foods" it might help. Unlikely though.

Agree that attempting more sustainable purchasing behavior is good and useful, even when other behavior is bad. Our meat consumption is pretty indefensible though, when compared to the rest of the world. The "so what" on this one is so huge from a sustainability perspective it would take pages to describe.

auxen1 wrote:

it mostly ignores the points I am making

Vital Info, you made a point that if you reduce the miles food has to travel you would reduce the energy/emissions figure.

I did address this by suggesting that the current food complex is not built in such a manner that pulling the "reduce miles" lever does not equate with lower energy use or emissions. But, the largest retailer in the world is looking at this very thing and that might change.

But, today, simply reducing food miles to reduce energy use and emissions likely does not have the intended outcome you're looking for. That goes for beef production as well.

Suggesting that Americans would change consumption behavior (less animal protein) was stupid of me. It's not going to happen but it would have a huge beneficial impact to global warming.

Agree completely that if consumers would uniformly turn their backs on "long distance foods" it might help. Unlikely though.

Agree that attempting more sustainable purchasing behavior is good and useful, even when other behavior is bad. Our meat consumption is pretty indefensible though, when compared to the rest of the world. The "so what" on this one is so huge from a sustainability perspective it would take pages to describe.

Sorry, you still have me confused. I understand your argument to be twofold. First, there are better ways to reduce energy/greenhouse emissions than via food miles. Second, I as I understand, you are also arguing that that not all local foods are as "clean" as may first appear to the eye, for instance the greenhouse tomato. Am I missing anything?

I'm still at a loss then why food miles don't matter. They not might matter as much as other issues--issues that may or may not be meaningful to consumer behaivor; and food miles may not matter for every product at every time. Yet, in general, why, all things being equal, don't they count.

Again, my example from above, if you have a choice between a Michigan apple and a Washington one, which one would you pick and why?

Vital Information wrote:Yet, in general, why, all things being equal, don't they count.

Again, my example from above, if you have a choice between a Michigan apple and a Washington one, which one would you pick and why?

But all things are not equal. If I have a choice between a Michigan McIntosh and a Washington Delicious, I'm going to pick the McIntosh. Yet if the choices were opposite, I'd still pick the McIntosh, because I like McIntosh better than Delicious.

Vital Information wrote:Right now the stores stock asparagus and winter squash. Which should you buy?

I recently bought some beautiful, flavorful asparagus for 99 cents a pound. That's the same price I paid for local asparagus in the spring, though this asparagus came from Peru. I thought about you, VI, but I bought it anyway.

The localvore way is to do without asparagus in October. Yes, there is local squash at this time of year, but squash is not asparagus. I bought squash, too, although I don't have any idea where it came from.

This spring, I bought a lot of strawberries. I didn't buy them based on origin but simply bought what looked good. Mostly they came from Michigan and California. I was surprised to find that, in general, the California strawberries not only had better flavor but kept longer.

I do believe that in most cases locally grown, seasonal food tastes better, but that's simply not true in all cases.

LAZ wrote:

Vital Information wrote:This spring, I bought a lot of strawberries. I didn't buy them based on origin but simply bought what looked good. Mostly they came from Michigan and California. I was surprised to find that, in general, the California strawberries not only had better flavor but kept longer.

De gustibus non est disputandum, but we must have wildly different palates. California strawberries - specifically varieties like those made by Driscoll which are bred to keep longer, are just an awful facsimile of what straberries are supposed to taste like. The real thing is juicy, acidic, and - yes - so delicate that they bruise relatively easily, and with such a high natural sugar content that when that happens, they rot quickly. Cut one open. I just about guarantee that your California strawberries are white inside - pale as the flavor and nutrition they provide. A real strawberry is a bright shade of red all the way through. There is virtually no way to eat a really good non-local strawberry.

Kennyz wrote:California strawberries - specifically varieties like those made by Driscoll which are bred to keep longer, are just an awful facsimile of what straberries are supposed to taste like. The real thing is juicy, acidic, and - yes - so delicate that they bruise relatively easily, and with such a high natural sugar content that when that happens, they rot quickly. Cut one open. I just about guarantee that your California strawberries are white inside - pale as the flavor and nutrition they provide. A real strawberry is a bright shade of red all the way through. There is virtually no way to eat a really good non-local strawberry.

They were not Driscoll -- which I agree are usually awful -- and they were not white inside, or less so than the Michigan strawberries.

Perhaps there were better berries to be had direct from farmers, for folks who could get to early-morning farmers' markets, but in terms what I bought at supermarkets and Costco last spring, California triumphed. Those folks who tried the strawberry spirits I served at the potluck had a taste of their flavor.