I've got a call here for Thomas Malthus ...

[fivemack]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2115773,00.html

has the content-free (given that it's from the Observer) title "Organic food under threat".

As far as I can see, they've just discovered that food grows on farms, that there are only finitely many farms, that each farm has only finite yield, and that the reason that farmers moved away from organic food in the first place is that a given amount of land produces a whole lot more food when sown with aggressively-bred grain, fertilised with carefully-bound phosphorus, and freed of pests with targeted insecticides. The demand for organic food in England has just reached equality with the supply, at which point it has to grow at a rate in which new farms can be brought into production, rather than at the rate by which a consumer whim can inflame.

England can't feed England even with the utmost available refinements of agricultural technology. England hasn't been able to feed England with the greatest available refinements of agricultural technology since about 1900 - ask any U-Boat commander. So I'm surprised that people are now surprised to find that England can't feed England if its inhabitants request it to do so with one fertiliser factory tied behind its back.

Comments

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

Well put. You should write to The Observer to this effect.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

What a good thing there are other countries, and even ones with farms in them, and some of those farms even organic, or potentially organic!

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

See also this article in the Indiependent (http://independent.co.uk/incoming/article2697804.ece).

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I was under the impression that you can grow more food per acre with a hand-on, organic approach. You can grow much more food per farmer with mechanized industrial farming. I don't know if this is just organic food propaganda, but it doesn't sound crazy to me.

In any case, there may not be grounds for panic. If the price of organic food goes up, then there's an incentive to convert non-organic farms to organic, though I believe the process takes some years.

Also, if Britain is like the US, conventional farming leads to tremendous amounts of wasted food. More people and thought involved in the process would presumably lead to less waste.

It may be that people will need to be somewhat less picky about organic and distance travelled for their food, but could still have plenty of fairly organic, relatively local food, perhaps at a moderately higher price.

there are a lot of people who'd like to farm who don't have a chance to.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Somewhat related.