Belrose, Inc.
Belrose, Inc.
However, powerful forces are in motion to establish national or global standards for sustainable practices in agriculture. For example, in the United States, an organization called Scientific Certification Systems has prepared detailed draft standards on agricultural sustainability. Another organization, the Leonardo Academy in Wisconsin has been assigned the task of soliciting views from interested parties in coming up with final standards from this draft that would then be submitted to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) for its imprimatur. (See the Leonardo Academy web site for complete details).
The ANSI sustainable agriculture standards would initially be voluntary. However, there is a real concern that major retailers, in trying to gain a competitive edge over rivals, might begin to use them as requirements for all agricultural suppliers.
Prominent
Critics
A number of prominent critics, including the Western Fruit Grower and Jim
Prevor, the Perishable Pundit, have questioned the process under way through
the Leonardo Academy to develop standards for sustainable agriculture. They
argue that producers and agribusinesses have so far been under-represented
in the draft process. Producers, users, environmentalists and general interest
groups are supposed to be equally represented on the standards committee.
However, the last three categories could easily be stacked with non-agricultural
interests.
Critics question the assumption in the draft that sustainable standards should ultimately be transformed into organic standards. This would put the 95 percent or more of agricultural producers that are not organic producers at a severe disadvantage in proving their sustainability. While both the Leonardo Academy and the Scientific Certification Systems organization have a wide range of activities (for example, SCS acts as a certification agency for the GlobalGAP standards), the clear bias in their sustainable agriculture standards is towards organic. SCS would also be in a favorable position to become a major certifier of the sustainable standards that they originally drafted.
Other
Problems with the Draft Standards
The proposed sustainable standards declare emphatically, "No GMOs."
This would mean that most corn and soybean producers could not meet the standards,
even though use of genetically modified organisms is perfectly legal in the
United States.
On the other hand, in order to meet the sustainability standards, producers would be expected to meet numerous vague social agendas such as encouraging education of workers' children, providing funds for community infrastructure (such as rural roads), meeting acceptable levels of charitable giving, and giving preferences for local hiring and local suppliers. The sustainable standards for agriculture would become even more complex and burdensome for producers than the already complex GlobalGAP standards.
Real
Cause for Concern
Few people in agriculture would dispute the need to husband natural resources,
to avoid fouling up soil, air or water for neighbors or future generations,
to be good members of the local community and to preserve the natural beauty
of mountains, forests and oceans. However, in his insightful book, The March
of Unreason, (Oxford University Press, 2005), Dick Taverne distinguishes between
such "pragmatic environmentalism" and what he labels as "eco-fundamentalism".
The beliefs of eco-fundamentalists have much in common with other religious fundamentalists since, says Taverne, "their beliefs have the characteristics of a religion and their actions have much in common with an evangelical crusade." They regard science and technology as the enemy that threatens to destroy the environment. They detest large-scale industrial agriculture that employs science and technology. They will not allow their beliefs to be swayed by contradictory scientific evidence.
Environmentalism
as a Religion?
Taverne quotes from the writer Michael Crichton that "the new religion
is an almost perfect remapping of traditional Judaeo-Christian beliefs and
myths: it has its own Eden and paradise, when mankind lived in a state of
grace and unity with nature; then came the fall after eating from the tree
of knowledge (science), and as a result of our actions there is a judgment
day coming for us all in this polluted world. But true environmentalists will
be saved, according to their creed, by achieving sustainability.
Achieving sustainability will require us to return to a golden age of farming when people lived with nature in a balanced eco-harmony, taking from Mother Nature only what they needed.
Human-induced global warming is the latest in a long line of environmental sins (previous ones included rapid population growth, the development of nuclear power, and the expansion of synthetic chemicals) which eco-fundamentalists would have us renounce if the human race is to be saved.
Need
for a Real Debate about Sustainability
There is a real danger that the eco-fundamentalists will seize control (or
already have seized control) of the debate on sustainable agriculture because
they have a philosophy, single-mindedness and an organizational structure
already in place. In contrast, most of agriculture has given the issue little
thought and has no coherent alternative philosophy or organization.
Scientists, economists, philosophers and business leaders need to take the sustainability debate much more seriously and participate in it much more vigorously to ensure that it does not lead to foolish conclusions and unreasonable policies.
Broader
Questions that Must be Answered
A few broad questions must be answered in any debate on sustainable agriculture.
Economic
forces must be faced
Unless the sustainability movement can succeed in suspending fundamental economic
forces, it is going to have to deal with the realities of those forces, not
with some nostalgic notion about what those forces used to be before the industrial
and scientific revolutions. Economic forces tend to be quite dynamic and quite
disruptive to rigid plans.
Like all businesses and activities, agriculture continues to depend on the key inputs of land, labor, capital and enterprise in order to exist. Each of those inputs is subject to economic forces. Each has a monetary value when in use. Land must be either purchased or rented. Labor must be paid wages to work. Unless capital in agriculture receives an adequate return (interest) or agricultural entrepreneurs receive adequate rewards (profits) they will move to other non-agricultural activities.
The amount that an entrepreneur will be willing to pay for a unit of land, labor or capital will depend on the marginal value product of that unit. "Marginal value product" is the economic term for the value of the extra production that can be attributed to an additional unit of an input. For example, a farm will not hire an additional worker unless the marginal value product produced by that worker exceeds the wages demanded. A farmer will not bring an additional acre into production unless the marginal value product of that acre exceeds the land cost or land rent.
In turn, the marginal value product of any farm input will depend on the productivity of the underlying technology and on the price of the product produced. The technology is subject to constant change due to advances in knowledge, engineering, systems and management. The price is also subject to both short-term swings and long-term cycles due to weather, changes in tastes and preferences, and the supply of competing products. The inherent risks of agriculture will be a constant threat to sustainability.
Questionable
Sustainability of the Triple Bottom Line
Advocates of sustainability like to exaggerate the extent to which conventional
producers focus solely on the profit motive while their adherents focus on
a "triple bottom line" of economic vitality, environmental health
and social responsibility. A popular example of social responsibility is paying
a "living wage". However, if that living wage is consistently above
the marginal value product of labor, the economic viability of the farm will
be placed in jeopardy.
In fact, few farmers are driven exclusively by the profit motive. Many feel a special responsibility to their workers, their community and the environment, which is usually their family's living environment and their daily working environment. However, at some point in every business, any additional commitments to social responsibility or to environmental health will compete for scarce resources with the desire for higher profits. In the real world, resources will always be scarce, and entrepreneurs will have to make economic choices about how much of each goal to pursue and how much of total resources to devote to each goal.
Given the uncertainty of total revenue in agriculture, any expenditure that does not contribute to farm revenue reduces the cushion available to the farmer to ride out adverse weather and market shocks. Even pursuit of the triple bottom line must be moderated if farm sustainability is not to be put at risk.
Other
Unresolved Economic Issues
Sustainability advocates also need to face up to other unresolved economic
issues. The first of these is the economic advantages of economies of scale.
For personal craft activities, such as quilting, there are little opportunities
for economies of scale. However, for any activity that can be standardized
and done in volume, like apple production, the fixed costs per unit decline
as more units are produced. Economies of scale have been vital in making countless
products available at affordable prices to billions of people around the world.
The second is the law of comparative advantage in trade. Throughout recorded human history, individuals, communities or whole nations have gained by specializing in production of those goods and services in which they have a comparative advantage and from trading their surplus for all other goods and services. Together, specialization and trade have played a major role in improving the diets, incomes, technical competence, communications and cultural life of people around the world. Self-sufficiency is a recipe for a return to a much lower standard of living for all the world's inhabitants.
A third unresolved issue is the frequent incompatibility between sustainable physical yield and sustainable economic yield. In agriculture, there is a fine line between surplus and scarcity. Markets do matter. And, as long as modern transportation survives, markets will be linked. Understanding the workings of markets is vital to sound policies for sustainability.
Finally, the more crowded the planet becomes, the more critical it will be to get the maximum productivity from limited resources if developed countries are to maintain their present life styles and developing countries are to improve the lot of their poorest citizens. Doing that will require the application of the best modern technology and retaining the benefits of specialization and trade.
Need
for More Rigorous Thought on Sustainability
Idealism is a poor substitute for facing economic realities and using common
sense. Much of the present dialectic on sustainability is contrary to good
science, good economics and good business practices. Agriculture and agribusiness,
and the agricultural scientists that serve them, must not let themselves be
intimidated by the false moral high ground that has been seized by the sustainability
advocates. They need to join in a real debate about what sort of planet we
all want and how that planet can be sustained. They should not be blindly
led into the false utopia of eco-fundamentalists.
From the World Apple Report, May 2008
For more information on any of our publications, email belrose@pullman.com
Belrose,
Inc.
1045 NE Creston Lane
Pullman, WA 99163, USA
Tel: 509-332-1754
Fax: 509-334-5209
Belrose, Inc.
1045 NE Creston Lane
Pullman, WA 99163, USA
Email: belrose@pullman.com
Tel: 509-332-1754
Fax: 509-334-5209