Agriculture: Organic Farming

rose to ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will withdraw financial support which encourages farmers to convert to organic farming. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in this short debate, I want to examine the merits of organic farming. There is no doubt that it is a great business success story. It is expanding rapidly and has become a major and profitable industry with a turnover, in Britain alone, of well over £1 billion a year. It is backed by a powerful and influential lobby group, the Soil Association; it is heavily promoted by supermarkets; and organic food is popular with consumers. They pay premium prices because they are persuaded that organic food tastes better, is healthier than conventional food and that by buying organic, they benefit the environment and are helping to save the planet. We are constantly told that ethical living—which is all the rage—means buying organic. Who can possibly question the merits of organic farming? It is like questioning motherhood and apple pie. I started without any prejudice against organic farming. I have no financial interest in supporting it or opposing it. If the evidence supports the claims made for organic farming I will back it. Unfortunately, it does not. Blind tests have shown that when people compare organic and conventionally grown fruit that is equally fresh, they cannot tell the difference. Time after time, tests by the independent Food Standards Agency have shown that organically grown food is not significantly different in terms of safety and nutrition from food produced conventionally. In one respect, it is arguable that it can be more likely to endanger health. Nor, perhaps surprisingly, is organic farming better for the environment. Far from saving the planet, promoting it can damage the environment and make global warming worse. I start with health. People buy organic food because they feel it is free from synthetic pesticide residues, which are widely believed to cause cancer. In fact, the organic creed is founded on the principle that synthetic chemicals are bad and dangerous, while natural chemicals are safe and good. That is, of course, a scientific howler. It ignores the fact that a molecule is a molecule, whether man made or natural. Any number of synthetic chemicals, such as anti-bacterial drugs, are highly beneficial; any number of natural chemicals, like arsenic, ricin or aflotoxin, are highly poisonous. We consume many thousands of times more natural pesticides, manufactured by plants themselves to ward off pests, than synthetic ones. Fear of pesticide residues is one of those media-hyped scares that has no scientific basis. It ignores the lesson taught by Paracelsus, of which no one in the Soil Association seems to be aware, that it all depends on the dose. Every mouthful we eat contains poisons, but in such tiny quantities that they do not harm us. Regulations set the safety levels for pesticide residues so high that they are between 100 and 1,000 times above concentrations at which any harmful effect might result. We should note that farmers, who are more exposed to pesticides than the rest of us, have lower than average rates of cancer. Stomach cancers, which might be expected to be closely related to the carcinogenic effects of ingested pesticides, have declined by about 60 per cent in the past 50 years. Indeed, concentrating on organic food may have bad effects on the health of our population. Evidence suggests that a diet rich in fruit and vegetables protects us against cancer. However, eating habits, certainly for the lower income groups, are influenced by price, and organic food costs more. When every lifestyle magazine urges readers to eat organic food, and implies that we are not looking after the health of our children if we do not, people on lower incomes may feel that they should buy more expensive fruit and vegetables, which means they are likely to eat fewer vegetables and less fruit, which may increase their risk of developing cancer. On the environmental effects, I accept that many people take up organic farming because they want to benefit the environment, and no doubt they succeed. However, in a recent, carefully conducted experiment at Boarded Barns in Essex, where one farmer farmed similar land for 10 years in three different ways—conventional farming, organic farming and the system known as ““integrated farm management””—therefore making the best possible comparison, it was shown that the system adopted is the least important factor for wildlife. What matters is leaving ample field margins and hedgerows, where 80 to 85 per cent of wildlife exists. On balance, of the three systems, integrated farm management came out best for biodiversity. Organic farming came out relatively badly, because it used the most energy. Two vitally important factors contradict the environmental claims made for organic farming: its dependence on the plough, and its lower yield. No-till, or low-till, agriculture—avoiding the use of the plough—greatly benefits the environment. It prevents soil erosion, improves the structure and quality of the soil, increases its water storage capacity and reduces the need for irrigation. It reduces the risk or extent of flooding. It reduces the run-off of nitrogen and phosphorus into rivers. It avoids disturbing birds’ nests, earthworms and insect life in the way that ploughing does. Crucially, it reduces carbon emissions and sequesters carbon into the soil. Ploughing, on the other hand, an integral part of organic farming, is incompatible with conservation agriculture. Promoting conservation agriculture should be a prime objective of government farm policy. In fact, what greatly facilitates no-till farming is the cultivation of genetically modified herbicide-tolerant crops. They have enabled American farmers to increase overall no-till to 35 per cent of all farmed land; compare that with Britain, where only 3 per cent of arable land is farmed without the plough. The carbon sequestration achieved by no-till or low-till agriculture in 2005 brought a saving of more than8 billion kilograms of CO2, which is equivalent to removing 3.6 million cars from the roads. These are huge environmental benefits. The organic movement denies us these benefits. GM crops, which the organic movement opposes, facilitate them. Yet perversely, contrary to all the evidence, we back organic farming and oppose GM crops. The second count against organic farming is even more serious and is its relative inefficiency. It makes less effective use of land than other systems. That is why organic food costs more. Supporters of organic food cannot have it both ways. If organic farming is not less efficient, then the premium prices charged for organic food prices are a ramp. In fact, the higher prices reflect a lower yield. Various studies show that the yield of most organic crops is 20 to 50 per cent lower than the yield from conventional farming. That may not matter to prosperous Europeans, but the world as a whole desperately needs more efficient farming. The supply of good farming land is running out, which is what drives South American and Indonesian farmers to slash and burn tropical forests. Saving tropical forests requires more, not less, efficient agriculture. At present, nearly a billion people do not have enough to eat. Further, by the middle of this century, we will have to feed at least another 2.5 billion people. Hundreds of millions in Asia will adopt western styles of living, will eat more meat and vegetables and will have millions more pets, which are unlikely to be vegetarians. Finally, climate change threatens to increase droughts and heat waves and turn more areas of the world into deserts. What can organic farming, with its low yields, offer the developing world when it desperately needs more efficient agriculture? In the words of the eminent Indian biotechnologist, CJ Prakash, "““the only thing sustainable about organic farming in the developing world is that it sustains poverty and malnutrition””." The Government should act on the basis of the evidence. They should recognise that, whatever the popular fashion and the hype, the organic movement is based on a scientific howler, commands premium prices that represent no extra value, holds back farming practices that benefit the environment in vitally important ways, and, if exported to the developing world, would be disastrous for the campaign to reduce poverty and hunger. Nothing can justify spending scarce resources on such counter-productive purposes. I have a feeling that the Minister may sympathise with some of the points that I make, but I am not sure that Defra will allow him to say so. I ask him to draw the attention of the Secretary of State to the arguments I have made and, in particular, to consult the chief scientist at Defra.