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Green Hypocrisy
Gene Logsdon, Organic To Be
There’s a lot of loose talk going around these days about “green” alternatives to save the world. Most of that green is really about the color of money, not the environment. The latest green sensation involves a farm tractor that recently broke the record for fast cultivation (fast food requires fast cultivation). According to the news, a 570 hp. AGCO tractor, pulling a 60 foot disk, ripped up 1,591 acres of dirt in 24 hours, or, and I quote, “a football field every two minutes.” And, say the AGCO people, the tractor used only about a gallon of fuel per acre in the process. That makes it a “green” tractor, even though it is not a John Deere. My ancient WD Allis Chalmers (orange) uses about a gallon of fuel per acre too, but pulling a much smaller disk and at a slower speed, it would take me all summer to disk up 1,591 acres.
So why am I not impressed? As is the case for most green sensations, the whole story is not being told. Take for example the ethanol fiasco, the noble idea that the world can be saved from oil shortages by producing ethanol fuel from corn. That notion has been thoroughly debunked but it still lives its own green life as farmers and ethanol plant owners seek to take advantage of the huge subsidies involved. If all the tillable acres in the world were planted to corn to make ethanol, the amount of fuel produced would equal about 17% of what we burn, say the experts, and then we’d starve to death and wouldn’t need any fuel.
So too, a tractor that burns only a gallon of fuel per acre, ethanol or regular, while steaming along tearing up the earth at the rate of a football field every two minutes, isn’t telling the whole story. How much fuel was used mining and smelting and refining the steel used in that 570 hp behemoth? How much fuel used turning the steel into machined parts? How much fuel used transporting workers to and from the mines and the factories? How much fuel needed to heat the factories? To transport the tractor to its ultimate buyer? To transport the executives and advertisers on their worldwide rounds to publicize a heap of iron big enough to rip up a football field in two minutes? And don’t forget to add in the airplane fuel used to fly them to meetings where they mostly play golf. How many gallons of fuel are used to drive the tractor to and from the fields between episodes of ripping up 1,591 acres in 24 hours? How many more gallons have to be burned by other tractors and trucks in planting all that land ripped up by the disk, spraying the crops grown thereon, harvesting the grain, hauling it to market or to storage, not to mention the huge amount of fuel needed to dry the grain after it is in storage to keep it from rotting. Then of course the grain has to be shipped far and wide across the world to its final destination, usually the rumen of an animal penned up in a fattening factory. And remember, even at a gallon per acre, there’s a lot of gas involved ripping up many hundreds of thousands of acres.
Now compare that to another kind of farming, where 1,591 acres would be planted permanently to grass and clover and grazed by 1,000 head of cows or 3000 head of sheep. No annual cultivation would be needed at all. No erosion. No soil compaction. Not even half the machinery cost would be involved, and if the meat, wool, and dairy products were sold locally, only half the transportation costs.
There would be an earth-shattering record in fuel savings, a record that would not mean shattering the earth.
(19 October 2007)
Writer-farmer Gene Logsdon is one of the U.S.’s national treasures. -BA
Cod ‘making a comeback’
Jessica Aldred, Guardian
Cod levels in the North Sea are showing signs of recovery, but limits must be enforced to ensure it continues, experts warned today.
For the first time in six years, the annual report on fish stocks in the north east Atlantic by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (Ices) has not called for a complete ban on North Sea fishing.
The report showed that for many groundfish – fish that live most of their life on or near the sea bottom such as flatfish, cod, haddock and pollock – stock size is low and fishing pressures still high. However, there are positive signs of decreases in fishing pressure.
(19 October 2007)
Why food prices have risen in Saudi Arabia
Brad Bourland, Saudi-US Relations Information Service
Food prices have risen rapidly in recent years. Every household has been affected by higher food prices, which are the most visible, and for most people, the main source of inflation in Saudi Arabia. Higher global commodity prices are the main reason for the rise in food prices. Structural shifts in patterns of consumption and use of agricultural products have been aggravated by temporary factors such as poor weather conditions to push up food prices throughout the world. Over time, supply will catch up with demand and agricultural commodity prices will fall, but over the next few years annual food price inflation is expected to average around 5 percent.
With agricultural commodity prices rising and food price inflation in Saudi Arabia in line with other countries in the GCC and not much above that in the US and UK, we see little evidence that local retailers have been a major cause of the price rises. However, there appears more justification in claims that prices are raised unnecessarily during Ramadan. Other local factors, including a cut in agricultural subsidies, higher fertilizer prices and cold winters, have contributed to increased food prices, but it is the following international factors that are the main reason for higher food prices:
- Shifting consumption patterns: Rising income levels in China and India have caused a major shift in global food consumption patterns. As people get wealthier their eating habits change. With a combined population of nearly 2.5 billion, the shifts occurring in China and India are having a big impact on global food prices. For example, higher Indian consumption is largely responsible for the sharp increase in rice prices in Saudi Arabia.
- Use of crops for energy production: Production of crops for use as a feedstock for ethanol production (mainly corn, wheat and sugarcane) has reduced the area planted with food crops (particularly in the US) and sharply pushed up prices.
- Poor growing conditions: The last few years have seen some unusually bad weather in key agricultural producers. Most significantly, Australia suffered its worst drought in at least a century in 2006; Europe and parts of North America have also experienced poor growing conditions in recent years.
- Higher costs for imported goods: The jump in oil prices has added to transportation costs and the weakening of the riyal has also lifted prices for some imported food products.
Saudi-US Relations Editor’s Note:
Recent news reports highlighted the concern about the pace of inflation in Saudi Arabia. Last week King Abdullah wanted a “prompt report” on rising prices, including a 6.6 percent jump in the cost of food, at a meeting with the Interior Minister and Provincial Governors. This news followed release of a detailed analysis of the inflation problem in the food sector prepared by Jadwa Investment Chief of Research Brad Bourland.
(11 October 2007)
